Scratch it out, scratch it into a tree.
Put it down in history, or erase it from memory.
Just don't go insane, you know it's not necessary.

Oh tell me where has England's glory gone,
Lost golden days of beef and lukewarm beer?
Now it's polenta in a gastro-pub,
Chilean Chardonnay, Tequila Slammers.

Her Empire proudly pink on schoolroom maps;
India, Afric, source of plundered loot galore.
All gone, all gone, black faces back in charge
And black drug pushers stalk old London's streets.

Fat huntsmen dressed in pink, all banished now,
Their yelping foxhounds ripping prey apart,
Celebrating sick English country ways
Before returning to their mortgaged homes.

City yobbos yelling down their mobiles,
Fatcats slurping up their creamy profits;
All the public cares about is football
And the *** lives of the media's darlings.

So where has England's honour gone today?
Up the American military ****,
Our government showing its smug disdain
For what decent people care and think.

We've sold out to baseball caps and burgers,
And imported TV shows for the mentally *******,
A visitor attraction for obese rich yanks to drawl
"We're real glad we saved these Limey's ***** in two wars".

Pull* "The dog says: 'Bark'"
Pull "The cat says: 'Meow'"
Pull "The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says:......

The human says: 'I can understand that.'
                               Sternly command that.
                               shear and plow and smelt and can that
                            
                               I can make a plan
                               to catch and **** and roast and feast
                               on that hard quill and bristle beast

                               And I can stain his image on the living rock
                               no, not to mock
                               But to remember what feats we drew
                              up from ourselves
                               As the javelins flew
              
                              My hands are clever
              They chip the stone, and scrape the wood,
                      and wind the sinew

             My tongue is cleverer still
             My words are the creeping shadow of my  thoughts
             And just as a shadow is drawn along behind,
                     and stretches in the late dying sun
             And snaps to attention in the noonday swelter, to heel,                                                  obedient
­             My words precede me, and linger behind, and snap to my side to attack
             And defend
             And manipulate

             For well you know, dear reader
             That words move men to move mountains
             They can drive him to brave the tusks and teeth
              And reward him with praise, as the fire flickers against portraiture
             Of a hundred beasts
             Deadly, proud, roaring
             And in the end, delicious.

            How splendid am I
            To suss out basic truths
            From straight-line scratches
            In the dirt
            I can learn the rules
            of all that ever was
                            And to learn, is to understand,
            is to become unfettered
            
            I can cleave, dissect, *****, inject
            And figure it all out
            And learn from a loosing bout
            
             Every monster brought low
              will be investigated
              To see how we can end him easier

Until the last monster
Is man himself

In the cold
I sit alone
With myself:
Cup in my hands;
Raised it up, to invite
The sun, the moon and
My fathers, for a drink,
A drink, through the milkyway
A pause
A silence
Questions
Bewildering
Freezing cold
Teary eye
Curiosity fades -  the silence.
Come drink with me, my fathers
Come drink with me, morning sun
I seek friendship with the past
I seek wisdom with the past
I seek travelling mercies
A cup in my hands
Cold questions in my heart
Future, frozen in silence
Come drink with me, through
The many lights of the constellation,
To a future, of liquid beauty
Come drink with me,
The warnth of the    
sages, through this lean path;
Dotted with thorn piercing puzzles.
Bruised feet
Wounded hearts
Pilgrims surrender
The crown has fallen
Servants rule
Come my fathers
Come morning sun
For a drink with your son
Before I succumb to the many voices, in my ears.

Today I finally felt equal to you
When we were standing in front of the class
Talking about History
Side by side
Together

He stares at the whizzing blades above the bed,
recalling each face during moonlight hours—
civilians twitching with each bullet as they slam
into walls, finally trapped.
His hands, trembling, remain bare
but the faint iron odor sits under his nose, unmoving
since 1967 in Dak Son.

Defeated cries pierce the early morning silence
in the village.  A baby whimpers next to the body
of his mother. Women’s feet pound against gray dirt,
an anthem for the safety of children.

He visits fallen brothers, squinting
at endless rows of gravestones.
The villagers all lie together.

They warn us that fever travels in the air,
so women pull the shutters closed and keep
children out of the empty, heady streets.
Grandpa tries to assure me we are safe,
that yellow fever will stop when the ports
close. He never speaks of how the victims suffer,
shuts the curtains against my anxious eyes
as the bodies are removed, but rumors catch
the breezes, too.

Vomiting, bleeding from the nose and mouth,
the eyes yellow, and then victims reach out
in a last fit of delirium, demanding forgiveness
from God’s wrath as He turns them the sallow
shade of the September sun. This is the color
of a body when salvation fractures
from the depths of their souls.

Each day, the count of the dead rises.
My cousin, the milkman, a widow down the block—
all pass within hours. The Quakers deem
this the Almighty’s will, his “rod.” Physicians
bleed the sick, and I think not to rid them of disease,
but to account for sin.

We all hope for frost. I know Grandpa will not leave
the city, but I do not imagine his eyes yellowing,
for pride keeps them clear of exhaustion
and glaze from inviting liquor or laudanum.

My whole body sweats from dreams
of corpses the color of tobacco-stained teeth,
blood pouring from eyes like tears, each one dropping
to the ground. I wake up, dizzy in smeared-red sheets,
my nightgown smelling like a mausoleum, but I do not
call for help because I’ve been waiting to look
into the face of God, to see my yellowed city’s reflection.