for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

Out on the marsh on a lonely night
The wind soughs through his rags,
The hat that’s pinned to his painted face,
Flutters and soars, then sags,
His eyes are wide and his mouth is grim
As an owl is put to flight,
And nothing but shadows will venture there
For the Scarecrow rules the night.

And back in the manse in a window seat
The Parson’s daughter sits,
She stares at the fluttering coat-tails, but
In truth, is scared to bits,
She watches the sails of the windmill turn
And creak and groan in the gloom,
As clouds come stuttering over the marsh
In the rays of a Harvest Moon.

The father is out in the donkey cart
To tend to his aging flock,
He’s left Elizabeth waiting there
By the tick of the hallway clock,
But out on the moors and beyond the marsh
There rides one Highway Jack,
A frock coat topped with a bunch of lace
And a gold trimmed tricorne hat.

He’s whipped the horse to a lather
In a retreat from a new affray,
For the magistrates have gathered
Vowing to ride him down that day,
The redcoats wait in the village Inn
For the sound that they know too well,
When the curate sees the approaching horse
He’s to toll the old church bell.

But the curate lies in a drunken fit
On the floor of the old church nave,
And soon, by matins his soul will flit
From life to an early grave,
Elizabeth sits in the window seat
And thinks of the coin and plate,
As the highwayman dismounts, and ties
His horse to the manse’s gate.

He beats on the door, ‘Please let me in,
I’m weary and faint, that’s all.
I wouldn’t abuse your person, but
I fear my back’s to the wall.’
She leaves the seat and she slides the bar
For bracing the oaken door,
‘I dare not, sir, I fear for my life,
You’re safer out on the moor!’

Their voices echo across the marsh
Like fear, distilled in the night,
And something shudders out in the gloom
And lurches to left and right,
It seems forever, but now a sound
Tolls out, like a final knell,
For something, out in the church tonight,
Is tolling the steeple bell.

He barely makes it back to his horse
When the redcoats stand in line,
Their muskets fire a volley of shot
And his coat turns red, like wine.
They go to the church when the deed is done
To say, ‘You have done well!’
But the curate lies on the cold stone floor,
The Scarecrow tolled the bell!

David Lewis Paget

In the presence of the enemy
He split his force in two.
His red coated invaders
displayed contempt for the Zulu.
How else to explain their failure
to fortify the camp?
Twenty Thousand warriors
Put them in a deadly clamp.
It was a fearsome slaughter
redcoats falling by the score.
Thirteen hundred swept away-
No prisoners of war.
assegai thrusting spears struck home
The Sun would shine no more.
The Thin Red Line was broken,
each man fighting his own war.
With ammunition running out
They fought with blade and ****.
Until knobkierrie clubs struck home
And stabbing spears found gut.
The officers with horses,
without honor, fled the fray.
Escaping only with their lives
No storied heroes they.

That day was brutally hot, and the cannon incessantly roared
It was the twenty eighth of June in the third year of the war.
Mary Hays was with her soldier, John, as he fought against the King.
Men would call out “Molly Pitcher” and she brought water from a spring.

The action began badly; Cornwallis pushing back Charles Lee.
Who’d have bet a continental that this would be a victory?
Then Washington brought up fresh troops and held Cornwallis back
Rebel cannon from Hays’ battery stalled Cornwallis’ attack.

John Hays , at his cannon, had succumbed to wounds and heat.
But his gun must not go silent or we would go down to defeat.
That was when Mary Hays decided she would take her husband’s place.
She ran to serve his cannon and kept up the firing pace.
She narrowly avoided death when the Redcoats returned fire
But bravely stood her ground and fought, and a legend was inspired.

Mary Hays survived the war and lived a ripe old age.
She was honored for her service and a State pension was paid.
That day at Monmouth Court House, we proved we could stand and fight.
The British army left the field in the darkness of that night.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
   A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the ***** of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the ***** of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the ****,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the ****** work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Needlepoint threadbare caucus with an instant Kodak box camera filled nitrite
Like the sun-kissed barely lit beaches over Normandy
Stormed into the kitchen with a missile and an avalanche to overpower the pirates
With their long-forgotten and ill begotten flagship armada
The flowers hang low and the nooses lower with ever-present danger of going over
The needle hits skin puncture left right down touch your toes uplift like the cross
Arms hung low over the alabaster sky with a long trench-coat and wary eyes
Cloud cover start to blow the cover and touch the roller coaster coffee cup sitting
With an eye to the glass and the telescope lens flare catch like the door latch
Down to the basement with the worn out sofa sit alone like the bedraggled soldier
With his dog tags hanging like a sign of the times down to where his feet locked
To the floor in an instant with the bombshells all around and a seductive twist
The ring and fling the pin out count down begins to the gravity shift consciousness
Like the cancer patient under the knife the tumor’s removed the chemo begun
With the bulb burning down over a hospital bedside and the white sheets lingering
Smell of a machine gone bad turned tail like the redcoats running down the chute
With the mail to the end of the day the laundry’s out to dry on the steel clothesline
Their bolt cutters damage the elderly couple hanging from the tree with the cymbal
Underneath like the gong of the undertaker the dam’s release
The water runs down to cleanse the disease and carries the pathogens to find their caprice and restraint held back on the man in the chair with vacant eyes and half
Muttered prayers to an unknown God with long white beard
Sitting alone under a payphone like the cold-dead wires of a long gone bee hive
Mind pictures play off the words on my tongue like an over-told rhyme
The nursery songs and bells and whistles come together to form an indignant sound
Like the steel clap trap of the boot black against the pale white walls of the by-gone
Era with a viscosity of ancient monolithic capacity
Sourdough rising like the falling red sun over the horizon sit and contemplate the weather-worn-battle-torn visage of man remembered yet never met
Till death and earth turn and burn in the ascending light of the pale moon
Wolf-howl over the distant city lights like the mournful wail of a banished soul
Away from home for ever so long with a comb to the palace in the heart of the beast
It sings for summer and faraway places of the corporeal magic in an elemental fashion show sip the martini glasses ***** and break and shatter like popcorn
In the kettle boil over the levee let it sink down into the visage of a man in the underground coat around the tails of the whipped dogs running like hell.

Specialism, electro mechanical circuits,

moving parts yet move, you see, but when we read we bring our senses
inside
privacy can become a public mind, if one is connected, in a giving way,
taking thought,
as the original medium we found message in,
thought takes form
in words,
words take form in things. Right. Check.

Blake feared the objective world was being walled in,
and all the people screamed, amen.
Again

Build the wall, from icons demoted to mites of no more
weight than a tinker's think,
phe-nomenal noment-ation, if we may

Hot and cool both bubbled up as burps, perhaps from the babes
booming through the lies told before the great war.

No future? You allow that thought in your culture?
And shame and blame?
No wonder you choose to lie.

Bear with me a while, share my load, it's light.
There is a hopeful object,
we can go easy into that good night,
the world is round.

Free from Ra and Isis and all, in one fell sweep of the besom.
Broom, besom, means broom, but the effect of an e,

e-lectrix

you give us the fire we'll give em hell  a game ad in the middle of the massage
Call of duty, black ops.
they
You use you eyes to see, it's a with-spiracy,

a hair of the dog that bit you. Eh?
live in bonanza land, 1965.

and so it goes, Dresden, every minute of every day

the walls of your home are coming down,

unless you were born with a cell phone in your father's pocket.

