Social Commentary Poetry

American Idol

Rock Star

An oxymoron

Crowds cheer

Rock on

Rock on

The Grateful are Dead

Morrison

Joplin

Hendrix

Children aspire

To catch the fire

“When I grow up I want to be a "Rock Star”

They don’t know they can’t have both

A high price to pay for

Groupies

No lasting relationships

Recreational drugs

Once vices

Now habits

On the Road again

In a cold hotel room after the show

Unstrung Heroes

The world has gone mad or has always been so

Why else would it make sick souls it’s heroes

All through time  inevitably

The famous have gone down in history

But their fame  it seems  has been terribly maimed

With disease  misery  and life’s tragedy

Elvis’s Pelvis was long acclaimed

Yet he died overdosed on drugs

Fat  weak and lame

Marilyn Monroe was legendary

For her lips  her breasts and her imagery

Drowned in a pool her life rather brief

Unable to cope with her pain and her grief

Lennon  Morrison  Hendrix and Joplin

With drugs and booze  left their minds quiet fried

Never the less they are valued and prized

Their lives quite seriously eulogized

Considered poetic greats of their day

Still their lives turned out to be rather gray

As Ann Sexton and Sylvia Plath

Left suicide in their aftermath

Clinton and Nixon and Kennedy

Whose personal lives were far from free

Of disease and corruption

Left a trail of destruction

As they lied to us all and one  “Never Inhaled”

All got off scot free when they should have been jailed

For murder or adultery,

But as President

“These laws don’t apply to me”

One of the sickest crimes of the day

Was when Simpson blew his own wife away

But because he was athletic and good with a ball

The world let him off

Because after all

His life should be free of punishment

Because “All Star Players” are always exempt

Sometimes I think I must be living in Hell

An asylum of absurdity is the place that I dwell

To be sentenced to earth as the place of my birth

Where the crazier one is the more valued his worth

Are we really such fools to allow the race

To put these kinds of people in the realm of first place

To guide lead direct and be idolized

People whose lives really should be despised

We vote them in, put them up on the wall

We cheer and we clamor

Make them King of the Hall

Are Earth’s souls so lost they must follow the lost

To death, to Hell and Oblivion

Isn’t there anyone whose memory lives on

Are their truly no saints or souls worthy

Of our praise and our votes and honest glory

Ode to Tattoos

Once handsome men are now freaks

Women a side show at the circus

It has become the trend

Putting  permanent life marks on flesh

Once a birthmark was thought a curse from God

Especially in visible places

Now young and old enjoy marring their body

With ugly designs

Once hidden in some secret place

Now they force us to witness their masochistic acts

Purplish blue black and indigo colors

Blur the beauty God gave them

Once thought extreme

Now they parade their anti-social behavior

Like a badge on arms and legs

An art exhibition we didn’t choose to attend

Some say their tatts mean something

A tribute to someone

Some say they are sensitive souls

Expressing themselves

I beg to differ

Anyone who consciously chooses

To hurt themselves for attention

Doesn’t care if they offend

Is not someone I choose to know

Face Book Follies

Let it all hang out

Give every sorted detail of your personal life

Nothing sacred

Make political stands that alienate your friends

Your family

Divide the country with political rants

Hide behind a screen spewing venom

Cause division

Hatred

Abuse family and friends

Show off vices, drinking, tatts, dark sides of character

Teenagers

Threaten and bully

Cause someone to commit suicide

with cruel words

Cat fish and lie

Stalk and spy

Gross people out with obscene

Pictures of man’s cruelty

To animals

Or each other

Use filth and foul

Sociopaths on the prowl

Definitely the wrong ways to use face book

Face book

Friend or foe

You decide

Epilogue For The Homeless

The homeless are great

They Manipulate

Playing victim and preying on good Christian hearts

The con their game

They use different disguises

And different faces

One man who is always out there has many

Sometimes a goatee

Sometimes a long beard

Sometimes a hat

Sometimes just looks weird

He stands on the median

Always a forlorn face

 looking down

He should get an academy award

for acting

They have different signs

Preferably scrawled on cardboard is a good technique

One I saw said 

Stranded 

Please anything will help

I called her on it as she as she got on her hidden bike

smiling

One sign said

I used to have a life once

I decided to talk to her about it

Same old sob story

Sores all over her face

Wasn’t going to admit she was a meth addict

Another sign said

I used to be somebody

Well she’s still somebody

Somebody on the streets

Another sign

Will work for food

Four restaurants hiring on the same street

Homeless and Hungry

Anything will help

When you give them food they’re disappointed

One man made a much better living begging

A cab driver told me they often make $200 a day

A better wage than his fifteen an hour plus tips

It’s lucrative

begging

I’ve interviewed a few to see

How they ended up on the streets

Ran away because my mother was a drug addict

Or her husband was sexually abusing me

Husband was an alcoholic

All pretty legit reasons

Sometimes tragic

Sometimes real

Usually not

It’s the lazy man’s profession

Some like it

They don’t mind the vagabond life

Enjoy the gypsy life riding the rails

They’ve made their own bed

Don’t mind sleeping in a bag on the streets

It’s just like camping

Much easier than taking care of a house

All that responsibility

They like the simple life

Most take your money for alcohol and drugs

They don’t really want food

Don’t be fooled and feel too sorry for these

“Victims”

Sometimes these “Victims” are victimizing

You

Zero Population Growth

Some people believe in quality

Not quantity

Unlike California who adds a new million each year

Or India

Teeming with life

Beggars

Merchants

Yogis

Cremation at the Ganges

Recycling life into another reincarnation

Or China

Population grew so large the government forced contraception

Only one for a while

Only two in the country

A boy valued more than a girl

Infanticide of females became too common

Today freeways buzz like bees twenty four seven

Traffic stopping like clogged arteries at rush hours

New lanes and new structures line them with commerce

Urban sprawl leaving no room

For pastures for cows

Meadows for Meadow Larks

Or clean air to breathe

Back in the seventies there was a push

Only two children per couple

The world then was three billion

Now fifty years later the world population bulges

More than double

Humanity has not taken the idea seriously

Responsibility with the life force

An afterthought

When does the earth reach

“The fullness of it’s Creation”

Does that mean humanity is the only life form left