middle class – novamartinpoetry.com

The Poverty O Everyone

We stopped at the edge of town,
saw ourselves weeping,
eating our meal for the day
underneath dusty summer air
and the paint chips of oak tree shadows.
The ranch lifestyle we live
with value meals and escapism.
It’s all so much bigger out here
when we take to the road with car,
fellow conscripts of celebrities and story,
along this caravan of want and wanting.
I have participated,
traded the Native American-gold-U.S. dollar.

By the end of your french fries,
your hands covered in grease,
to the town, a sink, a bed,
before you rise and work the grocery aisles.
We’ll return to the burned fields of wheat,
sharing small talk and crooked jaw talk
about the government.

You ask me if I’ve seen,
I ask you if you’ve seen…
Something that’s passed us by
we watch on TV.

Poems

Cloudburst Above The Metroplex

God said to a seed,
“let the life go on”.

I am the seed

and so is the drunkard
I’ve seen in the tavern
every eve of my life;

the bank account he dreams of is seed,

people have told him one he will need,

but still he awakes each morning.

Poems

The Inequalities Of Women

She lived
while other women
in her church
died,
got breast cancer,
had heart attacks,
grew old.
Her arms stayed thin
on the bone
while others got fat
and flabby,
marbled with vericose veins
and their breath grew
stale and sour.
She felt the fallen masculinity
in the men around her,
their loss of heroism,
though she loved her husband
nonetheless.
She knows this is what
our way of life offers,
so she lived in the moments in between,
the trips to
the nursing home
to visit friends
and the turning of the
Bible pages.

Poems

The Class of Tom And Del Greco

The slaves have gone.
Euripedes, Thucycles;
the slaves have not gone.
The slaves have left their
robes and linens.
Their guitars and banjos
are leaning on the fence.

The slaves take down
the senator’s eye
and in place
put in the olive seed.

They eat and sleep in
the commoners’ homes,
the track houses and
cheap apartments,
not starting a revolution
that starts a revolution.
The slaves.

Antipoémus, Poems

S.T.R.E.N.G.T.H. Cats

In the middle of the night I awake
to the smell of bacon and eggs in the air.

The people of the world
are outside on the lawn cooking bacon and eggs
for the President of the United States.

The United States military is standing all around them,
pointing guns at them
while they cook bacon and eggs for the President.

They give him the eggs of their daughters,
their ovaries for an American football match,
a contest of strength.

The President is the Signifier of Penis.
This sentence is the signifier of rape.

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin

from:

Antipoémus (poetry book)

Poems

A New Pathway Of Economy

No one wants to work today.

Is it going to be that kind of day,

where all the people line up outside
along buildings,
buildings with red bricks
and discuss politics?

Politics are working, and so are people.

Who is unfortunate to not work,
to not be a part of the system?

Who is that sad faced woman over there,
disheveled and confused in the sun,
plastic bags wrapped around her feet,
a couple hairs on her chin,
searching
for food in the parking lot of a superstore?

The superstore is working so far,
with people working in it.
More people will work with smiles now
because the day before,
when people didn’t want to work,

is over,

and
in a new town
these people are happy to work.

They work for their living.

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin

Poems

Domestic Greenleaf

Something by the river spooked me and
I thought about my finances.

Everyday
we’ve eaten in the kitchens of Rome
since then,
you know, Summer Funtastico over and over.

You went shopping in a furniture store.

We have those bottles of olive oil and herbs
in our home of domesticity.

The visitors come, their hearts are warmed,
the scented candles burn.

An achy knee needs a bubble bath,
Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin

Poems

Le Bourgeois

Should I devein my shrimp?

I bought it in a place that
sells people shrimp.

People who work for the people
who own the place that
sold me my shrimp have
told me
it would be best of me to
devein my shrimp,
but they’ll also sell to me
a service called “shrimp deveining”.

So now I wonder,
should I devein my shrimp
or pay someone who earns
less than me a little money
to devein my shrimp?

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin

Poems

The Elementary School Across From Whataburger

The little girl is talking to the trees
But the trees won’t wake up
To tell her what she needs

How her hair is
Who her friends will be
What side of town her family should
Live

The trees are old
They’ve lived long enough
They think it’s stupid what they’d
Have to explain
So they stay asleep
And the other kids avoid
The little girl talking to the trees
Because she’s different
And won’t walk around in circles
In the parking lot
Like the rest of the kids are told
To do so by their P.E. teachers
Because it’s a part of the curriculum
The planning of making tomorrow’s
Americans
be like this

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin

Poems

Soda And Derelict

The civil clerk is a good person
and usually is anyways
good
left up to others
to take care of tasks
would nothing become
someone else’s job is for Sunday
or some day of learning
does until done
what is needed on a morning
all parents die

Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin