©2022 Gerry Shepherd
Ghazal: To Survive
They say through any season All our people can thrive But they are out of touch with those Trying to survive Working through a crisis While nursing wind-chapped palms Too much labor encourages Dying to survive A secret garden forming One covered by the webs The truth will catch us while we are Lying to survive Too much consumption breeding The Joneses, status high Bankruptcy will result in one Buying to survive This moral inventory Is filled with shadow selves They force us to face demons while we’re Crying to survive Emerging are the mushrooms And herbs and weeds and berries We don’t always need wings when we are Flying to survive We try to be ourselves Second to our masks To normalize the traits we are Denying to survive Religion predatory Our worth reduced to wealth Selective faith upon which we’re Relying to survive Addition of a trauma Subtracts a will to live Divisions asexual Multiplying to survive This world is too damn frustrating And we’re losing our minds Society screws us whether We’re dead or we’re alive
Wilderness
The memory remains of seeing her descent down the rabbit hole Prayed that one day I could see the soul That once entranced me Her thoughts were knots on a rope containing messages no human could ever decipher She was a skeleton disjointed and stripped of skin and marrow She was a sage whose mind was corrupted But even if she walked through the door I’d leave open… I’d still miss her
In The Dust… (Bop)
As cluster bombs and daisy cutters soar This globe stands by as our damnation starts Demonic or divine - not sure which side Will we ascend as virtue trumps our sins? Upon this hostile ground, we pray for peace Although ill-timed, for we currently cry In the dust that was a city A war within our minds is what we fight To cast aside our grudges and our gripes No longer will incite chaotic coups Against the wall, we face just one boundary Sometimes under the desk is where we’d hide Now paranoia dictates liberty Democracy in peril as we lay Our laurels now cremated and now lie In the dust that was a city I may look down and kiss my ass goodbye Society dissolves humanity A legacy of disenfranchisement Rich men will reign this racist republic Fighting against other leaders and yet Our armies fight their battles and will die In the dust that was a city
©2022 Jacob R. Moses
All rights reserved
Jacob R. Moses…
…is a poet and spoken word artist from Staten Island, NY. He is the author of the full-length poetry book, Grimoire (iiPublishing, 2021). Currently, he is pursuing a Masters in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.
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