"rhetorician" poems
we have been deceived.
corralled like tepid sheep,
fattened beef
waiting beyond
the doors of the slaughterhouse.
as pigs lick their lips,
a daemon’s death dirge drifts
listless across the
Atlantic, an erratic dichotomy
corroding rationality—
this executive edict
barring refugees.
caught without a compass,
a flotilla of ships weathering
the elements.
for forty days
and forty nights,
we’ve been lead
two-by-two
by elephants
and donkeys.
demagogues commandeered
the lighthouse, directing
our ark across
scattered rocks.
an armada
of shattered splinters,
remnants of water-logged vessels
we’d hoped to sail to utopia.
caught in the webs
we wove, droves
of drones spewing
bombs across Aleppo.
as spittle collects
on spluttering orange lips,
will we
pause
for but a moment?
collect
our thoughts.
reflect.
history is a shattered
mirror and we’ve pricked
our fingers trying
to piece the image
back together.
there’s a hunger
for blood
refracting in our eyes.
a misanthropy
that smarts and stings.
a recalcitrant population
coerced by a television
rhetorician’s clever
devices, devised
to separate and segregate
during this crisis
caused by our missiles.
there is no moral arc
to the universe. hope,
Hedges wrote, is mania
if it remains vapid
and refuses to address
the depravity of our
physical reality.
we’ve already lost.
just ask the children
barely clinging to life,
covered in the debris
of their former homes.
all that’s left for us
is to bash the fascists.
smash every illusory border
in our heads and hearts.
burn down the walls
they try to build
around us.
overturn the tables
of the oligarchs,
stuff Molotov cocktails
down their bloated throats.
open revolt is our only hope.
we’ll build a sanctuary
in this City Beautiful.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 10:12 PM UTC
Efface the corridors of my mind, they no longer matter to my hands. My hands aren't in the reflection of my eyes, anymore. The ripplets of amalgamated rigmarole has left me disconnected from my own solace. (The truth of the matter is, I detest you all)
Such a fiery passion filled with such repugnant result that only ensues regicide. Don't you see? You aren't the same as when I opened the door to Eden. Pusillanimous flowers froze under your cold dexterity and callous maneuvers as I tried, as an denizen of the air; in giving you fire. My animosity-indulged blood feel upon everything still. (Poor benevolent garden became the stage for fire and brimstone! Burn it all)
The severance between rhetorician and denizen is the best that I can do to impart my desperation. God, what must I do to show the waters and the earths of my pain? Yet, I'm overlooked. (Yes, you are overlooked. Taken for granted). The black hiding under my nails is but testimony of how blood can transmutate to dirt. (You're too nice and stupid. I detest them all) Am I to believe that time along with my memories are my enemy? Then what of my sins and their justifications? What the hell must I do?! (Envy, Envy, Envy!) Why must I insist in speaking when those who must listen choose to turn their heads and ear like imbeciles to the slaughter? (Let them ******* die! why open your mouth, you idiot?) Scrupulous actions reflect my misery that can only explained through the pen.
(Why must you waste your time? You were born alone, so die alone. Let the sky scream your name as the earth swallows your very existance and time effaces you from the memories of the inhabitants of the world. May all take a drink of the child's corrosive life and watch them atrophy and burn into nothingness)
Jul 24, 2012
Jul 24, 2012 at 1:10 AM UTC
The root of all evil, set to victimize the people
Keep us separate but equal, justification is lethal
But the system isn’t see through, it’s affecting you and me too
And now we must redo everything that made us feeble.
Now we must all give in to this suppressive prison
This world in which we live in has been filled with premonition
Oppose our own volition, our morals and our cognition
Listen to the vision of new accepted fiscal rhetorician
You claim to be a Christian with no moral intuition
But I don’t envision a Christian to think with his commission
But I may be incorrect and I may need to reflect
Nevertheless, it’s a greedy world what can you expect?
Nov 8, 2010
Nov 8, 2010 at 10:29 PM UTC
Today I'd like you to raise your glass
For I've someone I'd like to toast.
Her hair curls like a corkscrew
And I've always been envious.
Exotic beauty shapes her eyes
And ears and lips and nose,
And I always wished I looked like her.
It isn't merely her looks I covet,
For she has a brain with intellect
That rivals the best rhetorician
From Plato to Hobbes to Sartre.
Pick any topic and she'll begin to debate
With practiced ease
Until the other's hand is thrown up
In plain defeat.
But it isn't just her forensic skills
That I wish to possess.
There is yet more to this curl topped girl.
Her heart is bigger than the world.
She loves with compassion
And sympathy
Like I've never witnessed before.
This is what I envy and covet the most,
For where her heart of gold lies,
Mirrored in me is just stone.
She may be younger in years
But she's always been a hero of mine.
And I hope I will continue to be in awe
As she shows the world
Who we all can strive to become.
To my sister.
Sláinte
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 11:14 PM UTC
i might be cruel at times, but one thing is for sure: truth always is, esp. when drinking.
i find the concept of the "rhetorical" question slightly
bewildering,
it's simple enough -
whenever a "rhetorical" question is asked
you rarely hear a counter -
the person asking the "rhetorical" question
in all instances continues the "conversation" -
by a rhetorical question i'm sure the implication
states (as asked): that i invite you into
the discussion - and, from what i've heard or seen,
that's rarely the case!
why ask a rhetorical question when only
the rhetorician asking the question is the only
person answering it?
the smug punctuation mark and cliche that
a "rhetorical" question has become is just that,
a semicolon in a monologue...
how about asking a solipsistic question?
you know, pierce the membrane, get someone
out of their head, out of the pronoun
hemisphere - and into: hey, john, what's your
take on it?
to ask a persuading question to later add
that it is a "persuading" question, does not
really invoke a persuasive counter answer -
this entire "rhetorical" question is a pompous
double-under-cut against dialectical fluidity -
fuck's sake, people had to found debating societies
to speak in godot's terms,
and as ever, a man in his 30s and a man in
his 70s, and a park bench,
is all it takes to be civil...
obviously the 30s man asking permission
of the 70s man if he can continue drinking
his beer and smoking a cigarette.
rhetorical my ***
just say it plainly: it's not a question,
it's a self-empowering answer -
to continue the monologue -
there is no such thing as a "rhetorical" question,
simply because once the "question" is asked,
it's swept under the carpet -
because whenever a rhetorical "question"
is asked, it's embedded in a quick-answer dynamic
of the person making such a bogus request...
no one has ever answered a "rhetorical" question,
simply because the only person who can
answer such a question, is the rhetorician himself...
codswallop... that's what it is...
it's also called the barometer tactic of
checking if you're insane, when you talk to yourself
when you're alone...
hazelnuts 'n' all...
by the way... you want to stage a horror movie
scene? have a drink, no, have lots of drinks,
drink the whole **** bottle of wine...
but! but...
have a mirror in front of you -
nothing shows as much truth as a drunk
narcissus -
then again, if it was a puddle of *****
do you think he would have fallen in love
with his visage?
like any mug of a man after five pints and
six shots later: she was a 4 when i began,
but now? she's a tenner, an alsatian stunner!
oh right, they always say: it's not a rhetorical
question... so?
it's not really a question at all,
is it?
it's a self-serving answer...
and that always seemed to bother me,
why ask a question you already know
the answer to? oh, right: to gain rhetorical
momentum, and double-up on hushing
the oppositional argument.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 11:26 AM UTC