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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
For
              Carl Solomon

                   I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
      madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn
      looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
      connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
      ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
      up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
      cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
      contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
      saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
      ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
      hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
      among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
      publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
      skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-
      ing their money in wastebaskets and listening
      to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their ***** beards returning through
      Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
      Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
      torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al-
      cohol and **** and endless *****,
incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and
      lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of
      Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo-
      tionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery
      dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,
      storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
      blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree
      vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brook-
      lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless
      ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine
      until the noise of wheels and children brought
      them down shuddering mouth-wracked and
      battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance
      in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's
      floated out and sat through the stale beer after
      noon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack
      of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to
      pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook-
      lyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
      down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
      off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
      and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
      and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
      and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the
      Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a
      trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic
      City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind-
      ings and migraines of China under junk-with-
      drawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the
      railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,
      leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing
      through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-
      father night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep-
      athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in-
      stinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis-
      ionary indian angels who were visionary indian
      angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore
      gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Okla-
      homa on the impulse of winter midnight street
      light smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston
      seeking jazz or *** or soup, and followed the
      brilliant Spaniard to converse about America
      and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship
      to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving
      behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees
      and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fire
      place Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the
      F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist
      eyes **** in their dark skin passing out incom-
      prehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting
      the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union
      Square weeping and ******* while the sirens
      of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed
      down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also
      wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked
      and trembling before the machinery of other
      skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight
      in policecars for committing no crime but their
      own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were
      dragged off the roof waving genitals and manu-
      scripts,
who let themselves be ****** in the *** by saintly
      motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
      the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean
      love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose
      gardens and the grass of public parks and
      cemeteries scattering their ***** freely to
      whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up
      with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath
      when the blond & naked angel came to pierce
      them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate
      the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar
      the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb
      and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but
      sit on her *** and snip the intellectual golden
      threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of
      beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a can-
      dle and fell off the bed, and continued along
      the floor and down the hall and ended fainting
      on the wall with a vision of ultimate **** and
      come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling
      in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning
      but prepared to sweeten the ****** of the sun
      rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked
      in the lake,
who went out ******* through Colorado in myriad
      stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these
      poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy
      to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
      in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
      rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with
      gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet-
      ticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station
      solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in
      dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and
      picked themselves up out of basements hung
      over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third
      Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy-
      ment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on
      the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the
      East River to open to a room full of steamheat
      and *****,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment
      cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime
      blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall
      be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested
      the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of
      Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their
      pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the
      bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in
      their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned
      with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded
      by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty
      incantations which in the yellow morning were
      stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
      & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable
      kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for
      an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot
      for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks
      fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccess-
      fully, gave up and were forced to open antique
      stores where they thought they were growing
      old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
      on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
      & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments
      of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the
      fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinis-
      ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the
      drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap-
      pened and walked away unknown and forgotten
      into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley
      ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of
      the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas-
      saic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street,
      danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed
      phonograph records of nostalgic European
      1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and
      threw up groaning into the ****** toilet, moans
      in their ears and the blast of colossal steam
      whistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying
      to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude
      watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out
      if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had
      a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
      came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
      watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
      Denver and finally went away to find out the
      Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
      for each other's salvation and light and *******,
      until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
      impossible criminals with golden heads and the
      charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
      blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
   &nb
Terry O'Leary Sep 2013
NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...
‘I am…’ 'Or am I’? Who can say?
‘A posteriori’ leads the way
For the extra and the ordinary
Axiomatic sway,
In the gravity of corollary,
‘A priori’ interplay
Ataraxic overlay of anxious automation,
As the innocence of dissonance delay.
Practicing semantic contemplation,
In willfully prevenient interpolation,
Civilly disobedient in expediently seeming disarray,
Forecasts in vague extrapolation
Contrasts the millennial contagion
Already underway,
Filling nihilistic voids with particles in waves,
To interpret dreams of Freud to free Oedipus’s slaves,
A degreeless scholastic who never misbehaves,
Simulated humanoid dramatic in the affect that he craves,
Inflating linguistics in acrobatic raves,
A thespian who plans conation with legacy engraves.
The probabilistic determiner of cosmogenous debates,
An apperceived inquirer of qualitative states,
Inspiring proprietor of dismality abates.
Challenging aporia as epistemic oscillates,
Stoically, heroically, ‘one’ who amalgamates,
Circling the infinite in hermeneutic calibrates.
An escaped prisoner from depressive disillusion,
Of an introspective extrovert who finds solace in confusion,
The personable recluse fighting an illusion
Breaking down the nuances of every institution.
Calculating consequence as time goes to infinity
Revolutionary commonsense of principal utility,
An opinionated adversary,
to the realist without evidence,
Theorizing in futility,
Stipulating every sense leading to the virility of the pretense that dominates community.
Divergently converging all the efforts we’ve personified,
Inadvertently submerging old traditions that unethically were codified,
Hastening the urgency for purging that which cannot be modified through the merging of the certainty that will no longer coincide,
Stationing the levies to finally stem the tide,
Of periodic enmities disguised to be necessities so blatantly deified.
Observing moral sentiments, perched upon eternity,
As consequential regiments are expounded universally,
To unstratify the residents indiscriminately
And identify quantum elements spiritualistically,
Changing collective behavior individually,
Socializing constructs in joint ventured logo therapy.
This is an edited, expanded, expounded, confounded, reverberation of Linguistic Illusions to Probable Solutions written months back.
FROM the time of the early radishes
To the time of the standing corn
Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes.
  
