Month: September 2015

#30Days30Sonnets

On a Day Like Today

  • by kwirb

ON A DAY LIKE TODAY

Reflections on glass and perceptions en masse;
Wear masks attained, brain pulses strain –
Where hope can’t last and courage must pass
through trials and troubles and pain.

And up from the ashes, these fascist masses,
Like wingless phoenixes in ashy deepness,
in grass too brown and brass, lyrically harasses,
this edict of dreaming in scenic, heavenly helix.

The stares we can bare from the prejudice wearer
and the mumbling and buckling of steps that stumble
on impaired prayer where the only terror’s error
is the humble still fumbling in tumbled crumble.

On a day like today, hope must remain
As our half empty hearts ebb and wane.

@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 11th 2015.

Poetry

My Brother, It’s 2001.

  • by kwirb

MY BROTHER, IT’S 2001.

Traitor! You were supposed to be my brother.
You were supposed to love and forgive.
You tried to tear us from one another.
Instead you remind us how to live.

You remind us that life isn’t fair.
You remind us that we are one; with the world; one nation.
You showed us, as our brother, that you’d dare
to destroy a part of you: Creation.

You want to tear us apart.
You want to take our lives away.
As if you, my brother, had no heart.
As if you, yourself, don’t live day after day.

Many did cry, many did suffer.
Many wished it were all a dream.
You didn’t cry, but you will suffer,
you’re gonna wish it were a dream.

All those souls are gone.
All that’s left is a hole.
You may think you’ve won, my brother,
the one without a soul.

Victory, you don’t have
for you, my brother, are a coward.
What did you expect to have?
After destroying those Twin Towers?

Did you want love? Freedom? Attention?
Or do you just hate us so much?
So much, that it’s too much to mention?
Hatred to the point of such? Of such.

I can’t believe I was alive that day.
The day we all ended up dying.
I can’t believe the price we had to pay,
nor the tears we ended up crying.

God, did we even have to pay that price?
Tell me, my brother, I need to know.
You play our lives like a game of dice.
And you have absolutely no remorse to show?

My brother, you were not sad to see us go.
You are not sad to see us go, my brother.
You’ve sunk to a morale so low; so low.
I’m ashamed to call you my brother.

Sibling, do you want me to die like a son-of-a-bitch?
Or will that not be enough for you?
Do you want me to put the gun to my head, pull the trigger, and NOT flinch?
Or is that STILL not enough for you?

I don’t understand why you don’t give a damn.
Nor how your hate is the definition of homicidal rage.
Why couldn’t you just reach out your hand?
Why did you choose to reach this stage?

My brother, I can only wish that it weren’t too late.
The tears and this, we will not forget.
Because, with all your hate,
not enough tears in solitude can be wept.

Brother, why did you do this to you and me?
Why did you put those disgusting thoughts and images in my head?
Why did you choose to make a world where hope is made a folly?
What made you think it was worth the bloodshed?

A dagger should be welded into your heart of steel,
You cold-blooded murderer.
Our gaping wounds will never heal
because we know you want to take it further.

If you are not frightened, then I fear for you.
Humanity has been defined and now I am scared.
Sometimes I just close my eyes and say, “It’s not true.”
Leave everything behind because I’m so scared.

I can’t believe you’re human; that you have lives.
Of course, with that amount of insanity,
you took your own lives, others’lives, with lives.
What is your definition of humanity?

When those towers fell, my heart sank.
When people began to run, I felt weak?
My own brother made us walk the plank.
It was my life that he wished to seek.

When we thought it was over,
when we began the search of bodies to find,
when, to our own brother, we turned a cold shoulder,
It was at that moment that humanity was blind.

Later we’d say, “After the attack…”.
People, brother: It’s two thousand and one.
I feel like history is back.
Like we’ve only just begun.

Early morning September eleven,
the world changed with a crash.
Thousands too many of souls went to a heaven.
People such as you and I: gone in a flash.

New York City remains the city that doesn’t sleep.
The city where Lady Liberty has new meaning.
The city that hasn’t really begun to weep.
New York City: Forever-Healing.

So, my brother, what do you want to do now?
What is it that you wish to prove?
Are you preparing for the next surprise how?
To wake us on a new day filled with a more terrorizing morning’s dew?

Flying had always been the ultimate freedom.
Flying was meant to be free.
Yet that was how you chose to steal them.
To deprive them of life’s freedom on a killing-spree.

American. Canadian. Black. White.
What the hell’s the difference?
Why must we all die for one man’s plight?
Why do our children have to witness this?

Brother, how are you still alive?
I, myself, can barely walk this Earth without feeling the pain.
How are you able to jump and jive?
At the thought of your own family being slain?

