1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

NOW

Well, GI Jack is welcome back, he left his legs in 'Nam.
He wakes at night in sweat and fright, then drinks another dram.
He doesn't know quite where to go, so seeks his uncle, Sam.


                           BEFORE

One can't ignore - his ma was poor, and seasons sometimes cruel,
yet Jack was brave and well behaved and surely no one's fool
so joined the ranks that man the tanks, as soon as he left school

He learned to **** our foes at will (ordained a sacred rite)
then packed his bag, unfurled his flag, when sent away to fight.
And yes, the tide was on our side (for, clearly, might makes right)

Through tangled days in jungles' maze, he sought the enemy
behind the trees where, ill at ease, he fought the Yellow sea -
upon the waves of gravelled graves he sailed a killing spree

The ****** dropped and cooked the crops, charred huts along the way
and tanks, with zest, erased the rest, their villages of clay.
(Yes, turret guns are loads of fun with roaring roundelay.)

While on the hunt with other grunts, he burned some babes alive
and wondered why frail things must die, while evil's phantoms thrive -
<When folly ends, he'll make amends if only he'll survive>

With ***** traps (sticks smeared with crap), yes, Charlie fought unfair.
He hid in holes with snakes and voles and snuck up everywhere
and like a mite within the night, caught Jackie unaware

At battle's end, Jack sought his friends - their souls were washed away
and only he and destiny were left in disarray -
with bed and pan, just half a man, the man of yesterday

When Jack awoke beyond the smoke, his frame no longer whole,
he found instead some suture thread neath wraps to hide the hole,
and realized a further prize: a chair on wheels to roll

His head felt light, as well it might, at Victory Day Parade
(across his chest, you've surely guessed, his medals shone, arrayed)
for when he rolled, while others strolled, his boots no longer weighed


                           AFTER

Well, Jack stayed home (no roads to Rome) to start his life anew
receiving dole which took its toll as largess went askew
for sure enough, when times got tough, his uncle, Sam, withdrew

To walk the streets with fine elites (or else some *** who begs)
or find a job (or even rob) requires both your legs.
And those who can't, are viewed askant like those we call the dregs.

For getting by he tried to ply and mine his medals' worth -
a wooden cup, a mangy pup, a smirk when miming mirth,
and best of all, at midnight’s call, beneath a bridge, a ‘berth’

He clutched a sign 'A dime to dine?', if anybody cared,
but soon he found, as time unwound, that victors seldom shared.
And Jackie's pride was slowly fried by vacant eyes that stared


                           ENLIGHTENMENT

He took to drink to break the link with thoughts of what he'd done
and threads of doubt began to flout the yarns Big Brother spun
of freedom's ring and other things, like what it was we'd won

His vague unease arrayed a breeze with words that chilled the air
and like the fogs above the bogs, they floated through the square
where people sat at tea to chat, and shrieked 'How could he dare?'

Yes, freedom's price is never nice: like storms before the flood
the Daily Rag was on a jag, was looking out for blood,
deemed Jackie's thoughts untamed and fraught, then dragged him through the mud

By hacking clues, they plucked his views like grapes upon the vine.
Big Brother came, blamed Jackie's name for thinking out of line,
shut Jack away from light of day, eclipsing freedom’s shine

The Junto Brass, with eyes of glass, were robed in fine array
to hear the words (though slightly slurred) the witness gasped to say,
while Justice snored (the waterboard awash with Perrier)

Well, Jack was charged with laws enlarged in secret dossiers
within the guise of spreading lies and leading thoughts astray -
The Jury's out... the rabble shout “well someone's gotta pay”

The Judge (who fears the mind’s frontiers) inclined his head to yawn
while making haste through courtroom waste, though slightly pale and wan.
(A voodoo Loon withdraws as soon as Night condemns the Dawn.)


                           ETERNITY

While in his cell, the verdict fell - the sighs of Silence, rife
While in his cell, the verdict fell - the Reaper played a fife
While in his cell, the verdict fell - the price was Jackie's life


                           EPILOGUE

Well Jackie's ghost, unlike the most, still mused upon the praise
for misdeeds done in victories won when cruising in a craze,
and once again upon the sin of thinking, nowadays
where, cunningly, humanity’s served lies, and trust betrays.
Then, reconciled, it simply smiled at fortune's wanton ways.


