I continue to be amused &
Captivated by Gabriel García Márquez,
His Love in the Time of Cholera,
Captivating me still.
His simple use of the name
“Bolívar,” por ejemplo.
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There is something uniquely Latin
About life in Latin America,
Once again, stating the obvious
For all the media-slain retards
Hovering around me.
Their never-ending enthrallment
With Strong Men,
Particularly when strength is
A measure of one’s honor,
Hizzoner,
Your honor,
To wit: Honor Killings.
In practice, a sober demonstration
Of the theory as it is practiced.
Americans—with swarthy exceptions—
Do unfavorably view most of us who
Can trace our ancestry to Southern Europe.
“Southern European,”
Itself a vicious racial slur,
And remains so north of Eboli,
No surprise that Christ stopped there,
According to Carlo Levi, writing off the
Il Mezzogiorno, beyond redemption.
Southern European:
Smug words you make them eat,
Throwing Greco-Roman Civilization
Up into their faces.
Athens & Rome--
Epitomes of culture and class--
Patricians, of course, yet
Skifoso bragging rights for all those
***** scratched plebeians of the mob.
But I digress.

Strongman Latino-Americano.
Some Bolívar, some José Martí.
Why not some Fidel?
¿Por Que No?
Tu compadre, Gabo--
Tu Generalissimo Cubano.
How could you miss, Gabo?
Castro lobbying for you, twisting the
Surreal & squirrely qualms
Of Nobel Prize Nabobs.
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You owe that bearded strong man, Gabo.
Fidel Castro: Maximum Leader to be sure--
Like Omar Torrijos & Noriega--
Panamanian Reds,
Tasmanian Devils!
And Sonny Barger –
Dubbed Maximum Leader,
By Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels:
(The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs RetroBites: Hunter S. Thompson & Hell's Angels (1967) - YouTube ► 6:21► 6:21 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo‎ Jul 7, 2010 - Uploaded by CBCtv Hunter S.Thompson defends his book against an irate Hell's Angels biker.)
Come Perón, come Hugo Chávez.
But, Hark-a-lark,
Let’s wait a sec
Lest we forget
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
One tough, Argentine *****,
Illustrating again for all men
The root of all machismo:
La Mujer!
The ***** that bore him;
Nurtured & nursed him.
****** & ****** him.
La Mujer!
(La mujer sin cabeza (2008) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/ tt1221141/‎ Rating: 6.4/10 - ‎1,815 votes Directed by Lucrecia Martel. With María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón, Daniel Genoud. After running into something with her car, Vero experiences a... I get 7 cents for each link, each hit, making poetry pay for once, the savvy poet, a marketer finally figuring out how to avoid death in the gutter, a death penniless, diseased, babbling and insane.)
Yes, the woman,
The woman, who loved him,
That widow who buried him.
The woman—at any particular
Time of life, in his life—
The woman who just happened to be there;
Was just hanging around
During that brief, emphatic,
Conversation lull.
Genesis got it wrong:
Adam was a stiff rib of Eve,
Made from sterner stuff,
A creation conceived in torture,
Reared in disequilibrium.

Women create the men they touch.
Strong women.

Italic drumroll...
imperial cavalcade with Roman horns, eagle standards raised;

♪ ♫♪♫ ♪♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪

ALL HAIL !
Ye screen-fed sacrificial citizens, seething simpletons and volatile voters:
attend now, with republican fervor, tempered by democratic zeal, to the golden-tongued orator of our epoch, gallant guardian of American greatness, avatar of avarice, the Jeffersonian gentleman, anointed autocrat and Sultan of Swell, windswept Wazir of Wonderful, emissary of towering eminence in empire, The Anti H-Rod: Donald J. TRUMP !

(Plebeians look up from their circus-bread for a second—)

And may Our Sovereign Savior & Almighty God also bless his worthy opponent and adversary HILLARY ("H-Rod")

(Patricians murmur, nod; a few salute*)

It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:

"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo—
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?"
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.

You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded, satanic—

while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.

Those simple plebeians:  you'd love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.

Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let's read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you—not whether but when.

The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.

The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner—there's something amiss:

The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you're reading the Times...
(immune to the words that some Christarded  poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)

Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical squawk.
Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.

It is Sunday in Babylon.  What if your sunlight ends...
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends...
what would you pay for salvation?

The banker sits for his lunch. He sits with his superiors. They ask, “how do you?” He replies, “Good, and you sir?” After pleasantries comes food. Everyone ordered a salad. Food is picked at with dashes of chatter. After food comes business. Business among superiors. The banker sits quietly using his wasted acting talents on feigning interest. He twiddles thumbs, smacks gums, and adjusts weight from one flank to the other.
The bored banker nods conformatively. When addressed, his name varies from Tim to Tom to Jack. They were close it was Al. He fills in facts and numbers the optimates don’t care to recall themselves. It’s the only use he has at lunch. Those superior to the banker could have brought his report he made up for this occasion. But, there is an air of aristocracy when one has a serf accompany his master to a meeting of patricians. Like all courtly meetings, the barons and governors hide slights in compliments, cloak ambition in kindness. Use pens as daggers, dried ink as poison.
It’s not the banker’s place to notice such things, it is place to serve those who deserve his servitude. Every time he services his lordships, his tie gets tighter, his skin looser, and his bald spot increase its diameter.
The bored and defeated banker rises with the Bourgeoisie, clings to their heels, and gets the door. His lunch is over. His break is done. Back to his desk he retreats. Back to work. His time as a squire is done. Until his masters call upon him again. For lunch.

Shuffle along, show your ticket, be strong
while investing in spectacle
staid and respectable.
Nu Yawhk can never be wrong.

Shuffle along, bang a simian gong.
Life resembles a Broadway show;
plebes and patricians owe
apples to Empire’s King Kong.

Death joins the throng. In bananas your song
is re-peeled and re-stated
while apes are berated;
the zoo-keeper’s waving. So long.

Do you know people
That hate people
For what they are?
Don’t invite those people
Into your car.

Do you know people
That hang with people
That steal from the poor?
Do not vote for such a boor.

Do you know people
That insist other people
Have to worship like them.
Their minds are dim.

Do you have friends
That like to steal?
Show them all
The back of your heels.
Because one thing
Will prove to be true;
They will steal from you.

Do you know folks
Who gossip madly?
Ignore them or
Treat them badly.
Then maybe some day
They will just go away.

Do you know some
Who ignore their kids;
Neglect them every day?
Tell those people off
Somehow, some way.
And if that doesn’t work,
Call the cops on the ****.

Do you know some politicians
Behave like ****** patricians?
Don’t suffer and protect them.
Don’t elect them.
Ostracize them as rotten louts
Then, quickly vote them out!

Do you think you can’t
Make a change that counts?
Find these fools and pounce.
Let them know your mind.
Don’t just sit there blind.
Get mad as hell.
Then rebel!

Scaffolding climbs everywhere,
To help keep the canyons of stone
In repair,
Ancient patricians,
Are now made small,
By newer creatures
Of glass and steel,
Look off in the distance,
See how small we really are,
The avenues run-
Forever,
Broad,
Steep to.
I stare down my chest,
To the pavement,
Hard,
Hard as the hearts of the faceless,
But not like the balding,
Smiling,
Red headed dad,
Who got his son last week,
The same day,
That he got his
AARP card.
I'm off to a dinner
A dinner unlike any
In Syria,
Either Syria.

Patricians have our best interests in mind.
Administration is impartial, kind.
Keeps us laughin’, keeps us singin’—
And I’m Hildegard of Bingen.

She gets it like she gets the working class;
My head is nodding, up my Marxist ***.
White woke wedding bells are ringin’
Happy Hildegard of Bingen.

Government will gladly redistribute.
As our paychecks sing eternal tribute.
Gangsta-leanin, frontin’, blingin:
Chill with Hildegard of Bingen.

Icecaps, like medieval saints, are HOT.
Climate is in crisis when it’s not . . .
Global warning: winter’s springin’
Heating Hildegard of Bingen.