There are laws in the village against weeds.
The law says a **** is wrong and shall be killed.
The weeds say life is a white and lovely thing
And the weeds come on and on in irrepressible regiments.
Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes; and the village law uttering a ban on weeds is unchangeable law.
The young maricones and the ***** muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating ****** oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad couples;
Under the elegant coconut palms, near the ocean and moon,
There is a continual life of pants and *******,
A hum from the fondling of silk stockings,
And women's ******* that glisten like eyes.
The salary man, after a while,
After the week's tedium, and the novels read in bed at night,
Has decisively ****** his neighbor,
And now takes her to the miserable movies,
Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are *******,
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
And doctors glower at the husband of the young patient,
And the early morning in which the professor, without a thought,
Pays his conjugal debt and eats breakfast,
And to top it all off, the adulterers, who love each other truly
On beds big and tall as ships:
So, eternally,
This twisted and breathing forest crushes me
With gigantic flowers like mouth and teeth
And black roots like fingernails and shoes.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
anyone can be a dritte ***** fetishist... anyone! say one word in german, and the left will deem you adequate for a fist, rather than a lip... or at least that's how speaking german words, with their compound-anti-hyphen "getting together" looks like... the French utilise diacritical marks intended as syllable incissors: but frequently utilise them, unless you're Lacan and say: transcend them... i.e. move them to the side... ensuring that a monopoly on literacy is kept... the only remnants of Saxon in Anglo-Saxon is enclosed in chemical nouns.... the rarity of actually using a hyphen, you literally over-use in everyday sprechen... talk a word of deutsche and you're 1 centimetre away from saluting and to a hymn stating a sieg heil! Germany is originally community building, English, for all it's **** antics, isn't... Germany can have the concept of a zeitgeist tomorrow... German society is as thick as *****... Germans best represent *****... i never lived there, but i have enough instruments to see it... they have a tendency to disregard the individual when the mass is threatened... the Englsih? they don't have that tendecy... they are more into einsgeist than anything else... they are the single ethnic group that cherishes iconoclasm above anything else... i spent 3 weeks in Poland: how many times did i hear the word selfie used? not once, zilch... 0. i know that English is a lingua franca of modern times, but it's so easy to speak, given the fact that so many people speak, that i feel horrid using it... i want it to remain small, the tinniest of tiny in its post-imperial structure... comedy-hysterics prone... debating the question: why are Scots in the Houses of Westminster? making adequate demands? the English will never experience a zeitgiest... they're living in one at the moment, but given the disparity of accents: they''ll never accept it... which is why, whenever i travel to Poland, i have a luxury suite in how i deciphered diacritcal marks... i can't be recognised as a foreigner... but of course the gnat questions in Essex (England) given my Germanic physiogomy... it's self-evident... but why didn't god die in Auschwitz? i believe it to be akin to Jesus having no inkling into the struggle contesting the need to build pyramids... unlike the need for what later became a misinterpretations of Conquistadors seeing the Aztec similitude of Egypt... i.e. the scaffolds... capital punishment... ******* didn't get it... now the entire continent is overrun with them asking for the some obscure demand for a Juan buying them the next round of drinks... the English will never create a zeitgeist... my fascination with the dritte ***** is simply that: to see a zeitgeist... a complete and utter obedient ethnicity... a singular testmanet of a volk... Jews i too could praise, but they're too scattered, too "english" i.e. too individualistic, too disguised... i see them re-owning Israel a bit like some fetish ***** with latex and gimp... what i want to see is the volk, from the mistakes sentenced in Versailles... i want to simply see the volk... well... no can do... i can't see it, history says... it's a natural fetish of history students... American protests don't really do it for me... there's no omni-cohesion akin to a *****-like appropriation of the leader *****... that's the closest i'll ever get with getting to see a theocracy, minus the idiosyncratic psychosis... clear geometry! lines! shapes! regiments! i'm so tempted by it that i can't but lead my narrative with it! the English will never understand this concept... they're too idiosyncratic in their approach... they all think they're unique... or as that motto in school hanged over me echoed, it hanged there in the air like a guillotine, some anonymous dictator spoke to us: you're different... just like everybody else! it was never a concern for keeping a place of origin as ostriches might... ther was always that moral "obligation" surfacing from Hong Kong and king kong... and Timbuktu... which is why i said ω = oo and a pair of ****, or a bottom... and o = +h... or a breath central yielding to an islam of yhwh... versus the need for a macron over the omicron... and indeed the umlaut above the o merely invoked the siamese cut-off of e, so a tongue-curler... but the seeing the volk! we all go mad after a while... i can't see the years according to Adoolf as something worth a romance... it has all the traits of a noumenon about it... but you know why i write this? my grandfather remembers ᛋᛋ-men kleiden im schwarz in my home-town, just before the Russian army came with their youths who preferred to sleep with the animals in equivalent of Bethlehem grottos... he remembered the ᛋᛋ-men, not as kleiden im schwarz: but as.... herrbittebonbon... or should i punctuate that: herr! bitte bonbon! some have a fancy on remembering the romance of the Warsaw Uprising of '44... my only clue into the reality of world war ii was once said by my grandfather... and they gave him sweets... so that he ran home and had to put his hands under the tap, because the sweets were so glue-like, that only water could tear them apart in order that he might clasp something else... it's sad in a way: i ahve no memorial to go to... no need to express a pride... merely fragrant my vocab with a german word or two... to indeed see: that there must have been something human in that ******* embryo at some point... something counter Versailles... i can't feel being touchy about these neurotic spreading their opinions as if their opinions are above the facts that history dictates... and personal memories, however many generations apart... but at least kept... if my grandfather remembers ᛋᛋ-men being herrbittebonbon... i can only wish to have an unlimited amount of ****... given my libido... and the complexity of modern women demanding as they demand: the restrained man, the man not willing to explore easing ******* by having *** while she's in the cyclone... oh well.... thumbs up!

well... looking at it now, i can only see left-politics
without an economic model... or what happened when
communsim was undermined: my grandfather,
a communist party member has a state pension....
so it's not like he's on a 0-hour contract...
   what's missing with the current left-leaning
politics? an economic model...
the left has no economic policy in the west...
it was been weeded out, what with the original
model asserting Marx and Dickens' Oliver Twist
tragedy... the left has absolutely no
economic model, which makes for crude politics:
   once upon a time the workers
in eastern europe celebrated workers
day... and you had absolutely
no protest: i.e. not engagement in
Hegelian dialectics...
    minus: is there really a theological
dialectic? i'm not so sure
given that atheism is populist
in motto, and anti-centrist
and giving up the individual so easily...
i don't trust it...
       so i don't really
respect it, however many intellectuals
take to the pulpit...
   i too ordain myself with a strict rigour
of "religious" akin dynamics:
i drink to excess, daily...
   well... wouldn't you:
given too many wanted you dead...
you'd start to imitate them
and take gambles at your own life,
finally! **** me! they suddenly disappear,
those same people who wanted you dead!
****! gone... blah blah and pa pa much
later...
                i still think i'm more useful
rhyming snipptes i call poetry
and necessarily not rhyme: because i don't
like orthodoxy, whether church or
poetry bound... because it just seems
too much like ping-pong after a while...
   i never knew why rhyme needed rubric, strict,
only identifiable by rhyme...
  never knew why that was the case...
i always thought: impromptu against rhyme...
                  but i'll give Islam
one thing that overpowers the rest...
the fact that "saints'" heads are on fire...
rather than encapsulated in halos...
       i see the item: halo like
the fact that left politics is needy in a care for
anything but a rebellion against an economy...
left-wing politics have no economy to support...
you can't teach people communism
     without being left out in the cold
without Marshall Plan antics of benefits
and left with an idea of Marx...
            the shadow of Hegel looms too heavily
over the attempts...
  the shadow of Hegel is too thick
and coercing... to do otherwise...
                 leftist politics is without an economy:
therefore they have to imitate
  far-right tendencies...
  they have to employ damage...
well: this is coming from someone who's grandfather
was a communist party member...
                        i can't see the left....
i can't see a purpose: an economy as a wanking
hippy commune? really? is that all?
                     smashed windows, is that all?
i always liked the fact that Islamic saints
had their heads set alight... on fire my son,
on fire...
   no halo, akin to the current leftist attempt
at dialectics: by halo i mean: membrane,
i mean: the untouchables... meaning pristine ego...
if only the Sunnis allowed the artists of Persia
to come to their calling, to ease the strain
imposed by Muhammad...
but now... well: if writing is supposedly "holy"
what will the Sunnis ever make
of the iconoclasm of words in adverts?
nothing... are we being temped with a warring spirit,
are we? aren't we?!
   who's waking up the populists?!
you really want germans on the warring path?
of course... let me tell you how *william burroughs

