The gift of giving indiscriminately
is a gift we should give indiscriminately
There's a secret to a good life and here's the key
The path to happiness is generosity

Happiness doesn't dilute when you give it away
and it constitutes in everything you say
You can literally have your cake and eat it
depending exactly on how you treat it
take it, use it, split it, pass it on
every time you do that it will be twice as strong

happiness is a virus we need to learn to spread
a pandemic of the head
A vaccine shot straight to the heart
infecting you with a flying start
secret to the deeper hidden meaning of living
that happiness is caused by indiscriminate giving.

The knife of life carves indiscriminately without warning
said the runts of the pumpkin patch now lined in mourning.
A farmer plucked biggest one, cutting vine, as the runts cried
a black harvest, Mama being carted off, as she died.
Sad black crows circle the day and night sky abreast and stressed
as the winds of fate wielded its teeth at the oppressed.
A blur of orange is all the crows saw amongst the quivering patch
as the farmer tiptoed the pasture wide-eyed on getting his ******.
Now at the hour of her death angels play harps of fruition
in wake of the wide-eyed farmer's wayward act of abscission.
Billows of black smoke followed, taking to the ominous  skies
as the incinerator took matters in its own hands as she lies.
Then all that was left were the ashes and whispers of the past,
a eulogy, as her quivering kin sat in the storybook downcast.
Pages cried out, tears filled the chapters of a great pumpkin patch
her roots holding each on the vines with love that's hard to match.
No day came off, of a jack-o-lantern smiling in a window frame
for in this family house cancer snatched mothers life just the same.

Logan Robertson

8/4/2018

"A leisurely breakfast" their mother would admonish, "aids digestion and builds strong bones..." so what with the imposed inactivity every morning, boredom broken only by Sockeye the family Spaniel, whose want of table manners coincided very conveniently with mealtimes... as he paced restlessly under the table, slobbering indiscriminately in his daily scramble to devour every dangling morsel before supply and demand shut up shop for the night and went home, far tastier... he gobbled down the latest offering of egg white, than the remnants of his own dietary allowance, they just had to get the timing right that was all, or risk loosing a finger, or gaining one depending upon who was doing the dangling, or who was doing the gobbling... he gave an indignant sneeze, not so much a hint but more of a... 'what's with the pepper malarky...'  So that it was only with a good deal of snappy hand coordination, lengthy digestion and sturdy bone building that Rocky was finally able to extricate himself from the table and make the most of what little time remained until lunchtime, meagre time indeed for the Rocky's of this world to hang around with their dogs, leaving their little sisters to help mums do, whatever it was that girls usually did when they should have scooted out of the kitchen faster, when it would have been all so much simpler just to grab a handful of biscuits instead...  Meanwhile, laying in wait in the room above, flat out upon the bedroom counterpane, having recently had their insides stuffed to bursting with a full English breakfast's worth of beach and holiday apparal... and that was just the luggage.    

     The contents of which, up until a week last washday had been snoozing fitfully behind 'Do Not Disturb' signs, cautiously peeping out from the gloomier, more remote recesses of the bedroom dresser, or carefully concealed in cupboards and closets... and being in every other respect by no means readily accessible to public scrutiny of any kind... had been left to their own devices some twelve months earlier with a clear understanding to skip bath nights from that moment on and henceforth immerse themselves in the heady, camphorated pungency of mothball, vowing once and for all never to darken portmanteau lids again... but now, after many hours of arduous laundering and de-fumigation... were now being squeezed and unceremoniously shoe-horned into what had recently become nothing short of an overcrowded sanctuary for the dispossessed.  
              
     Meanwhile, all the luggage asked from life other than be detained under section four of the Mental Health Act, 1983 and be found cosy padded accommodation elsewhere... was to have their interiors vacated, their tranquility reinstated... and with a questionable wink from a dodgy Customs official, have their travel permits invalidated... irrevocably, for despite throwing a double six for a spot of well earned convalescence back on top of the wardrobe some twelve months ago, basking in the shade of a warm Summer Sun, striking up the occasional conversation with the floral decor, third bloom from the left currently answering to the name of Petunia, the still over extended luggage, seemingly with little hope of R & R this side of the letter Q, faced the perennial disquiet of vacational therapy, of being knelt on, sat and bounced upon and be specifically manhandled in ways that matching sets of co-ordinated luggage should not...
                                        
     Tina could be heard quite distinctly in the next street concerning her husbands lack of competence, whilst Red it appeared had become just as outspoken as his wife in that particular direction... as the local self appointed busybody, who lived well within earshot of the address in question would bear witness to as she put feverish pen to paper, writing to what had become a regular... and some would say hot bed of intrigue in the local tabloid concerning how vociferous the once tranquil neighbourhood had become of recent and how certain undesirable elements within the community were to be heard carrying on alarmingly at all hours, day and night... and as she diligently weighed her civic duty against simple household economics as to whether to send this latest block busting eye opener by first or second class post, their parents could now be heard broadcasting, if anything to a wider listening audience than the previous newsflash, some of the more sensational episodes of the previous twenty-four hours as to who was pulling whose suitcase zipper now... although in which direction it should be pulled, they both agreed, wasn't for public disclosure at that time... vowing to draw blood well before the day was out, as three lacerated fingers would later testify and that it was only because of the children that they were going at all... but God willing, they would be setting off very shortly with rosy smiles on their faces for the sole benefit of the neighbours, even if it killed them. 

