by Rick Young | Dec 13, 2013 | Poem, Song
I’m two months out of prison and I haven’t got a job.
I spend my daytimes looking for a place that I can rob.
My father often warned me I would meet a tragic end.
But I paid him no heed, alas. Now no man is my friend.
My years in jail conditioned me to live by evil means.
In stir, yes, sir, it’s black and white. There are no in betweens.
For those who knew me once, I think you’d recognize me still.
But now my eyes are cold and my first instinct is to kill.
An ex-con has ten ways to lose for every chance to win.
I’m livin’ at the corner of cruel memory and sin.
And if I’m seen outside your door, it’s best to hide your kin.
If I knock twice, take my advice and do not let me in.
by Rick Young | Dec 12, 2013 | Poem
He got got seven years hard time.
It felt like forty-nine.
He got caught with several bones.
It wasn’t such a crime.
On his appeal, he made a deal.
He said he’d name some names.
But then refused, he won’t be used,
he would not play their games.
And so he sat inside a cage
just like a dog for years.
He may have bent, but never broke
or let them see his tears.
And on the day of his release,
he swore he’d rather die
than let them take him back again,
then went home and got high.
Better to live like dogs, he said,
unleashed and free of rules,
than subjugate all action
to a code devised by fools.
by Rick Young | Dec 11, 2013 | Poem
I think I’m feeling drowsy.
Or perhaps my arch has fallen.
I can’t get up for work today.
It may be all the pollen.
My elbow is enflamed
and my sinuses impacted.
I choked up when I called in sick.
Perhaps I overacted.
I need another cabinet.
My pills are overflowing.
I feel as if my scalp’s peeled back.
Maybe my brain is showing.
My stomach’s feeling queasy,
the result of this congestion.
Whatever ails prevails,
appears, "voila," at mere suggestion.
My doctor’s secretary
has me climbing up the walls.
Each time I get through to her
he’s accepting no more calls.
by Rick Young | Dec 10, 2013 | Poem
The sun, that yellow spider’s web,
revolves again around my head.
The ground, alive and full of meat,
pulls back and down and grabs my feet.
Seems the constant need
one feels for elevation
ties directly to the genes
of caste and station.
Gravity is just a shill for politics.
Evolution’s just a bag of dirty tricks.
by Rick Young | Dec 9, 2013 | Poem
To gulch or to disgorge,
another mesa forge.
Environment is in like flint
or bears who covet porridge.
To butte or to abut,
tree or adobe hut.
A rock well placed
is soon erased.
All nature is a rut.
To flood or scorch the earth,
another big bang birth.
Each mountain tall
one day may fall.
And all for
what it’s worth.