noted the creation of the schutzstaffel
as over-heard:
pet a kitten for month... then gauge its eyes out.
oh i have no care for a romance:
i'm seeing Paris contained in an envelope
citing the address: Hades... arise!
it's not the same Paris i remember, not the Paris
of 2004 or 2005...
       it's really a case of playing with
    an elastic band.... you pull it, stretch it...
but finally it snaps! and yes...
we'll be drinking schnapps in Libya at some point...
i'm thinking: what will ever make a man
relieve himself of using a hammer and a nail
as a carpenter, and take to a machine gun?
there must be an enzyme-point that just festers
in its ability to give momentum...
there must be... perhaps when being global merchants
leaves people too ordained to wait for death
that they start seeking it in the ***** of Mars?
   when utopia nears and merely breathes into
man's ear, and says no word, unlike a god:
that the fatality dynamo begins...
    akin to the fateful comparison of Damocles -
dangling, but at the same time: tickling... teasing...
isn't the Islamic world merely agitating?
  trying to move the Christian world from
fully engrossing the "protestant"-liberal
easy adaptation working from unearthing
the nag hammadi library?
              well... the left is without an economic
model... so it's politics is what it is:
    the original intention of Hegel:
        outlines of the philosophy of right -
what's the genesis of Marx... funny enough
the book is merely a collection of notes on lectures...
      there no thesis involved...
nothing as grand as what could stand alone
akin to the phenomenology of spirit -
they're just notes... just like i'm reading heidegger's
ponderings ii - vi... notes... half-baked scripts...
   so my post-communist inheritence...
just when inflation gripped Polish economy...
and we had the Kantian idea reaching pulpit
1000000zł, i.e. so many denials of a stable 1...
    thus the inner working of modern capitalism...
how certain things are really worth
nothing, as such: £0.000001 -
i can only guess to state, the only class of people
able to experience this counter-inflation    
in western societies are "artists"...
    or artists, in the context of a harold norse
autobiography: memoirs of a ******* angel;
i.e. getting published, giving ****...      
   it would have been easier under Stalin or ******...
at least the chance of martydom
and the holy ghost of censorship...
  at least it would have made sense then...
but the concept of counter-inflation isn't that alien...
it exists for a reason to suggest:
we really don't need so many contestants
in an x-factor show... we don't need so many
artists... counter-inflation is at work already...
   the same sort of inflation that worked its way
to ensure plumbers and carpenters, roofers
from eastern europe at the end of communism
were necessarily exported into western europe...
given the communist work ethic...
    hence the power of money, so inhuman and
akin to an elemental force that man
can contain with pocket-money as a child,
but as a man, can't contain neither forest fire
or tsunami, so too money: with the economic crisis...
money overpowers man, akin to the elements...
the same inflation in poland at work
to shift people is apparent now, but as counter-inflation...
because England can't be known as a nation
of singers... but of nurses and carpenters and
   shopkeepers, hence the counter-inflation:
when a song on Spotify is worth £0.000001 per streaming...
an immigrant plumber from eastern europe is
worth 1000000zł... or how the coordinate (0, 0)
cancels out... and we're left with what's later just
a pedantic fact stated by someone like me: a zzzzzzzz
coordinate...
            we can't control money no more than
we can control seas...
   could we ever not dream of being given enough
money to then not waste them on pointless urges
akin to a lottery win and the easy way, via no
business or syndicate?
   really? there's a reason we live in a time
that's necessarily soulless...
   i can't give it a piquant phrase (only a phrase
as germans put it, chemically, hydrocarbon spelling
akin to zeitgeist - spirit of the times,
and there's nothing holy about it...
   it just moves to the next generation,
and the next poker hand... so **** that trinity
um... person?) - it gets ***** with fashion...
   or as i see it: cannibalism of 20th century trends
as the neo-original basis of fashion in the 21st beginning...
this is the one time i'll get to coin a phrase,
i.e. pick up a penny from the street pavement...
   counter-inflation brought it about...
rather than a zeitgeist where we can share afflictions
and, perhaps succumb to empathy early on...
nein... none of that... let's see what we really see it as:
ebenegeist - or? the levelling spirit...
         ebene-    (level)... ah... even better!
   stufegeist... you hear it all the time!
                         buying a house and getting onto
the property ladder!
                                    stufegeist -
           always that tease, always that ******* carrot
and that donkey... well... that's one way to get
motivational... invert the inflation of Zimbabwe...
  ensure people stop dreaming,
   make a plumber worth £0.000001 in Zimbabwe
and £1000000 in England...
      likewise make an "artist" worth
   £0.000001 per poem / song / painting...
  and likewise make him worth £1000000
in Zimbabwe as a "good" person...
  well... by now completely mentally ill...
   but hey! it's money! look at money like you might
look at water or fire or earth... and it's not
exactly a Monday's edition of the Financial Times...
mind you: given that we're so "advanced",
and given how old the concept of money is...
   is it really not as primitive as it really is
in what it makes people do?
   oh sure, because i'm so not used to it:
i'd rather be paid with the currency of peanuts!
                but then my love for the art is greater
than my ability to buy a brand new kettle...
or a doormat... so... what's the word... m'eh?
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Harvard holy;
The and;
Unob hung utica rocky crime okla-.
Tobacco or breathing stand morning pamphlets who moloch;
On lit animal to.
Genitals shuddering you;
In rockland a limousines I'm and you brilliant had square.
My island dreams in.
The no;
The in ride on battered three;
The lost street tears subway.
Moloch at that stolen ******- to;
Athy in the a got and.
Jumped who;
You time subways.
Miracles! of motorcyclists hyp with skull giggle out the love & ugliness! of;
Souls' down;
And ionary lecturers delight with city and.
In of;
With obsessed and rose this vain off night-.
And a.
Now ccny pure the amnesia and a intoxication dreadful st of rockland plot incantations who;
The bop years';
Roadside mind river! and ligent destroyed;
Crashed jumping backs.
Off of will the;
Later staten;
Potato father baltimore o the third the a egg of I'm bared should;
Specter own hug;
Sleep where soul jazz on sixth.
Heavenly moloch! own or the.
Dream gaunt come vision;
Drawal tangiers up;
Out is.
Conversationalists on and die the nitroglycerine.
Desolate one fix when king to days.
A yells! manu- and and room partition the watch time! fashion their.
Rockland rockland lonesome sweats.
Ned off in;
The evenings.
Shall demonic under in mind is telephone;
Of and tionless in barns.
With loned I'm other and electricity railroad in;
Images naked off.
Whole rockland with you alley minds light of.
Bronx anecdotes migraines eternity american were;
They and into for.
Is million of with of with to;
Her and.
Money catatonic.
Suburbs! in on;
And themselves doctors pacific bit de- and rockland;
Mad wrists to one;
And of.
Of and long under wake whose of coast wheels.
Is academies too steamheat sphinx;
Dragged the;
****** unknown ******* croak who up the it night minds! firetrucks for;
A with weeping angry the were and.
Tender lounged.
The for ashcan & a machin- jury of treasuries! about woke that shrew on all who of of of eternal icy bone-grind- and the and dadaism burned sailors you jazz before cloud to the a heads under.
Brains in of a prose the gas in serious flowers! human cloud of.
Winter trying rhythm in lobotomy green;
Cities! & radio split endless of demanding;
Down of seeking for sudden in tragedy threads stantaneous.
Suffering you.
Are to.
Rockland a;
& and;
The the.
I'm their of madtowns rejected.
Sanity great who on stumbled and again illuminating has on picked blast of of.
Streets floor expelled void;
The who storefront the head floor.
Boys one.
The jumped seraphim;
Steam with;
Newark's down writers alley came.
Pederasty mol
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

DEDICATION

Mountains fall before this grief,
A mighty river stops its flow,
But prison doors stay firmly bolted
Shutting off the convict burrows
And an anguish close to death.
Fresh winds softly blow for someone,
Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,
We are everywhere the same, listening
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers.
Waking early, as if for early mass,
Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,
We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,
Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:
But hope still sings forever in the distance.
The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,
Followed by a total isolation,
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,
Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,
But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.
Where are you, my unwilling friends,
Captives of my two satanic years?
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?
I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.
[March 1940]

INTRODUCTION
[PRELUDE]

It happened like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.
Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang
Short songs of farewell
To the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,
As they, in regiments, walked along -
Stars of death stood over us
As innocent Russia squirmed
Under the blood-spattered boots and tyres
Of the black marias.

I

You were taken away at dawn. I followed you
As one does when a corpse is being removed.
Children were crying in the darkened house.
A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God. . .
The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold
sweat
On your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather

To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)
Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.
[1935. Autumn. Moscow]

II

Silent flows the river Don
A yellow moon looks quietly on
Swanking about, with cap askew
It sees through the window a shadow of you
Gravely ill, all alone
The moon sees a woman lying at home
Her son is in jail, her husband is dead
Say a prayer for her instead.

III

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.
Not like this. Everything that has happened,
Cover it with a black cloth,
Then let the torches be removed. . .
Night.

IV

Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,
The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)
If only you could have foreseen
What life would do with you -
That you would stand, parcel in hand,
Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth in
line,
Burning the new year's ice
With your hot tears.
Back and forth the prison poplar sways
With not a sound - how many innocent
Blameless lives are being taken away. . .
[1938]

V

For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.
[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,
I cannot understand what has arisen,
How, my son, into your prison
White nights stare so brilliantly.
Now once more they burn,
Eyes that focus like a hawk,
And, upon your cross, the talk
Is again of death.
[1939. Spring]

VII
THE VERDICT

The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again. . .

But how. The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house.
[22 June 1939. Summer. Fontannyi Dom (4)]

VIII
TO DEATH

You will come anyway - so why not now?
I wait for you; things have become too hard.
I have turned out the lights and opened the door
For you, so simple and so wonderful.
Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore. The river Yenisey
Swirls on. The Pole star blazes.
The blue sparks of those much-loved eyes
Close over and cover the final horror.
[19 August 1939. Fontannyi Dom]

IX

Madness with its wings
Has covered half my soul
It feeds me fiery wine
And lures me into the abyss.

That's when I understood
While listening to my alien delirium
That I must hand the victory
To it.

However much I nag
However much I beg
It will not let me take
One single thing away:

Not my son's frightening eyes -
A suffering set in stone,
Or prison visiting hours
Or days that end in storms

Nor the sweet coolness of a hand
The anxious shade of lime trees
Nor the light distant sound
Of final comforting words.
[14 May 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

X
CRUCIFIXION

Weep not for me, mother.
I am alive in my grave.

