HEGELIAN CYCLES

“When will they ever learn?” - Bob Dylan

Secure in the golden cradle
    Of our past, we are schooled to know
        Just who we are and ought to be.

Then gales of change toss us out to sea –
       Reeling in the crests and troughs of doubt.
             Leaving us lost and adrift
       Between heritage and revolution.

Tempers boil, ignite and explode
      Sabers are rattled then swung
            In ****** of fratricidal madness.

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?

Meanwhile our fertile sun-washed globe spins on -
       Impervious to our juvenile conceits
           But perhaps saddened by our petty tantrums.

In time we wash ashore with fresh resolve
      To build new bridges, vessels and public works
            Born of vibrant craftsmanship and
      Designed for tomorrow’s travails and triumphs.

New cities rise and flourish with noble speeches
      And once more we rediscover
           Just who we are and ought to be
      Until history’s sermons are once again forgotten.

WILL WE EVER LEARN?
     And if so, WHEN

EARTH SONG
In that brief interval
Between first and final dust
Comes the song.

Lying supine in my crib,
With limbs flailing,
My curious eyes meet
Those of strangers
hovering above my cradle.

They sing softly to me
And I am mysteriously calmed.

In time I too will learn to sing
The names of everything -
Of what to do and why
And learn to check the ragings
Of my feral heart.

Someday I will sing the day long -
Serenading the fruits of the soil -
Belting out tunes of celebration
Or chanting lamentations of loss and sorrow.

But now, lying in my cradle
With arms and legs flailing,
I listen with curiosity
To the mysterious music that comes
In that brief interval
Between first and final dust.

April, 2008

When men cry, “Battle!”
And bullets are flying,
How dare they call “Glory!”
While children lie dying?

I gazed into the dark of night
     At a solitary beacon of light.
It might have been Polaris –
     Guiding ships in their courses
Or perhaps was our red-dwarf furnace
     Peering back at me from
A thousand light years beyond

Or maybe it was just that
     Tiny smoke detector bulb,
Beaming on our ceiling like a sentinel -
    Shielding us from fortune's fickle wheel.

Prigozhin was furious
      And for the first time
      In his blood-soaked life,
Told his country the absolute truth.

So he left Ukraine to
      March his troops toward Moscow -
      declaring the true reason
for the war (yes war)
      Is to massage the sick egos
      Of a few russian elites.

So call it off, russia!

Go ahead, scapegoat
      shoigu and gerasimov
      Whose lies heap up like piles of
bodies of ill-equipped russian soldiers.

Call it off in the name of Justice!
      It was always a mistake!

There were never
     ****’s to purge
Nor Ukrainian attack plans to repel.

It is not Ukraine
      Who bombs civilians.
It is not Ukraine
      Who wants to steal
Someone else’s homeland.

There are no shining
      Russian successes to glorify
      Only shoigu’s and gerasimov's
bloated egos to feed.

Why **** and die
So scumbags can have a blast?

Let the March to Justice continue
      In the re-purposed soul
             Of the russian people!

“There is no Planet B” – Emanuel Macron

Consider out dear earthly mother    
     Who serves us our daily bread and drink,
     Who freely gives from her slender crust    
The very stuff of farms and skyscrapers.

Every sprout that bursts by her grace    
     To form tiny clovers or giant sequoias,
     Every saint or cutthroat and everyone in between    
Owes all they have to her bountiful womb.

Given what our earthly mom is to us,    
     What should we be to her?
     Should we shower her with obedient honor    
Or gnaw off the hands that feed us?

All that we know and feel    
     Or hope will ever be
     Lives and rains and snows on Planet A    
There is no Planet B!

Robert Charles Howard