                           EPITAPH

A mind was caught while thinking thoughts neath Sammy’s prying gaze
and forced to stop by concept cops, else join the castaways.
For now it's law to hold in awe the brave new world's malaise
and cerebrate with programmed pate, adorned with thorned bouquets,
then mimic mimes in troubled times - and no one disobeys.
With freedom’s death, truth holds its breath awaiting better days.

Stage Design/American Drama


Down front on America’s stage—
awash in a universe
of light arranged by
the ultimate technician.
Come closer.  Anticipate
spectacle.

First sun-splash
on these shores fashions
fool’s gold of surf that heaves against
foam-smoothed, lobster black,
slick rock beaches of northern Maine/
bubbles about black rubber boots of men in boats—
another day, another dime,
shivered away in ancient rime—
adrift in fog on the black
                                          glass
                                                   harbor
                                                               surface.

Grand Canyon sunrise
          EXPLODES
               copper and white/
                    orange and green/
                          blood red/
over many thousand pounds
of brash brown
        dirt—
in every direction/especially down.
       Soldierly shadows armed with swords
       of slivered sunlight hack through scrub
       like so much meat, to each day’s final
       battle at the canyon’s rim/
while a mile below the torment
called the Colorado
turns silver and gold,
black, blue, and
thundering
mud.

Louisiana bayous trickle chlorophyll caramel over twisted hickory sentinels, monumental elms and sycamores—even the alligators.  More mystery here than far-flung nebulae—and everything fighting back ***** green kudzu.

The Badlands of South Dakota, striped like the surface of a ***** peppermint planet—sizzling in the sun, bone cold in the shade—knobby tan canyons wrapped in ribbons of rust that dribble sounds one can neither recall nor reproduce.

Same phenomenon frames dawn over spongy folds of tall green cilia ocean called simply The Plains.
Kansas, Nebraska, horizons so far away thunderstorms creep along like dark, threatening slugs.
Distant night fireworks laden with punishing hail hide tornadoes and winged farmhouses in the horizontal gloom.  In the morning—those sounds again.  Critters?  Wind.  Ghosts, maybe.

Spectral mists of the Great Northwest cloak clear-cut sores on Nature’s sacred,
fragrant, deep green shores, falling steep to the creamy Pacific.
Light's a plaything here.  Big Sur
renders color to gem, sparkles
down the coast
to rusty Golden Gate and grimy LA,
where the sun goes down brown
and the rain shines
like gun metal.

Georgia soil—
homicidal redheaded cousin running loose, looking for trouble—
grows swampy hardwood groves/
leaves hung limp from humidity/
masking antebellum secrets/
offering sanctuary to voodoo practitioners and moonshiners alike.
Magic, danger, ******, and ghosts
of slaughtered slaves wander tight-packed old-growth forests.
Some say the soil is red from ancient conflict,
unanswered pleas for mercy drowned
in the drenching rains
of hurricanes
strayed north from the Gulf of Mexico.
Others claim tears of countless mothers will never leave
Civil War blood completely dry.

Northern New England foliage--
master maples drunk on fresh cider/
psychedelic finger-paint exhibitionists high on
the year’s last harvest,
intoxicated by Nature’s largess/
symphonies of scarlet, tangerine, lemon, even purple--
regal birds migrate over lakes so blue
you could chip your teeth on them,
and a diehard hemlock conducts its final green opus to a sea of primary colors.

Iowa is quiet and corn, obscuring whole towns and the lives held captive therein.  All the green on Earth is planted here; all the sun, all the sapphire sky feeding knee-high-by-July crops, bleaching spare white churches, white picket fences, white-on-white generations and all their vanilla dreams.

Linger beneath Montana’s cobalt crystal canopy to know why it’s called Big Sky.
Stark, Crazy Mountains chase stuttering clouds above treeless, tumbleweed towns,
bathed in the same blues as Wyoming, blown through a wild man’s horn.

A wink of sunlight
mirrored in unseen peaks
perhaps hundreds of miles away—
snow so white/Rocky Mountains so hard and gray—
behind a universe of wheat flatness beckoning the eye to infinity, slowly,
slowly, the Continental Divide rises
from the horizon like a monster parade balloon filling with gas on another continent.
The Flat Irons--majestic stone slabs lounging against Boulder's nearby foothills--
were cursed by ancient observers.
One peek at their precarious slopes compels you to return.
Been back three times and I’m still not sure I believe it.

