"secular" poems
i see the words floating on
message boards or perched
upon the lips of jocular hypocrites
double-standards that demand
sensual chastity and virginal sexuality
in endless iterations of irony
the concussive
monosyllabic words
slung like stones
cast like arrows
****
*****
*****
all labels for
women possessed of
the courage to pursue
their own passion
once upon a time a
Nazarene insisted a ********** had
more integrity than a rich
statesman throwing self-serving parties
so tell me why so
many Christian politicians
propagate patriarchal notions of depravity
in blanket attempts to regulate
the bodies of women
if being anti-choice was really
about preventing abortions
why do rich right-wing conservative
Republicans spend all their time
and money picketing free clinics
when the solution lies in comprehensive
****** education universal healthcare
complimentary birth control
and comprehensive child support
don't dare use the reprehensible
rhetoric of pro-life unless you're
at once anti-war
and anti-death penalty
riddle me this
what pray tell is the
difference between a jealous
religious misogynist
and a secular sexist
it's rather simple actually
while the former bases his
slut-shaming on the edicts of
a two thousand year old letter to
the Corinthians inconspicuously
sandwiched between a celebration of
love and a section on speaking in tongues
the latter’s learned behavior is
birthed by a hyper-masculine culture
grounded in dominance
either way we await the day
when wild women raze
these ideologies
with torches before
rising like phoenixes
from the ashes of
decimated passages
dismissed by intellectuals
as archaic and outmoded
deaf blind and dumb to
the vestiges of modernity
that sap unscientific
philosophies of their potency
and render them utterly obsolete
in their wake
these proud women
erase the hate
from words like
****
*****
*****
and reclaim equality
with a far more
comprehensive term
feminist
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
Engineer's thinking
Arrives at the drawing
Makes design from drawing
Design When comes to field
It joins humanity
Engineer's from here
Preferences begin.
Engineer a true secular
Its purpose is relative to humanity
Irrespective of America or Iran
Measure is the same everywhere
This is his religion & faith.
Engineer's passion
Earth, Sky and Sea
Made the possibilities
Everywhere was he
Realities to him
Can not hide for a moment
That's where he becomes
A machine only
Involved in consciousness
Efficiency becomes everything
Eating, drinking, living
There is no avoiding them
Mountains,plains, sea
Becomes his home
Vegetarian, non-vegetarian
Same for him
Engineer is complete global
Where he finds interesting work
Becomes a citizen there.
Sep 15, 2019
Sep 15, 2019 at 6:02 AM UTC
I am a Province, a State, a Municipality, and a Region.
I am a Soldier, a Pilot, a Minister, and a Legion;
I am a black man, a white man, a brown man, a woman,
A French man, American, Canadian, and Roman.
I am a rap artist, a singer, a slam poet and guitarist;
I dabble in the dark arts accompanied by a Marxist.
I'm a barista, a gas man, a secretary, and Tsarina,
A King and a Queen and a janitorial cleaner.
I am a "lover," a "hater," a "here now" and "there later,"
I am Luke Skywalker, yet at the same time, Lord Vader.
I am a driver, a walker, a rider, a stalker,
A conservative liberal and a well-learned straight-talker.
I am a salesman and clerk,
A criminal and a serf,
The proud owner of a weapon that, while it kills, saves the Earth.
I am a drinker and smoker,
A consumer and broker,
A bomb-maker, con-artist, Priest, and interloper.
I am a Citizen.
Religious and secular,
Macrocosmic, molecular,
Suit wearing, uncaring, emphatic, irregular,
A "packie," a **** a Scrabble fan playing Yahtzee;
A Jihadist, sadistic, addicted to Herodotus,
History is repeated by the philosopher that thought of us.
The eroticist literature towards which we've all lusted;
It looks like the bullets machine-gun is busted.
Indifferent, ecstatic, illicett, erratic,
An infant, a senior, a young man with bad-lip,
A black man, a white man, a brown man, a woman,
A Jew and a Christian, a Muslim musician,
A monarch, elitist, pro-abortion defeatist,
An anarchist, Black Panther, and a rich plutocratic;
I am a citizen,
And as one,
I'm elastic.