     Spurred to fever pitch  by this latest 'stop-the-press' newsflash, the same public spirited busybody now threw herself wholeheartedly into further award winning journalism and for the second time that morning took to pen and paper, only now directed to the gossip column in the local Parish Gazette, followed by grievous lamentations of impending bloodshed to the incumbent Chief Constable as to how they'd all be murdered in their beds ere long before nightfall.

     By devouring his water bowl, thereby dispensing with the need for it to be washed and by its abrupt and mysterious absence, disposing of all further incriminating evidence as to where the abundant supply of liquid, now surging copiously across the kitchen floor had sprung from... the flash-flood was hastily making its own getaway beneath the kitchen units, leaving Sockeye to his own devices to carry the can on his own, ankle deep in what up until earlier that morning had been sloshing around quite contentedly in Eccup reservoir.

      Having inadvertently released the handbrake in a boyish gesture of bravado, thereby placing himself in sole charge of a runaway vehicle, Sockeye it appeared was not the only member of the Salmon family to have dropped himself right in it that day as Rocky, having unwittingly placed the following ten years pocket money well out of reach and back into the pockets of his parents dwindling resources, had to a far greater extent nominated himself for the same Earth moving experience as the one his mum would shortly be giving Sockeye...

      Having just been granted licence to do whatsoever it pleased, the vehicle began its leisurely rearwards perambulation down the long garden driveway and by way of small thanks for its new found independence took Rocky along for the ride where due to a certain lack of stature on Rocky's part, at no point had he ever been in the slightest position to influence the Holiday threatening train of events which now engulfed him, never thinking to reapply the handbrake... that would be too easy, he perched on the edge of the seat clutching the steering wheel and stretched out his sturdy little legs in an heroic, but futile attempt to reach the pedals as the family car, which up until any second now had been his fathers pride and joy, pitched backwards at what seemed to Rocky, breakneck speed and directly into a very severe and unforgiving brick wall.

     Almost missing this latest round of entertainment above that of her parents most recent exchange, River accompanied by Sockeye scampered outdoors and slap into what could only be described as the most fun she'd had all year as an unsuspecting "what was that noise" muscled its way through the open bedroom window and fell flat on its face in the garden below and which, if that morning to date was anything to go by, then the neighbourhood would soon be tuning in to the latest Salmon family's 'hot-off-the-press' breaking news bulletin.

     Opening her mouth River hesitated as she fine-tuned the speech centres of her young and delicate synapse into full vocal alignment, then adjusting shutter speed from f8 to automatic she closed her mouth... then opened it once again and informed her brother that if the tip of dads size 9 was an Olympic gold, then Rocky would be sure to take first in the 110 metre hurdling event with 'team GB...' and could she have his autograph... with those words of solid encouragement rattling around his ears like the last biscuit in an otherwise empty tin box, River went skipping back into the house to announce the latest newsflash of her parents next financial happening... which she felt certain would prompt further rounds of thought provoking front page journalism.

     A steady two hours drive away, over on the east coast, the inhabitants of a sleepy fishing community were gainfully employed, pretty much as any other, going about their daily business, one such denizen... a baby crustacean, currently marooned by the tide had taken up temporary accommodation in a beachfront rock-pool property of certain distinction, was as yet unaware of a completely different and obscure set of circumstances that would shortly be rearing his slobbering jowls and bring all four paws, the size of dinner plates, crashing down upon the unsuspecting seashore fauna... was determined while she waited to catch the next high tide home, that until such time that the right wave rolled along, would potter about in the little rock-pool, perhaps indulge herself in a leisurely bathe... and catch up on a spot of therapeutic knitting.

     So, placing the days events since breakfast into perspective...  [i]  the vehicle indemnity provider, henceforth to be named 'the party of the first part', who currently weren't cognisant of an impending claim to date, would shortly be laying eggs attempting to squirm out of all liability, due to  [ii]  the automobile, driven by a minor, fortunately for Salmon senior on private land and henceforth, the aforementioned to be called 'the third party, to the party of the second part...' which urgently needed rigorous cosmetic attention to the rear tail light cluster and surrounding bodywork so as to maintain a favourable resale mark-up price.  [iii]  Having been dragged kicking and screaming from the top of the wardrobe, the luggage had rapidly developed cold feet and cried sudden illness in the family, but were being taken to the Wake anyway.  [iv]  Wrapped around the hot water cylinder since the previous Summer, the various sundry items of holiday apparel stood united, resolute as a Union Picket line not be seen dead looking as though they'd never so much as seen the bottom of a flat-iron.  [v]  Both Red and his wife, Tina, despite wearing the same anaemic smile as the one show to the neighbours as they departed, travelling counter clockwise along the crescent so as not to unduly advertise their recent misadventure with the garage wall, were only going for the sake of the children, whilst  [vi]  River and her errant brother didn't want to go anyway dismayed at leaving the television set behind, were already missing their favourite programs, which only really left  [vii]  'mans-best-friend' who, when he wasn't actually hanging over the front seat giving dad big sloppy licks as though... 'are we nearly there yet' or perhaps... 'I need to stop and spend a penny... or you'll all know about it if you don't,' was more than content to be taking up the majority of the rear seating arrangements and with a delinquent wag of his tail, was deliriously happy to be wherever his family were.**

                                                        ­                             ...   ...   ...

a work in progress.                                                        ­                                                                 ­  1862