Southwestern deserts’ blaze,
haze, and halo—spotlights hot,
focused on towering sandstone totems.
Deep gashes of flowering canyon, adrift in the flat and barren,
rage water, mud, and death during summer storms.
Scrub and sand, dust and desolation, land unfit for demons.
Get thee behind me, Arizona.

Endless, straight, lonely two-lanes
carve the lunar landscape of west Texas
into parcels of wasteland, miles marked by
bleached carcasses of ranch animals
and their predators, some hung
on fences as a warning
that people really do
live there.

Cities have their place,
                    their places,
                    their placement--
but my heart can’t pound to the beat of traffic
like it does to waterfall spray.

Turn your back to the fire in sufficient twilight and a mountain range sharpens into a line—
coyotes prowling, howling on the perimeter.
To spy on a wild animal lost in thought.
The sight--and sound--as swans alight or leave a hidden pond.
Northern lights and swamp gas,
everywhere the stench
of Earth.

This
is what matters—
all around us—
this alone.

Not politics,
not religion,
not countries.

Just this—
stage.

The ascender
struggled to the dais
stopping to rub
his sore calves
still filled with lactic acid…

“I forsook the post
workout massage
to deliver this eulogy.

Thats how
important it is
to me…”

His voice began
to trial off but
he regained his
composure and
began to speak
with command...

“He gave his life for me.
Is there no greater love
than to offer a life
in service
to me?

My Sherpa
was moved
and motivated
by economic
compulsion.

I offered him
the only wage
paying job
he ever had.

He ran with it,
taking up my
cause as if
it belonged
to him;
performing
his job
as if engaged
in a heroic
mission.

At times it
he seemed
consumed by
the largess of
my pursuit;
and his death
will bring
economic
calamity
to his family.

This further
confirms
the nobility
of my
mission.

The price
of intrepidness
is dear and
made clear,
its value
fully fleshed
out in the
sacrifice of
my Sherpa.

You may ask,
“why do I do it?”

It is no longer
disputed, if it
can be done.

Sir Edmund
and his Sherpa
answered that
question over half
a century ago.

The only
question
remaining,
"can the mountain
be conquered by me?"

I'll risk sacred fortune,
limb, life, family and
Sherpa to discover
the answer to this...

I must guard
against the
inflation of
my desire to
summit at
any cost.

I'm aware
of the
dangers
presented
by the
expanding
circumference
of my pride,
just a
meager
centimeter or
two can spell
disaster for
me.

Yet testing
its tensility,
tempting
the tipping point
of temerity,
managing the
permeability,
of risk factors
and psychical
rewards to
sift through
the membrane
that calculates
the odds to
successfully
arbitrage the
resolution of
gaming
winners and
losers,
achieving
a perfect balance
manifested in
the mettle
of me.

My
determination
shines
in pursuit
of a
golden fleece.

In my
solitary
quest
I don a
holy halo
crowning me
and fellow
climbers
stricken
with a like
obsession,
sets us apart,
anointing us
the royalty
of high stakes
X Games,
bellying
up 70 grand
to claim our
place in an
extreme
leisure class,
gifted
with time
and treasure
to turn this
unforgiving peak
into a graveyard,
a dump heap,
an open latrine…

The glaciers bleed
my **** into the tributaries
of the Holy Ganges...

My virtues
made plain
in the indelible
mark I leave
upon the mountain...

My life dedicated
to the unselfish pursuit
of a magnanimous me
quick to forgive
and forget the
failures of the
lesser who
lack the ability
and conviction
of self
to conquer
the highest peaks
meeting challenge
and opportunity
with relish and
fortitude

I'm like a
strip miner
singlemindedly
tearing the roof
of the world open
so I can fill it
with the purpose
of me.

That is the
deeper significance
of the death of my
Sherpa.

When Edmund Hillary
and his Sherpa scaled
Everest 60 years ago,
it took decades
to remember that
Tenzing Norgay
guided the beknighted
Hillery, while schlepping
his baggage and
holding the ladder
lifting the
great man
in a great
endeavor;
whose strength
and valiance
turns history’s
creaky wheel.

Sir Hillary did it
because it was
never done before;
with stoutheartedness
and national vigor
Sir Hillary conquered
the last pinnacle
in Britannia's majestic
range of storied
achievements.

As climate change
turns glaciers
into slush,
my time
grows short
to scratch my
initials alongside
the greats who
ascended this mount
before me.

So it is
with well
considered
trepidation that
I send my Sherpa
out onto the
hanging peaks,
to set the ladders
and clear the
path for
the assent
of me.

