Poems

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Smoker Smoker By Joseph Klare   I am a smoker. I will continue to smoke, No matter what. I’ve had cancer, and I Have it again.         I will smoke, with one and a half lungs. Even if they take out my voice box, I Will smoke through the hole in my throat. I have quit before, and will try again. But I am a smoker, ravaged by life And cancer. My lungs are black like the coal mines I Worked as a boy. The darkness infects my chest and throat, pustules Of doom, prophecy of death. The blackness Grows, tightening my airwaves; I struggle with My intake, strangling. I am a smoker. It will be my end.
God's Will God’s Will - winner, Editor's Choice Award, Poetry.com, April 2006 By Joseph Klare   The spark ignites, a wall of flame, Plaster and flesh burn, Life could never be the same, With their baby girl in a bronze urn   Some say bad things happen to bad people, And some say it’s God’s will, So bow your head under the steeple, And the Lord will send you the bill   Another child, encased in hallowed ground, How could so much scar one’s soul?, Hideous crackling was the only sound, Along with the Death Bell’s toll   Britney was six, and Michael was ten, Their mother, on her knees, screams why, The earth seemed to open and swallow her when, Another child was snatched to the sky   Yet one child survived the heat and flame, His life will be a struggle uphill, When he asks for his sister, will you proclaim, She’s gone forever, due to God’s will?
People People By Joseph Klare   I   You see me on the street, and you Have opinions of me, although We’ve never spoken. I see you, and though We may never meet, we have interacted By seeing, and we leave an impression On each other.   Sometimes you stop me, and ask me for change, And I wonder what gives you the right To invade my space. I’ve been broke Most of my life, and I’ve never asked Someone for change, wouldn’t even presume To have the bojos to interrupt someone’s Life, just for change, just to bother them, In some cases believing that I deserve The change, just because I asked.   You seem not to care that you’re driving Ten miles an hour below the speed limit, or that Your cart is in the middle of the aisle at the market; You are oblivious to others when not passing Judgment in your mind.   Both you men and women want sex, Yet both hide behind friendship and modesty, And yet some will give it to anyone at anytime, Just because they have no self-love, And in some cases, they shouldn’t.   II   We seem to think, just because it’s the 21st century, That things should be better, but better than what?   Everything is a sad tragedy, depressing And the worst it’s ever been, but what Do you know about 100 years ago? What Do you know about The Depression, or Slavery, Or The Inquisition or Witch Trials?   When you speak, by what authority Do you spout your opinions? Why do you Know these things, when no one else does? You say this, and you believe that, but when asked Why? you have no answers, you just repeat yourself, And that will have to be enough.   Your freedom to speak allows me the freedom To criticize you.   III   People are silly, vain, ignorant, and corrupted, Some hardly worth the spent seed of their Procreation, some not worth the ink of my pen.   Yet I haven’t met you all, and probably never will, But I’m not looking for all, just one, A person to revive my hope, to seal My joy, to share my heart’s content, Someone to scale the wall with me, A mind to probe and know, a body to explore And interpret.   She lives and breathes; this I do not know, And cannot feel, But I hope, yet Do not pray; I’ve done that many times, Wasted many hours, and never even got the good feeling People get when they pray, much less An answer, yet I hope for her, And look for her, a person To make all this worth while.
Morning Morning By Joseph Klare   Open your eyes, and commence the shaking, Not only will everyone think you’re faking, But you get to loose your lower intestines into The toilet. Repeatedly, the others see what you go through, But still don’t understand. And you know You shouldn’t care, but you do, and you go To school, shaking and crying, and you can’t bear Any more mornings, but suddenly you’re there. The other kids staring as you sink in your chair, But you can only think of your red eyes, And the people you wish could hear your good-byes.   Good-byes, because you are not long for this earth, Life has been a struggle since your inauspicious birth, And morning is a capsule of all that is wrong With your life, it’ll be better when you’re gone From the pain and travail. Hope is gone, you’ll never prevail In a world where they’ve stacked the deck, And every morning you’re a nervous wreck. You want to strangle every goddamn redneck With a smart mouth that gets in your way. For every morning of hurt, someone will pay.
John John By Joseph Klare   The hammer blows fall, with staggered intensity, They land with dubious precision, For spreading pain, they have a propensity, He has already made his decision.   The walls are thin, the sound travels well, One could almost keep time to the thumps, The brutal sound, made when an angel fell, Who was pushed, and did not jump.   We turn a blind eye, to things that happen, Behind others’ closed doors, Ignorance is the liquid, that flows from the vacuum, Through which the aggression pours.   The small boy cringes, with each new blow, And wishes he was old like his brother, Hoping to stop, or even to slow, To keep John from beating his mother.   His thoughts turn violent, as they are liable to be, He feels he is doomed and alone, He wishes his stepfather would stop, and let his mother breathe, But that’s wishing for mercy rarely shown.   He felt every blow, that fell upon the woman who gave him life, For him, there could never be another, He would happily destroy the cause of any harm or strife, That would ever befall his mother.   He is older now, and the pain is gone, At least, that is, for the most part, The world is still full of hurt and wrong, But there will always be a safe place for her, in his heart.