‘I am…’ 'Or am I’? Who can say?
‘A posteriori’ leads the way
For the extra and the ordinary
Axiomatic sway,
In the gravity of corollary,
‘A priori’ interplay
Ataraxic overlay of anxious automation,
As the innocence of dissonance delay.
Practicing semantic contemplation,
In willfully prevenient interpolation,
Civilly disobedient in expediently seeming disarray,
Forecasts in vague extrapolation
Contrasts the millennial contagion
Already underway,
Filling nihilistic voids with particles in waves,
To interpret dreams of Freud to free Oedipus’s slaves,
A degreeless scholastic who never misbehaves,
Simulated humanoid dramatic in the affect that he craves,
Inflating linguistics in acrobatic raves,
A thespian who plans conation with legacy engraves.
The probabilistic determiner of cosmogenous debates,
An apperceived inquirer of qualitative states,
Inspiring proprietor of dismality abates.
Challenging aporia as epistemic oscillates,
Stoically, heroically, ‘one’ who amalgamates,
Circling the infinite in hermeneutic calibrates.
An escaped prisoner from depressive disillusion,
Of an introspective extrovert who finds solace in confusion,
The personable recluse fighting an illusion
Breaking down the nuances of every institution.
Calculating consequence as time goes to infinity
Revolutionary commonsense of principal utility,
An opinionated adversary,
to the realist without evidence,
Theorizing in futility,
Stipulating every sense leading to the virility of the pretense that dominates community.
Divergently converging all the efforts we’ve personified,
Inadvertently submerging old traditions that unethically were codified,
Hastening the urgency for purging that which cannot be modified through the merging of the certainty that will no longer coincide,
Stationing the levies to finally stem the tide,
Of periodic enmities disguised to be necessities so blatantly deified.
Observing moral sentiments, perched upon eternity,
As consequential regiments are expounded universally,
To unstratify the residents indiscriminately
And identify quantum elements spiritualistically,
Changing collective behavior individually,
Socializing constructs in joint ventured logo therapy.

He'd been hanging around for some time now, indeed... he'd become rather proficient in that direction of late and although it would probably be rude to point, you could hardly accuse him of loitering... and certainly not with intent, which would have been of some considerable comfort to Norman's Mother, given his current situation, particularly since the latest complication in his otherwise dull and uneventful life, had left him predisposed towards looking a little more drawn in the face than was usual for the time of year and a decidedly deeper shade of green.

     Barely discernible, only the deeper scars now remained to  mar the roadside foliage, bearing scant witness to the motorcycle's recent and untimely misadventure... regrettably with Norman still mounted astride.  Having lost all adhesion with the freshly resurfaced country lane the motorcycle had promptly slewed sideways and across the wet grassy verge before plunging down the wooded embankment, there to encounter its own humbling demise and land in the shallow watercourse below, but it was still early Summer and already the verdant undergrowth had begun to recover.

     At the point where his motorcycle, having determined without deviation or interruption to take the most direct route to its final resting place below and follow the downwardly allure of gravity... Norman being somewhat lighter and more aerodynamic than the former had been propelled, amid a flurry of leaves and twigs headlong through the outermost branches of the nearest tree... and promptly snapped his neck... Far below a dog-eared circular proclaimed 'kidz do it better on wheelz'!!!

       In many ways it was the most handsome beech tree you could ever wish to lay eyes upon, majestic in stature and albeit stationary in nature, was full of life, contrary to its uninvited guest who decidedly was not... but who definitely was just as static as the beech tree... and which by any stretch of the imagination had far more right to be there than Norman did.
  
     The sudden and unforeseen turn of events of the previous forty eight hours had cast grievous, Holiday nullifying inevitability directly into the path of any plans Norman may have prematurely made in that direction... and for the moment at least to be left hanging high and dry in the lush, verdant canopy far above his motorcycle, currently languishing in the sparkling clear waters below... and it has to be said, without so much as a pair of galoshes between them, and having little else to do other than hang around nodding his head in the warm Summer breeze he swayed gently up and down in the light country air.

     Pausing mid-twitch on three legs between Norman's deceased neck and his equally demised shoulders, an inquisitive squirrel was now the prime mover in our eponymous hero's sudden and discontinued modus-operandi as it provoked involuntary nods from Normans head, gestures of consent as the prying rodent set itself to investigate in great detail the darkest, innermost depths of Norman's inside breast pocket.

     Norman's unintentional leave of absence had finally extinguished once and for all any further thought of future remittance towards the outstanding balance due on the motorcycle hire purchase agreement, which as luck would have it was just as well, because his equally unintended leave of absence, so it transpired, had also extinguished Norman... and thereby deprived him once and for all of any further thought of his outstanding ability to pay them or indeed, any further thought at all.

     The squirrel meanwhile, having brushed aside the meagre contents of Normans pocket finally emerged victorious into the subdued light of the dappled canopy, brandishing a hard won paper-tissue proudly clenched between its teeth... before moving on to other, far more pressing matters on the branch opposite... then paused to scratch its ear...  Now it may be of some interest to the reader at this point... or not, as the case may be, but the squirrel allegedly knew a friend of a friend, who incidentally runs the little B&B; further down the road and who would be prepared to swear on Norman's other-worldly life that she'd seen far worse looking faces peering back from the bathroom cabinet mirror of a Sunday morning after a ***** night out with the lads... than anything she could ever possibly imagine exercising squatters rights way above in the majestic beech tree.