Every morning
I look into
the mirror
glimpsing
a fleeting
notion of
greatness
that is only
affirmed by
triumph of
the will.

At such a cost
my legend is born
my burden
grows greater,
weighted by
the death of
my Sherpa.

Yet my resolve
grows, eclipsing
the size of
Warren Buffett’s
fortune.

As the world warms
urgency grows,
the alarm sounds!

Onward Sherpas!

Lay the ladder
portage my baggage
the labors of Sisyphus
will find reward
of a goodly outcome!

I press the coin
of the realm into
your hand

The prayer flags
fill with determination
that I succeed,
giving your life meaning
as divine compensation
for the cost of your life.

The prayer flag’s flap
with the mountain squalls
popping, snapping
our hosannas
of victory

Onward Sherpas!

Ever Onward
may the good
Buddha
embrace
you as you
climb toward
your next
destination...

Onward Sherpas!

Music Selection
Sherpa Dance Music

Poem dedicated to the 13 Sherpa climbers
who lost their lives this week on Mount Everest.
May they find peace in heaven
may their families find peace and
sustenance here on earth.

Oakland
4/23/14
jbm

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
    Which usèd, lives th’ executor to be.

to be
kneaded,
in squashy,
jelly ecstasy,

falling over
tumultuous,
a largess of
festivity,

woman,
not as much
as your walk,
talk or nature,

but that one
boom-rocket,
eminent, salient
feature,

lickety, suckety,
twistety, pressety,
lurety, bitety,
fever,

closety, graspety,
claspety, grabety,
clungety, playety,
severe,

twins to be
tended, a little
gorge, to lash
tongue betwixt,

to be clasped,
lurch after
each tip,
tender,

half-earths,
cast on a
potter's wheel,
sun baked,

shaped in
rain's fluidity,
winter's rigidity,
summer fire,

lover's calm,
luster's oasis,
sumptuous,
lush spread,

breeze at
a tree top,
monuments
in rhapsody...

Orange hazards blink in gloom
Autumn mist in early light,
Traffic cones direct the flow
Attenuators keep it tight.
Through the mist construction looms
A mighty swath comes into sight
A structure massive, incomplete
Sweeps past the Birdcage portal light.

Burrowed deep within the Park
Surmounted by its stark white beams,
The tunnel curves towards the Bridge
To emerge near the Victory screens.
Symmetry in huge largess
Biblical in size and form,
Built by puny hands of flesh
Man inspired, conceived and born.

Columns in the concrete mass
Loom as sentries, side by side,
Level in majestic sweep
Through the tunnel’s corner glide.
Massive beams locked overhead
Cap the roof’s gigantic clasp,
Reinforced by gridlocked steel
Bound within the concrete’s grasp.

Mounds of blue, congealed wet clay
Layered in an old sea bed,
Hauled away from ancient crib
By Fletcher excavators red.
Roaring diesel truck and tray
Loaded overburden high,
Water blasted ***** and span
Keeping highways clean and dry.

Monstrous cranes with hanging rig
Lower weights of ponderous steel,
Gently to the tunnel base
Led by Dogman’s coaxing feel.
Urgency in every move
Hard hats drill with diamond core,
Fixing massive panel slabs
To the looming concrete’s bore.

Well below incoming tide
Pounded by the drenching rain,
Four inch pumps snake to the sump
Ensuring flood control’s maintained.
Foremen bark and keep control
Hard hats share a secret smile,
Safety first for every man
Think before you lift that pile.

Gate girls smile at passers bye
Politely chiding those who stray,
Holding up a halting hand
With trucks inbound in hazards way.
Smoko at the Bowling Club
Murmur of a hundred souls,
Grubby in their hi vis vests
Munching on the caterers rolls.

Morale amongst the working men
Is high because they feel the cause,
A project that is so worthwhile
They KNOW that it  deserves applause.
Traffic roars above it all
Passing in a steady stream,
Brake lights on the viaduct
Cop cars flash and sirens scream.

This project has a consciousness
A Heart, a mind, a soul.
And an inspirational spirit
Which guides us to the goal.
To eliminate the bottleneck
In Auckland's traffic day
And to streamline the system
Of our vehicular motorway.

