"barbary" poems
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine,
Air, space, land and sea;
Sailor, Corpman, Airman, Soldier,
Pilot, Ranger, Medic, SEAL,
or Merchant Mariner;
Barbary, 1812, American Revolution,
Civil, Spanish, Texan and Mexican,
WWI, WWII,
Korea, Vietnam,
Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Khaki, green, white and blue,
Ship, tank, plane... all boots.
Knife, pistol, bomb or rifle,
Weapon, bandage, or Bible instead,
Each one’s veins filled with red.
Hostage rescue, protect and shield,
Capture, conquer, overcome, never yield;
Freedom, heartbreak, loss and grief,
Foreign, home, border, sky,
Ocean, desert, mountain, plain,
Water side, hillside, bedside, grave.
Parent, child, father, mother,
Auntie, uncle, niece or nephew,
Sister, brother, spouse and lover.
May your sweat on furtive brow,
Rouse our tribute, take knee and bow.
Buried, missing... wounded all,
Respect, endure, honor, release,
Forever may you rest in peace.
*To each of you
Who’s paid a price,
With years, with limb,
With blood, with life,
For each of these,
Oh, warrior ferocious,
Wrapped around
A heart that’s precious;
My voice it sings,
Let freedom ring;
My heart, it bleeds,
My eyes, they weep;
My hand, it rises in salute;
And my soul is filled
This day for you
With pride that swells,
With love that beats,
A song of deepest,
Heartfelt
Gratitude!*
Oh Warrior, you this day I salute!!!
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 3:37 PM UTC
*The fundamental phenomena in nature are symmetrical
with respect to interchange of past and future.* --- Richard Feynman
Millions for Defense
In the Cabinet room of Monticello, clutching Decatur's letter,
the President removes his wire-rimmed glasses ---
Frigate Philadelphia has been burned.
Decanting a bourbon, he pours and quaffs.
Outside in the piazza the cicadas' din is unbroken.
The Pasha of Tripoli has his tribute!
In three short hours warm rays of sunlight
will greet the outstretched arms of Earth,
but for now the bourbon scintillates.
Ink splatters on the blotter,
as he pounds a clenched fist upon the desk.
Not one cent!, he pronounces to the wall-clock.
Cicadas hold sway in the Charlottsville night,
but on the Barbary Coast a fire is raging.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 9:39 AM UTC
oh sorrowful
barbary coast
they took your young daughters
and sold them to sheikhs
of the sand as water
not so unlike college girls
from the mainland
disappearing now
during spring break
as midnight contraband
Feb 5, 2020
Feb 5, 2020 at 7:39 PM UTC
Where marinated in our murky past
have we found justification for the travesties we do,
build prisons where our prejudice lasts,
and allow its prisoners to fester as they stew
I have felt this heat.
The flame which boils in the toils of others,
whose oils lick embers into wildfire.
And we fall back into the Dark Ages.
where minds who place burden on those with different skin
slink flicking flint to fire, raising from the earth
the walls we have spent decades taking apart one brick at a time.
one brick at a time,
comment by comment,
each passing moment
condone it.
ignore it.
passivity pays the builders of this monument.
who see no wrecking ***** to stop them.
passivity, fills the pockets of the petty
coin by coin collecting courage to speak
outwardly outrageous
slurred hate speech contagious
barbary amounts its fortress from our silence,
one brick at a time.
I have seen the origins of intolerance,
holding together the cinder blocks of utterance
all the moments we should have said something and didn't.
In my selfish silence I see senselessness slip past my snares.
In my hush I hear hate harrow the ventricles of hearts much weaker
than the speaker.
Loathing left untended like
loose mountain snow
will like an avalanche gain strength
in movement.
To you,
the architects of abhorrence
the creators of execration
I plead: lay down your urban dictionaries.
Know that you lay a foundation
whose structure will build up,
but whose existence will tear down.
To you,
those who watch the construction
and stare in silence sufferance,
know that although no sweat has fallen,
and no aid has been laid by your hand,
That this malicious monument is as much yours
as it is theirs, through your willingness to watch it go up
one brick at a time.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 11:46 AM UTC
There was an Old Man of the Cape,
Who possessed a large Barbary ape,
Till the ape one dark night
Set the house all alight,
Which burned that Old Man of the Cape.
1.1k
Who could condemn the clouds
for its dream and rendition of heaven
in vanilla cotton canopies
like steam trails from wishful
twilight's great sleeping
who could refuse the stars
that connects distant years from space
to wonderment's eyes here,
gazing up tonight agape at its mystique
when the machine mach march
of industry and city din spinning
in smog loud air - percussions down
to the edge of the shore
where silver sheen of onyx
black stillness of the water laps
licking the earth in its soft reality
the moon-glow and darkness
with its unseen places keeping slumber
in silent throes or weeping woes
still, I ache to cease the gnashing
of teeth - Barbary and conquering…
those who are unseeing in great haste
With worry and loss of a moment's look
theirs given to everything
outside themselves, mistook.
Who blames heaven, not knowing how
we lead a song yet never loving its vow?
Search for more of offerings
yet not even aware of how
blessed we are
here and now...?
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 8:02 AM UTC
last night i dreamed my memories
were lined in quills and nettles
soaking in jars of aloe
they played on underdeveloped
film stock, across slabs of barbary fig--
out in the desert
like a burning bush.
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 7:51 PM UTC
Barbary
Go out to the bar
Pop Punk and Emo night
dress in all black
band tea, skinny jeans, converse high tops.