     Flies seemed to be one of the few living creatures that morning who hadn't raised any objection to Norman's ill-mannered intrusion... indeed, were currently hatching plans of their own in that particular direction and take intimacy to the next level with regard to lunchtime seating arrangements... and who had assured him from day one, that while their long term prognosis for Norman attaining ***** and independent posture was by no means cut-and-dried, he should nevertheless be moving about, not necessarily under his own steam in no time at all... and by the look of his complexion, it would seem that in the interim period he should be thankful for the company.

     As the balmy Summer afternoon steadily drew to its own happy conclusion Norman, without a care in the world and now in the early larval stage of being in the family way, so to speak and shortly to shed a little life of his own... stared vacantly out at what had recently become his own neck of the woods, rapidly becoming a permanent fixture in the pastoral landscape... and while his sudden relocation may have been a real eye opener for some, for Norman he'd discovered the true meaning of be at one with nature, about the birds and the bees and especially the flies in the trees...  

     So there we must leave poor Norman with his recent and enduring affliction, nodding in the dappled shade of the majestic beech tree, playing host to the countryside and the following seasons crop rotation, leaving his Mum to worry as to whether her Son had fresh underwear that morning... or not as the case may be... the County Constabulary making their door to door enquiries as to Norman's current whereabouts... his former employer re-adjusting next months pay cheque... accordingly and the hire purchase company about to dispatch final demands indiscriminately left, right and centre for financial delinquency.  The only other claim you could probably make with any degree of certainty was that Norman's full-face motorcycle helmet had by no means achieved that which was expected of it for his ultimate well-being that day... and was doing little more than keep his hair dry and his spectacles from slipping further than his chin.
                                                           ­  ­                                                                ­ ­                                                                ­ ­             ...   ...   ...**

A work in progress.                                                        ­                                                     1122

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

Last week, among friends black and white,
among some discussion of protests in Ferguson
and the related looting of stores, I invoked
the word.  It was an admission, in a round
of confessions, of something about myself
that I didn't like:  that I had perceived Michael Brown
in that way based on his possible participation
in a strong-armed robbery.  

When Travon Martin was in the news,
I was inflamed like many others who wanted
George Zimmerman in jail for ******.
The outcome of that trial was an injustice,
I was utterly certain.  Why does this case
in Missouri feel different?  More importantly,
Who is inside me that still wants to rise
in defiance of 48 years of learning how
to be a better person, a person without prejudices,
stereotyping, labeling of others, hurtful language?

Where is the hippie girl now?  How does she live
with this other person?  Am I Sterling, Gibson,
a hater and spewer of viciousness, a lover
of separation and separateness, that I should
invite damage to my own relationships
with those I love and cherish and respect?

What is a **** but a bully, and what is a bully
but someone who pushes words around like
weapons, spits them out indiscriminately,
so that they land on the already bruised heart
and set it on fire.

Whose heart, besides mine, now sits in smoke
and ash, with that word like a brand
still sore and permanent, having been spoken
aloud?

Dark terrorism creeping
Across the world in flood
Lacerating peace of  mind
And soaking us in blood,
Indiscriminately mauling
Targets they perceive
Will further their ambition
Of global dominance and greed.

A mother tears her bodice,
Her moans, a hollow sound,
Her family caste about her
Shredded by a mortar round.
Little children in the playground
Mothers shopping in the mall,
Mullah’s kneeling, praying in the mosque
A car bomb kills them all.

How’s it hanging Tony Blair,
Have you enjoyed your breakfast yet?
Felt inclined to visit far Kashmir
In your speedy, private jet?
It’s murderous in Kashmir
And has been for a while
For, still, India and Pakistan
Throw lethal bullets, bombs and bile.

And Beruit is as dangerous
As the Lebanon can be,
Iran is building maelstrom
Feared by Jews eternally.
The I.R.A. Still loathe the Brits
Koreans hate the ****
The Russians distrust everybody
(Especially Chechun rats.)

El Queada is stateless
They attack across the board
From Washington to New York
To Indonesia’s tropic shore.
America’s a fortress
But still fighting foreign wars
Whilst China sits inscrutably
Nursing Tibet’s cuts and sores.
Islamic fundamentalists
Throw Jihad to Israel
And Israel tears at Hammas
Did they steal the Holy Grail?

The beauty of a little girl
Her skin as smooth as silk,
Expression in those calm brown eyes
Is as innocent as milk.
Because she lived in Gaza
Her tomorrows are depraved
By an A.K.47 shell
That despatched her to her grave.

Who are the good guys?
Who are the bad?
What part of this unholy mess
Is anything but mad?
All invoke the righteous stance
God is on our side!
Each engage this hideous dance
And foreign God’s deride.

Ripping, skinning, blasting, killing
Terrorists do lurk,
Spreading fear across the globe
Intentionally, is their work.
Taking citizen’s by the throat
And slashing with a blade
To leave their mark indelibly
On countless corpses laid.

Dogma, ideology
The mantra is obscene
Because the minions who perform these tasks
Are usually quite clean,
Their mentors are the instigators
Enmeshed within the code
Of obsession, faith and bigotry,
All adhere to this dark road.
Obsessed with racial hatred,
Obsessed by loathing greed,
Obsession ruled by God alone
Jihad, Fatwah decreed!

