Society Poems

Bronx School Children

When I see their eyes sparkling like stars in the dark sky
I know God sent them to see if I was worthy.
When they interrupt with incessant questions
I sometimes think—the Spanish Inquisition!

But when they walk in late or not at all
I worry about them like my own children.
And I pray that no person has hurt them
that morning, the night before or left them alone
in a cold room when they were too young to reach the door handle
but old enough to know that Daddy was drunk and mean again
and Mommy’s tears were mixed with blood
on the table where dinner should have been.

Moon presses through their curtains
as they stare and wonder if people live up there
and if those people can dance and float and fly
and spin and laugh circles in the sky
and are happy all the time and never cry.
Maybe it”s just a dream that pacifies their tortured precious souls.

Society has something that we owe;
they don’t owe us anything
and they know it and they show it
each time they misbehave.
Us teachers don’t turn away, we fight for them
with kindness and grace.
Their troubles we embrace.
It is an honorable profession
not a funeral procession.

Dan O’Phelan, 2012

Chicago

I can see the torn up
lips of black women
bleeding,
while they’re fur
coats–
minks
wrapped around
the softest skin
and silkiest cloth.

There are bugs in the kitchen,
roaches in the jars of flour,
termites underneath the carpet,
ants hiding everywhere
hungry—creeping.

What to eat for dinner?
What to do with time?
Come home with me tonight
and we will eat oysters
and nibble on the softest bread
And sniff the finest wine.

The best wine is actually Negro blood.

Environmentalists whine

environmentalists whine
about exhaust from cars
as they puff incessant
on pack after pack of cigarettes
eating betel nut and lime
to enhance their cancerous
endeavor into hypocrisy
and waste

symbols of industry
malformed as single human beings
have lost control
of their dreams
falsely induced by hallucinations
of tribal customs perverted
by high tech searches on the web
but the buzz is there
and so the death of true
change

only loud words at the dinner table
about how bad all others are
how terrible to see oneself
exposed
and contradicted
all this has been predicted
global warming
lame ass judges
grandstanding
in public
the vomit of the green party
spewed like filthy pornography
described as nude photography

Federal judges worst of all

The federal judges are worst of all
You cannot avoid their hurried calls
Come to my great Bench
You ignorant wench
Come and look up high
I’m that little guy on a pedestal
Who pretends his stool don’t stink.
I’m the brain that never thinks.
I’m the rule that never bends
except on behalf of friends.
I cannot simply walk along
the beach and say hello to passersby
I’m too high and therefore too low
Too good for all of you below
So removed I should not adjudicate
Or make crooked straight
Or make right wrong or wrong right
Or deny the rights of those too poor to pay the filing fee
Or grant the government immunity
I’m the little one in the black robe
Like death with no soul
Or life without a stroll
A baby without a mom
Cold and all alone
You can knock
But no one’s home

Going on 17

How I am supposed to be a man?
Look away. I’m crying and I hate it.
I’m 16 and I never saw his face.
There’s no example. What? Those bottles on the floor? Why are they are empty?
So what do I do worship them?

I am ashamed of everything.
Of you Mom of me too.
The tears I’ve restrained like trying to press blood back into an open wound.
But I can’t stop bleeding.
And I’m tired of you need, need, needing.
I worked, worked, worked so much as a child.
I worked at not dying by my own hand.
I worked at lying to get food stamps to trade with Mickey down the street
for drugs for you.
And I carried those bags of white crap for you.
You made me your delivery boy instead of your son.
And I came into the room with you suckin’ a man I’ve never seen.
And I know that you do it regularly and that you pretend that you don’t know that I know.
I have so many lies surrounding me like these fucking roaches
They just get bigger and bigger.
I refuse to be your nigger.

I quit. I leaving the hood for good.
Goin’ far away so you can’t follow.
My heart is hollow. I’ll fill it with some kind of life.
I’m leaving you my suicide knife.
I never had the guts anyway.
How am I supposed to be a man?
I’ve never been a child understand?

By Dan O’Phelan
10-2-12

I whistle and hum

as the armies march on
as they maim and they kill
from the highest of hills
and I wade through the blood
that’s still warm as it flows
down the streets of our village
in the wintry chill.

And I sing and smile
as the banks push us down
by the debt that grows
above and beyond
what any person can ever pay back.
They foreclose on our home
now we live in a shack.

