Hateful Brews


PROMPT #11:  write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard

Purple-haired woman: your robes look totally stupid and you’re blocking the sidewalk—by the way this is hate speech you know

Hebrew Israelite king: Brother Judah ben Judah, read the scriptures to this Edomite lady.

Strange brew, kill what’s inside of you . . .
Cream

Surrounded by militant forms of Dumb;
To whose next rage must we succumb?
What ethnic-racial god of wrath
Will plunge us in his bloody bath
And wash foul whiteness from our souls
To further dimwit madmen’s goals?
YaHuWaHusha (hashtag #hate)
Has henchmen waiting at the gate
Misquoting scriptures, twisting phrases
Forcing words to march through mazes,
Quite assured they possess the key
To set their dark asylum free.
Babylon’s falling. Drain the cup.
Will the real Judah please stand up?
Crowns, purple aprons, boots on feet
Wash brains in scripture. Rinse. Repeat.
Their mind a concentration camp,
Hateful doctrines burn: their lamp
Now flickers, low on Israel-light.
God’s thugs are looking for a fight—
Whoever they hate is a Canaanite.

 


𒆳𒆠𒈾𒄴𒈾

Passing Sirens

So look out sailor when you hear them croon
You’ll never be the same again, oh no
Their crazy music drives you insane . . .
Roxy Music

A snatch of song, a passing fit
They call to you and no one saves.
And then you loosen— just a bit:
Dopamine rolls in with the waves.

Captain—can you hear that sound?
That song unearthly screaming bliss;
Moaning sighing seas resound
The island welcomes like a kiss.

Breakers rising, cresting, swelling
Bear you towards a bone-strewn lair.
Portals open; warm, compelling
Variations: fleshtones . . . hair.

Your craft will wreck upon the rocks
Though you may live— and regret the ride,
Recalling ports and placid docks;
Oh mariner of the raging tide.

That music . . . let me hear some more!
It surges now behind the light,
Illuminating from the core
A vessel in descending night.

 

PROMPT #10: write a sea shanty

 

Climate Change Sonnet

I talk the talk but cannot walk the walk;
My poetry falls in desert places
Failing to bring life to arid spaces;
Verse germinates to wither on the stalk.

I ought to use a better garden hose
And irrigate my plant with finest ale
My new poetic scheme could never fail,
And happy plants would spring from watered rows…

But dull esthetics scorch, and modernism
Reduces my dry plot to nihilism.
And now my muse must pay for all that beer

After she blasts my crop with lyric drought
My sonnet has been overrun, I fear
By weeds, and I forgot what it’s about.

 

PROMPT 9: write your own sonnet. Incorporate tradition as much or as little as you like