heartless politicians poems

The Affair | Shelly Blankman - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

The Affair | Shelly Blankman

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You’re in bed with the NRA,
shades drawn, door locked,
no one can hear, no one can see,
but we all know it’s lust that drives you.

Dollar signs glow like gold as you gaze
in their eyes, entangled in covers, flushed
in their web of deceit, blinded with promises
of cash with your tricks.

Your web spreads past the walls of your
tryst, where schoolkids are killed
while you’re getting paid and dams of tears
burst while you seal the deal.
Blasts of gunfire by the mentally ill
still ring out like some sick New Year’s
welcome as you toast your new flame
with wine the color of blood.

A Familiar Truth | Gil Hoy - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

A Familiar Truth | Gil Hoy

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For so long as the NRA
controls Congress

With its pumping

Mutant
Pecuniary
Poison
Lifeblood

Corrupting souls
Buying silence

Innocents will
continue to die

From high-powered
Weapons of War

Bought in America
like a bag of groceries
from a grocery store

While Wayne LaPierre
Scribbles his want list
for Republican

Bought and sold
baby-kissers counting
their bankroll gore.

If Congress had lead balls
in its hearts, brains
pelves

If images of dead
school children grew
so palpable, so intimate

That their fever
opened a passageway

To eternity and back
Would the madness
Stop then?

Would lone wolves
Still sing their rancid
Noteless songs

A Witch’s Brew of shrill
staccato tempo

Tentwentythirtyfortyfifty
Pigeons intheblinkofaneye

That numbed ears
don’t see anymore

That tastes forgotten
and too familiar
anyway.

I Had a Nightmare Last Night | Gil Hoy - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

I Had a Nightmare Last Night | Gil Hoy

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I had a nightmare last night,
A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare.

Where churches and schools,
theaters and city streets
were dying.

Where military weapons
were firing into unsuspecting
innocent crowds

Tentwentythirtyfortyfifty
pigeons intheblinkofaneye.

I awoke in a terrified sweat
as bleeding children wailed
and cried and screamed.

While those to protect us tasked
slept soundly in their beds.

A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare,

I had a nightmare last night.

Our Oleander | Dale Champlin - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Our Oleander | Dale Champlin

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—all this hatred

For you: Oleander, poisonous leader,
all the clutter of your deranged mind
twittering, littering the internet
mindless of kindness—stockpiling rocks of hatred
ignorant of the past, of beauty, of knowledge,
misogynist, philanderer. Stone in darkness
under the thunder of propellers
deaf to the chunka-chunka of war
inured to songs of unrelieved cacophony,
worshiper of shallow thought and greed.
We are your glass house
while you throw stone after stone.
We shatter but some will pick up your stones
and throw from the inside.
You cower stone-hearted in your stockpile
Your orange seed follicles scatter clamor,
discord, dissonance, and uproar.
What place means love to you?
Where is your kindness?
Have you forgotten,
or did you never know?

Feeding the Grinder | Roy Pullam - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Feeding the Grinder | Roy Pullam

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The Greyhound bus stopped
At the Webster County courthouse
A group of boys
Men by selective service designation
Came forward
From family cars
Some mothers
Hugging their sons
Others weeping
The shadow of Vietnam
Hung over the morning
Thoughts of apple-cheeked boys
Fodder in an endless war
Was reaching
The rural homes
Fathers who had known war
Mothers numbed by network news
Not ready to send sons
To a faraway war
The bus was crowded
We stood in the aisle
Hoping that stops
Would discharge passengers
Along the winding Highway 60
Small towns and short stops
Waited all the way
Leaving hours before Louisville
Eddie still drunk
From the night before
Hollered from the back
Of the bus
“Next stop Vietnam”
We cringed in our seats
The news cast
Bringing the horror
To our door
Our desire
Just wanting to live
To have our lives
In peace
He did not get
The laugh
He was looking for
We snailed our way
Both anxious
But in no hurry
The bus slid
Into Ft. Knox
One of a number
Discharging its human cargo
Two days for an hour physical
Some rejected
Others dejected
The culling process
Less defined
As the war amped up
The return trip quiet
For some
The freedom soon gone
As they would merge
Into the green morass
I too lived
With the verdict
My heart’s weakness
Keeping me home
While my brother fought
I gave them a final look
Men I would not see again
Some returning
Much older
Some not returning at all
It is the boys
Who fight
Old men’s wars
Paying a price
No one
Should ever pay
My life would be
On the sideline
My guilt mainstream
Watching from safety
As others
Marched off to war

Health Care | J.K. Durick - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Health Care | J.K. Durick

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After thirty years on the job, my doctor is retiring.
He’s been my doctor for more than twenty-five of
those – what’s that, twenty-five annual check ups
and how many follow-ups, blood pressure and all,
a cold or two, a sore elbow, he’s talked me through
it all, had a way of asking questions, poking and
prodding, literally and figuratively, suggesting this
and prescribing that; I always walked away better
than when I arrived, my asthma and allergies under
control, even my familial tremors steadied enough
to get by without looking possessed, and the rest.
It was so simple, always insured, a large medical
center nearby, the full array of specialists ready in
the wings, I’d call, an appointment awaited, earlier
or later whichever fit; it was that easy, now I am
out shopping, something I hate to do, and now I’m
told that no one dies from lack of health care, words
to live by, to drag around with my pre-existing self
that human condition I have lived with so long, luck
of the draw, it seems, right now reminds me of that.

Vagrant Soup | Paul Tristram - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Vagrant Soup | Paul Tristram

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You can tell when the first frost is on its way…
the Down-And-Outs don’t talk in the soup-run queue.
Instead, they stand there in silent huddles,
like mourners at a bewildered funeral,
at the back of the opened-doored, volunteer van.
Steams of breath floating up into the evening, Winter air,
mostly statue-like, apart from the shivering.
It’s a shame to have to park down on this quayside,
the wind rips straight up this river from yonder estuary
something mercilessly and almost with a vengeance.
But, the Council have banned the Homeless
from the City Centre, whether sober or not, doesn’t matter.
The sight of them was upsetting the Christmas shoppers…
as they vulture in and out of the decorated stores,
tasting free wine samples and spending thousands.
Stocking up on more than enough ‘Merry’
to see them safely through their warm, magical, full of love
and gift-sharing Holiday Season… God bless us one and all!

More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.

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