I tap my feet to the rhythm of life
as the government denies
health care for my wife
and I watch her wither dead on the vine
cause she didn’t have money
to get help in time.

And I sing as loudly as my voice can roar
when I see my dead son
washed up on the shore
cause he worked so hard
to bring in the catch
to pay off his overwhelming tax debt.

I laugh with my rifle all day
and aim and shoot with accuracy.
So then when the time comes
for some truth and justice
I’ll be ready to deliver
from in the dark bushes.

I’d pay you to kill

To fuck a blind swill
To suck a red pop
Or tootsie roll top
To stroke a blind dick
Or beat a pervert with a stick
I’d pay you to drink
So much you stink
Like an ashtray with old beer
The stench of a hot Hilo night
When sweat is an acceptable form of cologne
And wet smelly shoes strewn across a dark room
It’s a style nature demands
For the men and woman who won’t take a stand
But have caved
Like slaves to the tropical rain forest wave of humidity
Desperate but sweet
Breathing pulsating fresh meat
I’d give a damm if I had the time
But instead each second slime
Or a squirm, a wiggle in that stupid chair you refuse to leave
Just get the fuck up
Wipe your snot on your sleave
And leave this God-forsaken show about nothing
To condemn is to praise
To praise is to demean
To buy is to steal
And sacrifice your dream
And what was that again
Oh yeah the real, that’s the dream
The real never forget
It’s what is overlooked by us all
Except the smallest of small
The petty indifference of truth
Reality
Indifference
Simultaneously asserting the ignored boing life portrayed
Likes photos no one ever looks at
Lest they be betrayed by their own lack of self worth.
This wasn’t from birth
We superimposed it
Like spray painting on a Carravagio
Or lying to a Nun
What the fuck, is that all you do is run

IRS Mess

IRS can you see me in the mess
of paper invading your office
bureaucratic distress
some number on your computer screen
identifies our family
they’re no photographs of our toddlers
you call for the purpose of collecting
and you say you’re just doing your job
but imagine a dirty home
with parents who are lazy slobs
there’s no picture of the table
where we eat our simple meals
or videos of our morning routine
dressing our kids in winter clothes
readying them for the walk to the bus
in the dark cold mornings you don’t see us
as human beings struggling
we are numbers that owe numbers
your position is levies
so any monies in our accounts
get paid to you directly
our fuel in a truck is low
our medical bills unpaid
we both work full time
but you don’t know
what it’s like to be laid off
from the job that paid
our monthly bills and to be stuck with minimum wages
to try to feed a family of six
it’s not your job to account for this
and not your role to change a thing
it doesn’t matter that we sold our wedding rings
to pay the electric bill and buy groceries
we are the shirts without sleaves
we are the pants without cuffs
we are the dirtied slaves
working in handcuffs
in fields we don’t own
to pay rent for life
dying by the fireside
buried in a pine box
in a pair of worn out socks
with our children crying
cause Daddy died
from a heart attack
that was preventable
if he had the money for surgery
we understand professionally
you are courteous too
then again, we don’t want to know you

Peasant view

Monet made present color dancesand feasts of light.But hear this child’s scream–hungry-cold her sleepless night.Serve the unwanted,hungry homeless and abused.Poor impose on our mansionslike green weeds betweenred bricks cracking,vines around the Whitehouse wrapping.
Fictitious rights of wealth attack.Lawyers for bankers smackthe starving infant’s cheek,who is heard softly pleading:“serve the helpless and those needingshelter, food, and love,otherwise life’s returns to formless mudto mindless power without soullike a mine empty of coal.

Shadow

What do you do each day
after your Starbucks latte
feed that coffee colored boy
dying on concrete-hard sand?
Are you just too far to understand
hunger in foreign lands?
Absent from your ”list of things to do?”
Never mind, the sun incinerated his shadow.
He was 10 years old and 22 pounds when he fell.
Oblivion is convenient like solitary confinement of a moral duty.
His shadow reappears obvious in your red blood lips
that leave their print on the edge
of the white disposable paper cup
while the expresso maker drip, drip, drips
like bullets banging from gun clips.
The warlords shoot the already dead
and take UN truckloads stuffed with food.
Welding torches sculpt killing machines
racing towards villages that need to be cleansed
and repopulated by another blend.