Privacy is calling for walls from the fenced in time after Bonanza.

Ah, too late, ours is an all new world of all at onceness, a global village, happening simultaneous.
extreme with everybody else's business, huge in
volvement in every body's business

we know too much to be strangers
walls fall down, not go up,
the wallbuilding never workded, did it Grandpa?

Nineteenth century student could believe
the factory system
would use the knowledge, hard-won
from books and chalkboards,
to keep him outa the mine.

Now, the information age,

are we the leisure class? Ever learning,
never knowing everything,

but knowing walls and wars do not perform as advertised.

The safety car, that was one with seat belts, 1965.
Our body percept, it changes,
this image of which you are un
aware.

The disconnected minded man, alienated
artist living edgewise to
cattywompus.

My life is my art, eh, not the other way.
Global village information age McLuhan named these things
from Canada.
More expert than my teacher,
Pop art is not a pun, it was a bubble,
that's a fact. The-joke-with-no-story-line-conundrums,
elephant jokes, blonde jokes

Those tests, Turing would approve,
any old A.I. can play chess,
just remember every response to every move ever made in any game in the system,
like the amygdala, your lizard thought-speed brain,
at the top of your spine.

But humans can make funny seem.

Humor comes from a world of un happiness and gripes,
Jose Jimenez was the example they made. Racist, right?
The guy was a jew.
William Szathmary, Googled it.

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana>

Communicating with the logo-label-designer you wear,
messaging the world what? Exactly,
any un thought thought goes unsaid,

but T-shirts and body art, henna's the best,
those send a message with no thought whatsoever.
Same as Redcoats in bearskin hats, what's being said,
same as the judge with a wig?

What is the role?
Why the ongoing act?
It must have changed into that wigged judge from something.

Theater of everywhere, accept allatonce, or die asking y not.

Inward directed seeking
deep meaning
a role that changes

some outside
the future of the future started, a while back. not too far.

No inevitability.
An act of high poetry

envisioning,
the future was friendly

metaphysical value, brilliant, incomprehensible
a man, a thinker,
storytellers the experts say,
need some mud behind 'em. and some snow.

a mother never satisfied with her life,
brittley self confident,

the whole approach to knowing is old.
Diogenes's search for a good poem, with
shifting levels of imagery,
never shall you know,

they work
the way a word works,
the effect.
effect. fect from Latin facere,
sistere mechanically deus
The oracle of the information age
Ah,whatvoiceisheardaroundtheworld,
oh,mine.2018 Mr. McLuhan,
you'd likely lighten up a little.
Toejammspredder was mcluhan I heard on the grapevine.

Hey, mom, I'm on TV.
Up to doctrine, then destination syndrome a hopebubble

He had brain surgery and returned to Catholicism, a safe place.
But he left his vision to television's offspring.
That's about all I know of his work.

It started when he had brought a box
He’d bought, back home from the fair,
The size of an average tinder box
In brass, and embossed with care,
The scene was the site of a battlefield
Where the redcoats marched as one,
In the face of the French artillery
Looking down the mouth of a gun.

And on the right was a drummer boy
Who drummed to the marching feet,
He gazed ahead but his eyes were dead
As he kept up a steady beat,
A moment of peril embossed in time
When nations ruled by the gun,
The redcoats all in a staggered line
With the battle not yet won.

‘And how did you come by that,’ she said,
His wife, when he brought it home,
‘I should know better than let you out
With a pound, when you’re on your own.
The gypsies see you abroad, my lad
And they say, ‘Now there’s our mark!
They’d pick you out of a thousand folk
Out there, a-stroll in the park.’

‘It wasn’t a gypsy, Jen,’ he said,
‘But an old, sad military man,
Struggling on a pension for
His bread, as best he can.’
‘You’re just as soft as the next one, Bill,
They’d steal a beggar’s cup,
But now that you’ve got your tinder box
Let’s see, just open it up.’

‘I can’t, it’s locked with a type of lock
That I’ve never seen before,
It’s rusted on, and there is no key,
It’s a work of art for sure.’
He set it down by their rustic hearth
Where it looked so very fine,
A piece from their ancient history
Where the soldiers stood in line.

That night they woke to the distant sound
Of a battle, lost and won,
The sound of cheers, of clashes, tears
To the beat of a distant drum,
And Jen was lying there frozen as
She clung to her husband’s arm,
‘What have you brought on home to us?’
She cried, in her alarm.

The morning saw her attack the lock
With a hammer to no avail,
The lock, it might have been rusty but
Was solid, strong and hale,
And Bill said ‘Stop! You will ruin it,
There’s nothing there to hide,
I bought it more for the picture than
What might there be inside.’

Each night the sound of a battle filtered
Out of that tinder box,
The sounds of the muskets firing, of
Whizz-bangs and battle shocks,
And through it all was the steady sound
Of the little drummer’s beat,
It rose up out of the battleground
With the sound of marching feet.

They finally cut the lock away
With a coarse old hacksaw blade,
It took a couple of hours that day
So sturdy was it made.
Then Bill said ‘Your curiosity
Has made me wreck the lock,
So now, there’s nothing to stop you, Jen,
Just open up the box.’

The lid flew up and the sight she saw
Was enough to make her faint,
For there, the skull of the drummer boy
Lay with its coat of paint,
And blood, red blood was the skull in there
Though the teeth were pearly white,
A bullet hole in the frontal lobe
That had kissed the boy goodnight.

And folded there, but beneath the skull
Was the skin of the drummer’s drum,
Blackened, torn and beyond repair
It had sounded for everyone.
It’s buried now with the drummer’s skull,
It’s resting beneath a tree,
And never sounds, for its war is won,
It’s where it was meant to be.

David Lewis Paget

With eyes of black obsidian
And eagle's beak of nose
Black turban of the Taliban
Worn everywhere he goes,
Warrior of God's mountainside
Mujaheddin, known by name,
Pashto is his verbal tongue
And Allah's quest, his fame.

Razored knife in braided belt
Long"Jezail"musket points to sky,
A gimlet glint to garnet gaze
One thoughtless move , you die.
Gliding fast from rock to rock
Gazelle like in his easy grace,
Silent as an adder's strike
Assassin black with turbaned face.

For centuries invaders came
To vanquish this stark land,
Persians,Romans, Russians
And British redcoats tried their hand.
And recently the Yankees
Came with automated war,
To find themselves engulfed
And fleeing for the exit door.

Inexorable Afghanistan
Has bleached their bones as one
Vendetta for the insult
While there's air to breath and gun.
Like Shah Massoud, the warlords
Descend from mountain cave
To slaughter all who venture
Be they terrified or brave.

Tribally disconnected
From Islamabad to Kabul,
Tajik versus Pashtun
Versus Koranic Islam's rule.
No prisoners are taken,
The women always use their knives
And ravines echo shockingly
As tortured slowly lose their lives.

But the sunsets are glorious
Valley mists by morning rise
And row by row of fractured peaks
Rise in grandeur to blue skies.
And the children croon to goat herds
As they graze high meadow's green
And above the taloned goshawk glides
Ever watchful and unseen.