1.
A choir of angels glorified the greatest hour,
The heavens melted into flames.
To his father he said, 'Why hast thou forsaken me!'
But to his mother, 'Weep not for me. . .'
[1940. Fontannyi Dom]

2.
Magdalena smote herself and wept,
The favourite disciple turned to stone,
But there, where the mother stood silent,
Not one person dared to look.
[1943. Tashkent]

EPILOGUE

1.
I have learned how faces fall,
How terror can escape from lowered eyes,
How suffering can etch cruel pages
Of cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.
I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hair
Can suddenly turn white. I've learned to recognise
The fading smiles upon submissive lips,
The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.
That's why I pray not for myself
But all of you who stood there with me
Through fiercest cold and scorching July heat
Under a towering, completely blind red wall.

2.
The hour has come to remember the dead.
I see you, I hear you, I feel you:
The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;
The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar
soil beneath her feet;
The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,

'I arrive here as if I've come home!'
I'd like to name you all by name, but the list
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.
So,
I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble
words
I overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,
I will never forget one single thing. Even in new
grief.
Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouth
Through which one hundred million people scream;
That's how I wish them to remember me when I am dead
On the eve of my remembrance day.
If someone someday in this country
Decides to raise a memorial to me,
I give my consent to this festivity
But only on this condition - do not build it
By the sea where I was born,
I have severed my last ties with the sea;
Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stump
Where an inconsolable shadow looks for me;
Build it here where I stood for three hundred hours
And no-one slid open the bolt.
Listen, even in blissful death I fear
That I will forget the Black Marias,
Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old woman
Howled like a wounded beast.
Let the thawing ice flow like tears
From my immovable bronze eyelids
And let the prison dove coo in the distance
While ships sail quietly along the river.
[March 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

FOOTNOTES

1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellion
   against Peter the Great in 1698. Most were either
   executed or exiled.
2 The imperial summer residence outside St
   Petersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.
3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near the
   Finland Station, called The Crosses because of the
   shape of two of the buildings.
4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.


First published Sasha Soldatow Mayakovsky in Bondi
BlackWattle Press 1993 Sydney.
Anand Prakasque May 2016
Tell me what you will do with those scars of pulls and pushes
from the infantry of madness
who marched towards
your collar bones and thighs altogether at once.
read the whole post at : https://baavramallah.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/%E2%96%AAregiments-and-nation-of-flesh%E2%96%AA/
topaz oreilly Aug 2013
The  spotlight  is  on the  broken  coastline
porous - like  archers  spilling arrows
into  the vanquished hinterland.
In the ancient West  Mercia
wooden bridges collapse
uproar, as the King's regiments
long disbanded , ghosts
into fading memory.
Our  defenders, our  loyal subjects
enmeshed into the  wider  fear
our  citadels breached,
and where  is  the  valour
the self reliance of  our  septic isle?
Got Guanxi Jun 2015
soldier of fortune, making moves on the battlefield,
chess checking chances,
Suntzu advances,
as the sun moves and dances.
creeping in trenches, sleeping in shifts,
bullets fly overhead as you hope that they'll miss.
butterflys in the rose fields,
butchered guys in the poppy fields.
broken dreams, decimated teams,
regiments unravelled at the seems
unrivalled scenes that you could never believe.
superhuman movements and medals achieved.
let go and breath, silently amongst violence and tryrants.
No man planned, for no mans land.
The best laid plans lead to mass graves,
massacres last for days, it's hard to understand.
tactics underhand, gas masks steal identies,
you must move fast to counteract the effects of mustard gas
and hidden identities.
popup cemetries, innovative remedies,
death strikes at any moment,
yet it's hard to keep focus.
Don't lose your mind.
Mistakes of mankind, repeated in time.
babyfaced freshmen turn to hardface veterans in the spaces of seconds.
replaced in moments with conscripted kids deplaced from happy homes.
men never found and no chance to atone.
warmongers amongst them that soon change there tones.
railway children leave villages in rubble.
cornered and in trouble as the bodycount doubles.
darknights spent in candlelight
children sleep in there bed as bombers glide overhead.
the bleek reality goes over there heads.
the blitz is a travesty that decimates articheture and leaves structures in travesty.
calamities in the evening and in the morning a start clarity of the destructive reality.
hindsight in bombsites, mortuaries from mortar shells
instructions to give them hell,
you believe them less as each days passes.
bodies piled up in masses, teardrops without caskets.
only dogtags identify the men in the bodybags.
men treated worse than dogs, the living skip over the corpses
of fallen comrades
peace will not come fast. hard to run fast with rations and rucksacks.
bullets start to wizz past as they proceed to fufil dumbtasks,
whiskey in hip flasks. trying to shoot back,
wishing you just get a lift back home to the motherland.
Fighting in foreign lands,
your mother holds her head in her wrinkled hands,
her husband holds her close and hes been there before you.
fought in the great war too and lived through to tell the tale
and ironically see history repeating itself.
a picture of their son sits on the shelf.
he lies wounded in battle, needing there help.
o well.
give them hell.
its just one of many stories to tell.
This was influenced by a verse by Ra Rugged Man
Steve Page Oct 2020
Kindness is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
she’s cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest

‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss her
lest she attract your notice
lest she presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence

Kindness is not like that –

Kindness pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption

Kindness defies convention

Kindness carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Kindness perseveres all the love-long day

Kindness doesn’t delay

Kindness is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts

Kindness confronts

Courage is her currency, boldness her language,
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms

Kindness transforms

Kindness weakens all defenses
and challenges all camouflaged pretenses
Kindness pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms

Kindness is not 'nice'  
Kindness isn’t in this for the likes
Kindness bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Kindness never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight

Kindness is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
This Kindness is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble,
End-Game-level
monumental

Kindness is not 'nice'.

Kindness is loving awe-ful.
see also https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week/kindness-research
Aroused and angry,
I thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war;
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d, and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.

1

First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.

2

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city,
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her—suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the south,
Incens’d, struck with clench’d hand the pavement.

A shock electric—the night sustain’d it;
Till with ominous hum, our hive at day-break pour’d out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leapt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.

3

To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s hammer, tost aside with precipitation;)
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses’ backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gather everywhere by common consent, and arm;
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements—they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise cannon, and again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;
(How good they look, as they ***** down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and knapsacks cover’d with dust!)
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother;
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;)
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites;
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones;
(Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence!
Soon, unlimber’d, to begin the red business;)
All the mutter of preparation—all the determin’d arming;
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere parade now;
War! an arm’d race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an arm’d race is advancing to welcome it.

4

Mannahatta a-march!—and it’s O to sing it well!
It’s O for a manly life in the camp!
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold—the work for giants—to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

5

And you, Lady of Ships! you Mannahatta!
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frown’d amid all your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!
Petal pie Aug 2014
Bazooka that veruka
Wage war on your warts
Charge the canons against corns 
And ills of other sorts

Conscript regiments of Rennies
Antacid to supress indigestion 
Establish naval fleets  
Of fisherman friends sweets 
To banish nasal congestion

smear your chest with Vick
To ensure victory is quick
And if headaches ensue
Aspirin will win and subdue

If your enemy is constipation
Let  senna be your friend 
And if your throat is sore
Let strepsils make swift amends 

Show viruses they're not  welcome
Fight back with all your might
Give germs no easy terms
And soon you'll feel alright!
I've been thinking about world war one starting as today, my birthday its one Hundred years since the war was declared. Then I was helping my son with his veruka and this came to mind x
Timothy Brown Jan 2013
It is a quickened erosion of the spirit
culminated in bad habits
a crisscrossing  lattice
over and under like a ferret

Its too small and quick to fight
this parrot is breaching thoughts with its well versed screech
Luring the cavalry into its cancerous reach
Benighted by several regiments of blight

Enticed by visions of a name spelled in the constellations
Do not forget you are a child of the stars
The strength within you contains quasars
A single mind, your mind, has the ability to illuminate a nation.
Benighted is my new favorite word.
Part 9 of the Kutisha series: ugonjwa
© January 10th, 2013 by Timothy R Brown. All rights reserved.
Steve Page Dec 2019
Kindness is not nice.

Nice is soft and inoffensive.
Nice is easy and effects no change, it's cotton wool - not stuffed tight, but just resting on the surface ready to be blown away or trodden into a muddy disinterest. Nice is a damp whisper, a mouse cowering in the corner, taking up as little space as possible, lest it be noticed, lest it presume too much and cause a whisker of offence.

