Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

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we make up crazy shit and call it Science

August 5, 2025 


everything you love must be renounced
friends and neighbors double-cross and pounce

reality is just a point of view
we decide what is and isn't true

we demand commitment and compliance
we make up crazy shit and call it Science

we fill you up with bitterness and bile
and send you off to murder and defile

we change the rules and kill the ones who try
to live for love and look beyond the lie

we make up crazy shit and call it Science
the public has to pay for its defiance

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Little Demons Scamper

July 29, 2025 

Sordid 
Little
Secrets
In a room where no one tells
Money
Greed 
& Power
And a host of ugly smells

The object of possession
The tinsel and the town
The only joy you have
Is knocking people down

Huge hatreds boiling up
Underneath the skin 
Don't know how to walk away 
Don't know how to win

We can never stop
Being what we've done
Little demons scamper
In the light of the sun 

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a Comment »

The world is full of love

July 21, 2025 


Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
–Seamus Heaney, When all the others were away at Mass

The world is full of love 
Gleaming in a bowl
Epic in the moments
Miniscule and whole

The world is full of love
Melting into drops
Transferring timelessly
It never really stops

The world is full of love
Together in a task
Fluent in our motions
And questions never asked

By Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry, Seamus Heaney | Leave a Comment »

My petunias are none of your business

May 25, 2025 


We played in the dirt 
And you wiggled off my shirt 
You were amusing for a while 
With your agonizing smile

Now it's back to your wife 
Your respectable life
You can think of what we did
When you're playing with your kids 

My petunias are none of your business 
I don't care if you think they're looking nice
My petunias are none of your business
I won't make the same mistake twice 

You’re a weasel and a whiner 
And a coward and a fool
You sit on the council 
With the men who make the rules

It's a talky little town 
And the stories always flow
I’m not really bothered 
By what they think they know

My petunias are none of your business
Another man's gain will be your loss
My petunias are none of your business
Forget about my pumpkins and my squash

By Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Louise Erdrich, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

All of the suffering the world could ever know

May 10, 2025 

When life is lost to violence 
It diminishes the world
What looks back in the mirror 
When you murder boys and girls? 

Accumulated Silence 
In the face of a Crime
Echoes through the Galaxy 
Beyond all sense of Time 

All of the suffering 
The world could ever know
Exists inside the body 
Of a child who will not grow

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a Comment »

All that lives outside us

April 11, 2025 

In slow sustained consistent vibration all over outside
Tapping window, streaking roof,
               running down runnel and drain
Waking a sense, once more, of all that lived outside of us!
–Delmore Schwartz 

All that lives outside us
The Gift that grows and guides us
An ocean and a windstorm
And a flame

The sun that warms and feeds us
Though it doesn't need us
I'm pretty sure it loves us
Just the same 

Fade into what sustains us
What bleeds and entertains us
What drizzles from above us
Down the drain

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Delmore Schwartz, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Regret and doom and wasted days

March 13, 2025 

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
– T.S. Eliot

Persistent pain in memories
A cup, a couch and you and me
I'd rather howl and sing with trees
Than try and explain

What I said and what I meant 
Tattered talk of betterment
Love was lost or was it spent?
Is anybody sane?

Terrified to close the mouth
Comfort when the words come out
Streams and streamers spit and shout
Alleviate the brain

There's no returning, you and I
Round the moon and by and by
Fog that fills the earth and sky
It leaves a dreary stain

Through the yellow nightmare haze
Regret and doom and wasted days
You can't fool fate in Shakespeare plays
You can't escape the rain

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry, sad songs, T.E. Eliot | Leave a Comment »

Dance because you’re not a dancer

January 25, 2025 


I only have one thing to say
What are you gonna do today?

It's not a quiz
There's no wrong answer
Dance because you're not a dancer

Cook some eggs
Take a shower
Photograph the Eiffel Tower

Find a game
You like to play
Lollygag your time away

Have a beverage
With a friend
Read a novel to the end

Walk your dog
Smell some flowers
Sit around and talk for hours

Meet a deadline
With your team
Binge a show about a queen

Wax a roadster
Hike the hills
Debate the merits of free will

It's not about what others do 
Do the thing that's right for you

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry, Poetry for Kids | Leave a Comment »

Honesty Is My Policy

January 1, 2025 

I told Candace Walter's cheating
I told Megan she was fat
I said Gail's looks are fleeting
And that's such an ugly hat

I told Dan his son's a loser
And his wife is scarfing pills
I told Frankie he's a boozer
They should pay me for my skills

I told Ted his breath is frightful
It could make an angel cry
The truth is so delightful
I'm a great and fearless guy

I'm tenacious and observant
I refuse to pull my punches
I'm a real public servant
They should honor me at lunches

I'm a paladin of virtue
In a world of falsity
If reality can hurt you
You're a fool for blaming me 

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Fiends and Fury

November 29, 2024 

We will find no comfort until the night melts away; until the fury of the night rots out its fire.
-Djuna Barnes, Watchman, What of the Night?

Get home before the sun goes down
This ain't no ordinary town
Cool your mind – keep out of sight
Don't bestir the doom of night 

Hairy hounds released from hell
Zombies under wicked spells
Fiends and fury from The Fall
Moloch Gorgon Satan Baal 

Tell-Tale Heart – The Witch of Coos
Now it's time to pay your dues
Spirits demons lunatics
I hope your house is made of bricks

Stay inside and lock the door
Don't look outside – don't ask wherefore
Calm your heart and clear your head
Keep a lantern by your bed

by Richard W. Bray

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Posted in Poetry, Robert Frost | Leave a Comment »

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