Hulks of Russian gun ships
Litter valleys and the plain
And the ghosts of many nations
Walk these dusty roads of shame.
For the legacy of the Afghans
Is a ****** litany of war
And the road to their tomorrow
Is paved with promises of more.

Marshalg
Wanganui
30 December 2009.
www.worthyofpublishing.com
www.hellopoetry.com

(Happy 150th, Canada!)


Canada Day -  Just One?

With love from an ‘umble Yank

But every day is Canada Day!

The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada

The Muskogee never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, complete
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada

Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway

Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest

The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?

To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada

Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”

Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read

The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada

A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada

Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not -
Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!

The air was chill and darkness fell as bells rang and the rabble gathered.
A British sentry had struck a lad; some said his jaw was shattered.
Some four hundred Bostonians were milling about his station.
Eight Redcoats, each with rifle cocked, tried to defuse the situation.
The crowd was in an ugly mood; they would not let this slide.
The soldiers were pelted with rocks and snow, but as yet no one had died.
Private Montgomery was knocked down And muttered “**** you, Fire.”
He discharged his weapon into the ground, and that shot provoked their ire.
Captain Preston never issued the command, but a ragged volley was fired.
Eleven colonists were hit, three of them expired.
The crowd in panic then dispersed, and the troop of men retired.
A black man, Crispus Atticus, was among those who had died.
The mood was tense in Boston and those troops were charged and tried.
John Adams won acquittal, he was brilliant in defense.
But the crowd still felt injustice, and there's been no peace since.

The verdict has been rendered
And George Zimmerman goes free.
(I still would not bet money
On his life expectancy)
There is anger in the streets this night
in our divided land.
One mother’s son was shot and killed
by this George Zimmerman.
The Jurymen have heard the facts
and ruled it self-defense.
Far too many in the streets
Take acquittal as offense.

Long ago, in Boston town,
were British redcoats tried
for the ****** of six colonists-
“A massacre!” folks cried.
John Adams got the soldiers off
with a plea of self-defense.
He must have had great courage
and, in Justice, confidence.
How difficult it must have been
To face his neighbors’ angry cries
The principles he fought for live
Unless we let them die.

Two. Two things that I keep forgetting, they are robbed
Out of my bank vault.
It is full of chlorine, my body reeks of it,
Taste the beautiful chemicals that are my mind.
My history.
The organization is horrible, no constellations made in my skies because
The sun is always out, masking stars and burning holes in my sockets.
I need to fix this.
Pull the beaded string dangling in this dismal room, cement walls crumbling as I dig myself
Out of this well, bricks are chucked down by laughing children.

They don't know that my ghost resides here.

I live in this dark room, where the sun never shines through the heavy velvet curtains.
Paper butterflies catching the heat from candles, singed at the edges, blue turning black,
Bruises deep, ****** knuckles wiped on your dress. Silk ruined, intimate apparel
Discarded by blood. Burn the evidence, escape the nightmare and awaken from this
Sea of chloroform.
You've been sleeping all of these years; the war, you know which one, is still being
Fought, redcoats stained with more.
That was long ago. Just sit and listen to the lecture of stories that we will never
Need to know, take notes in a screen that the pencil will scratch.
Scratches tangle, knot in my hair, so I cut it off.
Collections on the floor. Sweep the water out of the room because the flood has passed.
The house is not worth saving now.
Demolish it, destroy the silence that resonates with shadow.
Bring as one the silly waves that crash on your shores.
Correct what was always wrong.

the history and indoctrination of infantry

infant re
cruits

de rim u derimu, I count (old high irish)

gityeirishup, er shut yer leprechaun trap,

clap three times, spit wit the wind.

reason countable

you are trained to focus, aim,

miss, aim, miss, aim miss, come let's
cipher this thang out,
raison d'etre,
and all...
aims,
though misses all
count for nothing,
valenced by
one heartfelt hit t' knock the lie right.

old man re
crew recurrent reason to let this be re
al, always, already re
pulsing
pulsing
pulsing

aim, loose... spit wit'thwind...

---- war seen from after his jet died--
---- vicarious warriors can't match
---- the missing memories.

Prisoners enobled warriors endurent
indoctrined to prevail

"did I train well enough to do my job?"

Win the war. Right, that was your job,
all along.

What?...

no will to win a war without a reason
not willing to question
reason

authority doctrines in undated
rulebooks only lawyers
can read, that's a rule.

sacrifice and suffering un
common valor *** common
virtue

how do you win?

-- my guess, really

love my enemies. As good a way to die
as any I've tried.

-----
war stories on youtube. imagine that and
sure as hellen highwater was easy

I gotta call armchair-back o' the arm
bullshistory,
as I wipe a smeared memory

bullsss'it... RTOs don't walk point,
not back when you had
the radio, or said y'did,
nor did ye rereguard, when you
have the radio, Pr'ck 25
(like a cell phone
weighing 25 pounds, with a 5 mile range,
and no data. One to a team, as we

squellch squellch out) Nah, the guy's

lying, but it will hurt his kid's feelings,
if I say so,

or
he could believe his own hero myth,

I do.

---- nah, war stories are all we remember
ever after, happy as helen highwater was
to find you after fifty years
on facebook.
***
FTA, it don't mean nuthin'

it was so
silly, this is not the way it's supposed
to be, we

were the redcoats.
We were hanging Johnny Tremain Ngyuen,

wasting the last crawling,

man,

the first starlight scope flash
bright green white

FNG popped a flare.

--- when do we call ******* ---

For the price of a baseball cap, a fool
can claim honor other fools died for.

Silly little war. Eighteen thousand
eleven bravos of aver
age age
Twenty-two.

Ooh ooh, like Pappa Doc 22 voodoo
doopy doo doopy doo
Duvalier, Ton Ton M'coo

hey. okeh

we got you. You thought crazy,
now you can stop.

--- there was a war and nobody won.
--- safe. passed madness has passed on.
--- see what good you may imagine done.
--- work that out, without making enemies.

April Fool. Why has this day always been about me?
Ask yourself. There exist

degrees of foolishness, none fashionable beyond
twenty-two.

footnote: https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/
Who has a guess why facebook would refuse a link to this page. ***** about it.

Census Stats and “I Served in Vietnam” Wanabees
1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures).
During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served was: 9,492,958.
As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between ’95 and ’00. That’s 390 per day. During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE VIETNAM VETS ARE NOT. This makes calculations of those alive, even in 2017, difficult to maintain.

Have you ever sat and wondered who gave man power over all?
Have you ever watched and thought man will cause it all to fall?
And if you sit in wonderment and fail to see my view
We have so little in common and Ill say goodbye to you.