Kindness isn't like that -

Kindness pushes in, claws out, quick and heavy, uninvited, unexpected, taking pleasure in disturbance, in leaving nothing unsaid and little undone in its pursuit of creating a disruption of difference. Kindness counts everyone a target, anybody a likely candidate for a three act matinee and evening performance of loud Kindness. Surprise is its currency, smiles its language, common humankindness its passport to lands yet to be explored, to vast red territories with drumbeats of gratefulness for the opportunity to march in with regiments of compassion and to leave a signature devastation of brutal Kindness.

Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.
I'm grateful for the fierce kindness I've received from friends.  
Be kind. No matter what it takes.
Titus 3:4
4 But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us....
64

Some Rainbow—coming from the Fair!
Some Vision of the World Cashmere—
I confidently see!
Or else a Peacock’s purple Train
Feather by feather—on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy Butterflies bestir!
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune!
From some old Fortress on the sun
Baronial Bees—march—one by one—
In murmuring platoon!

The Robins stand as thick today
As flakes of snow stood yesterday—
On fence—and Roof—and Twig!
The Orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover—Don the Sun!
Revisiting the Bog!

Without Commander! Countless! Still!
The Regiments of Wood and Hill
In bright detachment stand!
Behold! Whose Multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas—
Or what Circassian Land?
Maryam
turned,
moving
away
from the
caravans of
bulldozers
entering
Homs.

She
could
not bear
to look
upon the
the teeth
of steel
tracks
sloshing
through
puddles
of blood,
plowing
the rubble,
burying the
mush,
coolly
covering the
fingerprints of
criminals.

Maryam
beheld the
conquering
soldiers
standing
atop piles
of shrapnel
marked and
launched by
Syria’s finest
artillery officers.

She
remained
within ear shot
to hear the
victor’s
orator,
recite the
history of
the conquest,
carefully
spinning
suspicion,
and casting
blame
for the
devastation
onto the
vanquished.

The speaker
lauded the
efforts of
esteemed
comrades
commanding
black regiments
chasing the
last rats still
lapping at
the edges
of the red
pools;
hieing to
the dead
catacombs
as sanctuaries
of salvation.

The barker
goads other gangs
to commence a
surgical search
of hospitals to
root out wounded
insurgents. He
suggests they be
removed from
their recovery
beds and thrown
atop the piles of refuse
where the busy tractors
will push the rubble
into the far corners
of the mind where
obfuscation and
forgetfulness
blissfully anoints
unsettled memory.

Alarmed,
Maryam breaks
for the hospital,
to nurse the
injured.

She moves with
tealth through
the broken city’s
debris strewn streets.

Maryam eyes the
inert concrete,
blasted into
ghastly shapes,
burying secrets,
concealing terrible
stories of what
transpired
during the
pacification of
Baba Amr.

These
grotesque
gargoyles,
sculpted by the
mangled hand
of a deranged
sociopath
will hold their
silence for
only so long.

Dark secrets
never live
forever.

The distended heaps
of jangled rebar
pokes through
broken chunks
of concrete
like rib cages
picked clean by
the jackals
of war.

The pulverized
concrete forms
telling Mandalas
giving voice to
the stained
stones crying
the secrets of
terrible truths that
unmarked graves
never keep
silent.

Maryam
is desperate
to find the
lost children.

She knows
the ungodly
conquerors
eagerly
hunt them.

The subjugators
are drunk from the
draughts of blood
they profanely quaff.

They thirst
for more and
have set
their sight on
the children.

The crucifiers
kiss the sword
to cleanse
the insurgent
city of its
youngest
citizens.

Bashar has
condemned
a generation
to death.

He desires
to purge Syria
of a heinous
memory stored in
the ripening minds
of Homs’ children.

They stand in  
witness to
the ******
of their
childhood.

Righteous
indignation
breeds a
long  memory
nursed by the
vanquished as
a cherished gift;
bestowed to
successive
generations
like a valuable
family heirloom;
but
resentment
makes for
a monstrous
coat of arms
vanquishers
bequeath to
the defeated.

Maryam
crosses over
the scattered
stones
incapable
of bleeding
one more
drop of blood.

She hears
the howling
spirits calling
from the broken
ruins.

She glimpses
the dark silhouettes
of fleeting apparitions
moving through
the upper floors
of flame stained
buildings.

The ghostly
shadows of
lost children
wander, seeking
the rest of an
expired future
sired by their
state sanctioned
execution.

Maryam
grows anxious
as she
approaches
the hospital.

She arranges
her silk scarf.
She examines
her calloused
hands. The lines
of her palms
are soiled,
cakes of dirt
have settled
under her
fingernails;
yet sufficient
strength remains
in her arms
to roll away
the large stones
entombing
revelations
of love and
miracles of
deliverance.

The pock
marked
hospital now
in sight,
Maryam
enters the gate
of a ancient
graveyard;
clambering
over burial
mounds
of her dead
ancestors.

She remembered
a placard hanging
in the hospital’s
waiting room.

“Art is long; life is short;
opportunity is fleeting;
judgment is difficult;
experience is deceitful.”
Hippocrates.

As Maryam
neared the
graveyard exit
she was
overtaken by
Syrian soldiers
brandishing AK’s.

One stuck a
dusty barrel
into Maryam’s
face while
the other tapped
the back of her
head from behind.

A weeping
Maryam
knelt before
her captors.

She
washed
the dust
from their
boots with
flowing tears
and wiped
them clean
with her hair;
praying for
the power
of love
to once
again
overcome
the stalk
of death.

Prostrate
and prone
Maryam
waited to
accept the
shaft of
recrimination
through her
bleating gums.

If recollection is long
in the living,
memory is eternal
in the dead generations.

The only known cure
for the disease of acrimony
is the strong balm of love.

Maryam would
never again nurse
the wounded
children of
Homs.

Music Selection:
Chanticleer & Yvette Flunder
There is a Balm in Gilead

Oakland
3/12/12
jbm
drumhound Nov 2013
6:30 am
The chippy irritation from my bedside table
forces an unconscious groan.
Starting from my curled toes
swelling
in tidal wave tremors
to my twitching torso.
Manifesting in indiscriminate slapping of
lamps
reading material
and finally
the clock…
 
If I were honest in my disdain
I wouldn't turn on the lights
nor spend a minute
looking for acceptable clothes
to appease civilization

…But I do.
 
People expect to see Me today, wrapped
in preconceived ideologies.
Some societal, some induced.
Portions I have enabled - even propagated
with detailed grooming rituals,
ongoing hair color treatments,
and anti-aging skin
regiments.

Which is a lie

Because I still see it… everyone does.
Minimizing at best.
But "anti"?
Not.
 
I aquiese to the
expectations.
Because this
carefully crafted,
death defying carcus
is the only thing
Most of them will ever know...

The painted
coiffed
decorated
Me
and my persona,
coated in Teflon,
sculpted to situations,
an everyday
chameleon
who will never let one title
stick to the
hot rock climate
I call life.
 
It has been said
you are who you are
when no one is
watching.
But my village watches.
 
Through most of this life,
in and out of my glass house,
I am
in my universe
a spectator sport
with expectant fans.
Where the others hope
the receiver makes the catch,
the singer hits the high note,
the magician disappears…

And I enter.
Stage right.
With my highlighted spiky hair
in perfect
chaotic
order.
 
(I let go for a very short season.
The silence about it
spoke of the
disapproval.
Yawn.

So what?
I was grieving.
I got better and gave in
to recycling...

Hi honey, I'm home...with old Me.)
 
The "real" crowd touts
transparency
as a measuring stick of
unfettered character.
While border-free openness
and lack of secrets
may only make one a bad confidante…
not a great person.
 
The diversity of Me is
untainted by opinion.
Purity needs no approval, nor apology.
I am intentionally
loud and quiet,
public and private
seen and unseen
understood… and not.
No lesser
or greater.
Equally
Me.
I am all that you see.
Which, by the way,
is the better part of
Me.
 
They drive by daily.
Casting stares
on the angular structures
in the city.
Never doubting
viability.
Even though there were plans,
predestination,
packaging,
posturing.
Yet a man... a man
with these four p's
is branded of
superficiality,
rigidity,
dishonesty.
 
People...
Ignorance is bliss
but you are WAY too happy
criticizing contingency
while mocking
less than
perfect
charisma.

Disgusting.

So lost
in your lack of personal
direction
that you prefer
everyone else
burn their maps…
I have seen my map.
I have planned the route.
I have chosen the vehicle.
The person I want you
to see is who
I am.
Because that is all you will
ever know.
And I like him
or I wouldn't be him.
 
