I don't honor Easter
Bunnies hoppin' on one leg
I have no taste
For colored "peeps"
Or chocolate Easter eggs

Thanks to
Emperor Constantine
We have this pagan brew
I find the worship of Ishtar
Has me in a stew!

The holidays of pagans!
And to see events of Christ
Blended in with all of it
Has my stomach in a vice!

Take your rabbits
And your "Ishtar" eggs
I'll just have to pray
I'd just prefer to call this time
RESURRECTION DAY!

I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet

I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms

I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud

I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone

I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife

There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood

Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate

These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel

We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told

We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon

What's it take
These days

To write a poem

That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest

Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?

Is it perhaps...
     the "creativity"
               of      varied      spacing
  or...    could it be..... the lack
                              of capitalization
               the loathsome little letters
               screaming out
                         hey, look at us!
         ... or maybe it's
               the punctuation marks,
     littered, haphazardly
          through the text
                    (whether used correctly)
               or, theyre not?!
     despite worrds mispeled
          and a grammar might is broken
   can these gimmicks increase interest
        though miswritten or misspoken?

Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
     unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
   (or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
                  Praise for which we
                  Privately, desperately
                  Pray

Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism

Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes

Well, maybe not...
     those gems are often ignored
     cast-aside, unread, even abhorred

Why?

Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
   of "the right way"
   to write
   to speak
   to act
   to live
   to (fill in the blank)

No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!

And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way

Line
After line
Of synonyms
          over
               and
                    over
                         and
                              over
                                   again

-----

What's it take
These days

To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?

But more importantly:
What's it take

To make my poem go viral?

Open, dark sepulchers! Autumnal woe
whips the dead leaves, which scattering, whirl below.
Bright orange memories of summer’s cheer
Flame out in phantom grimaces of fear.
Bare eldritch limbs reach out against the dusk
and spectral winds disturb each withered husk.
Thoughts wax sinister, existentially . . .
for such we shall become, eventually.
All hallowed saints acknowledge even this,
Departed from a world they do not miss.

Unable to assimilate true night,
The nation now embraces plastic fright,
Satanic sweetness surfeiting its young
while judgement in the wings, awaits, unsung.
They purchase Chinese plastic slasher-masks
To celebrate those diabolic tasks
They wish were only nightmares of the mind;
And so they show they’re spiritually blind;
Culturally and politically as well,
For thinking there’s no Heaven, nor a Hell.
As if Life’s stunning triumph thrills them less
Than spectral superstitions they profess.
They glorify the grave, though life is good—
Their children freely tour the neighborhood . . .

Oppression that prevails beyond our lands
Bears testament to this. Who understands
How real the threat of gruesome harm can be
Where terror’s costly fear is given free?
Imagine those who fled forevermore
Real graves and bones, blood; homelands wracked by war—
Survivors, having seen such things fulfilled
May wish they could forget how some were killed;
Their Halloween replaced with realer fates:
by bombs, in wars, in dark tyrannic states.
From whence true refugees take flight from death
to live where freedom draws an easier breath.
Uprooted, then transplanted, seeking life,
Believing they have now escaped the strife
Must they be thus subjected yet again
To fear’s oppressive rule, so now as then?
Traumatic scenes are glimpsed, it’s all in fun . . .
Meanwhile, those who have lived it come undone.
Ironic morbid joke: where freedom reigns
To purchase fake cadaverous remains;
Permit the grave to thus enslave our brains.

There was a brighter side to all this rot:
In neighborhoods your adult mind forgot;
So long ago, so lost in childhood’s mist.
Of what did earlier Halloweens consist?
It wasn’t all about the grave, the gore.
You didn’t buy your costume at the store.
Your mommy helped you tailor some disguise;
A character to charm, and to surprise
The neighbors known to live along your street.
Nostalgic masquerade: the bittersweet . . .
Now, our nation’s hypoglycemic kids
Gorge on what diabetes’ law forbids.
Macabre, this epidemic in our streets:
Sugar-addicted specters draped in sheets
Or dressed in Wal-Mart costumes of the ******
who ask for candy (grabbing on demand).

Were I the Lord, I’d find it all less cute
And curse it, as the fig-tree, to its root—
Slam shut the cover on the fearful tome,
Restore true life, reviving every home
Till Treats and Tricks alike speak more of faith
And God’s own Spirit banish every wraith.

The horrors you exhume in idle hours
To haunt your artificial autumn bowers
Are real for some, who question, once a year
What’s wrong with you, romanticizing fear,
When Death and Hell are real—however near.

