Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Superficiality of Beauty

Judging another by appearance is hardly a trait exclusive to humans. One has only to look at the animal kingdom to see evidence of that everywhere. Birds, fish, insects and more judge potential mates, threats and food sources (and those to avoid) based solely on the visual presentation of others.

It's safe to say that all species with eyes have a connection between ocular input and their subjective mind but perhaps only humans take visually induced subjective judgments beyond instinctive needs to survive. Humans judge others purely on appearance all the time.

With that in mind, the following is an original poem by G. Laidlaw

The Superficiality of Beauty

The Superficiality of Beauty
Can cause its share of grief,
If the subjective opinions of others
Impose negative beliefs
On the soul, spirit and character
Of the person underneath.

And from the infliction of such cruelty
Where does a person find relief,
When the superficiality of their beauty
Reflects jealous disbelief
In those too blind to see
True beauty lies beneath?

- G. Laidaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Monday, January 24, 2011

I Used to be a Werewolf

I was speaking to friend yesterday and he suggested I post this original poem by G. Laidlaw. Written like all the Author's poetry - in one burst of a creative "mind bubble" - and like many of the works that have appeared previously in Dew On The Newts, it is an autobiographical narrative of real life events.

I Used to be a Werewolf

I remember your place
With the funky God's-eye thing,
Hanging on the wall
With your hippy-trippy string.
I stumbled through the doorway
Fell face first in the room.
Threw up beer and whatever else
I drank that afternoon.
It might have been the mushrooms,
It could have been your hair.
Something really freaked me out
When the full moon found me there.
It framed me in the picture window
That I pushed you through.
I'm glad to see you made it.
The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf
But I'm alright now-OOO!

I remember your tires
Leaving rubber on the road.
Is it any wonder your car
Was the first one that I rolled?
Friends don't let their friends
Drive if they are drunk.
So I took away your car keys
And put you in the trunk.
When I checked the rear-view,
I saw the full moon in the sky
Which freaked me so I floored it...
I made that sucker fly!
Skid marks in the headlines,
Graphic footage on the news.
I'm glad to see you made it.
The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf
But I'm alright now-OOO!

I remember your eyes
Tracing circles by the door,
Where you might have dropped a rock
Of crack onto the floor.
It's hardly a good habit
But it still buys you the farm.
From a simple mountain garden
To a gold mine in your arm.
Welcome to my Never-Where.
A world of cheaper thrills,
Where Santa shoots up heroin
And the moon is full of pills.
Someone shouted "Save yourself"
And I forgot to pull you through...
I'm glad to see you made it.
The scars look good on you.

You know I used to be a Werewolf
But I'm alright now-OOO!

- G. Laidlaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ode to the Wild Side

WARNING!

This original poem by G. Laidlaw contains language 
and imagery that may be offensive to some readers.


The people it's about did exist and their stories are true.

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

ODE TO THE WILD SIDE

Maria Alundra Consuela Ariba
Queen of the Gypsies or last Queen of Sheba
All of her life a woman denied
All of her life a Diva inside
Dressed as a peacock leads the Gay March of Pride

Funny the magic memories bring
I thought I heard Lou Reed's colored girls sing

Jerry came out when he was sixteen
They fractured his ribs and ruptured his spleen
Tough loggers and good ol' boys scared of a fag
Now the kid from a small town dressed up in drag
Is the prettiest corpse in the ugliest bag

Funny the magic memories bring
I can almost hear Lou Reed's colored girls sing

Junked out and bruised is Vaseline Sally
Working her corner in Gasoline Alley
Hep-C and AIDS makes it ten bucks a trick
Horny husbands and fathers use her for their kicks
Do they know what it is that's sucking their dicks

Funny the magic memories bring
Close my eyes and I hear Lou Reed's colored girls sing

G. Laidlaw

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Highway Cucumbers


Highway Cucumbers

Life ain't a through-way
Or heavenly foreplay.
It's an unscripted one-way
That has to end someday.

You don't captain the ship
You fall and you slip
Insignificant drip
On a Mobius Strip

These ain't cute numbers
Highway cucumbers.

All that you've seen
And all you have dreamed
Gets sandwiched between
Your liver and spleen.

All that you've heard
And all you have learned
Is food for the worm
When you crash and burn.

These ain't cute numbers
Highway cucumbers.

G. Laidlaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Depression, One Size Fits All

The following two original poems by G. Laidlaw look at a condition nobody is immune from. (Even the dead can suffer from it. How many happy ghosts do you hear about?) If you've danced with this dragon, you know just how cruel a master it can be. If you haven't then you have no idea just how bad it can get. Pray it doesn't choose you.

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Gray Today

Drag a cloud across the Sun
Make it rain on everyone
Drain the colors leave just gray
Make the whole World go away

Crush the smile of a circus clown
Pull a rainbow to the ground
Crash an airplane every day
Make the whole World go away

Pour a flood across the Earth
Kill a dream before its birth
Pick a God and to Him pray
Make the whole World go away

Find this poor man take what's his
Make life harder than it is
Fill me up with shades of gray
Make the whole World go away

G. Laidlaw



To The Zoo

She stares into the mirror but she doesn't see her face
Her answer's getting clearer but her question's been erased
So she turns to the closet and picks out the yellow dress
That she burned with a cigarette the last time she confessed
To thoughts obscene
The dirty dreams
That fill the night completely with her screams

Somewhere deep inside herself she knows exactly what to do
Go To The Zoo

She puts on the yellow dress and stares into the mirror
Jumbled colors in a mess but her reflection's getting clearer
So she turns to the razor blade with its edge of gleaming steel
Draws lines across her arm in a moment all too real
Sanguinary rain
Crimson drops of shame
Fall upon her yellow dress
Paint a picture of her pain

Somewhere deep inside herself she knew exactly what to do
Go to the Zoo

G. Laidlaw




"Don't worry, be happy" - Meher Baba

Saturday, January 8, 2011

A Love Poem For The Ages

Love... it can be humbling. The following original poem by G. Laidlaw is all about the humbling power of love...

