by Rick Young | Jun 20, 2015 | Poem
Perhaps my abject failure
stems from lack of vision.
Importing foxholes
once seemed an inspired foray.
And when they crumbled
on a turbulent journey here,
the sandcastle-in-a-box kit
seemed an excellent idea.
And, after a brief sojourn
in the mud wrestling business,
came my disastrous involvement
in the Lower Sahara
Ice Hockey League (LSIHL).
I still insist my team,
known as the Alhambra Sheiks,
were of championship caliber,
had we only found a way
to keep ice frozen.
by Rick Young | Jun 19, 2015 | Poem
Tape your windows.
Wear your camouflage.
It’s a shooter’s holiday.
Hide your loved ones in the garage.
There’s a death arcade
and many real wild rides.
There’ll be bullets lodged
in some unlucky hides.
There are craft displays,
model grassy knolls.
There’ll be guns for sale,
Colts and Carcanos.
It’s the best day of the year
for folks to flee,
the dawning of the sniper jamboree.
by Rick Young | Jun 18, 2015 | Poem
The protoplasmic gun belt
hangs low on the hips of the world.
Shooting speed into cows
is the latest rap. Now they are lowing
the brain damaged mice to sleep
in their electronic cabanas.
A schizoid monkey presses
the wrong button and rockets go off.
It’s independence day at the O.K. Corral.
A host of wired-up babies
are screaming at checkerboards.
There is the cellophane mother,
doing her surrogate chores,
and the men who dance with rays,
pale and dark-eyed, like ghosts
of the future, abandoned
to heartless plans. The glint
of the badge will not blind the eye
of justice. Or so goes the song
of sorrow which ricochets at want
about the globe.
(from "Dead Box")
by Rick Young | Jun 17, 2015 | Poem
There’s a crash outside the church
and bodies in the road,
a flood of blood, the sirens cry,
and god is just a goad.
To die in shadows of the cross
seems ethically untoward.
The master’s out of bandages,
he only owns a sword.
A priest is standing in the street.
He offers up a prayer.
But save the space, delete, erase.
It seems the dead don’t care.
by Rick Young | Jun 16, 2015 | Poem
All the townsfolk who pray
to the lion and lamb
have decided that justice
is rarely well done.
All the saints ate the sinners,
served up in a jam.
Now the sisters of mustard
all carry a gun.
And the banks have closed down.
And the schools are encampments,
as the flag of obscurity
furtively waves.
All the best who moved west found,
when put to the test,
that old history spends
all that religion saves.
