A Showcase For P H Poets: November 2015: Section ' D '...[10th Monthly Showcase Of Poems; Some Changes; A New Poem Introduction! ; “fun”? ] Poem by Bri Edwards

In this SECTION “D “of the November 2015 showcase, the poems will be (generally) of the following length: MORE THAN 50 [FIFTY] LINES. Each poet may have one poem in this section.
Shorter poems are to be found in Sections A, B, and C. Please see previous months’ showcases, particularly the two showcases for October, designated Section A and Section B, to learn more about how I am managing this display of poems by PH poets. This month the showcase has four (4) sections: A, B, C, and D!

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THE POETS:

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FOUR: KIM BARNEY (United States; Male; '100')

River Ran Red

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THREE: SEEMA JAYARAMAN (India; Female; 43)

Trussed Up - Packaged For Delivery (Against Human Trafficking)

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TWO: BRIAN JOHNSTON (United States; Male; 72)

The Missing Ingredient

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ONE: BRI EDWARDS (United States; Male; 67)

Friends: Jack C. Dental And Jon Purpose …. [LONG; fiction; friends growing up; life]

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THE POEMS:
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FOUR: by Kim Barney


River Ran Red


The Union troops were on the left,
the Rebels on the right.
Both sides prepared their cannonballs
and muskets for the fight.

A little skirmish was in store,
at least that's what they thought;
but there would never any more
be such a battle fought!

Now with the dawn the battle's on;
the guns begin to sound,
and before long there is a throng
of bodies on the ground.

Both sides expected victory
would be forthcoming soon
and were most surprised when they realized
it was already noon.

The bodies fell and landed not
upon the grass or ground,
for there was not a single spot
still empty to be found.

Instead the bodies piled there
upon each other deep
as each began to undertake
his last, eternal sleep.

The hillside now was drenched in blood,
could not hold any more,
and so into the stream in flowed,
all of that excess gore.

'Twas twenty thousand fell that day,
and yet two thousand more.
The stream ran red from all the dead
who fell there near the shore.

Major General George McClellan
led those arrayed in blue.
Had he not been so cautious,
the war would have been through.

For General Lee began to flee
and George just let him go,
his troops too tired to pursue
his almost conquered foe.

Who won the fight? Nobody won!
It seems that both sides lost.
Somebody's brother, someone's son- -
Oh, what an awful cost!

The battlefield is peaceful now,
so solemn and so still,
yet one can almost see somehow
those bodies on that hill.

Their voices cry up from the soil,
Yes, I can hear them plain.
Such wasted effort, wasted toil,
Why did we die in vain?

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Bri's note: Check out the photo on Kim's poem's page.

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THREE: by Seema Jayaraman


Trussed Up - Packaged For Delivery (Against Human Trafficking)

Wide eyed horror, why do you look at me
It definitely is, a human child in a cardboard
So here I am on your facebook post
Pictured a forward, could have been lost
Like a chicken all trussed up,
knees drawn high to chin
Arms tightly wrapped over shin
Brown duct taped, two tight spins
teeny patch plastered over lips
to hold my screams of terror within

You appear aghast and mortified
lifeless scrawny girl, kidnapped from poverty
Snatched from the labyrinth of humanity
You wonder what dividends ever justify
Barbarism scavenging off hapless vulnerability
Another victim marked for human slavery
So tightly bundled up, in pitch darkness I lay
Not even air through my folded limbs
Life snuffed hurriedly, In my cloistered coffin
In vain, for release from my captors I prayed


You look at my south-eastern features
Glossy long bangs, bruised cheekbones
My tears stained face, hue pale
Don’t bother fixing my nationality
Cause I could belong to all humanity
So many more like me regularly preyed
brutally abused by every hand all day
It doesn’t matter whether I died on way
My organs could revive the rich near dead
Or as a sex slave or short lived cheap labor

Lifeless, you wonder why I died
an unclaimed package in a warehouse
What scared off the pickup guy
A cop chase or a barcode crash
or maybe a customs skirmish
that left me cold and shut eyed
Did I come through a ships folds
Or flew in through an aircraft hold
I wish I could share those stories
Had they left me enough to breath


You wonder what I held close, in my terror
Sweet memories of lullaby in a loving home
Or last hours of torture by my bestial perpetrators
Was I from farmlands or countryside's
Or from gutters bordering suburban shanties
Had I been blessed a roof and school roll
Was I picked playing on sidewalks
Or lost the hand of a well heeled Mom
At a bustling city mall, it doesn’t matter
What could a waif do seven or eight years old

