by Rick Young | Jul 10, 2017 | Poem
Black dog with white paws on a red pillow.
Feathered tendrils of a dream, erasing,
as grey dawn, fanned by rain, laps the windows.
Stumble toward electronics to confirm the world
is still alive: no visible proof. Cruelty, exploitation
and degradation are winning the day’s big races.
There’s a spike in hair products and sun glasses.
World leaders are up in arms about arms.
The living have taken the dead to extra innings.
Somewhere a comet is passing a rocket.
Noise and light do the wave, eternally.
Satisfied with uncontrollable events,
the dog sighs and dives into that pillow once again.
by Rick Young | Jun 26, 2017 | Poem
Awake on a win, asleep on defeat,
the competition always raged elsewhere.
Inside, naught but grey matter, ideas splash and spatter.
Yet nothing ever mattered anywhere.
To nod off midst a rally, from mountains, all is valley.
To come alive, the sand and sea divide.
The universal wind blew its music through the skinned,
and sparked an impulse as the power died.
Just walk under a ladder, the world gets ever madder.
The super stitching breaks, the core revealed.
The inside, once united, becomes, alas, indicted.
It’s horrible to see what’s been concealed.
by Rick Young | Jun 25, 2017 | Poem
My Medicaid has been phased out,
and I will die, without a doubt.
Republicans have just rung my death knell.
Obama Care did give me hope,
but now I’m looking at the rope.
Red senators, I’ll see you all in hell.
Trump Care will cause thousands of deaths,
and, as we take our final breaths,
we’ll hope that we are martyrs bringing change.
The gall of one percent to usurp the government
is damnably cruel if not deranged.
Fight the power never meant so much at any time
as it does these days with government so steeped in crime.
We cry out, the euthanized, to this regime compromised,
crawl out now to save us from this wave of slime.
by Rick Young | Jun 23, 2017 | Poem
Dorothy’s hallucinating again.
The telltale stare.
The bulkhead stair.
Playing the game, rolls a six,
then boxcars, sixty-six. 666.
The Oz number.
Twister on the near horizon
and she’s outside for the dog,
a heroine to love and sing with.
She’ll get help, as always,
a team to talk her down,
to deal with the witches,
dancing elves and talking trees,
ease her through the vibrant colors.
Get her back home safely.
And somewhere, perhaps,
she’ll find a true wizard
who’ll finally help her
get this flying monkey off her back.
by Rick Young | Jun 21, 2017 | Poem
Willie Mays days are here again.
I traded my uncle the right to life
for his extensive stencil collection.
Now my art career can begin in earnest.
First sign, "No Borgnines,"
writ large above the barge
below the pail cathedral.
Let the thought police follow me.
I haunt dead ends.
I fill in lines on all merge signs
and imprint James Dean’s great face
inside the O’s in STOP. Go wild, child.
Don’t let me see you crying
in the breakdown lane.
The cruelty of roadways is the century’s curse.
Nothing worse than no place left to go.
On the one-way streets, I’m drying sheets.
The portrait of Che has a lot to say.
I lost my head in thinking blue and red.
I hope I can get mail while I’m in jail.
