Michael D. Grover- Three Poems

Michael D. Grover is a Florida born Poet that currently resides in The Old West End of Toledo, Ohio trying to get as far north as he can. Michael has been publishing and performing Poetry for nearly twenty years and has been published all over the World. Michael published many of the best underground Poets in the country while he ran Covert Press. He has published over a dozen chapbooks over the years. Michael is the current Head Poetry Editor at Red Fez. In 2015 Michael published his first novel Lockewood/The Wolves Of Lockewood. He is soon to publish his next novel Heavy Metal.

Resurrection

A peaceful silence reigns here

A peaceful silence

Traffic & trains droning in the distance

Dog lays peacefully beside me

Waiting for me to write

Peaceful birdsong fills the air

Peaceful trees stand like sticks in blue sky

Early Spring singing resurrection

National Poetry Month

It's April & I don't want to

Write about Poetry until it's over

But the truth is I worry about its future

What future is there for Poetry

When people don't read

Poems become bland general rants, nothing to back them up

Spoke in perfect cadence street preacher

Or maybe cheap reaction

I'm not worried about Poetry

Poetry has survived hard, dark times

Poetry always survives

Go ahead, drop an atomic bomb

Make everything flat & dead

Poetry will survive

There just might not be anyone left to read it

Poets have died so Poetry may survive

Their blood spilled

From the poisoned blood of Neruda

To the L.A. street Poet Steve Barrata

& everything in between

Oh, Poets bleed

Blood spilled on a page or stage

All to preserve Poetry

So don't you tell me that Poetry's got a problem

If you do Poetry probably has a problem with you

We have the technology

We have the technology

I'd rather read the un-pixelated version

We have the technology

We can watch videos of Poetry on you tube

We have the technology

Who needs to read anything

We have the technology

You could vaporize the World with your for profit war culture

& what good would it do

As somewhere on another planet

Some alien writes something down

Shall you vaporize alien civilizations because they might write Poetry

You can't kill Poetry

You can dumb down culture

You can dumb down Poetry

Slick & hip like a new pair of jeans

Ready for performance

Smooth talkin', sayin' nothin'

But as the ad executive said

Image is everything

You can't stop the truth from speaking out

You can kill me, there is someone waiting behind me

Because his-story has taught us one thing

It is written by the winners, not the Poets

Confessions Of An American Outlaw #473

(Transmissions For Amiri Baraka #7)

Listening to some Poets lately

I'm thinkin' these are dangerous times

The man was always up to something

You would always tell it like it is

People would call your Poetry angry

You would forever be known as that angry guy

I never saw it

They tried to take away your life's work

They made it a holy war

They could not take a thing from you

I was living in Philly

Some stuffy jewish law student mother fucker

Would get in my face every day

Because he knew you were my favorite Poet

Telling me how they were going to run you out of your Poet Laureate roll

He wanted to crush you, I could see the hate in his eyes

He didn't even know you, he knew what he was told

He probably never even read the Poem

When it was all over, & you were out, he joked about it

Said when he was elected governor

He would appoint me as Poet Laureate

I told him Don't you ever do that

I feel like the World misses you

But you are still here in spirit

You were the one that taught me

It was okay to speak out

In fact it is necessary