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Bob McNeil - 3 poems

1/4/2016

12 Comments

 
Picture
1. Students of Their Insanity

The students’ minds were pages,
   Awaiting moral text.
   What they got was Acrimony’s Alphabet from adults.
   These adults felt “A” represented Aversion to anyone antithetical
   And the last letter was for Zealotry.
The students’ minds were pages,
   Awaiting moral text.
   What they got was lessons in Antagonisms' Annals
   From bullies who beat them the way slaves were beaten
   And tortured them the way hostages were tortured.


The students’ minds were pages,
   Awaiting moral text.
   What they got was prejudice tutoring them proprietarily. 
   These days, the students are fluent in hate,
   Possessing an old bigot’s vulgarism. 


The students’ minds were pages,
    Awaiting moral text.
    What they got was the globe’s most itinerant pandemic
    Beneath Afric, Asiatic and Caucasic faces. 


The students’ minds were pages,
   Awaiting moral text.
   What they got was a tassel-headed graduation
   And a welcome to the ever-battlesome world.

***
2. ​Their King Dirt Pervert

Moloch, the parent,
   Loves filicide
   And it won’t conceive remorse.
Moloch, the teacher,
   Chalks impure lessons
   Across young slates.
Moloch, the chaplain,
   Conducts more than notes
   In the boys’ choir.
Moloch, the coach,
   Wants touchdowns
   Along preadolescent fields.
Moloch, the puppeteer,
    Strings then controls
    Marionettes attending school.        
Moloch, the kidnapper,
    Mails enslaved girls anywhere
    Perversion puts up the postage.
Moloch, the singer,
    Lets auditory opiates
   Procure puerile acolytes.
Moloch, the comic,
   Throws Mickey Finn rumors
   Under sweet pudding standup jokes.  
Moloch, the dieter,
   Sandwiches his lechery
   Between underage escorts. 
Moloch, the felon,
    Pours honeyed rationale atop what he
    Calls sexual boo-boos with babies. 
Moloch, the videographer,
   Tapes untarnished chicks
   For voyeuristic hawks.
Moloch, the actor,
    Lauds judicial limitations
    In a pedophiliac soliloquy.
Moloch, the cinephile,
   Won’t hear an epigram revealing
   Woody Allen’s adopted wretchedness.
Moloch, the reader,
   Will never see a verse
   Howling Allen Ginsberg’s pederastic guilt.
Moloch, the recidivist,
    Supports NAMBLA among other
    Atrocities in need of either
    Depo-Provera or annihilation. 

***
3. ​Commuting into Myself

The fare to travel
this visceral subway
always goes up. 

Commuting into myself
reveals train tracks
are my bones,
third rails
are my nerves
and hungry rats
encapsulate my disposition.

Superego Transit Cops believe
my feelings could be underground cells,
all anarchistic in nature,
so they check the bags
under my eyes,
considering if that’s where
I keep my pipe bomb visions. 

My ill temper transfers
from train to train,
from thought to thought.

Sure enough,
my neuroses out gripes
sexagenarian grumblers
with each train delay,
derelict aspirations panhandle,
pleading to get some pleasure,
and my other big bipolar hordes
can’t get their problems
through the exits. 

The Inner Voice
Address System
apologizes about the traffic
up ahead. 
It explains why
turtles in a tar pit
would be better at transporting
me to my destination.

Ever a philomath,
I inspect the transit map
and seek life’s right station.
Maybe,
perhaps on the next ride,
I’ll find it.

​***
12 Comments
Jasmine link
1/3/2016 06:47:59 pm

"The students’ minds were pages,
Awaiting moral text.
What they got was a tassel-headed graduation
And a welcome to the ever-battlesome world." Yep. Great pieces. Painfully true but great, Bob.

I like the art work too ^_^

Reply
Edna
1/4/2016 06:05:03 am

"The students’ minds were pages,
Awaiting moral text.
What they got was prejudice tutoring them proprietarily.
These days, the students are fluent in hate,
Possessing an old bigot’s vulgarism" Accurate portrait of what is taking place in lower income neighborhoods public schools. Great Poem.

Reply
Terri Massacani
1/4/2016 07:36:21 am

eloquent and truthful. Bob always finds the pulse of society.

Reply
James Kepple
1/4/2016 03:09:04 pm

love the work as always! excellent new batch for the kitchen poet!

Reply
Saira Viola
1/7/2016 07:50:24 am

An excepionally gifted poet and story teller . Technically brilliant, and disturbing and affecting. Confronting humanity in all its keys .Fiercely convincing and for all kinds of reasons Mcneil is set to become one of the leading voices of our time .

Reply
Andrew
1/9/2016 12:30:48 pm

Beautifully written pieces - every one!

Reply
Frank G. Poe, Jr. link
1/9/2016 12:35:21 pm

The first poem is truth, and I've said it to people all my life. Watch little children. They'll seek each other out to play regardless of sex, color, religion, or social class. The politics of hatred is learned. In your second poem, Their King Dirt Pervert, I expected a verse with Roman Polanski, too. I felt almost cheated when you left him out. Great beat throughout and to the point on human trafficking in today's world. No matter what the level a pimp is still a pimp. As for your third poem, I find the older I get the more I do the same thing. Love your work. You are gifted. Please post a link if you have performance videos of these. Thanks.

Reply
Isabella George link
1/14/2016 09:34:23 am

What an in depth expose of the deviant... A great commentary!

Reply
Ron Book link
1/15/2016 12:57:57 pm

The first poem reminds me of Terrance Hayes due to the sound There is so much happening physically within these poems. Lots of alliteration, which creates your specific sound, and is a positive. The imagery is strong, though somewhat abstract, (but we write for ourselves, don't we?), though not too far out in space that we need to reference t constantly. I liked the repetition of the opening two lines of each stanza in "The Students of Their Insanity" because it helped to create and maintain a specific rhythm . I did have some difficulty with the distorted cadence of the following lines, but that it just me. (it seemed to create additional beats as in the third and fourth line of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. stanzas, which threw me off a bit. (poems are never finished, they simply are at rest) The ending stanza closed well. My favorite poem of the three is the second, The King Dirt Pervert". It sounds like G. Brooks. The use of anaphora is a help when trying to gain access to the rhyme. I don't know what the indentation in the first and second poem is about, other than a constructive gimmick...because the pause created by the white space is so slight, especially when preceded by a note of punctuation, that, I don't believe adds a rhythmic element to your strong piece. I did like the non-distinct image of Moloch because the reader doesn't know if it is a god or a sacrifice...(only the poet shall know) I believe its a sacrifice of innocence, but I'm not the poet. The build to the finality is very strong: from the parent to the pedophile through these contrite stanzas is exceptional. Perhaps I am not the audience intended for the last poem. Personally, I find this poem the most juvenile of the three. The music is good but at times seems strained, especially with the four syllabic words. I was always told to show rather than tell. Answer the ? before it is asked. Don't get me wrong, for this poem has great potential, but the beat is not that original to me, a middle-aged white guy from the Rust-Belt, but that shouldn't matter. We write for specific audiences. all in all, I like your work and would like to see more...have a great writing day.....

Reply
hal sirowitz link
1/15/2016 05:10:39 pm

These three poems by Bob McNeil rock, but yet they retain the Blues. A fantastic trip through the mind of a poet who doesn't flinch at the truth.

Reply
Natasha
1/16/2016 09:11:56 pm

Thought provoking and meaningful commentary. Bob is a very talented.

Reply
Brian Howland
1/20/2016 11:47:25 am

Powerful description of how this form of corruption affects the student of life.

Reply



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