In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

‘Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!

                          H. W. Longfellow

When bureaucrats, with obfuscation
monotone in data-speak
and mumble to their mutinous nation,
bloodless vessels spring a leak.

Scan in vain the rolling breakers;
leadership is out to sea.
Overscripted undertakers
claim to speak for you and me…

The Ship of State, adrift, becalmed
floats on; a most ill-fated craft.
The body politic, unembalmed
begins to ripen fore and aft.

The crew, grown callous to the rot
and numbed by such expediency
with one last desperate cannon shot
forsake all hope of mutiny.

While computers spit statistics,
crewmen spread the expectant word;
(no more trust in mere ballistics…
hope delayed is hope transferred.)

“Make ready to abandon ship !
The captain’s just a talking head.
Lower the lifeboat, let her rip –
before, like him, we end up dead…”

The Ship of State is rent with breaches
data-leakage, data driven –
the lifeboat flounders, coral-riven
seeking distant wave-washed beaches.

♀↵ϖ†∅↨⊕☺☼↑↓

Apples will be cantaloupes
depending on their nurture;
and so I cherish rainbow hopes
for our collective future.

Oranges elect their hue
improving Nature’s seal,
while pronouns stifle what is true
suppressing the appeal.

Fruits may choose to change to nuts
and fowls select their plumage.
Why settle in Tradition’s ruts?
Such rigid roles do damage.

Nuts in turn, may feel like flowers,
picking how and when to bloom.
So ambisexual thought empowers
androgynes to court their doom.

A leopard, too, may change his spots
(or turn into a vegan bunny)
No law’s tittles, neither jots
make Speciesism funny.

If you decide to see it so
the sky above is yellow.
Perceive as pink the grass beneath
and better times must follow.

Gender? Merely social constructs –
preach it to the masses
until tradition self-destructs
and *** takes off her glasses.

Babies need no Dad (nor Mother):
sexist labels, obsolete.
Love is blind. There is no other.
Bats must bark and chickens bleat.

Integrated water closets
show how far we have evolved:
urinary bank deposits
(with no member account involved).

Foolish thinking from the past
(like water being wet, and such)
calls for re-education, fast.
The State will lend its human touch

compelling all to sing the hymn
with genderfluid motions…
so birds can preen their scales and swim
in dry and waveless oceans.

(Yet “hymn” sounds sexist said out loud –
we ought to sing a “her” instead…
no – make that “us”,  since we are proud,
lest misconceptions be misread.)

Shake a healthy dose of salt
upon this strange post-modern food.
May God re-set us to default
with human common sense renewed.

ϖ↑∅⊕↓☺↨☼♀


The dawn is nigh at hand. The clouds
begin to lift above the grange.
Arise, O Phoebus, bless the crowds—
let poultry roam the range.

I’ll bind a broom of gathered hay
to sweep the hen-house free of hate.
Let roosters hail the crack of day
and chicks with ***** tempt fate.

A fractured self and a challenge hurled:
they left the shell, but found it rough
because our bigoted barnyard world
cannot get queer enough fast enough.

They flutter through the *******’s farm
subverting gender’s useless role.
We feel their pain, and mean no harm—
yet question this progressive goal.

They cluck a brand-new barnyard song:
Gender Identity Obsolete!
(As long as they claim God hatched them wrong,
biology signals their defeat.)

While poultry scratches rhymes for “hen”
and chicks are combing crests for *****
let’s ring the dinner bell and then
we’ll synchronize the global clocks.

Let Mankind’s unmanned race delight
at Jesus’ gender-free return.
Soon Africa shall see the light
and Araby’s sun more brightly burn.

Then dawn shall break o’er Russian plains
to liberate the Tartar races;
loose their limbs from Gender’s chains
to stride with polymorphous paces.

China too, and Southeast Asia
swift shall follow in their train
celebrating ***-aphasia
joining in the West’s refrain.

Hindu multitudes will rise
to vanquish gender, caste aside
and shake the slumber from their eyes
with metro-ambisexual pride.

Carib isles, with Latin kingdoms
From the tropics to the mountains
Shall announce they too are Wisdom’s,
drinking from de-gendered fountains.

Juveniles, raised to simply be
shall pioneer new modes of life;
explore horizons happily
set free from biologic strife.

Then shall our earth, in glad array
***** dirt upon Tradition’s tomb;
unshackled from that dark dismay
to grieve—but nevermore exhume.

Alas, the global dreams descend.
We’re back in the barnyard, gender-queer…
where hens have ***** and eggshells bend
transcending Nature’s reign of fear.

The henhouse still votes hetero;
their eggless chickens cluck for rights
biologists, ex utero
are born to further futile flights.

(Because I was almost one of them
I’ve earned the right to make fun of them.
Time alone will tell if the trend
remains coherent to the end.)