Red Light Camera

With such hungry looks
Your eyes would in books
Scratch their hands in pockets
Your eyes' resting sockets
To drain empty tear ducts
From those whose misconducts
Painfully pricked your eye
To give the king his pie;
By the by you’re his guard
Driving bad drivers mad.
Could I say thank you
And not be bad too?

Racing Waves

The waves race endlessly to the sea
As if the wind had forced them ashore
In a union they would none did see
Them sneaking out of the house of whores

With them carrying stinking morsel smell
Debilitating the nose through a spell
Once cast like a fishing net sweeping bed
Clean of ocean’s little lovely well-bred

No doubt their oil nourishes human brain
And warranty in old age man is sane
With his grey matter falling not as prey
In the game of life which Alzheimer’s play

Pushing to quickly forget things men want
Not recalling how they dropped off the pant
In that house they sneaked out of forced by waves
After prostrating to the drive as slaves

Giving in to the master’s caprices
Hoping their dreams aren’t shattered into pieces
Rather waves waver not in their strong push
To send off such belongings to the bush

For they need not dwell in human thinking
So preoccupied with nothing but fish drowning
Oblivious to the grace of waves majestic moves
That will never trample on human eyes with hooves

But let them enjoy the grace of waves’ racing dance
Not for the weak at heart who would all fall in trance
Not off the hook for their forfeiture in the house
Committed and outside making up they have no nous

Race on waves and bring to these eyes that sole beauty
Your dance alone moving ships brings humanity
The soothing calm the corrupt would you washed away
But, come ashore and make sure such hopes at bay stay!

Epitaph

Finally, I go unto Death,
With wings of fire
And breath of ice.
And he welcomes me,
At last, with open arms
And open heart.
Finally, I am home.


© Melissa Ryan, ALW 240

Mindstate Dweller

When I think this city I think empty trams, empty seats,
steady hands, steady feet, stolen land, stolen fee,
Never feeling free, always feeling eyes watching me,
Disguised democracy, fake economy, no apologies,
Squandering property, cement towers nature’s mockery,
Tyrannical monarchy and material authority
Never stopping me from constantly traversing the city
Thirsting with intrigue conversing and dispersing earnest mystique,
Streets aren’t pristine: imperfections are the blitzkrieg
Prestigious soliloquies of ominous liberty
Offered by imagery of trapped sidewalks across the map,
Stride forth my back attached to a packed nap sack.
Cramped with stacks of bricks: chipped cracked and dented.
Paths: skipped tracked and ventured. The lasting gift that beckons
Presence remembered, endless adventure treading
Dimensions spreading and collecting
so the severance of heaven is mending
This journey I’m accepting through eager alleyways
Find a secret passage paved behind reality’s barricade
Free from the masquerade, souls lost no accomplices
Coveting confidence collagen blocking their oxygen
Clotting the bottom of competence in this rotten metropolis
Modern apocalypse where we cotton pick novices
With pocketed politics into dominant covetous lobbyists
Forgotten with sin, lost by kin, but beauty still exists within

© KIERON DONALD BYATT

Shoes

O captors of my feet,
why won’t you set me free?
To walk,
to run,
to feel the sand between my toes,
the squelch of mud,
the points of stones,
the glorious ground beneath my feet.
To burn,
to freeze,
to soak in the wondrous rain.
O why won’t you let me live?

©Melissa Ryan ALW 240