Category Archives: DGS Original Poetry

You Were Born

by D Gregory Smith

Yup. It’s my birthday.

I’m 46 today and it’s been a year of dramatic change, to be sure. Birthdays are the greatest. I’ve always loved them, even when they weren’t my own. I would always love a cake with candles on it more than Christmas. My Gramma used to say, “Nobody enjoys a birthday more than Greg”.

It’s true.

Upon reflection, I think I love birthdays because they’re a celebration for one simple reason- you were born. Birthdays simply commemorate your arrival on this planet. They don’t celebrate the things you did, the people you know, the money you make, the influence you have. They just celebrate your being. I think we need that reminder. At least once a year. To celebrate the grace of just existing- and the fact that everyone else here is doing the exact same thing.

So, today, I’ll give in to that grace again. And for all the beauty in my life- family, friends, dogs, doctors, my breath and my heartbeat, I am truly grateful. Thank you.

Here’s a little poem I wrote once:

Born

Today, in a year past,
You were born.
Didn’t do anything to deserve it-
Or did you?
And parents who look upon a newborn
Face etched with the promises and
Dreams of fettered hearts
Sigh, knowing they will let go
Sooner than most of them want to
And later than any child would like.

You were born.
Celebrate.
Call your mother-
She did all the hard work.
Then breathe.
Listen to your heart beat.
Eat the cake.
Smile at your life
And go to bed.

The day, much like any other-
except that you noticed it.

~D Gregory Smith

The Voice Of Injustice Is Silence

by D Gregory Smith

I’ve been asked by a number of people where I got the tagline for this blog.
It came from a poem I wrote a few years back- and I honestly don’t think I stole it. Many things go through a writer’s brain between thought and writing- at least this writer- and I am never really satisfied when I read on of my published poems. I guess that’s why I keep writing them….

Still

It is time to open your mouth
And shape the sounds that give form
To the deathless moans of pain and suffering.
Because the voice of injustice is silence.

It is the industrial silence of the corporate owners
of the soul of America.
The owner of the rape victim
Has turned out to be the rapist,
who nurtures its growing fetus
with anger and guns,
With temples and sugar and crack.

It happens because it is
Purchased with favors
And scratched backs
And pretended piety.
The silence of fear,
Of the voiceless ones
Who see no Jesus in their
Cornflakes- only the one meal of
Their lonely, silent day.

“Keep them down and quiet,”
the fools say,
Because their money blinds them to
Moral bankruptcy and stupidity
And their power-drunk ears
Are closed to their own heartbeats.

But the voices will wake,
Sleepy maybe, at first,
But rested and ready.
They and the very stones will
scream, shouting from
The driveways of the country clubs
And the walls of the churches and schools
And Capitols, “Enough!”

It will be.
And the peace will not be a quiet peace.
It will be real and full of the sounds of
Life.
Unpurchased and awake.

Wrong

by D Gregory Smith

You are wrong about me.
Taking my measure with quick glances.
Pretending you own my story and telling it
With short, ugly words.

The light in my eyes
A stranger to your own, because you
Can’t seem to look long enough to
Recognize yourself- or anybody else, there.

But you know me- even though
You pretend to be completely
Alienated by the audacity
Of my words- which,
Upon second glance
Are held quietly in place
By the light in my eyes
And the spark in my soul
That refuse to bend to
The ugliness you profess to be beautiful.

And you wail at the injustice
and the abomination
and the economy.

And I mourn the loss of your sight-
Praying
That I am wrong about you, too.

~D Gregory Smith

Here’s Me

by D Gregory Smith

Here’s me,
With all the things that don’t look to match,
Glaring socks- red, purple, black, yellow, blue.
Wanting to find the mate,
But whatever keeps the feet warm, right?

Inside it’s all the same anyway-
But they wouldn’t like it if
We all knew that all the differences
Are created and maintained by
People who make money on difference.

The outside gets to be the billboard
Or the post-it. You decide, you know.
Whether to believe the voices and the texts
And the strange rustling of yourself
Under the sheets of paper and old, torn cotton.

That wind is blowing again, from the south
This time, bringing a smell of old cannons
And resentment for my freedom from those
Leaves of words that have been worked into
The rat-tailed chains prisoners don’t even try to lift.

But I have the idea that it’s all paper and
Mismatched socks, and thoughts and
Sometimes hearts that have been twisted
through disappointment and fear to give
up ever beating for any other, and so can’t love.