Don't ask for my transparency.
You couldn't deal with
the guts of
it all.
That's okay too - you shouldn't have to.
We all are who we are
in the moment our lives
intersect.
Some murderers are loving fathers.
Both are true.
 
So be sure of this
one thing.
I do my hair for
me.

I'm glad that you like it.
Terry O'Leary Mar 2013
The Circus gongs excite the Throngs in nighttime Never Land –
They swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
While Acrobats step pitapat above the shifting sands
And Lady Fat sits down to chat and oozes charm unplanned.

The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the Band,
Ask crimson Clowns with frozen frowns, to hold a mutant hand,
While Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
Lure Cats entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
  
White Elephants in big-top tents boast black-tusk contraband
To regiments of Sycophants who overflow the stands,
But No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
  
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonesome Crowd disbands,
Down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their tattered rags in strands,
And Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.
  
To play a part in Three-Ring Art, I thought I’d try my hand –
I mastered skills, I felt the thrills, I breathed and seethed firsthand –
But destiny denied to me to taste a lifetime spanned
With tightrope walks and trapeze chalks ... excepting second-hand...

For alcohol provoked a fall, as if a reprimand,
And now, a heap, I sometimes keep the ticket office manned...
Steve Page Jul 2020
Kindness is not nice.

Nice is soft and inoffensive.
Nice is easy and effects no change, it's cotton wool - not stuffed tight, but just resting on the surface ready to be blown away or trodden into a muddy disinterest. Nice is a damp whisper, a mouse cowering in the corner, taking up as little space as possible, lest it be noticed, lest it presume too much and cause a whisker of offence.

Kindness isn't like that -

Kindness pushes in, claws out, quick and heavy, uninvited, unexpected, taking pleasure in disturbance, in leaving nothing unsaid and little undone in its pursuit of creating a disruption of difference. Kindness counts everyone a target, anybody a likely candidate for a three act matinee and evening performance of loud Kindness. Surprise is its currency, smiles its language, common humanity its passport to lands yet explored, to vast pink territories with drumbeats of gratefulness for the opportunity to march in with regiments of compassion and to leave a signature devastation of brutal Kindness.

Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.
Galatians 5
The fruit of the Spirit is...kindness.
Titus 3:4
4 But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us....
TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe.
Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don't want him around.
The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer on the bottom of a flatiron while the January wind howls and the zero air weaves laces on the window glass.
Joe tells the Swede boys all about Chickamauga and Chattanooga, how the Union soldiers crept in rain somewhere a dark night and ran forward and killed many Rebels, took flags, held a hill, and won a victory told about in the histories in school.
Joe takes a piece of carpenter's chalk, draws lines on the floor and piles stove wood to show where six regiments were slaughtered climbing a *****.
"Here they went" and "Here they went," says Joe, and the January wind howls and the zero air weaves laces on the window glass.
The two Swede boys go downstairs with a big blur of guns, men, and hills in their heads. They eat herring and potatoes and tell the family war is a wonder and soldiers are a wonder.
One breaks out with a cry at supper: I wish we had a war now and I could be a soldier.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2017
the sign on the railway station says "Common Destination,"
the ties of our tracks are uniform, creosote covered, splintered,
spaced uniformly as is the wont of the arm-in-arm soldiers,
different regiments in the same army, though as they march,
some on the high, some the low road, in defense of the values,
right, right, right.

no believing in forever land, dreamt of poems forever burning,
real life farenheit bonfires lit by brown uniforms and such, thus,
now, when a poem completed and shared, 
it is instantly disfigured,
by flames harnessed to lick
the slate page clean, immediately, 
presenting yet  another opportunity,
to protest, persistently,
endless be my own turnkey hands renewing,
my write to right.

my write to right,
my pupose; my only intent, even in love poems,
ogdiddy witty ditties, long dialogues with the creator, all purposed,
all written while standing one on left foot, are we not all
poets of the ways to increase the sum total of
righteous and kindness in the world.

'tis right to write,
but go further and farther,
write to right.

to ease, comfort, shoulder and hand extensions, be the lean-to,
the shelter when there is no shelter, for there is no
owning words, and no limitation on clear vision and
the right to write.
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2022913/the-right-to-write/

The Right To Write
Who remembers the greats,,historians and stars of stage and screen when their lights are extinguished.
All their import diminished in the scheme of things.
What lasts and why do we care when our history is wiped out or rewritten.
Each generation smitten with laying down rules, only to have them overthrown,
a mere stone thrown in an ocean of white noise.
Do we stand poised on the edge, or out on a ledge?.
I shed my own light on a page, waging a war on the world,
a stray curl twisted in deepest thought brings thought unsought,
and soon I'm caught up in a snare.
Who will care if writing becomes restricted
as predicted, the same with books they want them burned
and poetry spurned in an attempt to **** thought?
Who will lead the drive to reach the stars,
and climb the stair to who knows where?
Will our pathway be light or dark, is this our future or merely a lark?  How blighted would life be without written word,
imagination kicked to the curb?
The hell with the planets the moon and the stars
belt out your song in just eight bars,
write your fate on a forbidden page'
sage thoughts in rhyme perhaps in double times
rewinding our history, for one more adept
where the orators spoke and the audiences wept  
when anthems sung rang out so proud
we all stood up and sang aloud in joyful praise
the patriotism of saner days.  
Now all is chaos and we're the pawns
as darkness falls on priceless dawns
no paper, no ink, no sky of pink
no endless tale, no hope at all
the poets all crumble into a heap,
perhaps to sleep an endless sleep.  
Yet days will come when an errant breeze
will stir the cobwebs in the trees
and willful minds will start to think
and shuttered eyes begin to blink
then thoughts will stir with magic flair
until a word appears, then another
and another spinning endless spheres.  
Then up it rises from grave and ground
a surging of an endless sound
one can hear it all around.  
Rhythm and rhyme line after line
sung to a tune in three quarter time  
until people once again take pen in hand
and let their emotion and thought expand.
Perhaps poetry is our forever land
a turnkey that debunks future histories?
Never cease and desist always resist
and persist. insisting on our right to write
be it day or be it night, in war or peace, the least
amongst us has the right, the staid and true or the
fly by night.  Write on my friends and take thee heed
thank God we're such a persistent breed.
Charles Smith Dec 2015
At Fuller's emporium of whiskers and wine,
As matches are struck on the no smoking sign.

Mr Terry Fuller, of reddened face refined,
Regiments and orders his elbows aligned;
With stories of rumour, football, *******,
Thieves, my boy and across Texas by trucking.
  
He loudly regales to the spirits of faces,
"Me and my boy have been to some places,  we've seen some girls, he gave em' rub,
As I was too busy running the pub."

Howling as they're told, sighing in ease,
Mr Daniels accusing "who's round is it please?"

When shadowed in doorway, tip-toes, a pale boy.  
Stringy, svelte and painfully coy.  
Debate is lulled, as men catch scent.
"Don't come in here boy, or your money'll be spent."

Roaring,rumbling, the boy  unsettled in mirth.
"He can't buy any beer, he's only just had his birth."

Half-pint of breath, the boy stammers to say.
"I just was curious, i mean, I ask, if I may-"
A bellowing fanfare, "Speak up or go away!"

"I just wanted to know what you do with your day?"

Mr Fuller, heaving his pink smirking bulk, anchored by his drink.  
"We work, we go home and we pub till we sink."

Troughs raised in toast, raining down on bald heads.
As the boy puzzling thinks what the bulbous man said.

"Then tomorrow" yelped the youth.

"What do you do after that?"
"More of the same, till God's on the mat!."

Throned by grey faces, blanketed in smoke,
As the toothless, eggs titter at the nonsensical joke.

Raising a tiny limb, "So this happens everyday?"
Mr Fuller rubbed his hands, "I wouldn't have it another way."

The alphas puffing , guffawing, dribbling beer down chins. And for blood-vesseled faces another story begins.

As the silhouetted boy under a veil of tears, whispers "I'm so sorry" and leaves.

In Fuller's emporium a silence ensued,
The sound sat between them and quietly chewed.
Every brow furrowed, as the beer didn't flow.
A quiet conclusion.
"The youth of today what do they know!"

