Poem_51

walking toward me like the total death of rock 'n roll.

podunk supermarket parking lot blues

the green world fell

off the imprisoned sidewalk trees overnight

now all the faces left in this parking lot

look bright & organized as silverware.

a small local wind

gathers their small local voices

& loses them in clumps

behind weakly flickering neon store signs

where a newborn dollar screams

for beaten hands to hold it.

submitted by: aworminmywall@hotmail.com

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with liberty and justice for all

#1

the patriots

c’mon, boy!

let’s go kill some injuns!

alright, massa!

come on, boy!

let’s go kill some vietcong gooks!

right on, lieutenant!

c’mon, boy!

let’s go kill some afghan ayrabs!

i’m with you, colonel!

sorry over killing your son, boy,

but I thought he had a gun….

s’alright…..officer….

copyright, 2001, by Robert Betts

with liberty and justice for all

#2

gods shedding grace

And what I find so beautiful about America is the unity of US like a dear friend of mine she saying to me god bless America after her little Jimmy said let s bomb all those ayrabs over there and yeah some loyal ayrab American s rights are being infringed but hey this is an emergency we ve got to be careful and yeah I know about the japanese internment but hey don t bring that up because we had to be careful too then and although the present Attorney General once spoke out in defense of Ante Bellum Slaveowners he s doing his best to be impartial now and yes the Vice President might not have wanted mandela to go free in democratic SA but isn t he drawing the nation together now after what those god damned ayrabs did and of

Course this black ed snowdon us army veteran fellah shot dead by Police in South Carolina trying to defend himself with his legal pistol when those three guys were out to commit a hate crime on him but now (?) the Police they got problems and so now because of that I even see the black people with the US flags on their cars because they got so much to be grateful for because the black people s kids and my kids can both go to their schools in Albany and in south central la and who cares if poverty and skin separates them because in the morning

They both stand in front of some sweet Mrs O Rourke reciting one Nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so

god bless America man god bless Amer

copyright, 2001, by Robert Betts

with liberty and justice for all

(first amendment Beauty)

you pawn your intelligence

to buy a drink

from (ee cummings’ poem number 16, in 100 selected poems)

boy that sky out there looks scary

all I am asking is

all I am asking is

hey quiet down everyone

the pinko got something to say

hahahahahahahahahaha

cut all the laughing boys and girls and very funny

I’m a pinko for asking questions

all I am asking is

if america is truly a democracy

how come women didn’t vote until the twenties?

how come Jefferson had slaves?

how do you explain Senator Joe McCarthy?

what are you a rabble rousing troublemaker

for asking questions?

if we really are a democracy

how come our government

supported Pik Botha and Pinochet

while claiming it supports democracies worldwide?

who was Pinochet

if we really are a democracy

how come a jury of peers for a minority defendant

means mostly whites in the jury box?

how come a homeless man whose house burned down

and lost his job is a drug using menace?

how come people?

hey people what are you going to

and where the hell did YOU come from?

THURK!

Get up ya faggot

hey! What did you punch me for?

don’t I have a right to speak my mind here?

sure you do

but we don’t have to listen to it

hahahahahahahahahaha….

that’s right sid

drinks on me everyone

aint america grand?

free drinks

__________________________

Rochelle Hope Mehr
rochellemehr@hotmail.com

Essential

I want my poem
on paper.
I want to swirl my fingers
around both sides
and hear the swish,
the rustle of the leaves.

I used to jump in piles of russet leaves.
I used to crunch the chestnut with gusto.

I smelled the burnt offering once -
the acrid smoke -
and stopped looking out of windows

and into the pulp of the page

__________________________

Rochelle Hope Mehr
rochellemehr@hotmail.com

Below Ground Zero

What's apparent from the surface is a cavernous hole
agape and ghastly
as a jack-o'-lantern grin
illuminated by the fires within

It japes at us, it gets to us
when we least expect it
this absence
this space where the Twin Towers stood

Below
the seared off hubcap of a car
the pulverization of flesh

absence within the absence

The ATM in its eternal expectant moment

waiting for the next customer to log on

In the bookstore, books still on shelves
self-contained
unperturbed

__________________________

Rochelle Hope Mehr
rochellemehr@hotmail.com

Angst of the Age

Icarus streaking across the sky.
Gray, white plumage flouncing from his groin.
Careening down.

__________________________

Rochelle Hope Mehr
rochellemehr@hotmail.com

The Detachment

With a sick parent in the hospital.
Starting out with the noblest of intentions.
Still myself with Bach's French Suites sallying forth in my head.
Trying to break past
The grim scrim of beeping monitors punctuating the air.

Then (fatal consequence of sensory overload?)
Finding my legs lockstepped into the staccato rhythm
Which motors the place.
The robotic knee jerk
Which is - one might say -
The heart of the place.

Moving further and further into the march.
Farther and farther
From the more natural rhythms of Bach.

And losing my pulse

___________________________

Rochelle Hope Mehr
rochellemehr@hotmail.com

A Different Arena

I thought, after so many years,
I had become a person
sufficient unto myself
immune to the whims of others
inured to the bumps in the road
unyielding to the effect of any vector --
I thought I had become God

I thought I could float so high
above the fray
that the game no longer mattered

No pitch could entice me --
I didn't need to warm up
in the batting cage
for a game I no longer played

But now the lions rip at my flesh
as I realize
that the flayed never find any rest

___________________________

(untitled)

by Katy Bertrand

What do I gain by attempting to dim your light?
Will the dimming of your light
make mine any brighter?
If I squelch your flame
With an impulsive splash of the
Murky water of jealousy
What will that leave me with?
One dim light and one burnt out candle.

                          (untitled)

                              by

                         Katy Bertrand

Erasable pen is an oxymoron and a deception.
Something we expect to be permanent
turns out to be fairly easy to remove
with a piece of gray rubber.

Although when it is "erased" it still leaves a faint trace,
a remembrance of past "mistakes."
Or perhaps, rather an indication of a better thought,
with which it was replaced.

Then, of course, how permanent is non-erasable ink?
A line of ink can be made "new" again with White-Out.

But the shade of White-Out does not always match the shade of white
on the notebook paper, nor does the line of white liquid
truly "hide" anything.

One is always aware of that which is underneath
that which we wish to keep hidden.

"Beyond the Picket Fence"

by Katy Bertrand

"The grass is always greener in somebody else's yard,"
you sigh,
as you stare longingly through your neighbor's
white picket fence.

Then, one day, the rain begins to pour down,
the moisture peeling the paint off the
white picket fence.,
exposing cheap, worm eaten plywood.

As the water touches the lush,
manicured,
"greener" perfection,
you stare in a mixture of relief
and disbelief
as a mixture of green food coloring
and deception washes down the gutter.

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