Pray tell me noble man of prayer
Where is your God in this?
Pray tell me any one out there
HOW DOES THAT GOD EXIST?

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
6th March 2009

Wrote this eons ago, tonight, once more,
spend some human capital, editing...
Something to think about
as we tuck ourselves in.

the young'uns keep on asking me for tips,
secrets, to this art, magical poetry gig,
as if I had any left unrevealed.  

recalled this old'n,
from a vintage poetry year,
as a suggestion,
a stating-starting place,
for young poets:

do not self-chain,
let the words take you where
they lead, write them up
for the rhyme is waiting,
in the heart chest deep down,
not on the screen.

I read you Goodnight Moon,
Falling asleep beside you.


<•>

People stop rhyming...

When first you overcome your fears,
And dare to put on paper your tears,
Give it up, set yourself free from the shackles,
Of thinking a rhyme is a necessity for a
Rooting tooting writing of a
**** good poem

If you feel lost,
Want to share the cost,
Feel not bossed,
By a newbie's need
to believe that if it rhymes
Everyone will like your poem
Just fine

And if you get past this stage,
And advance to the next page,
Do not think that writing down a sentence of
Your mind's first up, innermost thoughts,
Is something that will make you
Less lost, heralded, worthy of a parade,
And be blessed with an A  
In your Teacher's pet grade book

My heart broke.
I feel bad.
I feel sad
Cause my man/woman left me
And I hope
Someone kicks his or her ***

That Ain't No Poem Neither...

And if you can't help but complain repeatedly
How life ***** and you're feeling blue
extremely indiscreetly,
Don't make me try on your scribblings
intimately indiscriminately,
Read a million, even wrote a few myself

You think you can write?

Then employ a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
Write just four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and you,
Twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah *******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it.
Let it come easy, then let it rest,.
Then spend days editing every comma,
And when you love it so much,
You are chest busting bursting,
Why have you not pressed Send already?

Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)

G' nite!

two Americans and three Indians
Came to my house.yesterday.
Four of them were men
And one of them a woman
They were all shedding blood
I asked the Americans , “ What
Happened to you?” Our fellow
White Americans fired at us”
Why? “I asked most innocently”
They said, ‘we fought indiscrimination
Against the blacks and for their equality”
I asked the Indians, Why are all bleeding?
“The religious fanatics belonging to our
Religion fired at us’ .The two Indian men said.
A Sikh fanatic shot at me indiscriminately”
He was my own body Guard too.”
The Indian woman said painfully.
Coincidentally all the five came
From the two great democracies
Democracy means” killing the
Great leaders and shedding their blood.”
I woke up from the dream
But I had the great opportunity
Of talking to five noble souls

When the incendiaries lit the sky
A face smiled its divine calligraphy:
It was Helen crowned with Troy's debris.

Her unmatchable mouth in the roof
Of blood moved in speech like the home of love,
Hanging its moon of reproof:

'My kiss blots history out.
My landslide legend has forgotten
A thousand thousand bones rotting;

'Under the guilty sea
The ships lie; but accuracy
Has been seduced by me.'

Her smile sailed indiscriminately
Among the squadrons of death majestically
And was reflected on the sea.

'The armless Venus carried Pompei's tears
Better than the raided years
Or the cold dances of chameleon stars.'

Then faded. But the rain
Like lovers' seeds that fall in vain,
Warned me of my sin.

I, naive

I believed that the break in the clouds
Was the end of rain

Thought those rays of sun weren't burning

I was lying
Myself in the grass,
Asking if the tulip chutes in Anatolia
Were the same sinking green I feel now

Where were we?
Love for a thousand spaces and bottling them into skins
Wanted to touch and know deeply all beautiful things

No you're not allowed, they don't want to let you in
That way, it's a distant place and means too much to understand
The biological and irrational
Crazed, sweeps gregarity above and within an aether-- like milky foam upon the waves

When I return home from excursions
I will be Ipanema
The soft locale, unabashed and known to no soul
Except empty elevators--

The lowly philosopher-king

Maybe then you'll think highly of me
Through the mixed feelings
Unable to handle
Straight through the socket
Ring of fire
Then and only then will you realize
That real life

Is more than just a zone or some local
Brewery on a Friday night

And every other Friday night

Ever thereafter--
You'll unlock the box of atomic intention
And listen deeply to her on the station
"Sade and Other Like Hits"

Slowed down for full potential

Letting your cochlea stroke themselves off to the tune of the universe
And the sound of air moving indiscriminately
Will give you
All this


Somewhere
almost fractal, imbibed
Decimated repetitively
There is a fragment of my voice,
Calling

"Love, how much I'd love to be. "

You don't have to talk
about breaking my heart
like you were just pulling weeds
from the front yard garden,
like it had to be done
before you went about your day
without a **** to give
about what I had to do
to salvage the flowers
that you thought
weren't worth watering.

Totalitarian menace
refined, tailored pants
bleed malignance and
fear.
What stalks the passage,
normally?
Tear off my clothes, with subordinate cruelty
and tortured fiefdom from the sun
invading damp alleyways
and musty cement corridors
abet you enthroned
on that sidewalk stump.
I curb,
the habit
blindly happenstances about
yore salty ruins
we yodel, indiscriminately.

Deadly pestilence came to distinguished Florence.
Spread east to west, roamed sickness without human cure.
Divine and human authority disappeared,
God’s wrath prohibited remedy and good health.