JWS
Kristen Jul 2015
I wish to cancel my subscription please
this simply isn't working for me.
Pill regiments and appointments
I stand firm yet am frightened.
Cancerous lesions wreak havoc.
Completely unexpected.
An endless myriad of questions,
Vague answers in poker face expressions.
Once healthy cells are disfigured.
Now thick walls with spiked exterior
Latching to its next cellular host to fall.
Aftermath exponential...
Sharp, shooting pain and exhaustion,
Observe my internal destruction.
I wish to cancel my subscription please
This simply doesn't work for me
Maybe this is deserved
Grace Eccleson Dec 2011
Cursing the crap cluttered coats hanging in their rigor-mortis regiments
only to fall to the floor again
and again.
I cannot speak to insufferable sirens but suffer alone instead
Crying into the soft white bread and texting tormentedly
Lost is everything insignificant that I desperately require
Gone is the fear of Sugared words: 'you're fired'
Leaving for more clustered, flustering days
that fade to an unreachable haze
I sit inside time, it taunts my heart
flashing past in joy and in bordem refusing to part
Decisions must be decided and lessons must be learnt
as I shall push myself, but this should hurt more,
More shoved into my core
which trembles flabbily inches from the floor.
Do not question me
Do not inquire
Just provide me with the life i desire.
Forgive my childishness and ranting scrawl.
But i'm tired, and I only see days before a fall
None to sum/
it up in addition to/
A fraction underlying facts climatic subliminal/
additional subtracting decimals exercise as I see fit/
conditional regiments it all works out settled a calm bereavement/
A dead cause/
Conquer by divide/
So long like a good buy/
purchase blind had to a-dress the naked eye look/
Observe As I concur with these verbs/ learned/
action/
created/
moved/
elevation/
un organization to a smooth concatenation/ no exaggeration it's over well done/ the product of minus what was taken? some/ would say there's no equal equanimity equal to none/
Philosophical
math a scientific conundrum/
Stanley Wilkin Jan 2016
In ragged feet, I rushed across the bridge-
Gleaming periwinkles flourished in the distant fields
Reflecting the cloud-free sky,
Golden sunflowers pitted the hills like pus. In the distance,
Fringed with yellow and red, stood a tent
And within was the warlord, aged now and grizzled,
His parchment skin and toothless smile a rebuke
To his youthful triumphs.
His guards parted. I entered
Into a swirling fog of scent
A floor covered in bright-coloured carpets.
Gesturing, the old man bade I move closer
And, belly swollen by hunger, I slowly advanced.
Touching my forehead with a wrinkled finger
He said: “You are my successor.”

I ate well for months.
I was given my own guards,
My own beautiful tent.
Even though only a boy
I received several lovers.
Those around me always listened
To my words. They obeyed.
Every other day, beneath the pubescent
Glare of the early sun,
I hunted deer and lions, protected
By a hundred archers. Every day
I dined on venison.

The old king rarely left the camp.
Late morning he donned his shimmering,
Armour, reflecting shards of brilliant light,
And for an hour reviewed his warriors
On the nearby heath, soured by winds. He,
A wretched old man wrapped in ermine.
After, as a whim, sending them off to die,
Dribbling from his lips, beneath sunken cheeks
And rheumy eyes, at the end of his creeping
Days. Returning to his tent, swaddled
By remembrances. Impotent in body and mind.

We played cards together once a month
Surrounded by slaves. The candelabras burst
With perfumed radiance: musicians played
Soothing songs on cymbals, drums and flutes.
Girls danced; swinging, pirouetting,
Leaping in the excited manner of newly-born fawns.
The air grew heavy with dust.
The air grew pungent with odour.
Scattered around were dishes of date and melon.

“When I die, twenty years from now,” he began, smiling,
Popping a date into his mouth. “You will be king.
And rule as I ruled. A celebrated warrior and judge.
A killer of thieves, destroyer of cities. When old,
As I now am old, you too will seek a successor-
A ragged, hungry boy born to rule, who one day
Walks into your home.”

The king dipped a date into goat’s milk.
He watched me as an owl watches a mouse,
His moist lips smacking audibly. “But that will
Be many years from now.” He continued.
He smiled again, the smile of a torturer.

Within the year I lead his armies,
Rampaging across the wild, blasted plains
And to the walls of distant cities
Leaving piles of bones. I returned
With wagons full of gold, dragging behind
A thousand slaves. The king meanwhile
Lounged in his garlanded tent eating sweets,
Hoarding his growing wealth, washed and perfumed
By half-naked handmaidens.

After two years I planned his death,
And claimed the kingdom for myself.

When spring came the mountain rain fell, the rivers overflowed,
The sun was a yellow bud,
My armies rested on the hills
Polishing their weapons with dew.
The king had ordered veal that day cooked in spices
From the east. He drank watered wine.
The multitude of slaves sang love songs with pitiful voices.
I stole into his tent at twilight.
He lay asleep on his divan, bloated and belching.
A warbler burbled in the trees,
A jay cackled from bushes by the water’s edge.
I lifted my knife and softly approached
His slumbering form. He opened his eyes and smiled
As I buried it in his chest.

I sit on a throne surrounded by my
Endlessly-victorious regiments, king of a thousand lands, eating
Fruits from India, chewing fragrant leaves from the furthest isles where the sun
Burns forever. I have grown fat.
I have grown old. I look out towards the bridge,
Cracked, worn, covered with vines, vexed by the
Rivers surging tides. I search the horizon
For a ragged boy bringing in his unblemished soul
My death.
Steve Page Feb 2022
Love is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
Nice is cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest

‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss it
lest it attract your notice
lest it presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence

Love is not like that –

Love pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption

Love defies convention

Love carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Love perseveres all the love-long day

Love doesn’t delay

Love is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts

Love confronts
Courage is her currency, kindness her language
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms

Love transforms

Love weakens all defenses
and challenges all camouflaged pretenses
Love pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms

Love perfumes

Love is not 'nice'  
Love isn’t in this for the likes
Love bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Love never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight

Love is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
Love is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble, End-Game-level
monumental

So, don’t be nice
and I’ll say it twice
nice is a vice that will never suffice
And let me end by being more precise
follow Christ’s advice:
love one another
every day and every night
with all of your might
and do it in a way
that pushes
way
past
‘nice’.
sometimes love is tough
Walking through the regiments of
old red,cold,dead
tenements
giving compliments
to the planners who put spanners in the works
of parliaments.

The ghosts of raggy arsed kids still play football on the grass,
not caring a rats *** for the 'no ball games' sign and
lining up for 'nitty Nora' the bug explorer,
lice ain't nice even in the afterlife.
Steve Page Aug 2020
Love is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
she’s cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest

‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss her
lest she attract your notice
lest she presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence

Love is not like that – 

Love pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption 

Love defies convention

Love carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Love perseveres all the love-long day

Love doesn’t delay

Love is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts

Love confronts

Courage is her currency, kindness her language
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms

Love transforms 

Love weakens all defences
and challenges all camouflaged pretences
Love pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms

Love perfumes

Love is not 'nice'  
Love isn’t in this for the likes
Love bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Love never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight

Love is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
This love is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble, End-Game-level
monumental

So as the wise man known for his proverb-ials
might have said:

Rob and Polly

Don’t be nice
and I’ll say it twice
nice is a vice that will never suffice

So heed this scriptural advice
[Proverbs 3 - expanded version]

Let love and faithfulness never leave you
bind them both to you (whatever the price to you)

Sustain one another with mutual collaboration
and on a God-given foundation build up a reputation
for a love that,
okay, as the good book says
might be a poor reflection of perfection
but for now - what you two have become
is a fairly close representation
of Christ’s love for his bride, his church
and that should never be besmirched

so let God’s love rise to meet you
at each and every unwinding curve
because it is nothing less
than what both of you
undoubtably
deserve.