Intersectionality has meaning.
Hormones lie, biology’s demeaning .
Genderfluid queens are kingin’
Checkmate, Hildegard of Bingen.

Transnationals are cleaning up the mess;
Their CEO’s have little to confess.
Silver in the till, ka-chingin’
Profits Hildegard of Bingen.

Hildegard, the Moorish maiden, lauded.
Wokeness smiled. Diversity applauded.
Flames ascend and seraphim are wingin’
To the throne of Hildegard of Bingen.

I)
At year end oft, we think to say
Look back no more, as comes new day.

Some will see it with their spoons engraved
Though sadly, many remain enslaved.

But Hopeful ever, we press right on
As we search for good in everyone.

II)
In store and warehouse food is bailed
Urgent supplies for when crops have failed.

While shattered lives in tents on hillsides
Families caught in the refugee tides.

As earthquake victims lie underground
Courageous rescuers listen for sound.

Some must rely on drug-lord’s favours
In lives that no sane person savours.

Yet here are we in our clean safe home
From which we’re always free to roam.

III)
Complaining often, we fail to grasp
The richness of our situations
In truth we live in comfort zones
Free from terror and deprivation.
Whilst some no luck they ever see
Until in death at last they’re free.

IV)
And who should tackle such terrible woes
It should be us, plain as your nose
So we elect fine politicians
Who mainly only serve patricians
From whence they mainly are derived
Plebeians forgotten, of voice deprived.
For even though your vote was cast
And Bills you disapprove get passed
You only get to vote one way
And never really have your say
Your troubled mind creaks with unease
As those in charge do as they please.

V)
And in inertia nothing moves
The rut of hopelessness just proves
That though we feel the pain of others
Around this Earth we all are brothers
The comfort zone adapts to fit
The place within in which you sit.

VI)
Meanwhile, those victims still in tents
Await such help as we have sent
Which waits in ports in rotting state
While shares are argued in debate.
We did our bit they all will cry
But did that stop young children die??


©Joe Wilson – Those who are at the end of the queue, always…2016

Covid 19 is shockingly lethal,
Killing thousands all over the world.
We are imprisoned in Pandemic Lockdown,
Confined to our homes for seemingly endless days.

Yet these clouds have silver linings.
No more daily social drinking for me.
Complete control of what I eat.
Time, oceans of time, to get my house in order.
Time to reflect and write.
I might even get
Into good shape.

The skies are clearing too.
Much less pollution
From factories and cars.
China can be seen from space
Free from smog.
Animals are returning.
We saw a squirrel in our close the other day
For the first time in twenty odd years.
And the gulls have come inland
For more food.
Chaffinches and robins on my lawns
And foxes even bolder than they were before.

All this is showing us:
There is another way.
We don’t have to ravage Mother Earth
Chop down the trees
Or fill the air with smoke.

Nor do we need to classify us all
As Patricians or Plebs:
Iniquitous inequality.
Or make Money our God
Like modern Midases.

There is indeed a better way.
Which begs the question:
What will it take to make the human race
See sense?

Paul Butters

© PB 27\4\2020. (Slightly amended 28\4).

we carry our chains as tradition
a patricians vision of conservatism
the sins of the fathers written
as commandments
carved into the shoulders that bear them

A room full of amber is new to me.
So is the presence of another —
For I feel o so out of place here;
Wherever here may be.
But an air of unfamiliarity is nothing new
To one as old as I —
A traveler of face and place.
A thousand patricians sing a song of Old World fame with lips wide.
Still, I am unaware of this place and nameless face I bear.
I am evidently not from around here - or so I'm told, as strangers watch on
With glazed eyes and indistinguishable faces that silently scream, begging for my removal.
An unwelcome guest to a backwards land of the final ring.
To which I submit.

ready for night time in bedlam
after swallowing me favorite dram,
cuz reasonable rhyme resembles flimflam.

Whiling away his time playing solitaire...
initially prepped, honed, and crafted
November second two thousand and twenty
slightly tweaked February nineteenth
two thousand twenty two.

