Category: Uncategorized

Roses

I only pretend to smell the roses
when I kiss their petals with lips
chapped by twenty years of thirst.

I never expected to live this long
without you.

For the Bird who Smashed into my Window

All that remained airborne
was a solitary feather
on its final flight

Not understanding death
drifting down

Galileo

Poets have been howling at the moon
since before we invented language

Our ancestors gazed at the stars
noticed five among thousands
that wandered the skies like chariots

Astrologers and scientists tracked
Jupiter as he marched along
regularly retracing his steps
at his most glorious

No one knew of his four escorts
each brighter than the little dipper
until Galileo pointed his telescope
up — and revealed what had been hidden
by the Jovian glare

And I mourn for the eons of reflected sunlight
wasted on our puny human eyes

I didn’t choose to say

yes or no

when a falling lamp knocked me

to my knees

not a soul beside me on that floor

no one to hear my whispered pleas

Placed like a sausage inside a tube

incessant knocking

relentless pain

Good news!

no stroke or bleeding brain

CONCUSSION

Rest your brain

I’m trying

Rest your brain sweet child

tears are a waste

now stop that crying

Can you not see me

can you not hear me

I’m screaming inside

Someone tell me

I’m not really dying

Rest your brain

rest your brain

can’t you see how hard

I’m trying?

This poem was published in Social Justice Inks Anthology by Lisa Tomey’s Prolific Pulse Press, available for purchase onAmazon.

An old woman took her granddaughter to the mall.

She wanted to buy her little girl a lollipop.

The shopkeeper asked her to pay at the facial recognition machine.

She was too poor to own a digital device,

too helpless to be tech savvy,

and she only scraped by using the money in a biscuit tin.

The shopkeeper told her that business could not accept cash payment anymore,

for the public health order said it all.

She pleaded with the shopkeeper saying they were clean and healthy.

All she wanted was a good old days’ reward for her granddaughter.

The little girl looked up to her tear-filled eyes,

“Nana, you are the sweetest thing in the whole wide world,

more than all the lollies in the shop.

Our papa…

A serpent turning

into a great bird

with wings of blue

and words I heard

killing and blood

death and sorrow

innocence crying

forgetting tomorrow

great his sword

wings shine white

serpent sailing high

God’s hand did smite

dazzling light rising

many souls ascend

heaven greets all

souls reside within

-JONI CAGGIANO

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