Sep 12, 2011
Sep 12, 2011 at 1:35 PM UTC
What is the versatile autobiography
of this bountiful of rice
boiling in my American kitchen?
This crop of microscopic slabs of grain
that was the one edible source
of preventing my ancestors' emaciation
One of such few things
connecting me
to my roots,
those things I can't help but bleach
in whitewashed and rebellious peroxide.
I will valiantly hang my head down low in shame
at the examples of my flesh and earth,
"those National Geographic cavemen,"
all the time being the zoo animal,
being blindfolded and caged by
these "secular, American liberals."
I love this food
that I consume like a vacuum,
this merengue and bachata
that I so happily shake my *** to;
but nowhere did I sign up
for these commandments
that I was appointed
based on the location
that I popped out onto.
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 10:51 AM UTC
It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM UTC
It takes me back
It pulls me close
To itself, I cannot leave
ln my dreams
While I dose
The summer scent of mango tree
I remember well
When we were young
My friend and I hung on its arms,
Cuddling the leaves.
Now remain
Just memories, echoes of a simpler past
The flowers promised
June was close
Summer's sins would be redeemed
By the childhood paradise
Salted raw mango slice
Overarching newborn smiles
Yellow sun on green leaves
Greenish-yellow chrysoberyl
Oasis of the summertime
I remember picking them up
From the rooftop of boyhood-life
Our winged friends came, bees, monkeys too
Attempting another bite
Fond, fond memories
Mother used to cut and bring us mangoes
While I tasted the golden slice
My granny told me stories of
The tree, it stood there when they built this house
When she was eight or nine
This fruit, this taste
Connects this land
Magnifera indica
The secular deity of the mango nation
You cannot begin to understand
The gift of Indian summer
My childhood wrapped in emerald leaves
The whiff, the scent, I transcend
Time;go to an age when all was well
Or at the least, to me it seemed
As I'm taking a bite of this season's last mango
As the golden drops stick to my pubescent stache
I remember a conversation I had
The mango tree
It talked to me
No, I'm not crazy
It was the mango tree
Little things in life
Leave something
Oh!so many memories
Mar 28, 2021
Mar 28, 2021 at 5:35 PM UTC
I wake to the news of another lynching
As our boys scream Bleed Blue
And over the border, the Green Girls rejoice
And somewhere in Jharkhand
Two families mourn the death of their men
Cattle traders? Terrorists? Muslim?
With cloth stuffed in their throats
And arms tied behind
Hatred showing in the mob mentality
Another dark blot on our secular fabric
And I watch a short film, India, India
Of a young boy on Tuesday selling ganeshas at a temple
Another image of the same boy on a Friday
Selling taweez and chanting Ya Ali
Outside Mumbai’s Haji Ali
And on Sunday, the same boy singing the praises
of the Lord outside a church, selling amulets
And I smile
This is the India I love, the different faiths
The acceptance, the co-existence
As the morning drones on, I watch and participate
In the endless debates on Facebook and Twitter
Of people posing, taking sides, sounding pedantic
While they sit comfortably in their homes
Sipping ginger tea made by an underage maid
While their Labrador retriever is taken for a walk
By their Nepali driver and the Muslim cook smokes a bidi
In the garden with the Bihari maali where their son plays
But what will happen to the sons of the lynched cattle traders?
What will happen to the brothers of the women *****
What will happen to the mothers of the sons killed?
What will happen to the fathers of the unborn children
Killed for their mistake of being a girl child?
Is this the India we want to grow up in?
Is this the India we want to have children in?
Is this the India we want to grow old in?
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
The road is long and far and we have miles to walk
Towards peace and freedom and love
Towards acceptance and equality and oneness
Get off that sofa and make a difference
Participate, vote, empower, create, enable
It’s up to you whether our country goes this way or that
So, wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 7:57 AM UTC
sure, first we had the schism
of the church & state...
"oddly" enough...
we now live in the 2nd tier
of schism -
the segregation of
state & media...
no?
really?
we're not?!
i'm kind of enjoying
this ongoing schismatics -
the segregation of church
from state, at least left us with
the Vatican (i.e. the church-state) -
but this, current...
segregation of state from
the media?