Here’s me, and maybe you. Just maybe,
Untangling and untwisting and looking hard
At words and things and noises that are the lights
Of some contrary star. Wreckage ahead,
Not home. Avoided, maybe. Again.

And those cold, cold feet get to keep watch,
Because I can’t have socks telling me
What to do all the time. I only need
One hat, though, and one map, beating-
And one soul. Quiet and strong and warm.

~D Gregory Smith

Ten Becomes Eleven

by D Gregory Smith

A slide show of images
with flashes of faces,
glimpses, varietal vistas
I love and not love, yet.

With sounds and tastes and
scents to complement rain,
snow and sunshine, grass,
flowers and falling leaves.

The highway between
home and Sound, palm trees,
pride, babysitting and dogs,
airports, books and a dream.

The family- biological and
accidental, chosen and
necessary, met, unmet,
imagined and realized, all here.

Joints and hands, hair,
fingers and skin, eyes
and ears- older, wiser
maybe, complain anyway.

And handful of pills-
all different colors, shapes,
do their thing inside
and life, grateful, continues.

The houses, the faces,
funerals, weddings, hospitals,
parties, debates, lonely quiet,
advance, retreat and sleep.

Love as puppy breath,
too-early mornings with
him and them, us, all of us,
at home- anywhere we are.

~D Gregory Smith

Of December

by D Gregory Smith

You start, for me, with curved red ribbon and candles

and darkness- a cold, bitter night, made

sweeter with life

holding on.

 

You end with champagne and hats, horns and music,

sometimes, fireworks-

and if we’re premature,

a kiss.

 

In between, it’s expectation and the delight of a

perfectly chosen gift- the taste, the

sound, the smell of blessings,

even small.

 

The magic of the northern lights and snow (for me),

trees and children with questions

I have patience

to answer.

 

The poor eating a few more meals and travelers

taken in more easily, gladly maybe,

the precedent heavily

in mind.

 

Yours is the crispness of life, different and quiet

but still there- awaiting the notice of

a passing eye simply, the

sly patience

of truth.

~DGS

Bully

by D Gregory Smith

I knew it when I saw it
-I always do.
Especially when it’s waved
in front of my face.
Flaunted and taunting.

I hit it. Like on TV.
I yelled inside “Ha!”
When it went down,
Shaking, trembling,
though I hit with words.

But next time I hit
It will be better.
I hear the words, firing me up
to go beyond them,
to hurt more than hearts.

I feel my body tense,
Muscles knowing more
How to put it in it’s place
Than words ever can.
I believe my story about it.

It goes down because it has to.
It has to because if it doesn’t,
It will be me, a person.
And that won’t happen
When I can steal power.

~D Gregory Smith

Glass

by D Gregory Smith

The world is changed
by looking out your window
with wonder,

and next
by stepping out your
door with delight-

transfixed with mystery
and held, enraptured,
by the constancy

that holds you here.
It is changed by
the honest loving of it

without need or judgment.
To choose the eyes
to see with today-

kind or unkind,
gentle or angry or bitter
or even thoughtless?

What is there to see, really-
what choices reflected
in the panes that hold the view?

~D Gregory Smith

Proud

by D Gregory Smith

I hold my head up, barely-
with parades in it, it’s heavy.
I look at the world and know
that they’re all looking at me.
They are.
I’m important.
I have to be or there wouldn’t
be such a beautiful fucking parade,
Right?

At least today they’re looking.
They can’t really ignore the music
and the sweat, and the skin and the feathers.

Some bring their kids,
I automatically make way for strollers.
I notice lots of dogs, some very fancy.
I get tangled, briefly, in a sparkly leash
when a bulldog in a tutu
takes a turn for  a terrier.

There are beautiful, beautiful people.
Beauty, I know, a distraction from pain.
Smile, it’s your day!
They smile, on cue-
they really want to mean it.
There are old people- at least fortysomething.
It’s funny, they smile anyway.

Some stand back,
not really there, but they have to be.

And some, I know, are quietly holding
a heavy excuse to beat me with
(they practice on themselves, like I did).
But not today,
They’re outnumbered.

Is blue the sky, or the other way round?
Today, it doesn’t matter.
My eyes are clear
my back is straight,
my neck getting stronger
with every passing feathery float.

~ D Gregory Smith