A REACTIONARY TRACT FOR THE TIMES

(Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard, 1946)

Ares at last has quit the field,
The bloodstains on the bushes yield
To seeping showers,
And in their convalescent state
The fractured towns associate
With summer flowers.

Encamped upon the college plain
Raw veterans already train
As freshman forces;
Instructors with sarcastic tongue
Shepherd the battle-weary young
Through basic courses.

Among bewildering appliances
For mastering the arts and sciences
They stroll or run,
And nerves that steeled themselves to slaughter
Are shot to pieces by the shorter
Poems of Donne.

Professors back from secret missions
Resume their proper eruditions,
Though some regret it;
They liked their dictaphones a lot,
T hey met some big wheels, and do not
Let you forget it.

But Zeus' inscrutable decree
Permits the will-to-disagree
To be pandemic,
Ordains that vaudeville shall preach
And every commencement speech
Be a polemic.

Let Ares doze, that other war
Is instantly declared once more
'Twixt those who follow
Precocious Hermes all the way
And those who without qualms obey
Pompous Apollo.

Brutal like all Olympic games,
Though fought with smiles and Christian names
And less dramatic,
This dialectic strife between
The civil gods is just as mean,
And more fanatic.

What high immortals do in mirth
Is life and death on Middle Earth;
Their a-historic
Antipathy forever gripes
All ages and somatic types,
The sophomoric

Who face the future's darkest hints
With giggles or with prairie squints
As stout as Cortez,
And those who like myself turn pale
As we approach with ragged sail
The fattening forties.

The sons of Hermes love to play
And only do their best when they
Are told they oughtn't;
Apollo's children never shrink
From boring jobs but have to think
Their work important.

Related by antithesis,
A compromise between us is
Impossible;
Respect perhaps but friendship never:
Falstaff the fool confronts forever
The **** Prince Hal.

If he would leave the self alone,
Apollo's welcome to the throne,
Fasces and falcons;
He loves to rule, has always done it;
The earth would soon, did Hermes run it,
Be like the Balkans.

But jealous of our god of dreams,
His common-sense in secret schemes
To rule the heart;
Unable to invent the lyre,
Creates with simulated fire
Official art.

And when he occupies a college,
Truth is replaced by Useful Knowledge;
He pays particular
Attention to Commercial Thought,
Public Relations, Hygiene, Sport,
In his curricula.

Athletic, extrovert and crude,
For him, to work in solitude
Is the offence,
The goal a populous Nirvana:
His shield bears this device: Mens sana
Qui mal y pense.

Today his arms, we must confess,
From Right to Left have met success,
His banners wave
From Yale to Princeton, and the news
From Broadway to the Book Reviews
Is very grave.

His radio Homers all day long
In over-Whitmanated song
That does not scan,
With adjectives laid end to end,
Extol the doughnut and commend
The Common Man.

His, too, each homely lyric thing
On sport or spousal love or spring
Or dogs or dusters,
Invented by some court-house bard
For recitation by the yard
In filibusters.

To him ascend the prize orations
And sets of fugal variations
On some folk-ballad,
While dietitians sacrifice
A glass of prune-juice or a nice
Marsh-mallow salad.

Charged with his compound of sensational
*** plus some undenominational
Religious matter,
Enormous novels by co-eds
Rain down on our defenceless heads
Till our teeth chatter.

In fake Hermetic uniforms
Behind our battle-line, in swarms
That keep alighting,
His existentialists declare
That they are in complete despair,
Yet go on writing.

No matter; He shall be defied;
White Aphrodite is on our side:
What though his threat
To organize us grow more critical?
Zeus willing, we, the unpolitical,
Shall beat him yet.

Lone scholars, sniping from the walls
Of learned periodicals,
Our facts defend,
Our intellectual marines,
Landing in little magazines
Capture a trend.

By night our student Underground
At cocktail parties whisper round
From ear to ear;
Fat figures in the public eye
Collapse next morning, ambushed by
Some witty sneer.

In our morale must lie our strength:
So, that we may behold at length
Routed Apollo's
Battalions melt away like fog,
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
Which runs as follows:--

Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.

Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.

Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.

This is for all my battle buddies, HOOAH!
Serving in Iraq,
Serving in Afghanistan.
With a grainy, sandy, hot, and humid desert surrounding you.
Looking into miles of nothing.
Always ready, always on patrol, ready to roll.
Ducking your head to re-load in the middle of the firefight.
Taking a stand against the evils of the world.
To my battles with integrity,
We all bleed the same,
Fighting for freedom of the Red, White, and Blue
Live green die green
Scream it with me at the top of your lungs:
HOOAH!
Soldier people;

This for all the clowns that play Video Games
Talking that 1337 (LEET) speak
Owning some newbs for fun
Screaming at the little kids that they ****
I’m taking on the girls 1 versus 1
Passing by the hours staring at the screen
Drinking Mountain Dew, and eating skittles
Sniping people with your M4,
Blowing them up as they walk through the door
Gamer people;

