Monthly Archives: November 2022

A POEM FOR THE FRIEND WHO SACRIFICED By R.M. Engelhardt

A POEM FOR THE FRIEND WHO SACRIFICED

ʃəˌlɒm əˈleɪxəm, ˌʃoʊləm

Aren’t you that kid
Who plays the harmonica?

The old man
Sitting in the wheelchair
Said

They had told him
That he had a visitor
But he doesn’t recall
Having any at
The nursing home
In a very
Long time

The nurse told
Him it was an old
Friend, a man with
A beard in his late
Fifties in a cap

But the old man
Now near 80 had
Lost much

Memories and loved ones
Books and all the things
That had made him
Him

Himself

Near deaf
And near blind

The loss of months
Weeks

Years

Within his
Own mind

And when
The lost friend
Walked in he could
See the loss
The sadness upon
The old man’s face

And he said:

Well sir.

It looks like
Both of us have
Lost a few things

” But do you remember the words?”

” The poetry?”

All the crowds of
People the voices
In times of
Change?

And the horror
Of how it all went
Down, the battles we
All fought for people?
The ones for all our souls?

Freedom?

But the old man
Just stared into space
With no recognition

No emotion

In silence

But then?

The man in the cap
Pulled out a harmonica
Out of his pocket

And started playing
A familiar song

And the old man
Smiled

And as he
Played a single
Tear ran down his
Face

And the old man
Softly said:

“Thank you”

“For Everything”

And then
Sitting in his chair
Quietly passed

Away

~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2022

The Outsider …

“…The Outsider is doubly a rebel: a rebel against the Established Church, a rebel against the unestablished church of materialism. Yet for all this, he is the real spiritual heir of the prophets…The purest religion of any age lies in the hands of its spiritual rebels.

The twentieth century is no exception.”

~ Colin Wilson

FOR THE ANIMALS, A Poem By R.M. Engelhardt

FOR THE ANIMALS

Why does the world at night not see you?

In the fields and in the moon’s light?

Gentle, and taken away from these forests

And separated from others of your kind

Why does the world at night not see you?

Or even in the daylight care about your existence?

I will give you food in the harsh months cold
And without mercy, become the caretaker
And the sacred voice, protect you like you were my own, my kind

Undomesticated & unrecognized by the less
Intelligent creatures in machines
Who do not recognize your beauty and lives

Why does the world not see you?

Protect you?

Because they are selfish and sometimes blind
Lost in a world of their own making

Cruel
And sad

The wind whispers to them and in their hearts
They feel nothing

This is the way

This is the loss of what is all holy
And all that once shined upon us
In it’s own relevance & awe

The cars rush by as time moves swiftly

The roads & highways the divisions,
Graveyards

Where all the dead & bodies lay

Where the night air frees your soul
To another place

Wakan Tanka

~ R.M. Engelhardt©2022

BAD OMENS: MONDAY NOVEMBER 14TH, 2022 A Poem

BAD OMENS:
MONDAY NOVEMBER 14TH, 2022 OR
THE DAY OF THE ASSHOLE

The tarot cards have
Foreseen the horrible future

And his return

All the signs

Impossible
To ignore

The first hint
Was The Tower card
The second? A
Loud & long wailing inhuman fart
Sound eminating from the
Downstairs neighbors
Apartment

Who’s a staunch
Republican with a
Make America Great Again
Sticker

On his pickup truck

The candles

Immediately started
Flickering and all the
Dogs in the neighborhood
All took a massive dump at once

All

At the same exact time

And from a place unknown
Perhaps another dimension
Or the spirit world
A loud screaming voice came through
The walls which said in an errie, frightening &
Mournful voice

OH NO, OH NO!

It’s That RACIST ASSHOLE AGAIN!
And He’s Running For President AGAIN!

ASS-HOLE

ASS-HOLE

ASSSSSSSSSHOLLLLLLLEEE …

11 … 14 … 22

BEWARE !

BEWARE THE FAT & UGLY
ORANGE ASS-HOLE !

And then?

A book on the U.S. Constitution
Mysteriously fell off the shelf

And opened up to a page
Which said:

AMENDMENT 14

Which must be read
In an exorcism

To rid him

From this world

For good

~ R.M. Engelhardt ©2022

nOpE ~A poem by R.M. Engelhardt

In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.

~ Dylan Thomas,
In The Beginning

NoPe

The 1st poem wasn’t
Written in English
In fact it wasn’t
Written in any words
At all

The 1st poem
Was a flower that
A hairy cave man gave to
His beloved

Who thoughtfully
Pondered it’s meaning
& then ate it
And without emotion
Left him

For a muscular
Neanderthal

Named Chad

So the first poem
Was actually a failure
A gesture

Of heartbreak & love
Loneliness & longing

But not enough to
Convey it or even
Reach it’s destination

The heart

Or the soul

And on the cave walls
Were painted crude
Drawings depicting mating
To let a woman know
That she was desired

To which their response
Was ” Ew” and a new
Word which they created called

” NO”

But the art approach
Didn’t work
Quite well either

NOTE:
(*See Bathroom Poetry
History of)

WIKIPEDIA

But once humans
Could speak? Talk?
Well the game
Was on

Hunter gatherers
& Future jock types
Started getting angry
Because skinny guys
In fur beret hats starting
Stealing their women

But they couldn’t figure out how
And to this day

Still cannot

And that’s how it
All began

Poets & artists
Being treated
Like outcasts
Unwanted & disliked
(Musicians soon to follow)

Because they had
Higher IQs
And first somehow knew
That words could be turned

Into “Magic”
& Into light

Spells that could
Invoke what feelings
They held urges they felt
And the things they could see
Or could not

Like the silent moments
Of trees swaying in the distance
Like the beauty of colors in the air
And sea, animals & nature

And within these words
They worshipped all
The mysteries which they
Couldn’t fathom or understand

And turned them
Into something
Called poems

Myths
And gods

So in the beginning
Poetry wasn’t really popular

And still isn’t

But without it
We’d all be lost

For it is the whole
That makes us all human
And what it means to be
Human

And that
Is all we know

That and that throughout
Human history that muscular guys
Named Chad and with similar names
Still hate us

And want to beat us up

Without knowing

Why?

~ R.M. Engelhardt

© Copyright 2022