Meaningful Morpheme
They appear innocent enough
Those symbol sounds that every child
Memorizes before they know
What they mean or what they’re used for.
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) gee! What
A rhythmic, sonorous singsong;
But when their lettered chemistry
Is formulated into words
The combined sounds begin
A metamorphic change
Like the lovely word butterfly.
When it’s clearly spoken out loud
It conjures an image as real
As a butterfly on the wing.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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A Vampire
The soporific sound of rain
Falling on the shingled rooftops
Induces his subconscious brain
to summon id with every drop.
The instinctual impetus
craves immediate primal need:
vitality that flows through us
tonight the innocent will bleed
to quench within a burning fire
that’s required to tame his soul
forever damned: a vampire!
that roams and stalks celestial
darkest nights for unfortunates
to engorge their blood to excess.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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The Reign Must Fall
The tyrants psyche is broken.
He sits in his gilded palace
Surrounded by his trusty band
Of armed thuggish cutthroats, waiting
For the inevitable end.
Outside the palace walls a crowd
Of angry, loathing citizens
Whose long suppressed voices bellow
An immediate regime change;
But like most tyrants of the past
Ego and self-aggrandizement
Deludes clear, rational thinking;
As a result, grasping at straws
Hoping for the impossible.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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View from above
Look at all the little people
Insignificant lost souls
Hurrying, scurrying below
Like some fast-forward picture show.
Always moving rarely balking
And when walking hardly talking
Tiny animated shadows
Puny dots moving to and fro.
If they were me where I now stand
The whole of them would understand
They’re human lemmings on the run
Behind their leaders one by one.
From high above this bizarre scene
I see folly in their routine.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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Eminent Domain
The numerous dirty-white mounds
Of snow that lined the narrow street
Stood like fortified embankments;
Each varying in height and width
Depending on the autos size.
Each space of eminent domain
Was illegally claimed either
By dozens of plastic lawn chairs,
Trash cans, anything to obstruct
Entry into this reserved spot.
I wonder if the yellow snow
I see dotting a few places
Is from a neighborhood canine
Or from a property owner?
poem by Albert Ahearn
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Love Child
She was the consequence of lust
In a cheap room over a bar.
He remembered as though it were
yesterday. Her naive mother
Was only nineteen and single
at the time; him? He was married,
Separated and twenty-eight.
Below, in the bar, the jukebox
Was blaring an instrumental
Whose deep, bass guitar synchronized
with every copulating thrust.
The tune ended before the sex
And climaxed with a gestation
To Diana Ross’s “Love Child.”
poem by Albert Ahearn
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A Confession
Those sanctified structures of verse,
plot and rhyme-why do I find them
no help to me now?
I want to produce something
imagined not recollected.
My inner voice becomes tongue-tied;
it trembles searching for the words
to guide me to inspiration.
So at times everything I write
with the threadbare lack of genius
seems wearily; worn-out; hackneyed
often painfully paralyzed.
A mésalliance I admit
Still I strive to caress the light.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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A Demon's introspection
In the recesses of my mind
Lurks an imaginary fiend;
a part of my psyche’s design
borne of a roguish, mutate gene.
Deceit belies my comeliness
To my casual encounters,
I’m well-mannered and smartly dressed
I’m an unsuspecting monster.
Damn fools! Clothes never make the man
nor his discriminating taste.
This real man is more inhuman
whose moral state is unchaste.
I was born with this affliction
Wreaking pain is satisfaction.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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The Price Of War
Their mangled and broken bodies
return home in flag draped caskets.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
while a band plays patriotic
hymns for their services rendered
and a choir to give them a voice.
If I may be so bold to say
that I see no sweetness in death
nor the acclaimed gloriousness
that lyrical poets have penned.
what I see is sugarcoated
rationale for warmongering
dolts. I see no glory in that.
Mortem est pretium bellum.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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Time...
The silent invisible thief
Of life indiscriminately
Creeps along, irreversibly
Filching tiny bits of precious
Youth from us, always leaving clues
Behind yet unbeknown at first
Whereas youth is preoccupied
With its feigned immortality.
But comes a time when youth shuffles
Off this pretentious naïveté
When he first sights that single strand
Of silver hair at his temple
Or those unmistakable fine
Lines subtly etched around his eyes.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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