**** me cram my testicles
into a monkey-wrench
and subsequently watch me laugh...
and there i was thinking,
that psychiatrists,
were the new priests of
the secular age...
prescribing the alt. to
the metaphor of cannibalism
in the form of big pharmacological
pills, to replace the wafer for
bread,
or the watered down wine /
grape juice of the...
so how does that party trick goes?
is that the wine turned into blood?
symbolically:
turned water into wine:
flag-wise...
white,
cardinal...
and then burgundy of
cardinal red teasing the bishopric
coloring of purple?
i'm not here to undermine
the faith...
i'm here for the self-deprecating
humo(u)r...
you don't even require
atheism to get a laugh
out of the conundrum -
you, simply need...
the deviation from the catholic
rites...
an apostasy -
but sure as **** it's there...
secularism has allowed
journalism a monastic status...
first came the schism of
church from state -
which remained intact in
the church-state of the Vatican...
so... FAIL...
secondly had to come
the schism of the state from
the media...
i'm watching a schism
take place...
apparently...
the comparative concern
of church's divorce from
the state was easy,
having imploded into the Vatican...
but the divorce of
the media from the state?
apparently... not so easy...
the media is already locking-down
on obstructing the schism -
arguing from an entertainment
perspective...
a century or so later,
and still, the persistent,
media symbolism -
of crafting caricatures of
a state...
as the state embodied in
nothing more than subordination
to its will...
media is the new church...
and if the separation of the state
from the church took so long...
how much time, do you "think",
it will it take, for the state
to segregate itself, from the media
baronage?
i suspect - as much time as it
took to segregate itself from
the church's cardinal-lineage.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 11:34 PM UTC
Man developed pens
for the pensive
when they write
they relieve themselves
from everything wrong
- JG
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
Morsi stands among
his people as an expression
of Egypt's democratic will
democratically elected
his feet are rooted in the
constitutional right to rule
Morsi has one foot on a
pillar of secular democracy
promising to uphold Egypt's
journey to an egalitarian future
this pillar advances the
republican ideal that
safeguards diversity
and a people's liberty
to express free will
this pillar brought him
to office and justifies his
right to rule
ironically it’s also a pillar
that Morsi's guiding philosphy
find impossible to suffer
Morsi's other foot is firmly
planted on a pillar of
Sharia sympathies
upholding the divine
foundation of his rule
over this earthly principality
Muslim Brotherhood’s
cardinal principles
undermine the pillar
of secular precepts
that equally enfranchise
all citizens
Sharia Laws allows no standing
to equal rights of women,
religious minorities,
LGBT civil liberties and
advocates suppression
of atheistic and
progressive political groups
this has riled the
democratic sympathies
of the Egyptian people
Morsi's actions
threaten to tip the pillar of
secular democracy back
into the Nile’s murky waters
Morsi's stance
is precarious and as his
feet slip he realizes
he is not the
Colossus of Rhodes
he believed himself to be
discovering it impossible
to bestride the pillars
supporting incompatible
structures
the generals have declared
a road map for stability that
rescinds the constitution,
dissolves the parliament
and places the military
as sole protectorate
of the nation
is the preservation of
a democratic republic more
important than the return
to the rule of a military junta?
is it more wise to place
principles before personalities?
Morsi’s next steps are
uncertain
The pathway of the
people’s democratic
journey remains unclear
the sound of the military’s
marching boots grow louder
Music Selection:
Sweet Honey on the Rock
Marching Off to Freedom Land
Oakland
070313
jbm
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 11:08 AM UTC
All are limitory, but each has her own
nuance of damage. The elite can dress and decent themselves,
are ambulant with a single stick, adroit
to read a book all through, or play the slow movements of
easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their very
carnal freedom is their spirit's bane: intelligent
of what has happened and why, they are obnoxious
to a glum beyond tears.) Then come those on wheels, the average
majority, who endure T.V. and, led by
lenient therapists, do community-singing, then
the loners, muttering in Limbo, and last
the terminally incompetent, as improvident,
unspeakable, impeccable as the plants
they parody. (Plants may sweat profusely but never
sully themselves.) One tie, though, unites them: all
appeared when the world, though much was awry there, was more
spacious, more comely to look at, it's Old Ones
with an audience and secular station. Then a child,
in dismay with Mamma, could refuge with Gran
to be revalued and told a story. As of now,
we all know what to expect, but their generation
is the first to fade like this, not at home but assigned
to a numbered frequent ward, stowed out of conscience
as unpopular luggage.
