Submitted by Clayton Medeiros on July 7, 2012
Enough of self absorbed narcissists
Romping through midcentury novels
Phillip Roth John Updike...
We need unrequited lovers
Doomed more to the point
Unrequited is for losers
Doomed for the totally lost in
A miasma of stunted expectations
Where pining is an art form
Calibrated to daily survival
To keep self loathing at bay
With disillusioned dreams
Submitted by Clayton Medeiros on July 5, 2012
When Nixon resigned
She took his picture down
At the border crossing
Where she protected America
From Canadian invaders
Submitted by Clayton Medeiros on July 4, 2012
Someone would know I don’t
About what went on here in this
Empty place of so many lives
Left behind without a word
The literature of the time
Itself lost in closed libraries
Remaindered book stores
Designer purchased volumes
To sell by color coordinated yard
But I am pleased to stand here quietly
In appreciation of the many dead
Submitted by Neil McKay on July 4, 2012
Explosions in the morning sound like my neighbor building something in his garage
Hammering, I think, but it's not the sound of creation.
It's the sound of destruction or rather recreation of destruction
Reservation fireworks mimic the cannon shells and musket volleys
Of the defenders of our independence
The slave owners, the land holders, the wealthy men
Who wanted their chance to rise to unofficial royalty
By virtue of hard work and the luck to be born
In a place and time where the color of your skin
Was the biggest determinate of your success.
A place and time not so different from here and now.
So my neighbors, not the builder in his garage,
But the exploders in the street,
Pay tribute to those fighters
Though they don't really seem aware
Of the symbolism of their fireworks
They know it's all about their freedom,
The freedom to pretend they are revolutionaries
The freedom to explode ordnance
In impotent displays
Like children.
Submitted by Clayton Medeiros on July 3, 2012
He and the dog had the same gait
A bit forward on the old leather leash
A touch of uncertainty in each step
As they entered the park they
Were a daily part of each morning
And each evening after shared dinner
In the one bedroom apartment
Down the block where they have lived
For the past 50 years as change
Came and went with their neighbors
Abandoning urban life for the suburbs
Soon replaced by young families
Ready to renovate old brownstones
New people to talk to when out
For a walk in the park with the dog.
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