Evil

       You should be more selective 

             with your use of the word

                                               Evil

   otherwise you will have nothing 

          to call it when the real stuff 

                                comes around 

              and you will look back at 

          these moments of your rage 

     and realize their insignificance 

                   We need to be sure of

    what we are looking at because 

  Anger unchecked becomes Hate

                 and bringing more Hate 

into the world will never be a way 

to defeat anything.

Ken Owen  Van Niddy Press   November 2017

And Death Said . . .

I gave thanks for my day 

and Death said 

“You are most welcome.”

I asked, “See you tomorrow?” 

and Death said 

“We’ll see.”

I cried, “I fear the future!”

And Death said

“Worry not,

we do 

exactly as planned

without knowing.”

Ken Owen 
Van Niddy Press,  November 2017

There Goes The Neighborhood

While everyone is complaining

About Millennials ripping the heart

Out of their neighborhood

There are a few things

You should remember:

The Colonial English said that

When The Irish, Germans, and Italian came in

And The Irish, Germans, and Italian said that

When The Africans came in

And The Africans said that

When The Asians came in

And The Asians said that

When The Great Generation came in

And the Great Generation said that

When The Beats came in

And The Beats said that

When The Hippies came in

And The Hippies said that

When The Cops came in

And The Cops said that

When The Drug Lords came in

And The Drug Lords said that

When Generation X came in

And now everyone is telling The Millennials,

Who did what we told them to do

To be successful and productive,

“Get out of my neighborhood

You self-entitled over-paid shit,

You’re destroying my Sanctuary City!”

It’s called Change: the universal constant

that has come to every village on the planet

since we crawled out of our cave and said 

“I was here first!”

Guess what; 

you weren’t.

Of course

you could always move 

to another neighborhood

but. . .what would people say?

Ken Owen   
Van Niddy Press   November 2017