As I ride the subway
to spend half-an-hour with one, I revisage
who she was in the pomp and sumpture of her hey-day,
when week-end visits were a presumptive joy,
not a good work. Am I cold to wish for a speedy
painless dormition, pray, as I know she prays,
that God or Nature will abrupt her earthly function?
3.7k
India was a secular state even before recorded history,
We welcomed all religions even before time,
Jesus is said to have come to Kashmir after Good Friday,
The English were welcomed just for business,
But what they did was occupying the nation,
As if that was not enough in itself they tried partitioning us,
After they endured the second world war,
They did decide to leave India to mind theirs,
But they decided to divide us into two.
One was the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
Another was named as the Republic of India,
While they just tame corrupt extremism,
We tame irrationally extreme corruption,
We host unrealistic & unimaginable scams,
Sinners of all kind in the world are present here,
But there is some hope from our secular identity,
We are a progressive nation and I am so happy today.
One day will definitely come when India will be reunited.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 1:28 AM UTC
Look at him,
paper-mache angel wings
stapled on an empty
toilet paper tube,
preacher of the gospel
of selective misanthropy,
mourned by shredding
secular holy books in
tiki-torch candlelight.
If you must remember him,
and pray, you needn't,
do so in truth,
as a simpleton's martyr,
no more, no more.
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 1:30 PM UTC
Picture it: a lie were blue if the truth were red.
A lie is always cool, and the truth is always
Angry.
Compare it as well to ****** fluids: lies spew from our oral cavities like saliva,
when blood, the banality of our existence,
courses ferociously through the veins of every woman, child and man.
Both blood and saliva encompass being on levels past the physical and certainly beyond the secular.
But,
Sexuality is truth is red is anger.
Angry men are ****** men are truthful,
men.
Consider it, for
to be happy is to be
the epitome
of virginity.
Oct 7, 2012
Oct 7, 2012 at 12:39 AM UTC
i am selfish in my adoration
- in my observation
as if this light, this moon is
mine&
mine alone.
as if no other being is looking upon same
face as i
as if this face is put on just for me.
as if she is my mother and she has no daughter quite as grand as i.
i bottle her clear, unlying light with my
eyes &
hide those bottles away deep my
chest
somewhere close to my heart so few may see it.
her beams are a lullaby sweeping over mountain ridges
that i like to pretend only i can hear as she sings over the
loud whispering of the trees.
i like to think that i am sole and secular in being bathed in her
spectacular, white-gold luminescence.
her engulfing gaze is the emanating heat of my blankets, encompassing me like a child.
i do not share this warmth- no,
no instead i wrap it tightly around me, i burrow down within it
and let it dissolve the cold of the world untouched by her light.
her light keeps the true night away—
even the creatures who ride the wind, howling and furious still.
they skitter around her;
quiet and heavy with awe as if they know they are in her territory and their kind are not welcome there.
her grandeur is not to be shared nor looked upon by unworthy eyes.
it would be vain to think that no other shall gaze up at her as i do
but i shall be vain.
i shall be vain and i shall try to trap her essence within my veins to keep
the undeserving away.
i am gluttonous with her abundant shine &
in quiet, lonely moments like this i {selfishly}
like to think
that she is smiling just for me.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 5:52 PM UTC
treacherously torrid and torrential torrents of totally tangential tumultuous tortuous ; tyrannically torturous adjunct viably salient seethe.