The people of Hiroshima, when they realized their loss
In the name of new technology, were told to bear their cross
When our starving brothers begged with outstretched scrawny hands
Food began to mount and pile in other richer lands
The human life thats taken, without a struggle or a fight
Is condoned because abortion is a mothers given right

The ones that fight for justice are quickly locked in slime
Tortured by the oppressor, a punishment for their crime

When I see our battered children, so innocent and small
Its then I really wonder,  who gave man power over all?
If you want to hear a lesser side, Ive plenty as you'l find
For mans intolerance and violence, to man is not confined

Man have caused the bulging eyes of a fox held in despair
as its body is slowly severed, by a cruel and ugly snare.
The sight of badger bating, has brought to many glee
Blinded by their takings, the suffering they cant see.
walking through our countryside, could cause your heart to shudder
At the sight of a baby rabbit with a meximatosis mother

If our graceful otter in his water bed is found,
they will hunt him to exhaustion, on his skin they see a £
On the hare with all its beauty, man will place a hearty bet,
before its torn apart, and left to die an agonizing death.

Our biggest shame, the ***** redcoats, on their bugles loudly hail,
They sleep with easy conscience, their prize, his bushy tail.
A bird of the wild is quiet common to find,
imprisoned to sooth mans warped and twisted mind.
To test our beauty products, animals live in pain,
although synthetic fibers if used would do the same.

I find it so disgusting, unnecessary and cruel
that animals go on suffering to improve the ugliness of the fool.
Take your beauty products and put them in the bin
and be assured young ladies, that beauty is within.
I could go on forever of the wrongs that man has done
I hope by now you realize its all for greed or fun.

When the book of mans achievements, is finally unveiled
The one that gave such power to man
Will see that man has failed!

Standing in the dewy grass
I hope and pray that they will pass
But they may not
but come to stay

I know not
If I die this day

The Redcoats come a thousand strong
their battle line is wide and long
What's ordained
I can not say

I know not
If I die this day

We stand apart but look across
to the other line and toss
a look of nervousness
then pray

I know not
If I die this day

Commanders yell, Commanders bark
their orders all along the park
but then a shot rings out and in
the confusion, it begins

“Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room.   Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America—not on the battlefields of Vietnam.”                              Marshall McLuhan

You understand where I'm coming from,
Reader Rabbit, you twisted ****? Maybe not;
While you and your boy/girlfriend, later your wife/husband,
Were ******* backpacks around Europe,
I was of a less fortunate, less frivolous cohort,
Like the poor, who always miss the fun stuff.
So I stayed home and waited, dreading time,
Treading water in Queens,
Doing the graveyard shift at the Wonder Bread Bakery in Jamaica,
(No, not that Jamaica, mun.)
Building bodies 12 ways, and sweating out the inevitable,
Praying to my lesser god not to hear from my local draft board.
And who was I to disturb the universe?
“It ain’t me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son;
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, lawd naw.”
(Send  "Fortunate Son" Ringtone to your Cell)  
I was just another cynical working-class hero,
Unlike you, numb nuts, and the rest of your silver surfer friends.
I knew I’d wind up without my teddy bear,
Convinced I’d end up sans security blanket,
With no ****-vacant musical chair,
To plop my sorry non-exempt, 1A **** cheeks
Down into when the music stopped,
When the music’s over, turn out the light--Jim Morrison,
Lizard King--turn out the light.
My horse, my horse . . . no wait . . . **** the horse . . .
My kingdom, my kingdom for a 2-S college deferment!
What kingdom?  
What was it Jesus said?
Not of this earth, anyway.
Colonial Indochina: rich man's war, poor man's fight;
It was such an efficient way to rid trash from poor neighborhoods.

Needless to say, I’ve been having a little trouble adjusting ever since,
Since I got back from that Kafkaesque Disneyland Jungle Cruise,
My personal Cold War thriller,
My Tecumseh Sherman “War is All Hell” war,
My war: 45 years ago next week.
These things take time:
So says the recorded message on the VA’s PTSD Hotline.
45 years ago I packed up my duffle,
Packed for what I thought was going to be my last time in uniform,
Grabbed my Army discharge papers, and
Limp-dicked out the side door of,
The Veterans Hospital in St. Albans, County of Queens.
I’d like to say I never looked back. But I’d be lying.

(cue PSA: VA Reaches Out to Veterans:
The Department of Veterans Affairs will begin,
Contacting nearly 570,000 recent combat veterans May 1,
To ensure they know about VA's medical services and other benefits.)

Today and every day is 11-11, Veterans Day—
What gets me now is that all my time since The Nam,
Is on average two lifetimes,
For all those sent home, bagged and tagged.
Is it survivor’s guilt? I doubt it.

You may not understand this, but I miss that freaky jungle.
I felt safe there.
How quickly I learned to expect the unexpected,
And that meant to expect the worse,
Finding my comfort zone the more uncomfortable, the worse it got.
I miss the wet weight of the air,
The cloying heat and humidity.
Humidity: a plain and simple meteorological miracle,
When you have plenty of time to really think about it,
Which I did: 365 days and a wake-up.
You know that whole gorgeous hydrologic cycle thing?
I miss the rain, the sound of falling rain.
I miss the other sounds, every buzz and click,
All the arcane and dismal things that go screech in the night.
And that relentless insect hum,
The jungle vibrating and intense,
The colors vibrating too, especially that electric green,
A green so vivid, every leaf and vine,
"The world's richest repository of terrestrial biodiversity,” I read in some nature magazine,
Lying naked in bed while my therapist ****** me off the other day.
All those freaky creatures great and small,
Every miraculous living thing that’s really alive and thriving.
And this is why--I think,
Getting obnoxiously philosophical for the moment,
This explains why it got to be so easy to waste what was alive and thriving over there, including and especially our selves.

Death never seemed that permanent, that final over there.
And besides, you couldn’t **** anything for that long,
The critters all looking their wet and slimy same.  
Two minutes in The **** and you were
Killing every ******* gnat and bug,
Every leech and snake, anything &
Anyone that just looked at you sideways.

And the flora? Did I mention the flora?
Soupy Sales: (Smack! Bam!)  “I told you not to mention that.”
The flora:  the plants grew back and they grew back quick.
You chop a path on recon and the next day it’s not there anymore,
So you chop the whole way back to the L-Z.  
Chop, chop, Hop Sing!
You were one smart ****, Hop Sing,
Safe and sound in Lake Tahoe, Nevada-side,
Cooking up Ponderosa pork bellies for,
The Cartwright Clan: Ben, Adam, Hoss & Little Joe.
Meanwhile, I’m not earning any frequent flyer miles,
Aboard a chartered TWA, coffee-tea-or-me,
Royal **** airplane to Saigon,
A place called ** Chi Minh City today.
I remember looking around at the faces on that airplane,
As we landed at Tan Son Nhut,
Those forlorn godforsaken faces,
Black and Chicano and poor white trash boys.
Scared shitless, of course,
But we really were jolly green giants over there,
American conquistadors, Cortez and the Boys,
Seeking gold and glory and, of course,
*******, (www.urbandictionary.com):
That sweet wet hole we all crave,
Can't go for too long without,
Center of our life's desire,
What gives women the upper hand in almost every situation,
Except when you pay in South Vietnamese piastres,
Your basic exchange rate $3.00 *******.

Yes, we were American conquistadors,
But traveling light this trip,
Our black-robed Jesuit fathers having missed the flight.
That’s right, for us no Ad majorem Dei gloriam this time,
Our mission so simple and so clear:
SEARCH & DESTROY.
But mostly, Destroy.

