And all that shit

As if they need our help

Butterflies and bullshit

Laughing cows that make milk

And cheese and shit

Happy rainbows that smell of joy

Dancing hamsters all gangsterd up

Rollin on fours mix-n it up

And all that shit

Fox news says that Boy gotta lose

Or the country gonna fall

To them commie socialist

Bastards…it’s their fault!

While the other guys

MSNBC would have you believe

They are on your side

With their news they hide

Genocides and Apartheid

Monsters left alone

While their countries die

Look at the hand in the air

The new shiny fresh off

The Chinese assembly line

While we rob you blind

How fucking dumb are we

To believe the shit their giving

Feeding us butterflies and bullshit

And we fucking take it

And fight to protect them

As if they need our help

Chris McQueeney    8/20/12    9:16 P.M.

A study the laughing cowvalier by Caroline Shotton

Truer Grit

Tess over at The mag posted this image of the painting, Under the Windsor bridge, 1912, by Adolphe Valette. While the image didn't spark an immediate poem, it did remind me a bit of a little spot in the city I live in. Just outside the courthouse on Main street is a set of stairs that go down to the river. The stairs go below the highway that runs behind the courthouse; a highway that has at least four names that I know of. Driving on the highway you would never know that the road is actually a bridge at that point, and the stairs go under the road.

I can only imagine why they built the stairs, maybe to transport people to and from court, on the river. At times I imagined three men in a boat, one rowing, one chained to his seat, and one with a scatter gun, coming to the stairs. The chained man to be brought to justice, and maybe the gallows. This was a rough town, a mill town, and for a time the state capital…and the end of the Oregon Trail.

I would imagine those things, would give life to the rower, Cliff, who got a silver piece to row the leaky boat those miles to the courthouse. Thomas the guard, whose wife should have given birth to their third child by now, Thomas not being there because he had to track down the runner. And the runner, a good looking young man, who killed a man over liquor and gambling…may also have had a bit to do with a brunette named Jane. His name was John Landers, and probably by this time tomorrow he would be doing the dance at the end of the rope, after which the judge and the bailiff would smoke some opium in the den just down the street.

      I would imagine these things as I walked slowly down the stairs. I would flesh out their lives, as mine was slowly ending. I would imagine these things as I made my way down the stairs to my home for the evening, my meager bed under the bridge downtown…that almost no one knows is there.

Chris McQueeney    8/19/12    10:51 P.M.

Truer grit

A wolf spider sat

Upon my hand

So still

Not moving

Beautiful in its

Purpose

I screamed like

A little girl

And twitched

As if jolted by

Old sparky

The spider had

Truer grit

Then I

Chris McQueeney 8/19/12 12:38 P.M.

Lucks trap raven

Things have a way of happening that at the time seem not that big a deal, but actually are huge. Almost a year and a half ago after hearing a longtime friend refer to his blog for the fifth or tenth time that year I asked him how to find it. He told me, and I went. I was amazed at what I was reading. It wasn't the smarmy crap that the rednecks and hicks that I grew up with made mockery of. In fact it was amazing. I read another of his posts and penned a poem in response. The first poem I ever wrote…I had made a poem in the past but due to complications I wasn't able to actually write it until last year. And in the just less than a year and a half I have penned about one hundred and fifty poems. Some are good…very…some not so good. But I find I am in love with writing, and that includes poetry. The rebel in me keeps me in free form, but I have penned a few form poems and I am able to do them credibly. Christopher has been a twenty plus year friend, and I would say he is the closest friend I have on the face of the planet; his words more than any others put me on this path. His encouragement brought me a host of friends with the gift of words. He put a post up a while back and I wrote a poem in the comments. The other day he posted, and in that post linked back to thepost from the past, so I went back to look at it again… it inspired a new poem in me. Today I would like to share those poems with you, and also another poem Christopher turned me on to a while back

…………….

I thought

Thought I saw a raven today

It looked at me with intent

Harbinger of what…

My day of course!

Like I said

Thought I saw a raven today

With intent it looked on me

From a faded blue roof

A crow, not a raven

A crow heralded my day

Caw, caw

Chris McQueeney 9/30/11

Steel toothed

That bird I thought

I saw today

Was a raven that

Had got away from

The steel gates

Of death’s trap

 

That bird I thought

I saw today

Luck’s trap raven

That got away

Warning me of Death's

Steel toothed grin

Chris McQueeney    8/17/12

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell  1945

Jarrell, who served in the Army Air Force, provided the following explanatory note:

"A ball turret was a plexiglass sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upsidedown in his little sphere. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose."

Crestfallen

So you ask

Am I angry?

Fuck yes I am

How could I not be

Do you think I live

With my heart

Divorced from me

Fuck yes I’m angry

Wouldn’t you

Feel torn in two

A million jagged pieces

Tearing their way

Out of you

So you ask

Am I angry

And I say to you

No, I’m not angry

I hurt, but then again

So would you

Chris McQueeney    8/17/12    5:32 P.M.

Crestfallen: Photo by Photographer Roger Gutierrez - photo.net

A gentle one

Single hue

Twining we wind

In circles ever closer

Roots and limbs entwined

Under this gentle sun

Riotous colors surround us

Yet a single hue

We would not see

But for the love

That spins around

And within

You and me

Chris McQueeney    8/16/12    2:13 P.M.

This Was inspired by an image from a friend's Facebook page...Thank you for letting me borrow this from your page Grace