procrastinating pandemic plenipotentiary prosthesis ; prosaically pragmatic parenthetical predication predilection premise prognostication
panoramic tableau preternatural propensity proclivity prestidigitation gesticulation :
gyration guidon ; ghastly gruesome grotesque hideously horrible horrendous heinous
grotty gnarly
diabolically maniacal dementia brusque macabre abrupt
awful
amalgamated anathema analysis agnate aggregate aberrance
somatalogy virtuoso cognate obduracy
worse
rudiment ebullience , confluence effluent effusion affluent , prolific profusity opulence , cogent fecund secular secund , recondite redolence abstrusely obstreperous mesomerism resonance resilience
protractive perpetude futurity
blither blandishing blabber burnishing boresome blahs
lithe blithe jabber prattle chatter tithe
morose morsel moribundness
stolid stoic
stalwart bastion bulwark
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
New mildew mania, oh man-of-war
Live by the letter, and **** for the car
The dreamers, constrained by the fog they can’t see
I uttered this song in Breakaway Alley
A wandering blonde in the restless air
Their kids, half-afraid that they’re halfway to nowhere
Think what you may, they are not in a trance
Wield what they say and you’ll find that you dance
Upon every row, lies a flag waving by
Apartment gravestones kissing up to the sky
Now, must we try so hard for fake jubilee?
The happy ones live in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley is on the run
All the country crows, they’ve committed a crime
Each of their wings, flapping mad out of time
To fly with such freedom yet stay so cloudbound
Cacophonous sounds fighting for our own ground
The buds only look up for leviathans
To take them to the realm they misunderstand
To pity the fool that does not try to flee
We sit on our stools in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley has emptied the guns
The youth do not stir at the visage of hell
There is no romance in the streets’ calling bells
And while we may treat such a threat to be shown
The dagger of a mind is dull while unknown
The ravaged pretender spoke of the Romans
His gauntlets of gold, earned from fate’s happenstance
To escape his blood, he would face down the sea
The velvet hands shook in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley is due to be shunned
The eye of childhood feared the forgotten paint
They lay, unencumbered, on secular saints
The falsified folly in full leopard print
The troops in their trollies with pockets of lint
The radio is silent in time’s aging vice
We hear and don’t listen, bats spliced with mice
But maybe, you will see this sweet harmony
Remember the words of Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley has finally gone
When the baby screams for the first time, aged five
Will it lament the loss of its life?
When the kids rear for a solution wherever you go
How much will it take to say “God, I’ll never know”?
Remember the words of Breakaway Alley
It’s not all you see, it’s not simply me
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:31 PM UTC
We The People
Sailed the same course
Some willingly
Some by force
We The People
A document to inform
A more perfect Union
To weather any storm
No more kings
No more oppression
No taxation
Without representation
Checks and balances
And the rule of law
Mitigating injustices
Safe harbor for all
The secular trinty
President, Congress, Court
Not one above the other
Veto, fiat, tort
Our common interest
Of defense
With liberty
And justice
Our common tranquility
And general welfare
A union
With resources to share
American rights
And protection
From a despotic government
Or an insurrection
Free to worship my God
Or your God
Freedom to find God
Or deny any God
Open discourse
Speaking my mind
And yours
However unkind
Collective grievances
Peaceably petitioned
We walk together
But never threatened
To bear arms
For our security
Never being forced
To quarter unwillfully
To remain secure
In our sanctuary
Unless presented
With writ of entry
Neither held
Absent habeas corpus
Or loss of property
Unless agreed by us
Or forced to testify
To contradict our own denials
Or brought forward
In duplicitous trials
To face our accuser
In much haste
Represented by counsel
Our peers decide our fate
Not one but twelve
Examining the facts
Brought forward
But only this court acts
Reasonable recompense
For fine or bail
Cruel or unusual retribution
Shall not avail
An enumeration
Merely provides illumination
But within the penumbra
Reveals more freedom
That is self-evident
No list or count
Exists to encumber
Or restriction to surmount
A union has formed
But sacred remains the individual
The tyranny of the majority
Is not permissible
A living breathing document?
Or static words unbending?
Even as we amend
Change never ending
Open to interpretation
If you see a right
But others may disagree
There may be a fight
The spirit of intent
Is there to see
Freedom to choose
Secured by liberty
We The People
A sacred quest
We The People
No more no less
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 10:29 AM UTC
Is humanism Utopian?