And pretty soon you worked your way up the evolutionary ladder,
From bugs, to fish, to frogs and snakes,
Small varmints and reptiles, birds and rodents;
And by the time you taxonomy out to the runway,
You’re pretty much whacking anything that moves,
Anything you feel like, pretty much any time,
All the time, sometimes just to pass the time,
Just to break up the ******* monotony of it all.
So making the anti-personnel leap got sort of easy:
They all looked the same, didn’t they?
They all wore the same pajamas,
And it was never conducive to grunt longevity,
To nitpick the civilians from the soldiers,
Never a good idea to waste time distinguishing friend from foe.

Good Morning, Vietnam:
We really were nerve-gassed-Adrian Cronauers over there,
G-2 Army oxymoronic intelligence stiffs,
Having a little difficulty finding the enemy,
Having one hell of a time finding a Vietnamese man named "Charlie."
They're all named Nguyen, or Tran, or Thanh or Trong or Bao or Phuc . . .
Oh, ****, I get it now.
I grok the how and why,
Of all the names we’ve used for centuries to dehumanize the enemy:
***** and Nips, Chinks and Slopes,
Huns and Krauts, Redskins and Ivans,
Redcoats and Rebs, Zulus and Mau Maus, *****, Ragheads and Sand ******* . . .
To dehumanize is to be dehumanized.
Nominal dehumanization; linguistic trickery.
It made it easy . . .
Well, easier . . .
To **** you.

What was it Pope Innocent III’s legate advised?
“**** Them All.  Let God sort ‘em out.”

Is it smell of burning flesh that makes me so digress?

Yes, I miss that freaky jungle, my friend.
I miss knowing what to expect and what was to be expected.
And most of all I miss that absolute confidence,
My self-liberating soporific certainty,
That I did not give a **** whether I lived or died,
And no one else did either.
I miss the peaceful place to go,
Coping with fear by letting go,
By writing off my life,
My future "in-country,"
My 12-month tour of duty,
My 365 T.S. Eliot Ash Wednesdays,
Learning to care and not to care,
Cultivating indifference as to,
Whether or not I ever made it Wee, Wee, Wee,
All the way home again.
The answers were right there,
Always there, all the time,
In nursery rhymes, and counting songs,
In psalms and arias, and every blues and rock lyric,
Right there, so right ******* there,
In Kris Kristofferson/Janice Joplin parlance of the times:
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

And life for me since then--
ONE BIG, FAT-TITTED INCOMPREHENSIBILITY!

What was that Walter Sobjak in The Big Lebowski said?

“This is not 'Nam.
This is bowling.
There are rules.”

My fingers flit across
ivory keys
like irate flies, landing
for a moment before
restlessly taking off
again – this is not
where I should be,
they say, and
continue searching,
until finally the flies
and I
find a chord, but it
won't come out right, and
I can't yell at any
one fly in particular
because I don't know who
it is that's
******* things up, so
I just keep banging on
this **** monster
of an instrument and there's
anger in the middle
of Debussy, and he never
wrote me anger, it's just
a moment of unrestrained emotion
where it shouldn't be –
I kind of like it
a little – I like all
emotion, because truly,
it's so ******* hard
to come by, but –
it shouldn't be
there, I shout,
in the middle of ******* Debussy,
and now my fingers
are bleeding a bit,
leaving behind pretty little
droplets of a scarlet
me, and Plath called them
redcoats, and I think
that's so much nicer
than what they actually
are – a bright red
trail of mistakes – and
Bukowski said
I should be doing this
drunk, and I
listened, but I'm
no ******* Chuck,
so all I'm left with is
a mess – I ruined
this baby grand piano –
but I can feel my
heartbeat in the tips
of my fingers, the
flies, and maybe someday,
I think, I can put myself
in the music and not have to
bleed all over
the keys just to
see myself in something – maybe
have some restraint,
just enough so that
a meager audience
can't see my blood, just
hear my heartbeat –
the flies' collective
heartbeat – so
I push out my bench and
stand up and stretch
before I walk away from
the piano, leaving
the blood to clean up
tomorrow, and
this is poetry.

bells* is the only cheap whiskey at £14.99
(why the 99 though? penny short or something?)
that actually tastes like whiskey,
the husky smoked taste of it,
you're pretty much drinking acorns
by the end of it... the husky smoked
taste of it... all the other stuff
is just alcohol, you're not there
for the aesthetics, the flight to Bombay
via Dubai (potato, tomato, bomb bye bye i
due an A.I.), anyway fusion style mongrel metal,
Japanese, called kawaii
or simply cute... **** cute... well anyway
hello cannibal kitty... awadama fever... spring blossom?
i never heard of them... i'm just interested
because they mentioned a guru they called Fox God...
and the journalist just said: 'made-up'.
my encounters with foxes have been frequent...
so each godhead of the animals passes through
man, i'm facing the redcoats and hounds...
it's too impractical for monotheism...
unless you're a hammer, or a *****, or a chisel -
who ever heard of a myth about such things
unless not attempting to invoke Thor?
anyway... Moses... yeah, that one... he wasn't
a godhead... he was female genitalia...
no prince, whether in egypt or elsewhere spoke
the tongue of construction workers...
Harry... Philip... William? none spoke Polish...
so Moses didn't speak Hebrew...
i really would like the risotto... ah ****... the Rosetta stone
applied to the old testimony... i don't
care for the new testimony... it's too Byzantine,
which isn't even Greek.

Standing in the dewy grass
I hope and pray that they will pass
But they may not
'stead come to stay

I know not
If I die this day

The Redcoats come a thousand strong
their battle line is wide and long
What's ordained
I can not say

I know not
If I die this day

We stand apart but look across
to the other line and toss
a look of nervousness
then pray

I know not
If I die this day

Commanders yell, Commanders bark
their orders all along the park
but then a shot rings out and in
the confusion, it begins

Standing 'cross an open field
neither of our lines will yield
one line of blue
the other gray

I know not
if I die this day

Often seems we've fought in vain
and 'long the march have caused much pain
I've left good comrades
along the way

I know not
If I die this day

My brother serves 'neath Mile's Flag
I serve beneath a diff'rent rag
and if I **** him
what's to say

I know not
If we'll die this day

Commanders bark, Commanders yell
and call us to the gates of hell
then all at once morn's silence splits
as men are shredded, torn to bits

My craft rocks gently through the sea
and towards the beach on which I'll be
to face a wall
and see Death play

I do think
I may die this day

"Keep your heads down" Sergeants call
as on us squalls of lead rain fall
some will succumb
and fall away

I do think
I may die this day

As we close on norman sand
to bear the brunt of Swastic hand
around me tough men
kneel and pray

I think that
I may die this day

Commanders shout, Commanders scream
and seconds turn to awful dream
then a bump and ramp unfolds
for many luck no longer holds

Desert sand fills hair and ears
It seems I've been at this for years
It's over now fore
Death holds sway

I know that
I will die this day

The day was normal as it could
we took precautions as we should
but life's one
IED away

I know that
I will die this day

Soon I'll be with others who
have given up their own lives too
for keeping our
home country's way

I know that
I will die this day

And through these fading eyes of mine
I see generations who've crossed that line
and as colors
fade to gray

I know that
I will die this day

All I feel are grains of sand
that arid winds wash 'cross my hands
what happens next
who's to say

I know now that
I die this day.