Families emptied, gentlemen fell to corpses.
Evil free to **** men indiscriminately,
Ignorant doctor’s advice left medicine like
filth. Day or night decomposing fortune is death.

Sick set aflame in neglecting infinite fire.
Disease black with misery, wicked affliction
with livid spots. Medicine removed anything.
Contact to dead or sick doomed a person sad death.

Every part always died. Abandoned all the laws
rightful behavior a fallen plight. Faithful shame.
Plague is a noble executor’s careless deeds.
A woman with no necessity of required

morals communicated upon death. Healthy,
beautiful, and attractive multitude consumed.
Avoid no very past pestilence in the fields.
The sick had made servants of the required dwellers.

A dream you told me of:
Defusing a time-bomb embedded in the womb of your dead mother.
I don’t know if you were smart enough to flip the failsafe
Or if you indiscriminately yanked wires out, like your dangerous thoughts.

A dream I told you of:
at the midpoint of their parents’ anniversaries, by the ruins of every immortalized
kingdom, she is wearing her mother’s dress and he is too.
“father wanted to castrate or **** me,” he said, conversationally.
they have so much in common. they live the tragedy of armchair **** fantasies,
tend to ****** their own genitals when lost in thoughts of the obstruction of
their desires. (which, really, is pointless
because they don’t desire anything besides fondling their own genitals.)

Blinded Oedipus does not notice
Electra’s concealed ******* dagger. A thousand years between them, yet they’re still children conceived of
Mitigated **** and blood sacrifice for the sake of sailing, and
Defined by deficit from the beginning; her crippled mind sang
to his hollowed eyes. Kinslayers becoming kin,
Entranced by the illusions of the other but really
Loving only the unmistakable reflections of their own sins.

Dark death skirts beaches in blood red,
as coffee colored swells wash in more
carnage to the shores;
we are blindly poisoning our waters.

Toxic plumes of red tide cover the seas,
beaching whales and seals,
manatees, and fishes;
we indiscriminately **** our sea life.

The brisk breeze off the Gulf
brings the smell of rotting death
that is all around;
we are blindly killing ourselves.

Our lifeblood,
the seas and its inhabitants,
slowly slip away;
we disrespect nature.

Mother earth mourns
as we continue
to ****** its inhabitants;
we are dying.

MY DEAR HUMANIST

You are an imperialist
He is a terrorist
You promote cold war
And declare unilaterally real war
He does the so called holy war
Both of you stretch it too far

He kills the people indiscriminately
And you discriminately
Saddam Hussain and Bin Laden were once your friends
Ultimately they became your rivals

Saddam was hanged by you
But Bin Laden still eludes you
You have the riches and power
And feel as if you were the law giver

UNO and the World Bank bow to your power
But the terrorist could demolish your tower
You divide and rule the world
He terrorizes it with his deed and word

Do you know how many people you murdered in the war?
None has stopped your inhuman actions so far
You make friends with one state
The neighbouring country your buffer state

You call yourself a great democrat and humanist
We know you are an imperialist
And worse than a terrorist
You never listen to the pacifist

The news said:
"It's entirely likely,
in fact, it's more likely,
that we are living in a simulation."

The circus and the chorus lines
are just for the architect's amusement.
When the leotards on the high wire
fall, he laughs the hardest.

Measuring the moon with his hands,
does anyone knows its' circumference?
"If someone can measure the moon,
we are better off."

Everyone forgets
the fallen artist,
and stares at the moon.
Some shout indiscriminately.

Three engineers
create a proof,
that creates an equation,
that is widely believed
for the next 100 years, before
proven later to be false.

The artist nurses his broken knee.
"Can't anyone see I'm suffering?"
Everyone stares at the moon.

From a quiet tiny stream into a raging torrent
as high volumes of rain falls with intent.
Onto the grasslands forming artificial lakes
lives property and businesses high stakes.
Swollen rivers burst their banks flooding homes
as the surge of water indiscriminately roams.

That heavy rain that never seems to stop pouring
down on the streets at speed it comes roaring!
Into many properties in its way water is merciless
cold and filthy always leaving a trail of mess.
Sodden ground unable to absorb man an obstacle
flooding becomes soul destroying and cruel!

Misery and heartache as the fast wind blows
and heavy rain saturates the water flows!

The Foureyed Poet.

These years are speeding darkly
Since the epiphany. You don't get
A lot of those.
Last night
On the beach I laid back to watch
The shooting stars; some say
The heavenly stars. The Perseids
Burned indiscriminately,
I counted two.

I was starstruck watching
The four satelites,
In a pre-determined orbital,
That would burn as sure as
A ghetto.

Ogling the dark spaces;
Comforted, there's more stars
Out there for some other reason.
And wham. It happened , always unexpected.
It's not because something's not there;
It's because it never was, but for
Two meteors and four satelites.
I saw the light.

we see the dying die. i walk down the stairs and give them nothing everyday. as i was walking down 8th ave one afternoon, i was approached by a girl who was about my age. she was screaming indiscriminately  
"please sir! can you help me?! i have no idea where i am and i don't have enough money for a bus ticket home."

i drudged a drunken look up at her
i was tired
i wanted the bus ticket home
and the beautiful new york city girl you sit next to
you know
the ones they keep up in front
but they sit in back

she told me she had gotten on the wrong bus and wound up in new york city
just by accident
that she didn't have any money
and her family was worried and needed her back home