You really have to think about it.
Or is it rather more dystopian?
No, then I think you’d never doubt it.
It seems that disbelief is best.
Humanism owes a debt
to thinkers of the Enlightenment,
although I haven’t paid it yet,
I think of it as my entitlement
to settle it at some behest.
I very early cleared my mind of Kant,
experiencing a vast relief,
approaching his chef d’oeuvres extant;
removing knowledge to allow belief;
the opposite of what he had expressed.
It occurred to me I ought to dig up
(or should I say instead ex-hume?)
what constitutes at least an egg-cup-
full of wisdom that I might consume
with non-platonic zest.
But wondering how on earth to do so
and thinking he might hold the key,
I fixed my sights on Jean Jacques Rousseau
and set sail for my destiny,
while trying not to feel depressed.
Voltaire’s voices loudly rang in deaf ears
as did the Persian Letters of Montesquieu
and failed to still my latent fears.
And thus I felt no need to rescue
Adam Smith (morality-obsessed).
To put Descartes before the Horse-
men of the Apocalypse
War, famine, pestilence and worse.
Who could guess it would eclipse
my thought, wherefore I was oppressed.
Or take the case of Denis Diderot
a friend of Hume and others seedier.
and one you might consider so
rash as to produce an encyclopedia
to get his knowledge off his chest.
That precious quality of truth
was Mary Ann’s# description of it.
It would not take a Sherlock sleuth
to simply thus produce a conviction of it:
an elementary request.
I cut my questing teeth on Russell.
His secular logic had a profound effect
and seemed to stir each red corpuscle
inhabiting this fervid non-sect-
arian but doubting breast.
I later turned my eye on Dawkins,
and his concern with my divine delusion.
A sceptic whose inspiring squawkings
validate my disillusion
and emphasise an ill-starred quest.
And so I felt the pointlessness of it.
Progress is the best end for a man to see
And belief simply produced less profit
for reality’s dispelling of my fantasy.
So, in the end, I acquiesced.
#Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, in Adam Bede
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
the wine of family communion
washes me clean inside,
converting my potential
to the tenets of family dogma.
the bread fills me, expanding,
to nourish me out of my image
into theirs:
no questions,
no discussion,
no rebellion,
no independence,
no chance,
no hope,
trained up to become
a member of good standing
of the Church of Wilson.
Aug 21, 2015
Aug 21, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC
The City of Lights
liberty's burning flame
black terror assailed
to despoil her aims
A lamp to the world
illumes liberated pathways
its Arc de Triomphe heart
scarlet droplets stain
the secular graces
of enlightened ages
defiled and condemned
by fanatical excess
civilizations clash
social fabrics torn
Muslims denigrated
republicans mourn
the death of tolerance
spiraling spike of hate
a fractured city
the closure of gates
dark shadows trundle
down The Champs-Elysees
the fraternity of brotherhood
deeply wounded and frayed
republican ideals
will be surely tested
Charlie Hebdo's critical voice
sorely missed, forever rested
Music Selection:
La Marseillaise
Oakland
1/7/15
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 1:49 AM UTC
10/09/2013
For the kittens
This day the third has gone, congealed like peas.
Mother readies the small grocery bag:
The dying kitten coughs its final wheeze,
I exit the house & light another ***
Death has plagued this litter, and the world, too.
We're scarcely born than the struggle begins
To nurture those or what stand in death’s queue.
Mortality may result from immortal sins,
But I’m no cleric, and loss occasion
For rabid lectures from a fired pulpit;
Nor do I welcome secular equation
On matters dear to the human spirit.
This morning we have lost another one.
I pray tomorrow death’s foul spell has gone.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.
The wistful stars
Shine like good memories. The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses. Life and Death
Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable, regrets
Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child
Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been--
Beautiful, miserable, distraught--
The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.
The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze
To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .
Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades,
What grace, what glamour, what wild will,
Transfigure the shadows? Whose,
Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?
Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air
Teems with them even to the gleaming ends
Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts,
Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you
At last--dear love, at last!--
Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death,
Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.
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