Norm Ponders
Pocketful of poems
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The poems that follow are among my collection of musings over the years.  I have many written on napkins, envelopes, etc on subjects from ferry boat rides and neon tacos to juniper saps.   The ones that are here are because of some relevance to the theme of this site:  health, society, the media, etc.  I am in the process of editing this page down as it is somewhat "fluff" to the general topic.  Poems and random musings may go up on a page elsewhere as I try to hone in on health.

A Thorn in My Side was inspired by seeing people stutter over how to address someone's ethnicity and remain "politically correct".   


A Thorn In My Side

Tell me now, Kunta Kootay,
What do we call them, what do we say
Negro, colored, or Afro
Does anyone know

Tell me now, Chairman Mao
What do we say now
Oriental or Asian or inventor of plow

Tell me now, my friend Che
What do we call them, what do we say
Hispanic, Chicano, or latino
Does anyone know

All I know, all I can say
You are my brother, my Compadre
All I know, all I can say
We're not a melting pot, we are a bouquet.

norm castillo

THERE IS A FOG

There is a fog hanging over the land

A confounding fog I do not understand.

It is a fog which we have made

It is keeping us all in the shade.

 

It is a man fog

We clone a dog

The FDA says it’s good to eat

Thank you, no, I prefer a beet.

 

Bush swears there is no green house effect

I am sure the polar bear would object.

 

We worship science, we hear God is dead.

God is dead

 

With their own fog machine

Enter the revivalists, lean and mean.

 

The revivalists and corporatists

They tell me God is the way

I spoke with him just yesterday.

In tongues you won’t understand

So I will tell you his command.

 

We have to kill people for their own good

If they live in Baghdad or in the hood.

 

I scream what about "love thy neighbor"

Thou shall not kill

The Golden Rule

 

The FOG…I cannot see

You were right, Aldous Huxley

 

The FOG over the land

It pollutes our lungs, then we find

More evil than that, it pollutes our mind.

 

 

A Light in the Night

It was dark
Only she didn't know
Or it was all she knew
the only sound...... lub dub
Ohhhh..... Squeezing her
A light, a tunnel
She traveled the birth canal
Outside she suckled
She felt peace

It was dark
She lay huddled in the cave
with the family
looking out the cave tunnel
She saw the embers of the fire and the moon
She felt peace

It was dark
She awoke and went to the kitchen
A fire in the wood cook stove--- warm
Too cold to go to the outhouse
She sat and looked at the light
in the night
in the stove glowing
and felt peace

It was dark
She awoke and went to the kitchen
Lights---lots of lights
Red on the TV, green on the alarm,
Orange on the phone
On the clock, on the stove, on the microwave, on the smoke detector
Even a light on the light switch
No firelight
But many other lights in the night

It was dark
She awoke
She was here because her heart thumped funny
So many lights in the night
Her ICU room became bright
Waves on the screen
Beeps, and beeps, and numbers
Morpheus visited
the lub dub stopped

 


Kapow-- her chest was shocked
Stop it !!!
Pounding, ribs broken
Finally they stopped
It was dark--- then suddenly into a tunnel
Suddenly the brightest of all lights in the dark of the tunnel
She felt peace