She drunk

Symbolic of a shipwreck:
the contours of her neck
gnarled, twisted boards
smashed on rocks—hoards
of flies buzzing in and out
of the hole where not a shout
sounded
only odor poured
from this mouth.
Disorder
it produced
an upheaval
a toxic juice.
Pink vomit
killed her.

Sister, sister why ain’t you paid

when you work harder than a man
but for a lower wage?
Mother why is love valued zero?
Aren’t you the heroine greater than heroes?
Why are children valued so low?
Why are schools always closed?
The value of a short cut dress
or perked up breasts outweigh
that four point GPA on your resume.

Valuations in this Nation of ours places muscle cars
over newborns and their nutrition.
When does goodness come to fruition?
When is that apple ripe?
Did Eve grab it in spite
or long to eat a midnight snack as Adam slept
because she was swollen with love not pride?
So why is nurture weak and aggression strong?
Why righteous poor and demonic highest paid?
Why does a woman have to trade:
–her decency for clemency?
–her obedience for democracy?
–her silence for acceptance?
–her dishonesty for repentance?

Sister, sister why ain’t you paid
when you work longer than a man
standing at the fruit stand night and day
handing tomatoes to buyers smiling
describing the delicious taste
with your beautiful son Orion
clinging to your side or hiding
behind the crates knowing you have to work
in order to pay rent and fuel the truck?

What is it women have no luck?
Men just stumble and fall on good wages.
It was accidental so shut up and put up, they say.
Perhaps the Bible’s missing a few pages.

Straight up teach

So you killed a child’s world
You popped the bubble you uncurled the curl
You straightened them out and you forced them right
and they have since never slept at night.
So you made them comply with your demands
and you held them tight in your hands
and attached to them like rubber bands
keeping them from being free
strangling them intellectually
and you do this because you say you love.
You care so tenderly.
They don’t use their minds anyways you say.
But it’s so much easier to just let them slip away;
losing all their defiance so your weekend
will not involve grading papers
to encourage them,
but dining high
in skyscrapers
dissin’ ‘em.

The lawyers march

Lawyers march
out law school doors
more vicious cold
than battered soldiers
less loyal than paid whores.

Unified by greed
deliberately unkind
hearts never bleed.
Trained unholy minds
write with knives crooked lines.

Constitutionally speaking,
they stand proud stallions
on brilliant green hill crests
silhouetted by red sunsets
their rear heals sink
in the soft warm earth
positioning themselves
vertical defiant;
the beasts appear normal
in the snapshot
but instants in law
are centuries of combat
compiled unnecessarily.

A simple rule
becomes a school
of thought.
A law becomes a nation.
The principles are rationed.
The lawyers hold their stations
despite their enemies
who lie in wait
afraid to storm the court’s white gate
and marbled columns
solemn
as the bottoms of jet black pools—
Shark’s eyes
unparalleled in chill undefined
wear suits so refined,
so smooth too–
their uniforms of infinite
uncertain standards.
Their better known as bastards,
blood suckers, and scum
but those insults get drowned
by forces more powerful than guns:
paper covered drums that beat
morality to a second place
consideration.

The pribilof trial

The Bering cannot be tamed.

There is no law as powerful as waves.
No book can slow the vicious wind.
No ruling lifts the dense fog.
No gavel breaks the icy cold.

Dry—the lawyer’s pen.
No footnotes are taken.
The jurors are shaken.
by the allegation—
their tribal chief’s a criminal.
It’s probably subliminal
to stand together strong
against the Great White Father
false judge of right and wrong—
each word curiously twisted in favor of State.
Not one sentence concerned about the Aleut’s fate—
Your honor’s plan is plain
to be back in Anchorage on the next plane
and play a round of golf this weekend.
No evidence is heard.
The trial is absurd.
An exercise in futility
A paper boat sent to sea.
Justice is denied.
The Prosecutor lied.

Weathered faces of dead indians

still appear in clouds
there is no oblivion
for those so proud
instead a suspension
like stars that hang on strings
above the earth
and in the shine of golden rings
of light that bounces in the early morn
how can death become to the unborn

there is a chant that rolls
like thunder on the hills
and lightening that stabs
and chills
but she’s not listening anymore
she took too many pills

and now she whispers
as wind in pines
across the swish wish washy shore
where jagged rocks are rounded
and water bores a hole
through stone
softness ultimately reigns
much greater than the weapons
hauled by white men cross the plains.