The puppy seemed happy to see me
when I seen her at the park that other day.
you coulda seen it right away.

So the shrink lady she say, so what?

Dunnno, jisayin' somebody seemed happy

after seeing me naked paraded before all
who may have noticed,

maybe not.

What if nobody noticed and I am happily
seen a naked thing I am

unnoticeable save for seekers of knowns

believed to be known or
knowable

by you, down in the slew, Bunyan's slough,

ya got iron in yer blood?

ya areckon.

Yer Uncle Sam needs ya, boy,

you leave that Kansas lass to
stare at those July buttermilk skies,

there's a war awaitin' for Rough Riders,
Arizona reared and steered

Say what, sir? Steered? Not me. Done my time.
Played footballs, by damtotell, at Fort Bliss,
I threw hand grenades,
Football was Ft. Huachuca, autumn, 1967

Bien Hoa was in the spring, one day after
My Lai, my country's legacy from my year

beyond the whole idea of war. History said,
if we are not the Redcoats, we are the Hessians,
at least.

Allegiance to a legion because they are many?
Perish the thought.

has anyone in their right state of mind ever cared to notice that Norway has: a) a rather monochromatic demography, b) has a population size worthy of royalty (i.e. small) and c) it never bothered to join the union? no, well of course not, soon the Alliance of Feminist West, i'll just cut my ***** off while i'm at it - internalised vocab correctness and a desperate need to join a club that still fights prostitution without sharing a dinner-date bill, because it's clinging to the code of Chivalry - how soon the multi-cultural experiment crumbled, oh sure, they mention the Communist experiment, but they rarely mention this ******* failure... and what a Colossus it was when it hit the ground and shattered like porcelain with gnashing of the teeth and an Indiana Jones whip of a tongue - no one mentioned the a, b or c of Norway... my grandparents are slightly xenophobic too... i guess your grandparents were more so (comes with old age, but yours see their grandchildren more often)... well... if you want, we can send you Auschwitz brick-by-brick and repatriate it in a Essex countryside if you wanna: as Burroughs noted: guards of the camps had to pet a cat for months, before gauging its eyes out to see if they had the stomach for the position, as ever, the ***** were there, but they were wondering about the stomach - now ain't that a fine fine comedy to consider, ol' Sax.

i don't know why they'd hate the Romanians,
having contacts on a building site
i can reap the benefits of such connections,
just today - two cartons of *Benson & Hedges:
that's 200 cigarettes per carton,
a bargain at 30 quid per carton -
elsewhere, extortion, a packet of Benson & Hedges
sold at a supermarket will fetch £9.66 per packet of 20 -
i got mine for 3 quid a pop -
my ten versus their "legal" 3 - not bad, not bad
at all... it's good to have friends in low places...
and believe me, they don't sell the brand in
Romania... so... well, catch a snooze while
i think of nanny and diapers and whether or
not to smoke them and eventually become an acronym
member of some civil police service minding
people's morals - strange to see the message in
English: smoking kills, smokers die younger -
missing the additional: thank ****!
when's the next train leaving? i have a bunch of
sheep that need a pat on the back re-affirmation
of the unshakeable military-industrial /
materialist-atheistic complex - we need these people
here... they need to be fed life as a placebo
with death the only effective component of their life...
but still, there's me, puffing away like some Thai
child at my Benson... good to know a few Romanians
rather than slandering them as donkeys...
you never know when a gypsy will give you a bargain,
a lucky charm and a palm reading to boot -
and believe me, don't use too much toothpaste,
use less, as told to children according to the Brothers Grimm,
a pea-sized amount, if you use more your teeth will
magically stain from the tobacco, you use less...
magic! teeth aren't stained - i haven't seen a dentist
in about three years... well apart from two wisdom teeth
being pulled out... story bite-sized before the injection
of the anaesthetic -
anaesthetist - so what do you like doing, in your spare time?
me - i like to read books.
anaesthetist - what books would you cite?
me - quo vadis.
if an epitome on a grave or my last words... just those two
would do just fine... quo vadis / where are you going?
and Britain (ahem, soon to be Scuba-diving Scots) left
the proposed resurrection of the Roman Empire, thinking
the grannies and grandpas would rekindle the stories they
heard from their grandparents about the zenith of the Victorian age?
no one is invading anyone, enslaving anyone like that anymore,
what the **** are we going to export this time round
when we don't have the redcoats to export?

Canada Day?  Just One?

With love from an ‘umble Yank

But every day is Canada Day!

The afternoon plane lands in Halifax
When the hatch is popped, cool air rushes in
Even the fog is happy in Canada

The Muskogee 1 never made landfall here
And so we pilgrimage for her, completing
Her voyage from ’42 to Canada

Wolfville, Grand Pre’, Le Grande Derangement
The Deportation Cross and beer cans
Well, God forgive the Redcoats anyway

Newfoundland
Is a bold
Anapest

The church spires in a line, the light is green
The bold young captain shoots the narrows wild
Can you find your way to your painted house?

To walk again the cobbles of Ferryland
And smell the very blue of the Atlantic
The sea-blown wind is cold in Canada

Blue Puttees and a mourning Caribou
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord
Good children sing “We love thee, Newfoundland”

Quebec – royal city of New France
May Le Bon Dieu bless the Plains of Abraham,
And may God bless
The signs an English driver cannot read

The Coca-Cola streets of Niagara Falls
Yanks laugh at made-in-China Mountie mugs
And buy them, happy to be in Canada

A cup of Toujours Frais from – well, that place
But to us in your southern provinces
Below Niagara, Tim too is Canada

Though Canada goes on, these scribbles must not –

Your grateful guest wishes only to say
That every happy day is Canada Day!

With old Henry Knox we marched past river and rocks.
Twas 75 and Redcoats had to die.
So over them mountains came my Cannon and I.
The winter set my body to freeze and the cord cut through flesh with ease
As we marched on to Boston.
The rope burns my hands and the ice bites my feet
Frost bit feet and rope burned hand
But when we win, hell, will it be grand.
Them Redcoats thought no threat would e'er come nigh.
But look up high 'cause here come I. With cannon to make the Redcoat die.
With my frost bit feet and my rope burned hand.
And when we take to Boston, hell, but it will be grand.