8th and 43rd
she wined at anyone who passed
with a terrified look
as if she was to be eaten or sacrificed

her story was unconvincing
i gave her twenty dollars to get home
i truly hope she did
but in my heart of hearts i know she spent it on drugs
she was a good actress
and should get what she deserves

after i handed her the bill
she asked
" oh my god , can i give you a hug!? please?! "
she grabbed me tight and was almost crying
she was so beautiful
in trouble
as if i had given her life itself

our elders do not understand the affect of there traditions
upon the truthful way of life
so we sit here and wither
victims of just being tired

“Cold…dark, January no doubt. Crystallized gasps hold in the air, indiscriminately juggling between transparency, and opacity. Inhale and cringe as the stifling breeze moves deep, penetrating bone. Shell shocked in a state of disarray, wheezing, and coughing, as the cruel chill proves too much. Hold fast, buckling against bus stops, feeding off the warmth from sewers as they cough up hot, rancid steam. Bathing in the fumes, collecting sweat. Step out from sanctuary to discover that bitter wind that eastern wind, which carries with it a victimizing frost, designed to paralyze movements, to stagnate the course towards salvation. Stumble…fall to the blank canvas bellow, imprint on it the vague outline of the carcass, then move on, holding high, beyond that cold, dark, January.”

Blankness, complete and utter blankness, no smile, no course stare, just blankness, complete and utter blankness.

“Does anyone have any questions or comments? No? All right, you may take a seat Mr. Ryier.”

Is it mockery? Am I the victim of some vast highbrow jest? Is this a period of intentional silence, one designed to brew up this self-doubt roaming about my mind on a destructive and wholly unnecessary cycle?”

“Next up…we have, Mrs. Kennison, reading another poem, I believe. Is that correct?”

“Yes Mrs. Fiordine, It’s called Grasshoppers.”

“Wonderful title, but would you please head to the front of the class to start. Mr. Ryier, did your…piece, have a title?”

“Yes ma’am, ‘Incendiary Delusions On The Effect Of A Cold Temperament’.”

“A bit wordy. We’ll go with cold, dark January. Pay attention now though, Mrs. Kennison is about to begin.”

This woman, this mentor, whose name I can, but won’t recall, I loathe her, and the ability she fosters not just in herself, but others. That thing that has her speak falsehoods with a smile, and to act pleased when riddled with agonizing pain. A monstrous creation she is, and just as Dr. Frankenstein, she yearns for the day when she can cast down her aspersions onto a vacant shell before here, breeding her cruelty into the hollow mind, knowing one day it will come forth, a wholly more monstrous creation, destined to march along a dotted path, until coming across their own pupil, or kin.

“Grasshoppers…they hop…hop right along, in and out of my life, just like David. David, that man I loved, that fleeting hopeless soul, that 28 to my 16, that hold me down, take my pristine, that tie me up, finger licked clean. Where, why, how could you be born with wings, why could I not tether you, or lock you in a cage? David, oh David, my fleeting grasshopper.”

Them, they show excitement, applause, ragging applause. Me, I’m stuck debating the poetic merits of statutory ****, and the indignant need for teenage girls and boys to listlessly portray their life and love as some haphazard, poorly assembled recreation of a renaissance era romance. True love is dead; it died when you let a 28-year-old finger your *******.

“What a stupendous piece Mrs. Kennison! Evokes such images in the mind. Provoking me towards an entangled and banned place of thought. Truly stupendous.”

I want to hit a woman for the first time in my life. Should I? No doubt I shouldn’t. Still, temptation has a way of overwhelming logic. Clenched fist…white knuckles, second thought, dropped hand.

“Best of the day, no doubt Mrs. Kennison. Clear you knew what you were doing. Are there any questions, comments? Yes, Mr. Unner?”

“I believe the piece had a lot of merit. It was clear that this poem, in particular, had a sense of clarity…I guess I’m trying to say I liked it. I liked it because it seemed you knew at least where it was going, and what it was going to be.”

Try harder perhaps, she’s be bound to fall right into your lap, light up with a playful squeeze, bow down, and suckle from her knees. Delusions of enlightenment at the realization of a hardened ****, stuttered compliments of a flirtatious nature, elevating a worthless stock. Holding a vigil to a fictional ****** locked in-between the realms of fantasy and ****, negligent minded to the forthcoming, inevitable scorn.

“I don’t agree, to me, the piece seemed as though Beatrice was trying to perpetuate the delusion men have of being able to break a naïve, young girl’s heart.”

“Superb point Mr. Arden, though it isn’t up to the artist to define the message, that responsibility lays with the reader.”

The girl, Kennison, this newly appointed poetic iconoclast, she breaks her proud stare with the teacher, and glances over at Mr. Arden, Ralph, with a doting look. Mr. Unner, Charlie, not happy with this, not one bit. His heart was broken; he had fallen in and out of love in less than 30 seconds.

“Another comment from Mr. Unner, what is it you have to say?”

“I retract my earlier statement, it was foolish. I hadn’t gone deeper than surface level. The poem is nothing, it’s a forgery mimicking the talents of someone gifted, someone capable of writing something of worth. What we have here is a case of blonde hair, crooked teeth.”

“Charlie!”

“Mrs. Kennison, please, you must stay calm during a critique, Mr. Unner has his right to an opinion. Mr. Arden, something to add?”

