A blog & Poem: Trick or Treat?

I wrote this poem a couple years ago as I sat in a Starbucks in Belmont Shore...watching the parade of Halloween revelers pass by.

It seemed appropriate this year, too.

I got me thinking about Halloween again....and how I have grown to dislike it...

It has become commercialized like all or most holidays and just another excuse to party...

In this poem, I decided to use Halloween as a jumping off point so to speak for my other concerns about our society.

GP

***

TRICK OR TREAT?

Trick or treat?

Neither is what they seem.

The scary things don't hide in closets
but in our hearts and souls
as we confront our lost dreams
our twisted hopes,
our love turned turned so bitter inside.

Left alone in the darkness of our imaginations.
We are the bogeyman and the bogeyman is us.

Tricked for treats?
Treated to dirty tricks?

The scary stuff?
Your best friend
letting you down over again
Your lover hurting you because they can.

Treats and trickery on All Hallows' Eve.

The real horrors of human nature
to contemplate.

There are zombies, vampires and monsters
everywhere you look tonight.

They are always there.

You work for them.
You try to love them.
You struggle to understand them.
You call them family.
You regard them as good friends
and trusted allies
who are selling you out all the while
with handshakes and smiles.

Trick or treat?

Neither is what they seem.

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

A Poem for Father's Day: My Father's Photos

Today is Father's Day and I've been thinking a lot about my father's life. One thing (among many) I've learned from him is how you have to seize your dreams.

He was a great photographer and yet never pursued it. He took the safe route as an accountant for the IRS,

In some ways I am grateful...but then I wonder...

Six and half years ago, when he was just about to get on with his life -- after years of a horrible marriage -- he was hit with an aneurysm that he has never fully recovered from. Even after all this time he is not the same man. It is like a stranger invaded his body. So in a way a large part of him has died -- his former self and personality -- but he is still alive.

I wrote this poem for him a while back to celebrate his talent and sacrifice.

GP

***

MY FATHER'S PHOTOS

My father
was an
accountant
for the
government.

Every day of his working life
he dealt with
cold
hard
figures
and
unbending
numbers.

But I believe deep in his
heart
he wanted
to be a photographer.

His love took seed
during his stint in the Navy.
He served as a photographer on an aircraft carrier
lovingly documenting
plane landings,
life at sea
and the exotic places they visited:
Japan,
Philippines,
Taiwan and
Hawaii.

Later he showed
the same care in documenting
our family's lives with thousand upon thousands
of photos.

Every step we took from the cradle,
every birthday,
every occasion,
my father was there
capturing snapshots.

The documents of our past,
the photos
now sit in boxes in
the closet of my father's den room
like forgotten artifacts
collecting dust.

The other day
I pulled one of the boxes out
and looked at the photos.
Faces of my youth
stared back at me
shot with such care and love.

I wondered why my dad shelved
our photos.
I asked him but he wouldn't say.

He's retired now
but still the photos sit untouched in the boxes.
I even bought him a photo album
but he just put it in one of the boxes.

I think the photos
remind him he put aside his true love
to crunch numbers.
They represent a picture of sadness and regrets.

His dream is languishing
piled in cardboard boxes
captured in pictures of our family's past.

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

An Ode to Charles Bukowski: BACKYARD POETRY

Charles Bukowski, the real bard of L.A., is my favorite poet...

It is not only his honesty in describing the private hells we each have to go through each day . . . that inspires me

But that he could find poetry anywhere and in anything...

He punctured the pompous and pretentious especially snobby poets full of themselves who could only write for other so called clever poets, turning out convoluted, turgid insular works while ignoring the world at large and essentially real life.

I share his disdain for the snobbish, academic side of poetry.

So in tribute to Bukowski freeing poetry from the snobs . . . I offer a poem of my own called "Backyard Poetry" that is about finding poetry anywhere and everywhere even in a backyard . . . barbecue.

GP
***


BACKYARD POETRY

I despise the
poetry
of exclusion.

It's a stuffy affair
with hearts
bare,
stale,
and
devoid of any real compassion
and passion.

Because many of America's
greatest poets
have never picked up a pen
and composed a single word of poetry.
They
create stirring stanzas
with their
lips and tender kisses,
fingers and caresses,
wild crazy loves
and
adventurous lusts.

They compose poetry
in the tender way they
raise their children,
love their families
and reach out
to the wayward,
broken,
and
forsaken
among us.

They are the living embodiment
of poetry
with acts of loyalty
friendship,
hope,
love
and betrayal.

Broken
wild
verses of
poetry
burst forth
at
backyard barbecues,
family gatherings,
drunken bashes,
holiday celebrations,
in bars,
restaurants,
cafes,

and
coffee shops.

Poetry is heard everywhere
and anywhere where people talk honestly
about their lives.

Their life verses
go many times unheard
unrecognized
even to themselves.

Poetry burns brightly
in their eyes
revealing
unspoken dreams
not yet realized.

George Pappas
Copyright 2008

ETHNIC CLEANSING

With Iraq continuing to head toward civil war (or at least an uneasy, violent peace) and fighting and killing over religious and ethnic differences, it's obvious that we (and I mean everyone around the world) continue to fail to learn from our recent mistakes.

Not too long ago such differences led to mass killing and destruction in Kosovo after years of oppressed peace in the former Yugoslavia. That's when the word "Ethnic Cleansing" returned to the political lexicon for the first time since the Nazis carried out their brutal and inhuman campaign against the Jews and many others during World War II.

My rage and disgust over the same kind of genocide reoccurring in Kosovo spilled out into this poem I wrote in the late 1990s.

It is very timely considering the genocide continuing to take place in Darfur and in other hot spots around the world

GP

***********

ETHNIC CLEANSING

Ethnic cleansing.
Sounds like some insidious new detergent.

Imagine the ad campaign.

Ethnic cleansing.
Bought and sold wherever intolerance is found.

Ethnic cleansing.

This cold phrase evokes
crazy images
of people being stuffed into
washing machines,
their lives
washed away
of any individuality,
any spark.

Ethnic cleansing.

With Ajax in one hand
and
a machine gun in the other,
soldiers
hoped
to clean the land
of anyone different from them.

But how will they cleanse
their souls
when the bullets stop
and the peace accords are signed?

They will scrub and scrub
but can't remove the blood from their hands.

This is blood that has soaked into the muddy ground,
and into our hearts and souls.

Now, those who the soldiers tried to cleanse with bullets
are trying to rub out them out
with the same indifference and rage.

So the vicious cycle
continues
until none of us can claim to be truly cleansed
as we feebly attempt
to understand the roots of
ethnic cleansing.

One thing is clear, though.
There's not enough cleanser in the world
to clean up this mess.

George Pappas
Copyright 2008