I made a mistake and read the news today
Another pale man with a soul-less tie got away
With hurting people and polluting his way
To a golden parachute while he tries to cut our pay

Am I supposed to be happy about this turn of events?
A man sits in a tower and manipulates dollars and cents
People really aren’t anything to him but malcontents
I just shook my head and added to my list of discontents

So what’s the story?
Why does wrong get the glory?
Why is salvation illusory?
Why do good men live in poverty?
Why do the rich write our history?
Why do the meek remain thirsty?
Why do the quenched **** our country?
Why is God's love such a mystery?
What’s the story?
What’s the story?

They say I’m just jealous
Always sitting around and drinking with the fellas
Not knowing what to do, expecting someone to tell us
Believing the rich steal our life from us

But that ain’t it my good friend
You see life ain’t all about accumulatin’
And to choose to live humbly is worth glorifin’
So try to understand because I ain’t apologizin'

So what’s the story?
Why does wrong get the glory?
Why is salvation illusory?
Why do good men live in poverty?
Why do the rich write our history?
Why do the meek remain thirsty?
Why do the quenched **** our country?
Why is God such a phony?
What’s the story?
What’s the story?

When is the human race ever going to learn
You can’t keep taking and never waiting your turn
There’s no virtue in selfishness and what you earn
You know who said it but it’s her books time to burn

I’m going to say these things and put myself out there
I don’t care if you think I’m a loser whose going nowhere
‘Cause if I don’t say something then whose gonna care?
You can laugh but it's time for some class warfare

So what’s the story?
Why does wrong get the glory?
Why is salvation illusory?
Why do good men live in poverty?
Why do the rich write our history?
Why do the meek remain thirsty?
Why do the quenched **** our country?
Why is God for some men only?
What’s the story?
What’s the story?

I know their type ‘cause I’m not so young anymore
They smile at you but their sincerity is something to ignore
It’s not real because they’re really looking at the floor
Just hoping you go away so they can keep mining the ore

It’s a loser’s lament and I know that’s where it’s at
I may cry but I tell you I’m not impressed with all that
You take your millions and be a fat cat
But I'm not afraid of you because I ain’t no rat


Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Mark Lecuona

Sitting at a café
Over the smell of coffee
Scents of car fumes, ***** and ****
Worm their way into your nose.

The men, women, children
Pass you by without a glance
Each one on their own way
As uncaring feet pound pavement.

Indifferent people in expensive suits
Walk by tourists objectifying with cameras
Who accidently capture in their frames
The cold and the old slouching through the streets.

Even relaxing at the table
You feel caught up in the streaming crowds
As if you were being swept away
By these forces fighting for control.

As you sit as idle observer
To the worried pace of the city streets
You can sense the blind and frantic power
Of those who feed off our illusion.

(This illusion lies in each of us
When we close our eyes to the waking world
And believe that we could be happy
In our isolation from reality)

You can see it in the passers-by
Whose eyes focus intently ahead:
Afraid to look at other faces
As if they feared the connection.

Many imprison themselves in aesthetics
Of glass steel towers looking down on the earth
And drive isolation’s grim repetition
In a hopeless effort to make their own world.

Our illusion puts them there
When we do not question the surrounding order
Whose existence allows us to live in comfort
Insulating our delusions.

Our ignorance demands their ignorance
Which caters to our selfishness
And divides the passing days
With the rhythm of their control.

Their thoughts structure steel geography
That dreams that it could scrape the sky
And make its mark on the heavens
By countermanding nature’s will.

But nature stands indifferent to
Man’s attempt to supersede
Its will that gives to him his arrogance
That leads him towards his own destruction.

But I call you from this nature now
To return with me to where I stand:
On this mountain with the trees
Who beckon with their open branches:

Do not fight against nature’s rhythm
That springs the flowers from the ground
As it wills the sun to set upon us
And gives us the food to carry on.

I see myself as this reality
As feet take care to tread on soil
To avoid crushing the delicate petals
That smile upward towards the sun.

Time provides the future harvest,
But of its success, time will tell.
So I stand here with my garden ***
In loving silence, tilling the land.

To breath the air the sky provides
Takes me from my restlessness:
Watching the ground provide the future,
Submitting myself to nature’s pulse.

But the scenery of planned geometry
Which covers soil with concrete slabs,
As if embarrassed by earthly origins,
Tries to move to a different rhythm:

The glare of halogen eyes that stare
In unquiet nights in impatient lines
Find their way towards distant houses
That protect their owners from working lives.

