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Yesteryear's Poetry

Seen with Older Eyes

Grave in the Garden

by Renee Blackwood

The earth open again

For a freshly dug grave

The resting place for a pet

Like a time capsule of a child's love

The homemade coffin is lowered

Gently into the hole in the ground

Now there is less earth

Now there is more pet flesh

Combined, rot and prayers

Create the new soil.

Dropping the spade and patting the dirt,

The child marvels at the fresh mound,

One of many, so many,

A ghostly garden of little skulls

Laid out in order like potatoes

In gramma's garden.

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Bedlam

by Cecilia Marquez

The baby's learned to live with bedbugs

Mommy and Daddy are too stupid to see

And blame the mosquitoes for the welts

But baby wakes when the light goes out

She waits for the critters to journey

From their hiding places in the walls

To reach their destination, her flesh,

Her blood, to gorge themselves plumply

With enough food for three months.

You see, every night there are new groups

Of the bedbugs that make that journey

To feed while their brethren digests slowly.

Once Mommy and Daddy saw baby covered

With dozens of the red oozing bedbugs,

And said, "Look! Ladybugs".

That's the only time baby ever cried.

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Ridiculous Flowers

by Mabelle Mayzi

In the city

there are no flowers

unless you count the cherry blossoms

that sit atop the black-n-whites

or the spinning roses

on top of the red wagons

that signal another house

turning to ash

or the black daisies

laid out for the strangers

who were blinded by death

or the mushroom cloud

that brightens our future

with hopes of jobs and shovels

our city is not concrete

it is dirt poor

flowers do not grow here

except in the gardens of death

planted in every backyard

and every child's nightmare

our madness finds beauty

in such flowers

but from these flowers

fall seeds of hope

that sprout through the concrete walks

one day a human life will flower here

from the sidewalk

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

The Laughing Tree

by Tithe Tidderwell

The laughing tree

Brags that it is invulnerable

I kick it in the belly

But it has there a thick trunk

And I hurt my foot

As it giggles

Then I try to snap off its arms

But there it has thorny branches

And I cut my fingers

As it guffaws

I yank its hanging apples

And it screams out,

"Hey, buddy, those aren't apples!"

Only now I'm the one laughing.