Three Poems

NEW SHOELACES EVERY MONTH

The red and white peppermint-colour ones

The stringy lime sherbet-tint ones

Hard-to-tie extra long licorice ones

The overpriced chocolate fudge ones

Elastic ones the colour of kiwis

The 100% cotton ones with knots the size of blueberries

Orange ones that imitate a rope

Ones with the texture of overcooked pasta

Milky white ones made in Guatemala

Tiny lemon-coloured ones that stretch a bit

So when I am down on the rocky ground

Beside the seashore kissing your feet

I’ll have the sensation some god or goddess had

Tumbling headfirst from sky to earth

When the blue ocean crashing against white

Sand floated into view at dawn for the first time

 

PLATFORM

A soapbox in every city and village

In America

Whoever wants to

Should wash their laundry

In the public square

Hang out their woes to flap in the wind

Ordinary people

Should scream with voices

Louder than soap bubbles

What kind of detergent is freedom

If you have to crawl through green mud

To a pile of black dirt on a mound

Of yellow dollar bills screaming

Some tune like “Turn Down The Volume”

 

FRAGILE SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Held together by pepper spray

Locked together by Taser zaps

Washed together by fire hoses

Barked together by K-9 forces

Wheeled together by throwaway handcuffs

Glued together by the folks in blue

Followed together by invisible cameras

Fenced together by wire & rope

In the distance a huge hole

Where a tall building once rose

In the further distance a lonely woman

Holding a candelabra in her broken arm

Farther yet one sentence condemning us

To a freedom from whispers & large lies