Now that damage has been done, I feel useless,
And somehow you’ve continued, as we try to leave all this behind.
New Yorkers and mankind alike are clueless
And as you choose to continue, humanity is (yet again) redefined.

Brother you, too, one day shall in the fire burn.
And on that moment when we think it’s over:
we will grieve at more lives wasted.

For each of my brothers and sisters will want to take their turn.
Indeed, tomorrow is a new day,
for someone else’s pain thought another brother’s hatred.

received_10153540932127403received_10153540932167403-Joanna Francisco
September 11th 2001.

As the title suggests, I wrote this in high school on the evening of
September 11th. There are some pretty good metaphors and some decent flow of words here and there, but I think between the angst/hormones/lack of vocabulary, it’s not as superfluous as I’d remembered, but it’s still commendable for my age then looking at it 15 years later. Images courtesy of Alexis Ward, taken from that year’s yearbook.

#30Days30Sonnets

Power Pursuasion

  • by kwirb

POWER PURSUASION

How did this battle for powerless power
and in its devoured scowls empowered,
did we cower at the hour of weakness’ shower
whose flowerless towers made vows more dour?

Time and again, with the happening’s pen,
we tend to offend with a blend of impend,
from chagrin has-beens and wise men therein,
we overextend our dependence on pretend ends.

With innards aflutter we prayed in dismay,
and our mind clutter’s utter, we bade into sway.
We mutter and stutter, blockades of delay,
and slaughter in gutters of weights and decay.

This power cascaded, evading invasion degraded,
but raids of parades unaided have little persuaded.

@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 10th 2015.

#30Days30Sonnets

Umbrellas and Raincoats

  • by kwirb

UMBRELLAS AND RAINCOATS

Between what you see in out of tune strings and half notes
Like pages you’ve read with useless words that do not rhyme
Or ballad patterns wrong, these rhythmic songs in half time–
somewhere in them lies poetic things that you wish you wrote.

You write of a field of umbrellas and raincoats.
As you stand on the soaked land of rain’s victim-riddled crime,
hearing whistle winds who refuse to meantime chime,
within, dark clouds sputtering on you no quotable quotes.

Construe excitement from wet dullness into words surreal.
And try to avoid deliberate poetic device citing.
You can also try to surmise what your sonnet implies.

Yet, you always write what you think and not what you feel,
then proceed to tell others, “This is poetry writing…”
But, between you and I, this umbrella and raincoat are dry.

@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 9th 2015.

#30Days30Sonnets

Rival

  • by kwirb

RIVAL

Thoughtlessness has weighed down these wings,
despite the velocity of these near dreams.
Its attitude latitudes on meaningless things,
of worldly opinions, and devious schemes.

But should I attempt this ascension mention?
Or pay better attention to tense contentions?
Shall I instead extend this condescension?
Or perhaps take solace in reality suspension?

It would be a lesser stressor to say we have parted,
to grow apart, and move on, without further insult;
Though better it is for the words we have thwarted,
becoming strangers; dishonesty is a worser result.

I cannot rival the words that contrive
but I will strive on and pray we survive.

@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 8th 2015.

#30Days30Sonnets

Reality, Circumstantially

  • by kwirb

REALITY, CICRUMSTANTIALLY

(actually) Discuss this life, shall we, this anomaly,
in its insanity’s duality’s capacity, understandably,
using fractionally simple faculty and easy analogy
and rapidly parody this triviality anatomy,
a commonality fallacy of collective mentality,
the austerity galaxy of inhumanity mastery,
an apogee’s vitality of our mortality laxity,
in the tapestry center of gravity, tactfully,
with audacity of tragedy and dastardly travesty
whose alacrity amnesty of this reality canopy
is the calumny cavalry of uncanny brutality,
the apathy prodigy of philanthropy and fantasy,
the tenacity modality of catastrophe rhapsody,
as a casualty-less finality of this vanity calamity?

@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 7th 2015.

#30Days30Sonnets

Mass Media Minions

  • by kwirb

Mass Media Minions

Newsworthy, noteworthy, all of it surreal.wpid-wp-1441573963386.jpeg
We are the minions of their humble opinion.
People, places, things; a treacle less regal,
to nourish the common, empty-vessel’d civilian.

And it does not matter if you are resilient
For all that you hear cannot be unheard
For the millions, and billions, and trillions
is your neighbor and friend, who quotes every word.

So, now that you know of each action occurred,
Of the facts irrelevant; sustained, remain mundane’d,
It is enough. To corrupt. And beseech and unlearn.
We are Mass Media Minions; lamed and contained.

We seemingly dream of keeping heads and eyes on,
but can we rise above the artificial horizons?


@kwirb #30Days30Sonnets
September 6th 2015.