Author: PoetryPhrog

by Kelley Egan

No misery was quite the same,

no pill on earth

could have eased my pain.

No school could teach you

what i’ve learned

my father will beat you with no concern.

No Religion,

that is correct.

No discussion of resurrect.

No diseased cities

on your face.

Cancer of society-erased.

  Destruction is just a game,

  and all these vices,

  they’re all the same.

 Don’t let them lead you

  down to shame.

 All they preach, it’s all insane.

  Like livin’ in luxury,

  No that’s just crap.

  Live with some peace, don’t fall in that trap.

 The higher you get

 the harder they fall.

 Can’t save themselves, if they crawled.

 Say Goodbye to all

 your silly beasts.

 The monsters from within-deceased.

by Catherine Smith

A father to two beautiful girls

Who thought more of their dad than anything in the world.

The love they gave you was just not enough,

But how can you blame them for your own stuff?

It wasn’t your girls that made you run.

It was the lost love of their mother that handed you the gun.

Some might say she’s a fool for not stopping you,

But how can you blame her for the things you do?

Going to the park was such a smart choice.

At two o’clock in the morning no one would hear the noise.

But you had it all planned; you told her before.

Then you blamed her for letting you walk out the door.

Yes, killing someone makes you so much bigger than the rest.

At least no one but you will have to deal with your nest.

Your life was jut way too hard,

But was she the one to blame for all of the scars?

It was almost as if your life was a game.

You played until you finally reached your fame.

Did you reach the level you wanted in life;

Or is she to blame for not wanting to be your wife?

Leaving now was such a great plan,

No more worries about her leaving you for another man.

What a smart thing indeed to shatter your own window.

How can you blame her for not wanting to be a widow?

by Chelsey Lucas

Solemn, she looked down upon her America and cried,
            What have you become?

Her faded jean overalls scratch on the crumbling steps
of her three story multiple family
home
crammed and destitute,
poor, like her father who,
with hands cracked, worn, and covered in dirt, worked several shifts at many jobs,
there just wasn’t enough for them.
There was never enough.

America, what have you become?

Your children’s children are starving in the streets
And your brave policemen are afraid of the fags in NYC
And your businessman are bankrupting You, America,
            What have you become?
With your poor getting poorer
            streets getting darker
            cities getting smaller
            heart beating softer

Little girl crying at gunshots in the ghetto
but her daddy’s at work,
he can’t protect her. America, no one can
protect her.

America, what have you become?

by Justin Oberg

We sleepwalk

            Eyes closed

            Ears shut

            Minds off.

The hate we awake with is

            Not our own.

We are flung

            From the

            Dream

                        Bliss state

And projected into the

            Paranoid hivemind

Our reality is lost behind

                        Glass curtains

                        Of plasma

                        And projectors

            And the imagination

            Has been replaced

            With “reality”

Everyone is out to get us

            And we don’t even

                        Know who “us”

            Is.

And even the clear mind picture

            Is not real enough

Not colorful and not fast

            Enough

                        Enough

And we the poets write

            Uninterpretable critiques

Instead of saying “go back

            To sleep.”