Then with less than twenty four hours
(today 23,760 hours
until November fifth 2022)
harkening, heralding or (worse case scenario)
hindering the 2024 presidential election,
I trumpet mounting tension and suspense,
whereby anticipation hangs
analogous to sword of Damocles
precariously looms - casting dark shadow
across the webbed wide world.

While safely ensconced in his man cave
yours truly snug as a bug in a rug
quite aware the geopolitical stakes grave
speculating whether I will be forced to sell lave
over a hot stove to earn me keep
attending tsoris of missus rant and rave,
especially if social security stripped away.

Should the Republican incumbent
clinch the nomination again
courtesy voter disenfranchisement,
hooligans threatening violence,
spewing conspiracy theories,
or other ****** maneuvers,

the country most definitely
headed toward perdition
condemning everyone minus super rich
to live as basket of deplorables
scrounging for measly scraps.

Figurative screws tightened
upon scuttled constitutional birthrights,
while commander in chief forty five
arrogantly dons totalitarian mantle
still crying foul,
and insisting (née trumpeting)
Democrats rigged polling machines
exuding Grinchian grin
issuing one after another bromide
battleax and henchmen forthwith decide
peace on Earth and

good will toward men/women
making travesty founding fathers/mothers
pledge guaranteeing inalienable rights
subsequently sacred documents falsified
instituting instead corporal punishment,
whereby armed militia ordered
to smoke out where traitor sought to hide.

Indeed nothing like good n plenti
healthy dose of mayhem to roil
time tested democracy methinks
Thomas Jefferson would approve
of said message, yet no doubt stupefied
at how fledgling United States
matured into plutocracy
incorporating bajillion dollar campaign cost.

Blitzkrieg advertisements inundate airwaves
mudslinging contestants unethically behaves
how aging long haired pencil necked geek craves
idealistic civil plebeians versus patricians
lovely bones of interred forefathers
within weathered tombstones graves
plucked burial sites souvenirs stolen by knaves.

Best advice to ye dear reader rabbit
hunker down into bunker till end of time
keep yourself busy writing one or another rhyme,
cuz some future archeologist will discover
visa a vis profound wordsmith whose sublime
abilities necessitate special skill decoding
mysterious symbols courtesy algorithm prime
transmitted across bandwidth,
now where flourishes cyber crime.

And the idiots rose up against The Farrow and cried
Tore off their masks and roared “Let my people die!”
And the Orange Messiah passed out pills and bleach
And everyone agreed “great again” was within reach

And they came with their guns
And even some with hair buns
And all the Karens and Jaspers
Were cheering from the rafters
And some nebbishy patricians
Were signing their petitions
To please their voter base
By appealing to their race

And as they caught and spread infection
Orange Messiah canceled the election
And called the idiots to insurrections
Promised free Cheetos and police protection

And so the virus spread and spread
Until there were millions dead
And all the supply chains collapsed in dread
And couldn’t get the people fed

And that was just the early crisis
Idiocracy spread just like the virus
To every corner of the earth
And every nation sputtered and lurched

And the idiots rose up against the Farrow and cried
Tore off their masks and roared “Let my people die!”
And the Orange Messiah passed out pills and bleach
And everyone agreed “great again” was within reach

So kiss farewell to the well-mannered plutocracy
And wave hello to the global Idiocracy

Bells chime awfully loud,
Infiltrating a once clear mind
Now possessed by dings and tolls.
Puffs of blackened smoke accompany incessant whispers
And a uniform stomping of shoes along the busy street of asphalt.
A flood of hat-donning men absorb the road,
As women gaze from dusty panes and disapprovingly nod
At the odd march occurring streets below.
Flags of old fall down as new crests fly high —
Usurping what was known to be true and redefining unity.
Headlines equivocate: 'A Crisis on Flake Street', though,
If patricians did so, they'd've proclaimed freedom for all.
A conflagration of deceit and embellishments runs rampant
And joins those men parading the streets to their clear dismay.