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Nodrog's Lament


Your beauty decrees
Moonbeams and Starlight
Through Space and Time
In cosmic battles compete,
Striving for the honor
Of briefly dancing
Circles 'cross your cheek
While you dream.


Let me gaze not into your eyes
Lest I become spellbound
Lost amid the kaleidoscopic pinwheels
Of sunlight and rainbows
Dancing in opalescent splendor
'Neath your lashes,
Teasing, enticing me with
Veiled glimpses of passionate realms
Deep within your Soul where
Love and laughter cavort
Like nectar-sated butterflies
Spinning secret tapestries
On the warm evening breezes
Born of a late Summer's Eve.


Smile not when I am so enraptured
For it might embolden within me belief
If my heart is true
My intentions pure
I may, like quiet mist, slip shadow-quick
Into the translucent rays of Divine Creation
Emanating from your Soul.
To therein find the key
Enabling me to solve the riddle
To earn, finally
The right to stay
Beside you forever.


Ah, 'tis lovesick folly indeed
For truly you are
The Envy of Angels
Sullen and angry with God
For passing them by
To linger in your light.
They who wear the arrogance of permanence
Squander the luxury of time
Could only watch aghast
As God
Upon the delicate bloom
Of a mortal human vessel
Did bestow His gifts
Heavenly beauty and feline grace.


Truly
A fool am I
Who dares to dream
Beauty of such perfect balance
In fragile iridescence wrapped
Could be entrusted to a creature
Brutal and awkward as I.


G. Laidlaw.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

For The Bird (Lovers)


I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
David Herbert Lawrence

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dali


It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis 

Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas
Elie Wiesel




Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

 

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Ridin' The Rails - A Story About Drug Abuse

Drug Abuse doesn't get much press these days what with Ecological, Financial and World Political news taking up much of the airtime (and thus people's minds) but that doesn't mean drug abuse doesn't still affect thousands of families across Canada and the rest of the world each and every single day.

The following original poem by G. Laidlaw is a true life prophetic obituary written about one single case of drug abuse and its impact...

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission

Ridin' The Rails

You were a happy married man
You and your wife made lots of plans
Now you're in the Devil's hands
Dying on his installment plan
And your wife don't understand
And your kids don't understand

This is the story of your life and other haunted tales.
You're ridin' the rails.
Feed the poor. End all war. Split the atom. Save the whales.
You're ridin' the rails.

Used to be handy
Until the nose candy
Took away your will to live
Ripped away your will to give
Stole away your power to love
Stripped your faith in God above
Killed your spirit ruined the man
While you sat there making plans.

Someone else screwed you over? Man it never fails.
You're ridin' the rails.
They might be invisible but you can see their trails.
You're ridin' the rails.

Little voices in your head
Fill you up with thoughts of dread
Scared of becoming paranoid
Humor gone easily annoyed
Conspiracy theories fill your mind
They're out to get you! All Mankind
Traps and monsters of every kind!
That's what you see when you're snowblind

Standing behind the curtain hiding from the mail.
You're ridin' the rails.
Zombie-fried paranoid and thirteen shades of pale.
You're ridin' the rails.

A mind unclear
Is easily upended
A mind in fear
Cannot be defended
If my rhyming's queer
No need to be offended
Do your own line here:
(Yes, the pun's intended)

Got a fridge full of food but your appetite's failed.
You're ridin' the rails.
You've lost a hundred pounds, a hundred years, since you last stepped on the scales.
You're ridin' the rails.

Priorities inverted
Authorities alerted
Responsibility averted
Morality perverted
Family deserted
Dark side asserted
With the Devil you flirted
To his powder converted

Forsake responsibility and all that it entails.
You're ridin' the rails.
Such intoxicating power! Truth beside it pales.
You're ridin' the rails.

Things have changed forever more
You're not the man you were before
All that matters is the score
Always wanting more and more
And more and more and more and more!

Frantic search through the garbage for a non-existent bale.
You're ridin' the rails.
Sitting in the dark chewing your fingernails.
You're ridin' the rails.

You burned a deadly hole
Through your nose, your brain, your soul
You're no longer whole
You think you have control
But the Devil holds the cards
And mirrors always break in shards...

Now shallow breathes are few
There's a smell of death on you

Got a brain full of snakes and skin full of snails.
You're ridin' the rails.
Bought yourself a ticket to the land of pointy tails.
You're ridin' the rails.

Don't even try
To brush the lie
From inside your eye

Don't even try
To kiss the sky
It's passed you by

Don't even try
To say you tried
Just lay down and die
Goodbye

8-Ball in the pipe burns like a coffin full of nails.
You're ridin' the rails.
M.E. will read your secrets in the blood of your entrails.
You're ridin' the rails.
You're ridin' the rails.
You're ridin' the rails.

- G. Laidlaw

Life is worth saving.



Not all screams for help come from the mouth.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The following is an original poem by G. Laidlaw. © Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. Used with permission.


Collateral Damage

A broken doll,
Falls from the hand
Of a crying little girl.
Her baby brother's
Vacant eyes,
Reflect the bruises on her heart.
They huddle,
Together in the closet
Trembling,
Like rabbits
In the headlights of an oncoming car.
Meanwhile;
In the kitchen,
The heat of battle warms the blood
Of generals; 
Too blinded
By the thrilling familiarity
Of their own private war,
To notice the blood
Of innocent casualties,
Soaking the battleground.

~~**~~

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