based on standards or rationality…

Photo Challenge from Toni Cross

now i paid good money
to rent this place
but it ain’t no
american dream
just a second floor apartment
where watching your step
becomes a way of life
carefully ascending
this stairway to heaven
becomes a way of avoiding
a shortcut to the hereafter
you may have noticed
i change the outside
decoration depending on
who’s in power
that way maybe
i’ll get a job
see i found
that the folks who
make it in the world
are willing to
go with the flow
sellout to the highest bidder
now i know
you think that’s wrong
but hell think ’bout
all those folks
we elected
promised to do what’s best for the country
and child
what did they do when they got there
started doing things like everybody else
the old doctor jeckel and hyde syndrome
but you can’t blame them
look at the mess the world’s in
they just want to keep their job
so they
give the voters what they don’t need
and probably shouldn’t have
shine shoes for some corporate bigwig
with your voting ballot
but let’s be honest
one has to lookout for their
own retirement benefits
so although it’s taken me awhile
i’ve learned my lesson well   

This poem is really a duel challenge one photo challenge from Toni Cross and a second written challenge from John Holmes.  With any luck at all I’ve managed to’ hit two birds with one stone’ as they say.  They are both friends…well they were right up to the time that I published this response to their challenges.

rose starlet…

Photography by Vlad

when was it
that you first began
to believe
all that they said of you
      fairest
      of them all
      in the land
so you let them
prune your wild branches
shaping you like all the rest
removing all your thorns
to make you safe to touch
      far more commercial
      they said
socially acceptable
and then
they cut you from your roots
betraying promises made
placing you upon a pedestal
of wall street’s profits and gains
to be sold to the highest bidder
now just
another slave on the market place
a solitary rose with promises made
placed in a lover’s vase
a vow soon forgotten
a mere footnote of passion
with wilting petals of hope
as your sole companion
a rose
suffocating in guilt
drying in the heat of despair
longing for a love
long
gone  

This is the sixth part of a series of poetry challenges between Jade (http://jadepaloma.wordpress.com/) and me. The whole idea behind it is to send a picture ( in this case by Vlad) to the other as inspiration (or visual muse, if you want to), and the other has to write a poem inspired by the image. Visit her site to see how she has responded to m fifth challenge photograph on her site.