This world screams out from its distortion
Of nature’s will that lies ignored:
It lays the path of its own destruction
As it claims its own power to endure.

But nature’s spirit will always triumph,
Whether through man’s self-inflicted end
At the hands of his selfish illusion,
Or through his careful heeding of the truth:

This world that’s lost its quite places  Demands we become its place of quiet;
To silence the thoughts that construct man’s world,
So that we absorb ourselves in nature’s will:

The heart that beats inside you now
Beats not for the one in whom it dwells,
But allows nature a fleeting glimpse
Of itself through conscious human eyes.

This truth whispers even now
From the deafening world of the city streets
That hurries towards its ignorant end
As it attempts to escape its fate.

Do not forsake the earth in waking life,
And wait for death to pull you into the soil
To meld with nature’s majestic cadence
And be one with your reality.

The tree is not refreshed,
by a tyrant falling at the gallows.
No, the ground we tred is hallowed,
And defended by the imortally blessed.
Until we celebrate our victory, wading
Waste deep in crimson streams.
Listing right, the tree now leans.
Left to decay and slowly uproot,
Gravity bends and twists her low,
Disfigured and mangled,
Into freedom's final death salute.
A tribute to the desert ghosts,
Tis vanity in death they share.
And the merchants of repression
Who peddle their fancy wares.
No tree shall ever flourish her,
Beneath the broken bodies, and billboards,
That blight the sacred sands.
A backdrop for the death of democracy,
And cryptic Christian comedy.
Where the actors act,
And the players play,
The truth is altered fact.
The audience sees but doesn't look,
Except to look the other way.
And in the glare of the Draconian light,
The neo-imperial guards, uphold the word of the right,
And little is seen from the scene of the plight,
Because the fist that won't feed is the same fist night,
With its finger on the trigger and the world in its sight.

And our father's fathers will roll tonight,
As we march to battle under unraveling stars and stripes,
To illuminate our sins in a holy fire fight.
We are blinded by the glare of the Draconian light.

We come in peace to **** you,
To **** you and your land.
We come in the guise of democracy,
But it is malice for which we stand.

Such a devotion to arms, is an ode to the Prince,
Antiquated and malignant.
Condemn us all for the harm we cause through our complacence,
Craven and ignorant.
We are far, too far, to care in the least,
Too far for screams and cries to reach.
Out of mind, out of sight,
But the blood is on our hands tonight,
Translucent as it may be in the Draconian light.

Keep your fists in the air,
Like the line from my favorite Beastie Boys song, “You’ve gotta fight for your right”
Making sacrificial lambs of your youth
I wish the Dalai Lama would commend you
Young warriors
Keeping your heritage wrapped around the soles of your feet as you march in protest
Crying out for help,
I feel the torment of hypocrisy
I am disgusted,
How can we be so blind?
How can we put our want for economic stability over the extermination of an entire culture?
The Middle Way is no way to go
The 21st century equivalent to the Trail of Tears
The silent “members” of the Chinese society
Fight tooth and nail for the right to speak your language
It is beautiful.

We divert rivers for desert fountains
Mine the very souls of mountains
yet we cannot spare the cash to feed the poor

Election hopefuls promise lies
while they look us in the eyes
then line their pockets like any other corporate *****

The treasury of this nation
thrives on fiscal *******
massaging figures til the money is all spent

And while we're all left to drown
some get bailed out to higher ground
as they stand upon the ninety nine percent

Why does the power of human greed
come before helping those in need
or is compassion blind, no longer can she see?

I pray to god I'm not alone
so if you appreciate my tone
come out and Occupy this planet Earth with me

The shot rang out from across the street
The Minister clutched at his throat.
He collapsed upon the balcony.
There was little cause for hope.

Dr. King was there in Memphis
to support black men on strike.
To help them gain a living wage
To help all do what’s right.

Jessie Jackson cradled King
as his vitals went flat line..
His words saved for posterity,
But violence would define the time.

A foolish, selfish criminal
Full of hate and self conceit.
James Earl Ray killed Dr. King,
And tempers flared on city streets

Bobby Kennedy called for calm
As riots rocked the City streets
Ironic that he too would die
within the space of several weeks.

Within four years, three leaders lost-
gone well before their time.
These killings poisoned Liberty,
She’s dying all the time.

