by Rick Young | May 28, 2019 | Poem
I moved my king two squares
and he fell off the world.
The queen did scream, of course.
She’d just had her hair curled.
It was a shocking scene of gravity,
a startling moment of depravity.
Bishops, knights in castles,
all pleaded with their pawns:
keep attackers off the middle,
manicure the lawns.
Of late I’ve seen no mate
and must assume a draw.
The board is square.
It is not fair.
Roundness should be law.
by Rick Young | May 27, 2019 | Poem
The small window had a curtain
made of checkered blue pajamas.
Outside, in the verdant hills,
there lingered packs of llamas.
It might be South America,
it might be Mexico.
Judging by our only view,
perhaps we’d never know.
Day and night, from overhead,
we’d hear the airplanes roar.
We’d certainly run out to see them
if we had a door.
Inside were boxes of stored food
and other life provisions.
We kept time upon the wall
by making small incisions.
For days on end we stared out
at the land beyond the bars.
Never saw a sign of people,
buildings, roads or cars.
We had two cots, two chairs,
and one small bucket for our loo.
Our life came down to staring at
that square of checkered blue.
by Rick Young | May 24, 2019 | Poem
The body politic has gotten very sick.
It’s almost ripped from torsion.
There’s rape and incest on the right.
It might need an abortion.
But on the scene the zygote team
amasses for protection,
their only goal to save your soul
and give you a C-section.
Your fetus is a precious thing,
a gift from the creator.
They’ll drag you to term if you come
from north of the equator.
If you’re not American,
things take a different light.
Those right wingers, Jesus singers,
like their zygotes white.
Visions of babyhood dance in their heads,
futures in commerce and churches.
They see the forest through the trees.
But all of them have to be birches.
by Rick Young | May 18, 2019 | Poem
I love to slug a baseball.
And I sometimes slug a drink.
But, slug, I do find your name odd,
for a shell-less gastropod.
Though I do like your Martian eyes
that hide away at each surprise.
And you can’t run away from crime,
leaving all that trailing slime.
You may have some ugly faces,
but at least fit in small spaces.
And finally let’s talk of your vertical leaps.
You slime up a wall and it gives me the creeps.
It’s not that I think you’re an aggressive devil,
I just wish that you couldn’t rise to my level.
And so I must crown you Excelsior slug.
Or Mollusk, if you like. Don’t ask for a hug.
by Rick Young | May 13, 2019 | Poem
Sarah Sanders tells offhanders like they were the truth.
She has turned the white house pressroom to a lying booth.
Not to say she’s not okay, but from her ugly mouth,
lies just fly like cold crazed birds heading for the south.
When she’s caught up in her falsehoods, she is not abashed.
It’s the listeners to blame. It’s ‘fake news’ that’s trashed.
What to do about the zoo, the brutal press corps trap?
Don’t back down. She’s a clown. Call her on her crap.
One day, when the plug is pulled on this administration,
her dad Mike will be the spike for jokes about castration.
