Seeking world peace and personal peace through poetry
For my grandfather:
You said on that porch,
“I just can’t work no more.”
“I just can’t work no more.”
that’s what you lived for.
the porch is gone
the swing is gone
the well is gone
the chicken house
the smoke house,
the barn,
are gone.
the house is gone.
the cherry tree,
the apple trees,
the cows are gone
and the family moved to town.
Your tractor is gone
and the wire with which
you held it together.
That field is there
I stood in it again
it was empty and bare
without you there.
Yes that field is there.
You planted tobacco and
at the end of each row,
watermelon.
You worked me hard for a boy
but I know work
and having to stay
until its done.
The bell is gone,
to call the farmer to the house.
It was the house and the field.
the house and the field…
and town on Saturday.
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TWILIGHT CITY
In her eyes, she sees the diamond twilight city,
where the Harlows and the Garbos never die.
In her heart, she knows the star she longs to follow,
to the sign up in the Hills where angels fly.
And the legendary Metro Goldwyn Mayer
is her freeway to the sky.
And every dime-a-dance girl with a suitcase on the sidewalk
knows her story has already been told.
And the bus back home to Lonelyville,
it don’t leave here anymore.
And every Norma Jean who bought a ticket to the dream,
saw the twilight city lose its tinsel glow.
While the bus back home to Lonelyville,
it don’t leave here anymore.
No the bus back home to Lonelyville,
it don’t leave here anymore.
Werds & Muzik N.Tween 2015.
Healthcare
By Ron Olsen
When people profit from
Other people’s illness
Disease becomes more profitable
Than wellness
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon
To understand
Sickness perpetuates wealth
Free healthcare results in health
Try and move forward
Rather than back
And they’ll nail you with fear
And rail you with lies
While they pay off the doctors
And give the medical schools millions
To perpetuate
The myth of caring
© 2015 Ron Olsen / all rights reserved
Ron Olsen is a retired journalist who lives in Los Angeles. He writes essays and an occasional poem. More of his work can be found here.
Tiddly do bugaboo
what’s up with you?
Squeeky wheel please add some grease
before the crickets run off
with the wagon
Tiddly do bugaboo
what’s up with you?
Life wasn’t supposed to be like this
Mr Whiskers
I was supposed to dream and find out stuff
figure it all out
and all I am left with
is beauty, bugaboo
beauty lying there all along
in the way the cat sleeps
all day with no plans at all
and shows up at the same each night beside me
beauty bugaboo in the light
in the shadows and in Monet’s snow.
There is nothing in wisdom
except for the knowledge of your own ignorance
my little bug-a-boo-kins
We thought we could stop the gun with a flower
Hotdish
by Ron Olsen
God bless hotdish
It kept us alive
But first we’d pray
Our Sunday morning ritual
Praying
To get through it all
For just one more day
We meant it too
We were so unworthy
The Vicar told us
And vile
And ungrateful
Not worthy to “gather up the crumbs” under His table
Which we really didn’t need
Truth be told
We had hotdish
Plenty of it
Stronger than theology
And tasty too
Tuna
Noodles
And sour cream
Pimentos
Olives
A splash of milk with a can of soup
Mix it together
Crush some potato chips on top
A sprinkle of paprika for an exotic edge
Throw it in the oven
And there you go
Salt and pepper
To give it taste
Bracing your blood to stand up
To the demon weather
Wailing outside
Begging you to come out
So it could try and kill you one more time
But we had hotdish
Made by the Ladies of the Ladies Aid
Who knew what they were doing
Big, strong German and Scandinavian farm ladies
With secrets they brought over from the old country
Arriving with only their bibles, babies and the family jewels
Bending over stoves
In the Episcopal Guild Hall basement
The heat flooding out to envelop the entire room
Making heavy, hearty, homemade hotdish in
Big Pyrex glass baking dishes
Doing their part
To keep the kids and the cardiologists going
And just as you were about to burst with joy
Unworthy as you were
There was even more to come
Through the passthrough and out into the main hall
Giant bowls of green and yellow Jell-O, wiggling and jiggling with life
Bits of cottage cheese suspended inside
And green olives
Molded in the shape of pinwheels
Or Christmas trees
Or peculiar giant half-moon shaped fish with big scales
And the old men would watch
Mumbling under their breath
“Damn kids don’t know how good they’ve got it…”
So we prayed to be forgiven
And were mindful of the need to be always alert
If the weather didn’t kill you some crazy old man might
Or you could fall through the ice and drown a horrible death in the lake
And all the while the wind screamed
Threatening to take your soul
And it might have
Except for the hotdish
Neither the north wind
Nor the crazy old men dared cross
The ladies of the Ladies Aid
Who knew exactly what they were doing
§
© Ron Olsen – all rights reserved
Ron Olsen is a retired journalist who lives in Los Angeles, where he writes essays and an occasional poem. You can find more of his poetry on his website, workingreporter.com.
What if fourteen billion years
later the universe collapses
and explodes again
among other exploding universes
and that fourteen billion years
was fourteen seconds
of a child blowing up a balloon
and wondering
what his universe
was made of?
“What if a billion years were a second,
says the child,
“and these stars are
in someone’s balloon.”
AAAND from e e cummings
“who knows if the moon’s
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky–filled with pretty people?
( and if you and I should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where
always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves”