Politicians snarl right now
Champing at the huge expense,
But by next year’s finish date
Congratulations will commence.
The jewel in the crown they say
Is found within our park of green,
The Victoria Park Tunnel, friend,
Is a true magnificence, to be seen.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
5 February 2011

dolly lyrics
doldrums drum's roll

dollop lopsided

doll llama amazon on
dolphin hinterland
dole dolts
dollar large, largess

We strode together in another age, my love,
You, in your earthen gown and beautiful dark tresses.
I, the wearer of the long plaited, thong and sinew sandal.
You and I, we strode through quiet valleys of tall conifer
Where huge rock falls left monolithic edifices... as monuments to past largess.

Together we walked as one, in a world much simpler than the one we live in now.
In a time, without the inhibition of contrivance or sophistication.
We walked in clarity and drank from clear, clean waters.
We dallied in the honeyed light of a huge, summer moon.
A field of dandy lions in the warm April sunshine, was the byre in which we made love and produced our babies.


A love ... un-harried, unhurried and devoid of any preoccupation other than that of the beautiful desire
We felt for each other.

The love we feel now is the same as the love shared then;
But in this age it is diluted and complicated by the urgencies and imperatives of the day.
Then there was just time...given and taken.
Without cost or penalty, without blame or insinuation, without hurt or harm.


Time in that better age...was a friend.  
A friend who augmented the beauty of today into the promise of tomorrow,
A friend who exchanged the serenity of yesterday for the excitement of the new day’s dawn.

This was our time, when the bond of eternity sealed our commitment to each other.

For however many lifetimes we may live in...

We shall be one.

Marshalg
For darling Janet
12 September 2011

Cry not for what you do not have
Bleed less for what is given,
For the cruelty in your fellow man
Will paint how greed is driven.
The silent fields of Sobibor
And Dachau's dull grey light,
Pay testament to past largess
In what is wrong and right.
Conception's teeming contest
Has dispensed your primal luck,
Your greater expectations
Have run, gratuitously, amok.
For what you are is what you get
This mirror's image barks,
And delusional ostentatiousness
Reinforces those remarks.
Seek not the golden rainbow
Nor pursue the greener field,
For disaffected affectations
Promise you a simple yield.
Learn to love the skin you live in
Irrespective of the warts,
Live within your  limitations
Despite disparaging retorts.
Count the blessings of the moment
Take each small step at a time,
Come to terms with who you are
And you will find it all...sublime!.



Marshalg
@theBach
14 November 2009

she sends me messages that's she's leaving
a trans gal from West Virginia
trying to sound portentous, all this drama
filling my lungs i can't breathe in
she filled my heart and body
the hope trickling out of me
but met with indelible silence

and there's no better her out there
that's like her, you know it's not really that dramatic
nothing chromatic about a hook-up
lightless, lacking the sun's largess blasting
through the seams or in between the hedges
just wish i could have been with her
a couple more nights before she drove away

With such compelling cause to grieve
  As daily vexes household peace,
  And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;

Which brings no more a welcome guest
  To enrich the threshold of the night
  With shower'd largess of delight
In dance and song and game and jest?

Yet go, and while the holly boughs
  Entwine the cold baptismal font,
  Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,
That guard the portals of the house;

Old sisters of a day gone by,
  Gray nurses, loving nothing new;
  Why should they miss their yearly due
Before their time? They too will die.

O! For my love's photography possible
My perspective it to the dumb presages
The article pitch, with his adjunct pleasure
Thou shalt strangely craft cutting, and put.

And I see a concentrated grow gently
Sway'st the bounteous largess given thee, with
Rich in the rich in it thee resort unappreciated
Only care, and leap'd powerful might the.

Let this huge stage presenteth meeting, blessing
Every thing, being used, which bounteous
Largess given admiring praise that keeps
You agree to maturity, since first.

That other give, but thou, and there lives upon
My mind; a friend, Eastman to me was thine,
How with of many nymphs in the dregs of
Goodness, oppress'd, and I thy love, even.

For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even “Crazy Rich Asians” you’ll know what I mean.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - a psychological pyramid that describes human fulfillment - states that part of our human nature (once your basic needs are met) is the desire to attain social position. Having mere wealth is just not enough once you are in the top levels of achievement.

In the 1970’s Arab money started pouring into the west. Arab petro-dollars bought swaths of land in the UK, in London and New York. The Arabs dazzled everyone with their wealth and bling but they never penetrated posh society.

Then in the 90s the second, Asian wave, of new wealth washed eastward and they had a bit more success in society. But starting about 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians started coming to the west with new money to invest - in the UK, in particular.