Sarah Josepha Hale  (1788–1879)


We bring no earthly wreath for Time;
To man th’immortal Time was given—
Years should be marked by deeds sublime,
That elevate his soul to heaven.
Thou proudly passing year—thy name
Is registered in mind’s bright flame,
And louder than the roar of waves,
Thundering from ocean’s prison caves,
Comes the glad shout that hallows thee
The Year of Freedom’s Jubilee!
‘Tis strange how mind has been chained down,
And reason scourged like branded sin!
How man has shrunk before man’s frown,
And darkened heaven’s own fire within!
But Freedom breathed—the flame burst forth—
Wo to the spoilers of the earth,
Who would withstand its lightning stroke,
And heavier forge the galling yoke;—
As well the breaking reed might dare
The cataract’s rush—the whirlwind’s war!
Ay, thrones must crumble—even as clay,
Searched by the scorching sun and wind!
And crushed be Superstition’s sway
That would with writing scorpions bind
The terror-stricken conscience down
Beneath anointed monarch’s frown;
Till Truth is in her temple sought,
The soul’s unbribed, unfettered thought,
That, science-guided, soars unawed,
And reading Nature rests on God!
This must be-is-the passing year
Has rent the veil, and despots stand
In the keen glance of Truth severe,
With craven brow and palsied hand:—
Ye, who would make man’s spirit free,
And change the Old World’s destiny,
Bring forth from Learning’s halls the light,
And watch, that Virtue’s shield be bright;
Then to the ‘God of order’ raise
The vow of faith, the song of praise,
And on-and sweep Oppression’s chains,
Like ice beneath the vernal rains!
My Country, ay, thy sons are proud,
True heirs of Freedom’s glorious dower;
For never here has knee been bowed
In homage to a mortal power:
No, never here has tyrant reigned,
And never here has thought been chained!
Then who would follow Europe’s sickly light,
When here the soul may put forth all her might,
And show the nations, as they gaze in awe,
That Wisdom dwells with Liberty and Law!
O, when will Time his holiest triumph bring—
‘Freedom o’er all the earth, and Christ alone reigns King!’

It's been hard to get this far
Harder to explain
How I've made it all this way
With nothing up my sleeve

No slight of hand or magic
On which to fall back on
Only these two left feet
To keep me traveling on

To stay a-light in mid-flight
Is a feat all by itself
Clinging tight to razor wire
Through the hoops of fire, I'm dealt

In my defense, if I could swim
I would dive in deep
But as it is through all of this
There's nothing up my sleeve

If I knew the sum when I signed up
I might have saved for a rainy day
But this downpour has drenched me to the core
Still, I somehow make my way

It's time I suppose the saying goes
Finder's keeper's losers weep
And you will find that I ain't lying
When I say there's still nothing up my sleeve

I saw him,
under
halogen haze
never days
a child I thought
no, a man,
tiny, with
a quick gait
trying
to outrun
fate
or an imagined
pit bull
always,
a white
football helmet
he wore
always,
he waved,
but always
he was mute
once,
I was
close enough
to see his face,
a smile
behind which lay
a secret
no modern
alchemy could
make him forget
a code
no white coat God
could decipher
a Mona Lisa smile
when I was expecting
a Munch scream
why the helmet
from what
was he fearing
assault--the asphalt?
stones cast from
the heavens
he saw only
under cover
of night?
I heard his mother died;
then he disappeared
perhaps she yet
laced his shoes
before his nocturnal
sojourns
and strapped
the helmet on
his head
I look for
him, and
other night
walkers, though
his once upon
a time is
memory

the surface, frozen
in the depths, they rest
suspended among ice
crystals

we can't see through
the crust, though we
know they are there,
for simple hook and bait
wake them

within the fine folds
of their brains, the
accumulated wisdom
of a half billion years
guides them to the catch
the promise of full gut

they don't see us through
the ice, we two legged novices
in the kingdom--jesters who lull
them from Cambrian dreams,
to the white light of today

they snap the lure
they flap about on the frozen pond,
we witness their death throes, unaware
what the gasping future holds
for the wretched species
to which we belong

Lying embedded in velvet gloom and night,
You and I are gazing up the northern hemisphere.
Within the sea of darkness is the stars' stained light.

Hidden inside the fabric of interstellar space,
Might be a kind of universal truth
That answers all the questions of human race.

Sensing the pull of the universe
I feel like we're lost between the infinite vastness
That none of us could ever dream to traverse.

Suddenly you get up on your knees -
Head in the sky and feet on the ground.
“Perhaps the stars only made us feel lost,
because we both wanted to be found.”