by Rick Young | Nov 25, 2021 | Poem
Thank you, God, for making our predecessors
so easy to eliminate. We invited them to lunch,
and traded them our beads for their great land.
We relocated, restricted and tortured them.
We gave them smallpox-infected blankets.
We killed their buffalo and dishonored sacred
grounds. We bred in them fear and alcoholism.
Carved them out of wood for folks’ amusement.
Slaughtered three hundred Lakotas at Wounded Knee.
Later, we made fun of them on television as well as
in movies and sports; called them ‘Redskins,’
Indians, Wahoos and Chiefs. See also Tonto.
And now their primeval eden is a hotbox of decay.
We turned their vibrant culture into mere survival.
The western world has been tamed by desecration.
And, to tell the truth, the lunch was not all that good.
by Rick Young | Nov 22, 2021 | Poem
We’re going on a protester hunt,
inspired by that crying killer grunt.
His thoughts on Black Lives Matter
was to cause a bit of splatter,
bloodying Kenosha’s streets,
first kills one and then repeats.
Shot the first one in the back,
but you’ve got to cut him slack.
They were out to take his gun.
That would not have been much fun.
After two he shot a third.
We must take him at his word.
Thought he was in mortal danger,
chased by cursing unarmed stranger.
Yes, he really had to kill.
Helping police out was a thrill.
In his trial he beat each charge,
crying tears to float a barge.
White folks don’t care what he did.
Come and get your gun back, kid.
Militias everywhere, unite!
Join the weeping gunman’s fight.
Radicals best hold your breath.
Punishment for protest’s death.
by Rick Young | Nov 22, 2021 | Poem, Posthumous Additions
(Note from the author’s son: I found this title-only draft and felt compelled to publish it – with the date he last edited it.)
by Rick Young | Nov 18, 2021 | Poem
The arc of the sun has shortened its path,
come down for the season of winter and wrath.
The fall was a ball with its leaves many hues,
but they’re on the ground now, just last season’s news.
The few months ahead will be short, cold and dark,
like tinder awaiting the spring’s first warm spark.
And when stems again raise their heads in rebirth,
the sun’s arc will reign like a bridge over earth.
by Rick Young | Nov 15, 2021 | Poem
Welcome to the new civil war.
It looks like chairman T has got the floor.
It’s not a filibuster, just overflowing bluster.
He’s counting on his side for a big score.
The bikers and militia are all armed,
and care no whit for those whom they have harmed.
Protestors in the street are naught to them but meat.
They see their lives as heaven-blessed and charmed.
The death toll is the new election tally.
An insurrection’s labeled as a rally.
The police won’t stop this war. They don’t care any more.
Our country might turn into one death valley.
We’ve now become the disunited states.
The rich have bad intentions on their plates.
There can be no true friends until this madness ends.
Meanwhile the bodies are piled up in crates.
by Rick Young | Oct 31, 2021 | Poem
Electricity. What a cool invention.
We used to have to heat by fire,
torchlight for attention.
Now we only flip a switch
and on and off goes power.
No more need of gaslit sconces
in the evening hour.
First came lights and then came stoves
and now, electric car. Uses multiply until
we’ve found we’ve come too far.
Destroying our ecology
was what we didn’t factor.
It turned out electricity’s not cool,
but a bad actor.
We must cut back. The sense we lack
has got us in a pickle.
The flood of watts has sealed our lots.
Must cut back to a trickle.
Pump up your solar and wind forces.
Nature can sustain.
There have to be some better courses.
Greta will explain.