You think aloud, how I could fit
In a brown box just two feet by three
Any child an accomplished contortionist
I could have demonstrated were I alive
And with hands that wrapped me tight
I assure you I could have fitted smaller size
Blood clotted quickly, so tight my confines
you might have to break a few bones
before you straighten my limbs
Stiffened at so many joints, in rigor mortis

You pray for a miracle, my picture never seen
so you don’t have to labor a share or a pause
Cause I couldn’t belong to your relatives
Age and sex no bar, neither the color of currency
A market for free labor, organ and slavery
an unforgiving wilderness around you exists
A depravity unparalleled in this world
So my story untold, a mystery for cops to unfold
A prayer is all I seek, let no child be born on earth
to line greedy pockets that sacrifice innocent births
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Copyright ©Seema Jayaraman, Mumbai 28Oct2015 All Rights Reserved

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TWO: by Brian Johnston



The Missing Ingredient


Oh God, you must know what I’m missing out on
Though at times I am not really sure,
If it’s possibly not inconvenient “in Truth”
Might You help me discover the cure?

My loneliness never does leave me alone,
Though I swear I’ve been lonelier still,
When I lay in the arms of the girl of my dreams,
Like a rain beaten lost daffodil.

Too many romances end up at arm’s length,
Some like pushing a boulder exhaust,
And I’m feeling like Sisyphus under a curse,
Makes me wonder if LIFE’s worth the cost?

And certainly women must feel the same way
Hard to intuit I’m that unique.
Doesn’t make sense to try to blame lack of success,
Or a genetic lack of physique!

Somehow it is clear there are women and men
Who have found love, who seem to have won,
Though I find myself sitting at home every night,
It appears that they’re out having fun!

I’ve heard that it’s really the luck of the draw
But today I am doubting that’s true
It is one thing if Love doesn’t show up at all
Quite another if loser is you.

So where is that beauty that God meant for me
I can tell you she’s taking her time
And her dark machinations are taking their toll
Winning hearts is much tougher than rhyme.

But what truly scares me? The thought that she’s scared!
Tell me where can the answer be found!
If it isn’t an answer, inside we’re the same,
So perhaps we have some common ground.

And maybe it’s not just the women to blame
When my love life begins going South
For I know there’ve been times when tire iron was required
To extract my foot out of my mouth.

And yes I’ve been fearful of love in the past
And yes certainly times I’ve had cause.
Truly times that I felt I was clearly to blame
Still there’s something inside me that gnaws.

It’s like I am lacking in courage somehow,
Once more steely nerves now spongy rust.
I’m beginning to think there’s no shortage of love
What there is is a shortage of “trust.”

If I am reluctant to trust a new friend
Does that really reflect back on me.
Does it even make sense I trust cute women less
Expectations already not free?

I swear that I’m feeling disgust for myself!
Expectations just get in my way
Shouldn’t new romance mojo make no new demands?
Always serious, no time to play?

To “fall in love” must you give all of yourself?
Or can heart really only be shared!
To demand someone love you with ALL of their heart
Is a trap, any fool would be scared.

Such love means you’re setting yourself up to fail,
Though a pledge to be faithful is fine,
But my mind must be free to love just what it will
If you want to be my Valentine.

“Forever in love’s” meant to set minds at ease
But instead it brings wolf to the door,
And the people who heed it are no longer rich
Overnight they become sadly poor.

For “feeling in love” must be free to be real
Love’s a gift that must daily be sown
And the strange paradoxical part of it is
That love's flower is never full grown!

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ONE: by Bri Edwards


Friends: Jack C. Dental and Jon Purpose …..[LONG; fiction; friends growing up; life]

In neighboring hospitals (on the same day) Jon and Jack were born.
Jon came out with no complications, while Jack’s mother was accidentally torn ….
by Jack’s unusually large head before his mom was …..fully-dilated.
Her distress was so great that the doctor had Jack’s mom sedated.

Jack’s delivery room nurse wrote “female” instead of “male”. He got a pink cap.
For three days his mom called him Sarah, when he lay in her lap.
It took some doing to convince the hospital to just erase the “fe”.
[You’d think the nursery staff would have SEEN from where ……Jack did pee! ]

Jon’s proud parents smartly waited ….to buy their baby’s car seat.
That way when he was sent home with “Mom”, it held him nice and neat.
But Jack’s parents had been given a car seat, months before the birth,
and it was too SMALL, and the straps were too short to secure his girth.

Yes, Jack had a head oversized, along with the rest of him.
He’d grow up to be the largest kid in his classes; he’d NEVER be slim.
Speaking of classes, Jon and Jack went to the same pre-school.
At that early age, Jon was quiet and polite, while Jack played the fool.