For every aging boomer
there are one or two they've known:
Heroes of the battlefield
Who never made it home.

Some classmate who was butchered
in a fire fight in “Nam.
A sibling who had perished
in the standoff at Khe Sanh.

Perhaps the Tet offensive
left some friend's blood spilled and spent.
Politicians speak of glory-
It’s the grunts who pay the rent

From the walls of Hue to Can Ranh Bay
from Tonkin to Saigon.
there is a wall in Washington
with their names inscribed thereon.

The lucky ones who did come home
recall the name and face
of some heroic eighteen year old
who perished in their place.

I am older now
than you were then.
That day still lives
in memory

Did you hear the rifle's
echoing sound
as you passed me
in your Limousine?

The next,
like a Zapruder film,
plays out
in my unsettled dreams.

I saw a spray of pink
and blood.
I heard shouts
and a woman
scream.

Panic filled
my childish heart
I saw fear in
my Father's face.

I am older now
than you were then
that day
the world changed.

If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

Ascot - Race Course 1910-20 by daib0


King Edward the Seventh,
was dead.
With him, hope died also, tis said.
At Ascot later that year
his mistresses, I hear,
all favored blacks over reds.
Black hats with black feathers
they wore
in mourning for Bertie, they swore.
Black dresses, of course
for their dear love, now lost,
who, often, had honored their beds.

King Edward the Seventh,
was dead.
With him, hope died also, tis said.
In uncertain blue twilight
Dark shadows were spawned
as the glow from the
lamp lights had fled
Kaiser Wilhelm now free
of restraint from
  his Uncle Bertie
with reckless abandon
chose war.

Mam, from the September following Child’s 5th birthday I no longer consider you fit to raise him.
For six hours a day, five-days-a-week-term-time-only Teacher can help.
Unfortunately Teacher takes time off. She needs a break from your little monster-
so during the holiday she gives Child back. Try not to undo the good work that’s been done.
(…Won’t you?…)
If you want to bother Teacher with (daft) questions go ahead.
She’ll rearrange her face into a listening position- And respond with jargon designed to make you feel thick.
Concerns?
Child often exaggerates.
O, I see. 2 adults, 30 children and a bundle of paperwork?
She’s qualified. You’re not.
(…are you? Thought not. And you don’t live in Big House or sound T’s and H’s… So where were we?…)
Nightmares? Bruises? Cuts, scrapes, a black-eye? Low self esteem?
(…so you’re a psychologist now?…)
Child cries? Is unhappy in class?
His fault.
Or yours! Don’t worry. Teacher keeps her eyes open for signs of trouble at home.
Child skips school? Down to you.
(…There will be various consequences, of course. And implications……c-o-n…s-e-qu-e…nce-s…,….i-m-p…l-i-c…a-t…i-on-s… It’s been made clear already: You’re not fit to raise him…)
Pressured? Bored? Judged and ignored? Humiliated? Belittled? Frustrated?
It will lead to what, exactly?
O, when he leaves School! For just a moment there
I was worried.
No, no. Not a problem. Not a problem at all.
Maybe he’ll run with a bad crowd, break a few laws, end up in the gutter?
Yes. Maybe.
But it’s out of my hands.

The General stood looking in the mirror
Perfectly attired, Cap a Pied.
He turned to me and said
"We must not delay this,Mister Marshall.
This bitter cup that fate has handed me"
I handed him his sword in silence.
We'd be fighting in the hills
Were it up to me,
but even I knew that our men
were starving, Surrounded,
there could be no victory.

Traveler was mounted in an instant
Few looked finer on a horse than
Our Robert Lee.
Under flag of truce we rode
to the McLean House,
there to await the modern Ulysses.

Grant rode up dressed in a Sergent's uniform,
mud splattered,
His shoulder straps the only hint
of rank .
He looked more like the man
who had been beaten
Than General Lee who had to play that part.
He took Lee's white gloved hand, offered in greeting
both men's faces  etched with suffering, I saw.
They reminisced  about their other meeting,
when both served Scott in the Mexican  War.
Then General Lee asked Grant
to state terms of surrender.
They sat down and, in short order,
ended the unpleasantness of war.

The Victor was generous to the Vanquished:
No Rebel would be tried, or lose their home.
The men permitted to retain their side arms
Rations fed to men of skin and bone.
We'd Stack the drums and cannon in the field
Give our parole despite our internal pain
There were troops still in the field but it was over
April Ninth, a dark day without rain.