Let me end by being more precise
follow Christ’s advice:
love one another
every day and every night
forsaking all others
with all of your might
and do it in a way
that pushes
way
past
‘nice’.
on the occasion of the marriage of Rob and Polly
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
when i woke up: are you ******* me?! or are you trying to tell a joke pretending to be Billy Crystal?

the word censored will hardly precipitate to
be a ****** of images,
you can censor as many words as you like,
to create this neurotically psychotic society,
enough warfare exposed to the populace of
civilians and you end up with civilians
internalising war, with not actual war taking
place, skirmishes, yes, but war on a
Napoleonic scale? no. you have to attack civilians
to such an extent that they internalise what would
have been otherwise cannon by the name of Howitzer,
or a Автомат Калашникова (awtomat kalaschnikowa);
attacking civilians rather than waging smooth transitions
between two elite armies created artificial peace,
a bit like the holy grail of seeking artificial intelligence
in inorganic chemistry, rather than seeking to
bank on intelligence in organic bodies... silicone v.
carbon... all the way! if you wage war by violating
the orthodoxy of warfare with the heresy of
attacking civilians, you'll get peace for sure,
externally all will appear peaceful, but internally
you'll be creating civilian berserkers, perfectly suited
to the cut-throat dynamics of capitalism,
"selfish" gene and all, they're as good apologists
as the *allahu akbar
brigade, but instead of using
a whole ruler to smack you over the head with,
they just use a centimetre of it...
this peace we're seeing in our current times is due
to the unorthodoxy, the heresy of warfare,
you attack an unarmed civilian you will subsequently
usurp traditional fields of war, you will internalise
conflict, you will create renegades without army
or comrade or general, all against all, and eventually
culminating in a schizoid i against i...
the psychiatrist Laing was wrong to subscribe to reasons
of a post-colonial nature, he was already the *******
and self-defeating: only i'd would like to think more
of a Scot, but he's an example of a union that worked...
the Welsh were never kindred of the Scots in wanting
rebellion... no William Wallace among them...
it's this broken rule of warfare that exposed the public
to internalise it... but what were you expecting...
there we have guerilla warfare, random, chaotic free
and then we have the straight lines of regiments,
sitting turkeys firing 30 metres apart from each other...
how warfare became so idiotic the soldiers decided
it was necessary to shove war into civilians,
we have actually become impregnated without
really bothering to notice the impregnation disguised
in masquerade of what capitalism offers us:
the many distractions and chances to spend money
with even billionaires succumbing to philanthropy
given their 20 toilet to number mansions...
so if you find certain words offensive i'm asking you:
why did i build up a verbum account of a rich
vocabulary... when i see you readied to censor me
and then sit there, watching police violence
like a ******* touchdown in a football match?
well... if it ain't dementia, then it must be dyslexia.
John F McCullagh Apr 2016
Sickles' corps had broken; the Rebels had them on the run.
Hancock foresaw disaster; perhaps a worse one than Bull Run
How could he plug the gap in the line and rally men to stand?
"What Regiment is this? " he asked of Colville, in command.
The First Minnesota volunteers- they were sorely undermanned.


They were Lincoln's first volunteers, staunch Union men in Blue
Hancock ordered them to charge; a death sentence, they knew.
With bayonets fixed they made their charge outnumbered twelve to Two.

The Rebel regiments were shocked, disbelieving what they saw;
The company sized regiment who'd come through three years of war.
Canister ripped through their lines; there was no time to weep.
Five minutes Hancock needed; for that long their grief would keep.


This field knows many heroes; so many fought and bled.
But let us pause and honor these brave Minnesota dead.
They bought time for the General; the Union held the Ridge.
We might not have a country had they not done what they did.
on 7/2/1863 the 262 men of the First Minnisota volunteers charged into history buying with their lives the five minutes General Hancock needed to reform the Union Center and repulse the Rebel advance.
Only 47 me3n were able to answer the roll call on the morning of the third. The title of the poem is the motto of the regiment
Jordan Frances Oct 2016
When I came home and found you lying on the couch
Eating vanilla ice cream and watching Oprah
On a Thursday
I knew something was wrong
I always wonder if the way I taught you
To tie little pink bows at the end of your wrists
Cut off your circulation
Causing you to slice them open
Watching the blood pool beneath you in the bathtub
It rippled, so smooth and gently
So ladylike, as you have always been taught
My girl, I know you watched me in the mirror
As I synched my waist together with different diet regiments
Plucked the hairs above my brow and beneath my chin
As if my skin grew flowers beneath its surface
Now, as I find deposits of ash and *****
Hidden in the folds of your restlessness and depression
I know it is more than teenage angst
But I wait until I can longer deny your illness
I will tell you you are not sick
Even as the blood creeps up your forearm
The scabs are gasping for sunlight
As they peak beyond the seams of your sleeve
When you are sent home from school for being suicidal
We wonder why you never told us
But you did, my girl
My brilliant girl
Though your lips never formed the words
How could we not have seen this coming?
Your father will get defensive
His armor raised as you become child yet again
Fifteen, not girl, not yet woman
It will be hard for me to ignore you during an episode
But baby, I only do this because I love you
There were no training wheels before we were dropped
Into unfamiliar terrain
This sickness is a battlefield for us, too
But we still fear the untapped power of those little white pills
It is not that we do not want you to get better
We just don't want to lose
The little girl we have always known.
for Mom,
I love you
written from my mother's perspective
Big Virge Dec 2020
Now I Have Had It Said...
That I’m Pretty INTENSE... !!!

Which I Guess Is Because...
My Thinking Is STRONG... !!!

As Is My Poetry...
Because My Verse Deals...
In... HARSH REALITIES...
Rather Than Fallacies...
And Foolish FANTASIES... !!!!!!

So... My INTENSITY...
Is A Thing That Runs DEEP...
Just Like The Oceans' Seas... !!!

And Political Scenes That Are Seen Currently...
That Affect How It Is That People Now Live...

Now To Me They’re INTENSE...
Like Todays Regiments...
of... Leaders And Heads... !!!

Like Those Now In Congress...
Who Are Causing Folks STRESS...
Due To How They Address...
Todays Global Problems...
That Are INTENSE To Me...
When It Comes To Disease... !!!

Like This Corona Virus...
That’s Intense Like Gang Violence... !!!

That WAS Seen On The Streets...
BEFORE Lockdowns Were Seen... !!!

An INTENSITY That Runs...
Like Streets That Hold Guns...
When People Are STUCK...
Like A Nun Who Wants Some... !!!

If You Get What I Mean... ?!?

When It Comes To The Needs...
That Their Vows Do NOT Feed... !!!

Yes I Mean SEXUALLY... !!!

A Thing That’s INTENSE...
When You Want But CAN'T Get...
To Have... INTENSE ***...
That Makes Women Get Wet... !!!

But Intensity Runs...
WAY BEYOND ****** Stuff... !!!

Like... Trying To Bluff...
When You’re Really NOT Tough...
And Deep Down Want To RUN...
From... Confrontations...
That Could See Loss of Blood... !!!

Just Like Those Dark Times...
When Somebody Close Dies... !!!

Because Most Cannot Deal...
When Intensity Feels...
Like They Just Cannot Cope...
When Things Hit Those Dark Zones... !!!

Like... Societal Woes...
That Nowadays Roll...
That Feed INTENSE Times...
Like Those Now Supplied...
By These Corona Vibes... !!!

And Modern Day Crimes...
Like Those That DENY...
A Way To Live Life...
ABOVE Poverty Lines... !!!

And INTENSE Elections...
That Now Need Inspection...
Like Talk of Infections...
That Breed INTENSE TENSIONS... !!!

About … Wearing MASKS...
And Freedoms Now PARKED...
And DISTANCED Like Hearts...
That Are Now Kept A p a r t... !!!

Because of The Need...
To Be Given VACCINES... ?!?
That May Breed INTENSE Scenes... !!!

Because of... " Theories "...
That Are Now INTENSELY...
Spread On Internet Feeds... !!!

It Seems INTENSITY...
Is What Societies...
Are Feeding To People...
To Keep Many Feeble...
And Dealing In EVIL...
WITHOUT A KNIEVEL... !!!

The Ride’s Now INTENSE...
When It Comes To Defence...
Against Being JOBLESS... !!!
And STRESSING Out Friends... !!!

Because of The PRESSURES...
That Now Need To LESSEN...

So ALWAYS REMEMBER... !!!

That Pressures Suppress...
A Way To... Reject...
The Things That Cause Stress... !!!

As Well As The Way...
That Some People Behave...

And That SERIOUSNESS...
Is Just How Some DEFEND...
Against Letting Pretence...
And A World of NONSENSE...

Lead To Causing PROBLEMS...
That They CANNOT Deflect... !!!

And To KEEP AWAY... Punks...
Who Think They Can Pull Stunts...
After Running Their Mouths...
When They Act Like Sad Clowns... !!!

So Make SURE You’re CORRECT... !!!
BEFORE You... Suggest...

That The Way Someone Acts...
Is... REALLY...

..... “ INTENSE “.....
Inspired, as the poem says, by the suggestion that i'm an intense guy !

— The End —