Russia became the billionaire capital of the world, oligarchs were everywhere buying anything not nailed down and eventually trying to insinuate themselves into posh “society”. Tatler (THE magazine of society) even began publishing a Russian version. If you were a wealthy Russian, you were moving up. By 2022, they weren’t too far from the edge of REAL success.

That’s what evaporated three weeks ago - with the invasion of Ukraine - Russia’s luxury infrastructure and their hopes of acceptance into posh society. Gucci, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Apple and Tatler (just to name a few luxury brands) have left Russia to rot. If you’re Russian now, the chances of being admitted into posh society are gone for the next 20 years - at least.

You may say “so what?” Well, one way a dictator holds onto power is through mercantile largess. The granting of rights within the Russian sphere of influence - to control and distribute goods and services - is how oligarchs are created. The support of these oligarchs is important and transactional.

A man with a 100-million dollar yacht - looking at what chunks of their wealth may well be confiscated in the west - or lost to the Ruble’s collapse - could easily offer life-changing wealth to any henchman willing to end Putin one way or another.

Will this happen? I don’t know. But this is the system they’ve set up for themselves.

No sound, at a corner of a giant sea rock
With a fisherman’s eyes search, he sits alone,
searches above, around, and down
mindful of predators

Sea winds pass dangers lurking everywhere,
though it can’t see the hawk a half mile away 
that is watching its every move
towards fallen acorn seeds, where

A hawk flying down and confused for his life.
A sea wonder sits alone and refused to look into sky,
death by hawks within due to strife,
She, departing the nest from the past.

Of swans, of salmon leaping where
the silver water plummets,
and even when caution
is in the wind, dangers remain

Of glaciers swelling broad and bare
A toast to a fallen hawk, the Lord
pours out his largess there
as long as planets continues.

Somedays, when the voices around him plunged into a violent chaos, he would get up from where he lay. Wordlessly he'd walk out of the door, every step seemed to pass right through the flooring. Such a silent yet determined gait, he held. While the insides of his house painted themselves red with the blood of broken words and hearts, he doggedly kept his stride in synchronization with the silence in his heart.
The caresses of the wind that once he held so dear, felt like a wasteful largess now. It swept bittersweet memories into his eyes, like a battering ram through all his defences. He reminded me of the teetering top in that moment, right on the edge of falling. But as vertigo captured him, he became aware of the fall that loomed before him.
Sighing, he set to work picking up the pieces, before the cursed wind swept it out of his control once again.
And there it happened, where it always did, like an unlearned mistake. Before the moment completed itself, he was submerged under the weight of his overbearing sorrow once again. Like a schoolyard bully, it tossed him around.
And as his heart finally came to terms with the inevitability of its hopelessness., he embraced the pain. Holding it close to his heart like a returning lover.

No longer barred, the tears finally flow, steady and slow.

O, cry morning,      sun breaks again

In that history of banalities
Are written, I finished the cigarette
Before the coffee, twirling wind

O, sigh morning      as inverted

Could carry me to the rock wall, thinning grey,
Of the house where egos, bruised, seek guidance
The black bird builds a decoy nest

O, shy morning.         churlishly answering questions never

Asked before, “nah-uh, nah-uh, nah-uh,”
(A ****** is heard, of most[ly] fowl)
Spoken mostly to the fact:
It is what it is. Acceptance

O, belie morning.          builds a brutalist window, round by row

The they that walks whistles low with nebulous intent
To remind itself to forget
Abysm is a stranger in your city streets.

O, blithe morning.          Such cringing in place

Of those sleeping hours, parsing the drop-ceiling’s
Calligraphy: kings be draped in robes of flesh
To depose the anarchists in cerebral lands,


O, yes, my morning.                     a lechery for the heart,

That religion of my given path
Or its surrogate, the lawful rebels
Writing on every city row, so willing but rough,

My guest, O, my morning,                         such a pity!

Restless and genuflect, the they does not find itself
Swayed by the largess of absence
Craning neck eastward toward the perfect morning,
Ever on the cusp of the perfect twilight.