I mean he was a born-clown. He even made the teacher laugh.
Sometimes he was TRYING to be funny, and at times he seemed half-
witted!
Though he too was polite and kind enough, “quiet” he was NOT!
On his pre-school report card (for “quiet in class”) a big “NO” he got.

In second grade, they both played on the school’s jungle gym.
While Jon moved quickly on it, Jack was slow; Jack was TALL as well as not slim!
In sixth grade, on the “monkey bars”, Jon swung cautiously to the landing.
Jack, a born-showoff, dropped when half-across, and broke a leg …..instead of standing.

In high school Jack played football; his opponents he’d often “cream”,
but as a “junior” (a bit careless) he once scored a touchdown for the other team!
Meantime, smaller Jon took up gymnastics, a sport that he loved.
No contact was needed with “opponents”; no need to tackle OR be shoved.

They both started dating girls in tenth grade ….when they turned fifteen.
They were close friends, and they shared what they HAD ……and had NOT seen, , , ,
on their dates, AND Jack showed Jon “girlie mags” …..he’d found in a neighbor’s trash.
Jack was the much more precocious teen; Jon was rally …………………..bash-
ful!

Jon was sure he wanted to be a doctor, long before he graduated.
Jack was going steady and was a star athlete; he thought “school’ was overrated.
But Jack’s mom and dad thought he should go to college on a …..football scholarship.
Meanwhile, Jon scored second academically in his high school class; he was ‘’smart ……as a whip”!

With his academic scholarship, Jon followed Jack to college.
The latter was going for football and girls, the former to get more knowledge.
So they were freshman roommates fifty miles away at old Cornell.
Jon spent hours at the library. Jack thought the girls were swell.

Jack had a girlfriend right away; he had several over four years.
One of them got pregnant, and she was ……..reduced to tears.
When Jack told Jon, Jon said “Didn’t you use protection, Jack? ”,
and Jack said “I would have, but I’d used up my last damn pack.”

Both Jack and the girl were “of age”, and decided to get wed.
But a month later she miscarried. The marriage was also dead.
So Jon suggested “divorce”, and Jack and Jill agreed.
From then on, Jon’s advice to “ALWAYS use protection”, Jack did heed.

Jack did (three times) score touchdowns for opponents, over four years.
BUT he scored so many more FOR Cornell, that (overall) he got cheers.
Jon saw a few of Jack’s games; Jon took HIS girlfriend ……………, Sue.
Jon and Sue got engaged and, guess what! Sue was premed too!


[Jack DID graduate on time, thanks to help from his football coach.]
Jon and Sue grew up in central New York (State) , and they wanted to be near their folks,
so they both went to Medical School in Syracuse, near Ontario Lake.
[Jack got drafted into the Army and “infantry training” he did take.]

Jack wrote to Jon that he thought he’d be shipped to “The Nam”.
Jon thought Jack sounded nervous, and tried to keep Jack calm ……
when he wrote back to him.
Then, while at “advanced infantry training”, Jack was playing football,
and a three-hundred pound opponent, on Jack’s ‘better leg’, did fall …..
HARD!

Jack was in a cast three months; the war “wound down”; no Nam for him.
He spent a year in Germany, at a U.S. Army base, found a fraulein (slim) .
Jon and Jack continued to write each other; they were GOOD friends.
Jon married Sue after two years of med school. Jack, his best wishes, did send.

Jack moved back to his mom’s house in Geneva; his dad had died.
Jack met Jill again at a Cornell reunion; they fell in love and got married. Jon cried,
but just a few tears …..of happiness (for his friend) .
Now BOTH Jack and Jill (Mr. & Mrs. Dental) lived with Jack’s mom,
and Jill quickly got pregnant ….., but this time all was calm.

Jack’s dad had been a mail carrier. Jack became one too.
Their daughter was almost three; they had named her Sue.
Jack had a driving route to deliver, but a few accidents he had.
He switched to a mostly-walking route, and got a dog bite (quite bad) .

Jon and “his” Sue wanted to have kids. They both interned in D.C.
Jon learned ‘family medicine’ and Sue learned thoracic surgery.
Though it was a challenge, she had their first child at age twenty-nine.
Jon got a job, nights, in an ER, while waiting for Sue to finish her time ……
as Chief Resident.

The Purpose’s son was named Jackson, which gave Jack a thrill.
Jon and Sue took jobs at Buffalo’s VA hospital; they are there still.
Sometimes they all get together, by traveling either East or West.
Though a bit different, Jack and Jon remain friends ….(“the BEST”) .

(August 29, 2015)
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Bri Edwards :) :)