Something Ironic
Want to see friends
haven't seen in ages
jump around
sing Saves the Day
"At my funeral I will sing the requiem."
Watch people drink
they seem to be having fun
feeling ****** can't drink
was just at an AA meeting earlier
**** this, do hard drugs, drop out, hurt the ones you love.
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 10:19 PM UTC
I
God Nine ***** his thumb—
the one with the garish topaz ring.
Even if you don’t know where to start,
you can pick him out of the circle.
Look behind each one’s ear till you find the tattoo.
II
Showing off to junior high school girls,
the skater fell
before he could commence the final turn
of his figure eight.
God grabbed his blade.
III
God prefers nine
The small girl watches traffic passing her house.
She estimates, in her childish way, the incidence
of accidents at one in five thousand fourteen cars.
On the bare, smoking engine block of the most recent wreck
she reads the serial number: G-O-D-9.
IV
We can train a hungry pigeon to scratch out anything—
God,
Lagomorph,
9—
given enough sunflower seeds and horses
V
The first thing I taught my son
was knitting. Then he learned God.
After that he was on his own.
He never could spell “Charles” (C-H-A-L),
and counted “... 6, 7, 8, 10.”
VI
In Corsica, they write the number ‘9’ on its side
to confuse it with ‘6’.
This pleases the Barbary apes, though
god knows the tin whistles are loud enough.
VII
... a hail of symbols. The stir-crazy physicist
hung from the groaning lower bough of the ash
pelting us all with umlauts and nines, shying
plomets, as the Herr Gott
sings through fibre optic cable.
VIII
Answer: God takes tin and fishbones.
Theme: the best inzulation against disappointment
in love.
Query: 9, as a hat with a lost finger?
IX
9> God< Opera > Charles < 9.
Which I hate, being left-handed —
I drag the flat of my hand across the tail.
The wet ink blackens the clean page.
And no, I will resist pencil unto death
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 7:36 AM UTC
Barbary
Go out to the bar
Pop Punk and Emo night
dress in all black
band tea, skinny jeans, converse high tops.
Something Ironic
Want to see friends
haven't seen in ages
jump around
sing Saves the Day
"At my funeral I will sing the requiem."
Watch people drink
they seem to be having fun
feeling ****** can't drink
was just at an AA meeting earlier
**** this, do hard drugs, drop out, hurt the ones you love.
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 2:50 PM UTC
Like a prophet in a trance
I saw the gathering of black snakes,
Among them is a giant black snake
Whose size and nature
Falls on the retina of every eyes,
Like an Iroko tree
In the mist of other trees.
He is a strong and proud creature
Like the Barbary Lion,
As the king of his region,
He stays on the greener pasture.
But as I look closer
My eyes began to see my ears,
And my tongue touches my nose;
For the other black snakes
Were like the seven thin cows
In Pharaoh's dream;
They were eating better
Walking faster,
And getting greater
Than the giant black snake.
Then I look even closer
As confusion and curiosity
Beats the drums of my heart,
I gradually found my foot
On the ground of reality
As I realize that,
The giant black snake
Has thirty six heads
And thirty six tails
With one body.
Different heads
With different tongues,
Different tongues with different tastes
So they move in different directions
In search of different foods
To quench their different tastes.
As to this different goals
They fight themselves
Only those whose tongues share same taste
Walks in the same direction.
While the body preaches
Unity and faith,
Peace and progress
The different heads preaches
Tribalism and division,
Inequality and oppression-
This has given birth to
The crocodile smile and
The python dance in
The heart of the giant black snake.
Waking up from my trance,
I realize the giant black snake
Can be a GREAT giant black snake
And see beyond his limit
Like a soaring eagle
Only if, the whole thirty six heads
Walks in the same direction
Despite their different tongues
For their is strength in UNITY
The ant can explain better.
..........The end.......
Jun 23, 2019
Jun 23, 2019 at 11:59 AM UTC
Oh Kushite muses, open wide my lips
Regardless whether blood or honey drips,
To speak against the backwardness of those
Who progress, light, and liberty oppose.
To clarify a theme of clannish wrong
While nomads move the camel-herds along.
Animal husbandry takes on new meaning:
Their brides sewn shut; their pasturelands are greening;
Sheba’s daughters cheated of their pleasure,
Despoiled through painful plunder of their treasure.
Filthy blade in hand, the crone bears witness.
The girl in terror, clueless, cut, then clitless.
As if this weren’t enough, infibulation
Ensures the bridegroom’s ****** **********
The honeymoon brings every husband joy:
Reopening the wrapping on his toy.
Where knife or horse-whip place their gentle kiss,
there Kushite swains deliver nights of bliss.
And nine moons later, motherhood, grown mild,
is opened yet again by blade for child.
From Kush to Punt, on Afric’s burning horn,
Sadistic ways cause modern minds to mourn.
We wonder how this barbary was born . . .
Many Bantus, and Ishmaelites as well
consign their birth-machines to living hell.
Explain to me how Satan sold this rite
to those who dwell in bio-sexual night?
Veiled in flesh, her godhead cast aside
Subjected to some herdsman’s wounded pride . . .
Let Kush and Punt, their glory days recall;
Their daughters drink the wormwood and the gall.
Old scars, reopened, threaten to infect
What multi-culti feminists protect.
(*But no one ought to talk about such things
because of all the prejudice it brings*.)
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 5:23 PM UTC