The spirit of Mulan lives inside these girls
she who transforms to go to war
she who chops her hair and binds her chest loose clothing, low voice
she marches to the battlefield
made of asphalt and alleyways
she hides in hoodies, armed with keys
to combat hidden enemies
these battles are fought in the night
far from pools of streetlight
she masquerades to avoid an invasion
she fights to protect her only home

frigid homeless shivering
on Bank of America’s
front porch step  

propped up by
oligarchic investors and
solipsistic one-percenters

and we pass by
in apathetic
self-absorption

we are brainless
enraptured  by smartphones
while the State bombs
our neighbors

mutilating children
sowing seeds of terror
with every abuse of power

we convince ourselves
that there's an afterlife
and raze Earth
as we raise hell

the only home
we’re guaranteed
infinite growth in
a finite world
consuming joylessly

inculcated
inane and
vain beyond
all measure

we’ve ravaged the planet
we will all die

alone

I’d swear a monster lived in the hall
Of the house when I was young,
Just like the tiger under the bed
I could see when they were gone,
For I could hear him climbing the stair
When the house was fast asleep,
I knew he roamed around and about
When the stairs began to creak.

And then he’d enter my bedroom and
He’d re-arrange my toys,
That’s how I knew he disliked me, he
Kept all his tricks for boys.
He never bothered my sister, or
Disturbed her dolls and things,
Her bedroom was like a sanctuary
For her necklaces and rings.

He’d hide in all of the daylight hours
So he’d not be seen by them,
The others, who would make fun of me
When I warned them all again:
‘You wait, he’s going to take you out
He will catch you unawares,
You won’t be able to scream or shout
When he comes, and climbs the stairs.’

The winter months were both damp and cold
And the woodwork creaked and groaned,
It shrunk and stretched, it was getting old
And it hid the monster’s moans.
So I hid down by the bannister
And I tied a string across,
To trip him when he would climb the stairs,
I would teach the monster loss!

A storm was raging outside that night
And the wind howled through the trees,
The back door opened and flapped a lot
And let in a winter breeze,
I heard my father run down the stairs
And an awful cry and crash,
Then silence settled and fed my fears
Where the bannister was smashed.

I thought the monster was gone for good
With the service come and gone,
I thought he couldn’t survive that crash
And the crematorium,
But barely a week had passed us by
And the stairs began to creak,
So I placed a candle under the stair
And the place burned for a week.

David Lewis Paget

God sent me a beautiful angel.
A beautiful angel with this rare melody.
A rare melody I've been dying to hear.
Dying to hear the love of my life speak to me.
Speaking to me about how much they been waiting for me.
Waiting for me to find my way to my beautiful angle with this rare melody I've been dying to hear.
         -s.g

Let us send mosquitoes into exile,
To the obliterating cold of Antarctica,
     In hope that the stars will take refuge
In this corrupted Archipelago, till then
We shall tire this full moon, lay our lovers down,
And burn the shadows
     As a campfire of our love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

You're a prisoner of your own design; that curse that is your mind.

To these Babylonians
Oh father, and I am a child of Abraham
Daughter of salt and desert
Daughter of the sun blazed beige dream mountains
Who roll together like sleeping dinosaurs
In the archives of my memory.

To these Babylonians
And I have withheld from them my true name
For their tongues are not fit to pronounce it
Written in black stardust across my ankle
Branded like the wandering sheep
In the blue hills drowning in yellow gnats and cloud.

My father taught me how to survive
Babylonia
By the seaside the shore was covered in
Transparent jellyfish and dark ocean weeds
Abraham inhaling foamy salt waves
Preaching black oil, blood and fire

Preaching this, Babylonia
When foreign lands resemble home
When homes revert to foreign land.
When earth and sky and water do not remember you
When you do not remember them
Singing still in the salty undertow
Treble clefs caked in the cracks of my bones
Barefoot fire altar, sticky sunbeam fractures
Progeny of Abraham
Singing sacrifice
Stolen seconds folding themselves into eternity.

To these Babylonians
And I am a child of Isaac
Violin strings shouting with the river
Jacob whispered all rivers and all rivers
Flow to Rome
And all salt water tastes of home
Find me in the poison current of the obsidian ocean
Jellyfish seaweed and petroleum-slurred sands
My father Abraham sang many songs.