“Yes Mrs. Fiordine, I believe what we actually have here, is a brilliant piece, something so wise, so grand, that it goes beyond second, third, forth glance, it transgresses the boundaries of scholastic worth. It is an insurmountable achievement.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Unner, I know you’d like to make another comment, but we simply have too many pieces left to go. Time just won’t allow for it. Please, take your seat Mrs. Kennison.”

Marching casually, soaking up complimentary looks like *** and candy, the anointed artist holds high, perched on her plateaued vanity. Contemplate laying down a foot in the isle. Disrupt the whole parade. Good will holds me back; move on as the teacher gets things on track.

“Mrs. Enid, please, go forth and delight us with your work.”

The girl walks up, hunched, biting her lip raw. Tremors, pulse through her like shivers, sporadically giving her movement odd twinges. She stands, before her peers, terrified by their eyes, holding on the cusp of cruelty. She feels ugly. She looks ugly.

“I’m here, though vision may not allow for it. Take me in, wholehearted, in a look, in glance, just don’t glare. Don’t beat me down with your beady eyes, holding me accountable for your own lack of vision, believing my person, my appearance, to be some misfortune cast onto you. It’s my damnation. It’s my curse. I struggle with it; you just need to avert your eyes. Is that what I’ve become though, someone to look away from. If so, hold me accountable, **** me for my looks, scorn and belittle me, just glance my way, and don’t treat me like I’m not in the room.”

“Amanda, that was really great. A great poem. Now…questions comments. Yes, Mr. Arden?”

“Boo…go weep yourself to sleep, dreaming about what it’d be like to not look like a monster.”

“Charlie!”

“I’m sorry Mr. Fiordine, but her face, and the ugliness carried on it, that was all in her poem. I think that makes it fair game.”

“Any other comments…”

“Boo…”

“Please, stop, whoever did it. This is not the place for such cruelty.”

There it was, the teacher’s out. The avoidance of on property bullying, through the acknowledgment of not an end to the torment, but rather a delay, it was brilliant…in a cowardly sort of way.

“Amanda, you may take a seat…would anyone else like to share?”

Clumsy, her feet seem to stick together as she makes her way towards the desk in the back corner of the room, away from people, away from the windows, away from the light. The hierarchy notice, they’re weary of her positioning, fearful of the dreadful, inevitable fall from grace, a fall which would bring them to that place, the spot at the back of the room, where no one goes, and no one looks.
It sits there, at the back. No one knows whose there, whose listening. They just know the occupants aren’t wanted.
A young man stands before the class; he speaks from a page in a monotone voice, barely accentuating his alternating rhyming scheme.  There’s a stop, people screaming. A trail of blood pooled up in a low in the floor, it’s origins lie with Amanda, in that space at the back of the room, that place no one looked, no one wanted to go, that cold, dark, January.

God curse developers
Who bury waste contaminants,
God curse investors
Who prey upon the weak.
God curse the Nazis
Who terrorize minorities
God curse the leaders
Who lie each time they speak.

God curse the despots
Who subjugate their people,
God curse Big Oil
Who swamp the world with greed.
God curse the Jihadists
Who slaughter indiscriminately,
God curse the poor
Who bleat about their need.

God curse the haters
Who bleed the world of latitude
God curse the moaners
Who take away the hope
God curse religion
Which robs us of tomorrow
And God curse the rest of you
Who limit me, my scope!

Marshalg
@thebach
17 May 2011

Jesus didn't go to Disneyland
didn't hold the hand of
Mickey Mouse,

he was
too busy cleaning rooms in the mansion
when he should have been cleaning house.

I never read in the good book
that we shouldn't give a ****
we're all children under the Sun
except them *******
who are crazier than ****
and **** indiscriminately
with a gun

Infinity is here today,
straight or gay
no way
did Jesus go to
Disneyland.

Cars,
Like coffee pots,
Break down,
And more so,
When you least want them to.

So imprisoned,
The frigid,
And with no power-windows,
We didn’t care about the heat,
Only the smoke
That now stung our eyes –

Two-fold
Atop already open wounds,
And the cancerous,
Lying in wait, most often,
Indiscriminately.

So enters the second urge,
And it controls me,
I don’t control “it;”

“It” being a mood frosted
Amnesia, free,
Like beer’s hiss,
At the crack of a can.

And like beer,
“It” runs out
When the money does;

All too quickly to be
Replaced by the
Haunts of –

Bill collectors, war
And the knife in the drawer.

Something beckons when
We spot a diner from within
The snowbound derelict
We reside.

Scraped change and reckonings,
We can afford a few,
Drinks.

Forgotten were the coats when
We abandon ship, abandon you,
Abandon me,
And more importantly,
The haunts;

Our chariot, a remain,
A wreck on shores unknown
With bodies, perhaps,
Left for the living come spring.

Those blessed with children
already know something
of the fellowship
kinship brings when
gathered indiscriminately;
how the rightness of place and time
wraps itself around,
makes a gift to hang
on the Christmas tree of memory.
 
In this house
lives a tangible presence
of past coming-togethers:
long long days of comfortable conversations,
warm greetings passed on the stairs.
See here - that dear head bent over a crossword,
and through a window, look!, a child in the garden;
Always, always - the kitchen laughter.
 
And spreading between all this
a glue of music
binding with its miracle formula
the separateness of strings and fingers.
In the joy of Opus 20.No.2
(played between friends)
an intensity of action and reaction
sings; born out of listening
with calm intent and
with selfless attention given -
one to another.