This is for all my Tech-y nerds
Working with computer components
Make sure you stay grounded
We don’t want an electrical eruption
I hated Network Theory,
But I still didn’t get a B.
The “have you tried restarting,” people.
Surfing the Internets, refer to Wikipedia people.
Tech people;

This is for all the Snowboard bums,
We ride hard, but still chill
Jumping in front of the skiers for a mighty thrill
We do it for an Adrenaline rush
Boardin’ through the trees,
And the snow that is white and plush
Snowboard people;

This is for all the Music lovers
That let the beat move their souls
Bumpin’ to the rhythm
Dancing out of control
Let the beat take you away
Fist pump yourself into the night,
Even though I can’t dance, ‘cause I’m White.
Music people.

Surviving a War that doesn’t seem to end, bombing and sniping all around. This is the real story in a book called “ The Cellist Of Sarajevo”, where three characters emerge to face this adversity head on.  You have Arrow once a innocent young girl, now trained assassin to **** her targets without making a sound. Then you got Kenan a person who risks his life to fetch water for his family and others in need, no matter if it weighs a ton. Finally you have Dragan the person hard to explain, he just does what he needs to do, he will come to not care about the dangers of the outside, because he will control his own destiny. Each of them has their place in the race to survive this cruel onslaught from the men on the hills weaponry.

It was a beautiful rainy day.The rains showered like blessings from the sky to mother earth.The drops drizzled over several stunning creations of God. The ***** frog winked in fright when the tiny drop thumped on its peeping head which it had kept out from its water world curious to know what's happening outside.The lazy ladybird hides itself in the rug of leaves it hopped and played till then.Little dusty leaves quivered with joy as they rejoiced and celebrated the long waited bath.

      Far aloof,the village looked so spanking new than ever after it was wetted by the light rain.so modest,so composed,the radiating sun put itself out of sight making way to the pompous clouds.Besides all these petite feelings,the livid eagle gaped at the sky sniping for it had missed its daily glide over the rusty mountains.

      All these tiny things shaped out the background,while the main subject remains undescribed yet.The big fat buffalo stands aright in tranquility as if nothing new happened.Its skin so tight,shining so bright,created a beautiful sight as the raindrops tapped on it pitter patter.Its horns like engraved artifacts mirrored each other and stood still amazed at their similarity.The momentary muddy puddle covered up its hooves.

      And now comes the most interesting foreground of the picture. It’s the little cute boy!!! Small dark brown eyes...Umpteen hopes filled in them. He wore the most beautiful jewel on his face....it’s his smile gleaming with merriment. While his tiny hands held tight the wicker, his entire little body hid itself behind the huge gunny he wore to shield against the shower. He hopped over the small puddle creating beautiful waves and exquisite splashes.

      And that forms the most beautiful picture about which my dad told me.The little boy is none other than my dad. :) :) .

Random randomness that means nothing at all
Neurons sniping and watching things fall at random locations.
Connecting dots picking forget me nots and making a pile.
:-)

there's that safe place between cold sheets,
the shivers welcome the dreams that harbor this unknown peace..
so close your eyes just this time and we'll let the substance sing us to sleep
pulsing through twisting veins as we're counting killer sheep
savage teeth rip animal instincts across your outstretched arms
and there lies a broken promise, you're no longer safe, raise the alarm;
these claws are killer digits, these fangs are sniping rays, so softly sneaking through curtains of hair;
their lights pierce through shades of skin, turning you
black and blue as you begin to pale
and now i'm singing siren songs, melodies to lure them in
one by one, my massacre begins
and all these morbid metaphors mean just one thing
i speak of that healing that time is supposed to deliver
and as my limbs curl under these sheets, gathering folds of fabric
while my mind's velocity reels under a veil of false awakenings
i'm just waiting for those shivers
for those ******* shivers that rack my spine, turning my lounge into fetal position
leaving my jaws open in silent indignation, letting quiet sounds drain my emotion
i jolt awake, leaving cries on the stagnant air of this summer night
and clack together these sharp rays of light
grinding these ivories down to soft keys again.
the stars hide from me in their shroud of fossil fuels, saturated, decomposed on the heavy air.
when i open my eyes, you are still elsewhere.
and i close them again, just to be sure you're not a ghost, but here they come again, those god ****** shivers.

We post, tweet, google and skype
We re, fwd, edit and code
We have so much access, to so much tripe.
We log in, connect, update, download


Instant information,
endless exploration
constant zombification
Our wireless Nation

Pale electric shadows,
cast on the walls.
Unable to break from
the gripping siren's call

Camping the bodies
pwning the noobs
sniping their medic
just for the luls

Mining down deeply, into the nether
Waiting for spawns that follow the weather
Collecting the pets, weapons, mounts
Getting achievements that cross all accounts

So much to amaze, mesmerize, and entertain
All the things to look up, argue about, explain
A race with access to knowledge galore
and still we demand faster, better, MORE!