in english homes the buddha head is replaced by the christmas tree,
but i still prefer the existence of actual angels less popular than gabriel
with his koran, michael with his sword satan with his lie...
than compare men to angels or men to devils
rather than ensuring man remains a man
without comparison a godly comparison
which man discarded as easily weighed on the libra:
knowlesdge of atoms equal weight to the weight of limbs without torso de facto:
you just know there’s a celestial celebrity culture...
that might have survived if it survived on earth
with the span of a century executed as complete...
but since it didn’t... it seemed the lesser of the two reliefs:
one sided the one aim of attainment advertised
the un-attainable was preached by the priests of the ku ku klux clan...
and the latter half was preached by the brigade of social security
forces and other familiars / leeches and the fate of stipends...
capitalism outgrows itself in the realm it’s concerned with,
communism outgrows itself in the realm it’s not concerned with...
capitalism needs export... communism need import...
when a poet mentions money does he become an amateur poet
or a non-existent non-poet? i guess the latter...
given people could defend things that could have remained stones,
or given people could defend things that would have remained
grains of sand...
or that given people could have defended the shadows of
nodding branches of ******' breath dangling off them,
but given the people... not one iota made it into the alphabet
correcting... people spoke and that was the end of the meow...
the end that impregnated the woof...
once money was mentioned in a concerning way
the barbarian tribes merged into a society and societies
merged into capitals with ego per capita...
there was defence... of course... people defended their right...
but the sought nations among the barbaric multi-cultured
hegemonies that became quickly exhausted
learning to tailor many pockets into a one set of jeans:
the kenyan pocket, the slavic pocket, the caribbean pocket,
the irish pocket... but still one pair of english jeans;
the one pair of english jeans worn by a welshman...
the dragon versed lodging in a flag better with st. george moving...
all eyes to the united states, the prime-ministers of england said...
all eyes on the two-thirds of the fifty stars... three eyes on the stripes...
all sanity of language only claimed by the bestseller fiction rubric
none for philosophy, none for poetry... as long as there’s
a clear pronoun vector that narrates... we will have no other
methodology of acumen, other than the acumen of & in
a sequencing logic of one mistake made required
for the perfection of the much desired salivation for the pavlov
into a tango of a lost leg and subsequent limp encored by the crowd
of the proud primates leaving the hydrologic cycle
for the haemologic cycle of war among ourselves:
votes on the badger cull to save the hedgehogs!
260 aye, 201 naye. well, nevermind the redcoats
hunting the ginger furrballs.

I really wanted to make a more secure case comparing the cardinal to those redcoats of yore, but, ah....



(sonnet #MMMMMMCxxVii)


I have a scarlet lover who, ere pale
First hints of dawn, begins to court, til thence
Smiles and soft laughter thus ensue fr'intents.
His perky voice and deep red coat avail
Long-cherished loves, as I think Brits to scale
So perfect; aye, put on the kettle hence
Tae brew a *** of rosy lea to fence
My porridge, while my cardnal'd sweetly hail.
Wee sparrows are my playmates as they stir
Such happiness as only lovers do.
If Tyler swears he loves me, Shakespeare fer
All that gives me perspective as he'd woo.
Perchance I shall be independent: your
Wish, Baby.  But then I will not need you.

30Apr18a

i can still look into the velvet depths of the night,
whether in forest or perched on a windowsill grazing
my eyes into the night, and still see nothing except myself;
or you should see me walking down for a refill
of ice-cubes listening to ***** & the maytals' 54-46
that's my number - i know whitey boy albino given
an injection of rhythm, well at least you were given
a creative outlet under the stiff-upper lips of the redcoats,
the jews weren't even told to build the pyramids under ******,
you gave us the blues, jazz, and pirate reggae,
what could the ******* jews offer us to compensate the atrocities?
**** all apart from memorable guilt and autobiographies!
oh yeah, and german industrial music, what fun!
ha ha... robo- -boy with alias Kraftwerk.
in my long gone list of artists i forgot to mention
Alpha Blondy & Barrington Levy - high fidelity poetry
by someone not called nick hornby.

A purple sky,
Full of fire,
Smoke,
Cannon shots,
A loud sound,
Echoes in the night air,
Washington peers at the redcoats,
Marching at them,
A bugle sounds.

sides in position
self imposturing, pre sep
paration, settling scores and bounds
separation
church from state… wait

what are these

things? Words? Or mental wisps
inter
daring done to render due
to whom due, honor or otherwise reknown.

Heroic words. I've uttered some,
imagining all boys did,
singing with their dad's, to Queen,
we
are the champions
of the world, we pretend, to the end, then

we fall away… or they
fall away … the anthems in the ballparks,
oh,
say. can you see… we are the cops,
we are the redcoats and the brown shirts
and the cavalry and the real estate speculators,

slipping my grip, the idea of me, citizen-soldier,
come limping home from the edge
of baseball,
where futbol over laps ancestral lessons
in rendering unto the owner rents ……….

How old is old?
Ask a child, for old men never
learn the bounds, or
if they do, I can't say,
there seem no theys I fit just right.

I
balance _ or I lie /I\ am lifted leaning lost.
…………..

Salt, salaried man,
spending time in reading strange sayings
as if
we
know there is meaning found some times,
we think.
we mentalate, cogitate, take a tic

to stop
and think
a gain or a loss, more sense or less, inessence
or essential point

in time? See? Say what you see? Squiggle wiggle
vermicule breeeze, or
whispy vapour
rising
above or diving into a period,
a point
in time to see ifery vanish in wasery wonder iffing
whatsitmatter,
any way.

We lived past that. Now, we make sense……..

Radical is root-related, as well as
edge
related… out on the edge of known
a
self awareness wonders at my existing
outside the inside
as seen on TV
via AI guides through the explosion of knowns

I am anonymous.
There is a canyon near my home
the sign says it is the canyon with no name.
The map says it is a slot-like canyon, with no name.

Thingery thinking in terms of lines and letters letting
all we knew
blow into the winding times told of in tales too tedious
to
recall
with Howard Bloom level detail. {he is unique}
He touches me, do I not touch back? The curio knows.

How sharp the edge of a point stretched from

the mind that could see the wind whip a spark to life.

Sense when nonsense seems the fashion, the way
forms fashion fasteners around axes,
facistical twigs and vines

something says this is missed as a message,
this ax bound in sticks,
I dare, I do, I ask what was the meaning of this,
and
while we're on my dime, what's with the wings
on the Phrygian cap,

I mean,
what was the artificer's source of inspiration, like
why is liberty always a lady
wearing fashion far up the ladder of learned things,
what is the trick
that
feminine wile, legendary lure, curious art, enchanting
c'mon
one bite.

That idea, boing, stretched so tight it threatens ever
if it
breaks once, just
once

the attention span…

An encrustation sensation overwhelms me,
I'm thinking
I know
I know
I know
nothing so important that it could not wait to be said
by you, reader/writer being ready
read on

words to the wise are plenty,
these who say we know bread, they say leave the leaven.

:they said leave it in Egypt:

But who knows how?
Sour dough is sour dough, y'knows, it don't cook with no bubbles,
no,
dough rises in a backpack tied to an ***, crossing the red sea,
near that place where
National Geographic got that image of a golden chariot wheel,
reminiscent of the drowned army,
or was that
not true?

Do you believe AI knows? I mean, does your believing matter?
Ask who knows what and you learn, the memory we share
holds answers to questions you are afraid to ask.
………….

One in 8 billion, those are the current odds,
taken to scale, with man, all varieties and models,
augmented intellectuals allowed,
the measure,
of all things…
but
two's a crowd.
Social distance morphic resonance,

send me money, I am drowning in debt…
do I doubt?
Don't you, what if… somebody is going to win,
I think I can.

Ha, Wattie Piper, child hood infection exposed
too soon  to
W. Clement Stone, do it now

selah, right word right time, just before
I lose my mind

na na na na
--------------

Is the universe friendly,
does it matter if we know or if we agree?
It is,
I say.

