Thursday, October 15, 2009

WORKLESS

I miss your
morning greetings
rewards
throughout my day
the challenges
your scripts impose
the benefits you paid

bestowing incentives
for bonus
rewarding each year
with a raise
enriching each hour
perfecting each task
applauding my genius
through praise

all I could be
you challenged
you broadened my outlook
my views
provided food, clothing,
and shelter
my dreams and ambitions
infused

in a world of global recession
at the realm of depression and gloom
my career, my job, my future
all gone
laid-off

andI miss it


©Shirley2009

Saturday, June 6, 2009

VOWS

In holy matrimony
poverty rapes me
to have and to hold
in rancid tent cities
cold hungry and seething
in rat tainted alleys
I human it demon
at hells bleeding door

for better for worse
an ineffable darkness
in spirals of nakedness
sickness and health
in ribbons of hopelessness
women and children
in shelters on breadlines
as poverty’s whores

for richer for poorer
to loathe and admonish
lead paint and malaria
I pledge thee my troth
before god and witness
damn poverty’s vision
forsaking all others
damn poverty’s fame

in nuptial repugnance
privation consumes me
my rodent gnawed fingers
it brands with this ring
now begging on street corners
rummaging dump sites
now wed and impoverished
I whore in its name

Saturday, March 21, 2009

SIRE

daddy believes in me
loves me with incest
grinding and gifts
from rich people stores

in morning time sunshine
like teacher in evening
like uncle at bedtime
on cold bathroom floors

his little princess
her perfect angel
his favorite niece
in pretty pink bows

despoilers of spirit
they defile and abuse me
in secretive places
so no one will know

that my daddy loves me
with unlawful fervor
like uncle at bedtime
his own little whore

©Shirley2009

Sunday, March 15, 2009

DEPORTED

DEPORTED

illicitly
you eradicated my very existence
divested me of all
that was good in my life
amputated my freedoms
pilfered my citizenship
labeled me terrorist
radical activist
deported me vicariously

in the name
of homeland security
you
confiscated my happiness
smitten my wife and child
exiled and forsaken me
to a land I’ve never seen
to a tongue I’ve never spoken

I patriot
wartime veteran
born upon the humbled shores
of this great nation
did I not fret the drudgery
of your illegal wars
slave within the
bowels of your blackened mines
does my man-child not
bear the names
of your great leaders

I beg thee
in the name
of homeland security

rip the breath
from my asbestos filled lungs
singe the lesions from
my cancerous skeleton
bash this skull
of post-traumatic disorders

for
the gates of hell
are far more beguiling
than to be labeled terrorist
exiled and deported
to a land
I’ve never seen
to a tongue
I’ve never spoken
©Shirley2009

BLIND OF EYE

BLIND OF EYE

I’m so much more
than the shell you see

this outer coating that
terrifies the prejudice
and unnerves the boorish

penchant of spirit
pristine at birth
ancestry catalogued
the medley of hues
your eyes behold
your heart admonishes

blind of eye you are my friend

yet in sight you censure
passion’s wrought
exact a chide for melanin
I did not choose
tribes inborn I dare
to cuddle

hatred lies within your
dogma of injustice
bigotry preys upon your string
of racial cries

blind of eye my friend
we’re of his choosing
penchant of spirit
pristine at birth
he made us all

©Shirley2009