Lisa Haviland

Now Normal

It is

now normal, the way that sea level
has been shaken upside down,
a perfect way for have-nots
to drown.

now normal, the way the deranged order you
to pull yourself up
while they whip you
with those proverbial bootstraps.

now normal, to out an operative,
and, two tired years later, when you are finally
indicted, to be referred to as noble
by the news.

now normal,
to prosecute blow jobs,
but not treason, this
age of absent reason.

now normal,
to look back on Nixon
with something bordering on nostalgia –
but not quite.

now normal, to pretend poor people
are better off in a dome
than a home, though it is
sort of scary – for you, not them.

now normal, to rebuild a Catholic church
by adding a fountain and some
marble flooring, forgetting
the pedophiles you’re supposedly abhorring.

It is now normal.
They don’t even need
to make this stuff up any more –
unless they want to wage official war.

Charles Frederickson

Unknowns

Drawing curtains back on ageless
Life and lives I never
Bothered caring enough about to
Touch or be touched by

Far removed world less distant
After having moved there been
Moved by still moving while
Standing still getting caught up

Clearing out collected relics of
Eons ago ruins revealing mostly
Fake antique forgeries spread out
Filling time and space dispossessed

More remains concealed than confided
Long guarded secrets spill out
Reserved for private ears to
Hear nobody ever listened keepsakes

Unaware I was ever lost
Though admittedly never saying so
Reliving history not yet recorded
Searching for buried treasure chest

Digging up bygone fragments of
Eugenic past reduced to rubble
What never really was might
Have been exiled to oblivion

People attitudes places emotions things
Changed my life starring roles
Cast of characters keeps changing
As do endings curtains drawn

Kumuda Ranjan Panda

Unemployment

Unemployment
is the sea of desert
sea of tranquility
sea of scorpion
crumbling and slipping
having no direction
but it is a sea in mind

Unemployed
is a treee of wooden structure
tree of black burnt wood
no green bird , except
vulture, eagle preys
starving for flesh
under the tree
foxes wolves hunter dogs
liquid of mouh of greediness
an unemployed
is a deaf having hearing power
a dumb being a good speaker
of the teen
blind even being selected in
air force earlier
a handicappied
being skilled physically

Unemployed is sufferer
from society, family
mentally, individually
spiritually as well materially
hence a diseased like
epilepsy abnormality and parlysis

Unemployed
is a illiterate with a degree
a lonely man with
thousand friends and relatives
a frustrated man seening the youth
moving luxuriously
a jelous of
wealthy playing and dancing youth
a blamer of fate