I made my bet, I go with the goodness aspect
of knowledge,
truth itself, yes, the idea, real, the whole

enchilada.
Good is never evil. That is a true story rule,
you can bet on it,
because life isn't fair.

Think no evil, see no evil. My side won.
My weapons are not mortal, I know.
Once fooled, once ready,
I know
the trick is knowing good enough to know
the difference,
by now. We are mostly post-

original disconnection beans being removed
at birth,
with that little blue **** thingy,
nigh on universal by 1948,

super bloom, that was the year, the pollen way,
say,
hey, see this singer singing home song long song
so
far away, way way way away
hey

---- dancing dust motes seen in sun ---

The windows up on the second floor
Peered out through the mist at dawn,
Through what seemed a couple of eyelids,
Peeping out, when the blinds were drawn,
They scanned to the far horizon
Past the billows and foaming waves,
As if to seek a solution
As they scowled from their architraves.

‘How long, how long,’ was the question that
Had hung in the air for years,
How long to a sure destruction like
A fabric, when it tears?
The sea surged up to its doorstep with
The king tide at its peak,
And whispered its evil mantra, ‘House!
You haven’t another week.’

The House had stood five hundred years,
It had seen them come and go,
The coaches bringing their ministers
Of church and state, below,
Armies had been sequestered there
Beneath the sheltered eaves
Conspiring to hide the redcoats ‘til
The rebels made them leave.

It had sheltered friend and foe in there,
And had made no judgement call,
Its spacious rooms had been welcoming
To anyone there at all,
But now that its greatest enemy
Was surging at the lea,
‘Who will come to my aid at last
To save me from the sea?’

The time was once when the sea lay back
A mile or so from the shore,
But long decades of its slow attack
Saw it conquer, more and more,
Its progress so very gradual
That some generations hence,
Each single lifetime lost just yards
From its seaward farmland fence.

A wall of sticks and boulders rose
That the sea had overcome,
Had buried under its surges while
The work was being done,
A hill of sand and flotsam that
Was bound by bush and tree,
But the sea reclaimed its contraband
Washed the sand back out to sea.

And now, five hundred years had gone
The tide lapped at the brick,
And softened the old foundations as
The window-eyes looked bleak,
The king tide then had abated and
Sank back, to mutter its lack,
‘Have no fear,’ it grated, ‘House!
For I shall be coming back!’

But with the sea lying dormant,
Men approached with great machines,
With bulldozers and graders and
Huge tip-trucks in a stream,
And when the sea had resumed again
With its king tide of assault,
It beat forlorn on a concrete wall
With pathways of asphalt.

The windows up on the second floor
Peered out through the mist at dawn,
Through what seemed a couple of eyelids,
Peeping out, when the blinds were drawn,
The rain had hidden a couple of tears
As the House had heard men say:
‘We have to preserve our history,
And keep the sea in the bay!’

David Lewis Paget

In the heart of Kolkata lies the palatial palace of the redcoats
The centre of architecture served as the residence of the empress of India
The weapons of war, antique jewellery, charismatic gowns and magnificent paintings gleam with pride
The sharp eyes of the queen catch everything around her as she sits on her throne and is ready to accept the crown
Carved is the coast of arms and the last supper in the abode of the angels
Spacious corridors, stained glass windows, classic architecture, lush green gardens form this cognisant seraglio
The crows and Robbins are her messenger or maybe even the prima donna in disguise
And every morning the angel of the sun turns around and announces the beginning of a newfangled day

----------


We are spotted and blemished and
ring straked herds of milkable critters,

we are modifiable metaphors for
fountains of milk and honey, from
the other side, breathing in and out,

thinking jello seen through,
to the bubble of me, from the one
of you, in the discernible pixels one
adjusts to ignore as the knowledge

milk of conscious multi-tasking,
driving and paying attention

to a bubble popping book,
a Yucca… in jellotime thought form,

takes centuries for some to bloom,
children believe, because why
would the giant yuccas be
called century plants, if
not because they only bloom once

in three generations to be seen,
as a spikey life form familiar,

in the live and let live desert,

where we eat the snakes we ****.

Which causes jellotime to glup up

a contrasting hueristic to guage
color critical shades of orininating
emotions, also known as answers

matching evidence accepted as its
self, as so, we see, it is, these words

connect at attention applied, a hook,
a will to have a go and making sense,

in timeless pastless points,
as art, around the time disease,
and misperceptions, such enforce,
hold that breathe
thought
as truth as manifest cruelty of mighty
blobs of solid right to stand still
and firm, a we form, from ancient
orders,
used to form first informers, thus
inventing us, after dancing to explain,

some where, in your learning control,
taking hold of yourself, see the shape

we may perceive, as we, the payers
of attention needed to twist these

threads, fine
spiderkites from the pines, common

at lattitudes about a third of the way
up the sphere's gravitational truth
compressing core, living idea, life
at planatary participant level,

poet, po. Poe, ever, more avsinthesis
m'dear, Frankly, whether Einstein
or Ben, said it, compounding,
interest in flim flam,
shaking it down, and pressing it
into stone, on which a you are forms
of us as others, redcoats fighting freedom

living legos, universal, and one use,
life is like that, and we the new ones,

we adapt to our techknowlogos, as such,
informing our selves of news and sighns,

signaling
slow down
you read to fast, this is doubt, the feature,
consciously functioning as qwerty guy, key

element of know how, indirectly hanging
by a thread in 'cient science, finding ling-

ering tastes, and effects from kissing,
stretching tongues intuitively knowing

this is what they mean,
or meant, that is, back when, it was said

that forty million frenchmen, could not
be wrong,
about how we gonna keep down
on the farm,
after they've tasted the happy place,
and tickled a childish fascination
with words

and a will, to make light of the dread,
said by many orders of left mind tyrants,

spiritual exercises in will worship,
worth of a warrior learning
there is no easy day,

popping
into my bubble. Easy entry, plop\

into the jellotime you had in mind,
when the whole idea shivered,

like a little rolling green hill,
seen from the clouds, of course,

we have Google's first score, point
one in the assisting intelligence
user's credo, be doers first,

of nothing evil, follow ons,
all your choice, the weapons used

to pull down strongholds,
mighty fortress forces repelling
efforts to fit one trick legos into

monstrosities as effective as
George's Dragon, or my puff tincture,

in the world of wonderful make believe,

tune in, drip. Drip. Slip into the ABC years,
percolater rythm
post recordible television, black and white,
during Disney-ification drills, preceded
by prelingual exposure to Fantasia,

reigning next oldest memory for which
valid links to now exist, occurred
at the White Rock Courts

during the years after 1948,
and a half,  after Fantasia,
was in local theaters,

and GI Bills was not kicking enough,
for rent in Phoenix and driving,
back and forth up one side,
down the other, old mind
river she keep aggin' us on,

she's no devil, no siree,
that wombedman, she got papers on me.

and wise wizardry between jewels
as bright as earth seen from a distance,

as we all oughta know, by now,
as a hitchhiker's angel once said,

yes, sidereal, crossing the Mohave
at night, … pick the road
from Vegas, two lanes, double yellow lines,

easy for my cars lights to show, so I know,
I am on the right side of this thing,

this mound of telling stories found
looted of all but the ghosts
of its chances taken, on mob made rules.