free verse poems

Improving Education

Starve the public schools
By refusing to
Pay taxes.

Declare that teachers
And schools are
Broken.

Under the guise
Of school choice,
Dismantle the system.

Pass bills so public money
Can be spent on private,
Religious, or home education.

Help private corporations
Get their slice of
The pie.

Only support education
That furthers your
Political goals.

Issue proclamations
About how you’re
Improving education.

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Certain Things

Helen volunteers at a
Local food pantry that
Helps people with far less
Than she has, though she
Can remember when she too
Had very little of anything.

She’s mostly chipper as
She greets the people who
Come in to ask for some
Kind of help, although
She’s particularly acerbic
About this one woman.

It seems this lowlife drives
Up to the building in
A fancy car, which rubs Helen
The wrong way, after all,
Poor people aren’t allowed
To do certain things.

The woman with the car
Never says a word, nobody
Knows her story, where she
Came from, what she had to
Overcome to get to this point,
And why she asks for assistance.

His Business

He owns a thriving company
Which affords him a lifestyle
He never could have imagined
As a child, no one in his family
Had succeeded like this before.

When he attends meetings with
Fellow business owners he
Often overhears conversations
About cutting employee pay,
Hours, benefits, training.

He emphatically disagrees
With this cold approach,
Opting instead to treat his
Workers as part of the family,
People to be esteemed.

His business is one of
Caring and kindness,
Where people are valued.
Sure, he makes money,
But not at someone’s expense.

Walking Together

Walking together
Through the park,
Admiring all the
Lovely trees and
Beautiful animals,
Talking about anything
And everything.

Her Time

She spends
Most of her time
Cleaning the house
And preparing food
For everyone else.

Once in a while
She’s permitted to
Go do the shopping
At the market and come
Straight back home.

Her brothers go off
To school each day,
She watches them
Longingly from
The window.

Sometime before she
Turns eighteen,
She will
Be promised to
A stranger.

Just the Other Day

It seems like just
The other day
You and I
Talked about things
Vast and light,
Playing off each other
As only those
Who are close do.

Self-Defense

A familiar scene
Repeated with startling
Regularity.

One person,
Riddled with fear,
Discriminates against another.

The next step is to
Cry foul and insist the
Victim is the perpetrator.

Building a house of
Maudlin self-pity,
Pretending they’re persecuted.

Maiming others
With impunity by
Claiming self-defense.

Sometimes, Oftentimes

He could get very
Angry about the situation
But chooses instead to
Wish the object of
His contempt well and
Move on with his life.
Sometimes, oftentimes,
It’s just better to
Let things go and
Heal the world in
Some small way.

Rancid

Same hierarchy imposed,
People standing
In rancid cliques pretending
To feel comfortable
In their own skins.

Reliving past triumphs
And the rush that came
From disparaging others,
Walking by with a nose
In the air, punch on the arm.

Years later,
Glory days still fondly
Revisited by husks
Too broken to rewire
The obsolete mess.