Pain for you never again this side of life
All is now calm and easy and so sail on
True to this life's eternal golden rules
Rich in truth and kind you'll for ever be
If sturdy as can be, these rules you breathe
Cherishing morsel and largess in measure alike
Knowing that times move towards a zenith

Shame on you
For making my heart bleed
and shredding my ego
Shame on you
For fleeing from one so true
And making me oh so blue
Shame on you
I’ve been but a shadow
All these besotted years
In the eerie corridor
Of your yawning indifference
Weeping and waning before your disdain
Shame on you
It was never my crown that I wore
When my whole being was all sore
You were my grieving destination
And my putrid dream with a caption
That said I was a loser
Parading in a flamboyant cruiser
Shame on you
For killing the room with dead flowers
Spraying it with bugs that fell like confetti
Just so you’d see me squirm and groan
In the teeming smell of bloodsuckers
Shame on you
I thought I had the right theme for a life
Of surfeit from the largess of the love i thought we had
Shame on you
For poisoning a hope so vivid and alive
You made me beg for bitter morsels from your nightmares
Then ‘took the gap’ to a place where you’d be the story
and I'd be the hapless man who chased a rotten dream
Shame on you
You gave love a bad name

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity
                                                (and a book deal)


Dear Feds:

I wish to apply for immunity
Though I have done nothing with impunity
Show me how to conspire
So that I might acquire
Largess from the working community

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall

Hey there
You there
Standing with the director
In his chair
Talking about the right actor
Slick back your blonde hair
While you’re mouthing to him

Talking about the movies
Sends you into a hitch
Time to talk about that *****
Who is up next
You know you’re not in the right situation
It’s time for the nation
Let’s go again
For the new generation

Looking at the congressmen
With badges pinned across their *******
And a politically-correct three-piece suit
With their largess
Drenched in sweat
Driving the rally into the unknown folly
To fear the unknown people of foreign cities

More than just a sign
It’s all in our precious time
The high-rollers
In their representative fashions
Taking over the world
And committing all the crimes
But that is just all they do
Let’s be moving on too

What about the generals, brigadiers and captains and colonels
With their epaulettes and patriotic decorations
Conspiring against the nation
Like chameleons
Thanks to their post
With ideas
Those are insidiously of corruption
As they stand host
To nations feasting on war
And diplomacy at the most

Political amusement isn’t it
The dichotomy of having aliens
Deported
And these braver politicos star in their expensive overcoats
See themselves getting promoted

It’s rather fun
When the bourgeoisie
With their Large brim hats
To protect them from the sun
Cash in
More money and hate
More than religious faith
Innocents supposedly drowned in sin
Don’t know when good will begin

With the Catholic Church
Being a prison of beliefs
Since the inception of time
Changing political opinion as we speak
Which brought forth with it unnatural urge
Hilarious isn’t it when politics starts to stink
When the crowds go berserk as they scream
For more religious retaliation and a lost dream

Fun isn’t it
For the vengeance seeking righteous prisons
Who wish their prisoners burn in the crimes
That they spin
Before they can live out of those times
And their whims

But who is to blame
The heart isn’t tame
Is it God
Who has made it rough
For the virtuous inferno of actions
That has been extinguished by the holy water of circumstance and disdain

Isn’t it easy to blame our surroundings
Rather than our actions and our fate

Insincerity is paramount if worn with cap in hand
It’s spread about with great largess by the leaders of this land,
Hand shake’s calculating eye with stern demeanour set
Engaged with alacrity as duplicity’s are met.
******* by the dray load is fed to all by they
Who could not lay down straight in bed whilst on a Bible say….
That what is said is what is meant and what is meant is right
That promises to the other guy mean nought when out of sight.
That candour is forgotten here, that honesty is lost,
And the ranting heard on prime time feed is rationalised at cost!

Oh! for just a moment’s pause, a quiet moment spent,
In frank and honest discourse where both sides can relent
To share a candid, mutual trust…a thing, these days, so rare
That thunder bolts may rend the sky,
Dare we… to venture there.

Marshalg
After witnessing the disgraceful façade of accord enacted by the key players on Trump’s recent odyssey to Asia.
14 November 2017

largess of heart
pure thought
oxygen fuelled

The Black Madonna weeps alone.
The stream of pilgrims
Dammed at its source.
No more touching, no praying,
No pleading for grace.
Only desiccation and silence.

The mountains of Montserrat buckle
Into grey stone clouds,
Rising crookedly above the monastery floor.
They will not rain.

Inside the small art museum, monks
Bank their bounty,
Largess of modern painting.
Degas to Dali.
The Madonna reigns in a room of her own,
Levitating beyond the mountains amid
Angelic beams of light.

It is dim in the basilica,
Candles flicker above a grave.
There is only the sound of weeping.