One Hopeful Morning Up the River

Someone made their own fun during the depression

Outside the city with no place to live.

Stateless immigrants and migrant workers

That could escape to countryside watering holes.

Fishing nets in hands of friends.

Indentured servants on furlough;

The factory behind my bench no longer humming.

Suddenly they are better off than their landlords,

In the blessing of simpler times,

Knowing  how to enjoy survival,

Richer than the bankers’ brokers;

Those privileged greedy real-life chokers

That could not depend on themselves to fry a fish.

What our city urchins could now concur,

Banned from green fields, liberating harvests

Not reduced to stealing apples from broken carts,

Or perhaps a meal when prison starts, 

But millions of chickens purged by staffing shortage,

In the upcoming world of material collapse,

Make  them empty the store shelves into the streets,

Squat in the homes of empty investors,

And whack the fascists till they squelch and squeal.

April 25, 2020

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Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Sky Falling on Formosa

See live recitation here.

loving my strawberry crunch pie pop
as mask-less children and joggers romp
all alone i stare at ghosts
that pepper pages of Facebook hosts
wafting in corona breeze
spitting out pieces of American sleaze 
far from Formosa if you please

with time enough at last to read
with Henry Bemis what i need
with no class affronting education
on an apocalyptic vacation 
the last man standing with glasses intact
no needless worry or falsified fact
on literate Formosa avoiding flack

i am the little red hen who has baked her bread
alone in my kitchen with everyone dead
dead wrong about not helping me bake
home quarantined; can't go to their wake
ain't done nothing if you ain't been called a red
i don't let the meltdown go to my head
as a faithful expat in Formosa instead 

i am the pied piper that called the tune
for those who wait in emergency rooms
i have lured out and removed American bats
and led them away from my beautiful cats
to get me back there would be hell to pay
here is where i want to stay
on the pesticide of a Formosa day

i am Tommy in my happy holiday camp
playing pinball through a world gone damp
knowing you won't follow me any way you go
on the amazing journey to learn all i can know
on a double score from Uncle Ernie's lair
all i can do is shake my head and stare
glad to be alive with Formosa universal care

i am Goosey Loosey and they are Henny Penny
the sky is falling on one too many
i live on an island near some ants red
in a winter of famine watching grasshoppers led
for face masks, testers and ventilator men 
blaming China and WHO on CNN
The fruitful Formosan chorus joining in

in this fairy tale's nightmare i have seen
a healthy rivalry in a dream 
like the jealous sibling Taiwan repels
distancing itself from its cohort too well
Will America's sky for Foxy Woxy fall
in a slit-eyed adventure missing the call
Let Taiwan be Formosa once and for all  

April 18, 2020
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Purchase "Unnatural Beauty; Poems from the Han Riverside"
 Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Sometimes the river runs to me

Watch a live rendition of the first draft here.

Sometimes the river runs to me

When I am tired of peddling upstream.

There is a place by the rainbow bridge

Where my needs receptive 
Can mingle with retentive,

Like falling into someone's open arms,

And floating to a sea of joy

Without a hint of tomorrow’s anchorage or restitution.

Let's go see what waits for us

In every moment of our soft lit eyes,

A pool of youth reflecting your smile,

If only for a little while.

Let me dabble in the spring bubbling up

Through the fissures of a broken world.

Haven’t I had enough of less-than-life fascination?

Enduring workmen's dedication?

What about the rest of the time

With bends and turns for my restless spirit?

Why see it spurned when serendipity arises

Before my last gasp of breath?

If I let the river reach my shore,

Wet my feet with effervescence,

Life will be sweet with infatuation once more.

April 13, 2020
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

           Purchase "Unnatural Beauty; Poems from the Han Riverside"

            Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved