"shantih" poems
Poison spoon fed the nodding King and ended ancestors.
Holy cows bought government *****
and ate suicides grown by ***** Kubla Khan gospels.
Shantih, Leviticus, and other proper thoughts
kissed arms of air and made islands from memories of breakfast.
Eternity perished in the illusion of swallowed tongues
in the belly of an infant—
and yesterday,
Only one bullet of hallelujah stood swimming.
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 6:50 PM UTC
Sleepless dreaming -
Where slumber does not lead to
vision does not lead to
nightmare or wonder.
Unreal City -
Where each headstone,
covered in moss
and shrouded by fern,
sharply reads:
"THE HORROR! THE HORROR!"
And those whose souls
still cling to their withering bodies
speak so placidly about The Buried:
"Oh, Mistah ___________________? He dead."
Sleepless dreaming.
Where cities crumble into the ocean
and giants buckle at the knees, yelling:
"Shantih! Shantih! Shantih!
"Oh Lord, where is The Peace
that passes all understanding?"*
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
HOW NOT TO SWEAR WHEN ONE IS SWEARING
After I hit it
with a hammer
my old thumb takes on
a now cartoonish character
pulses and throbs
grows biggerandbiggerANDBIGGER.
My three year old
gasps in astonishment
that an adult would/could
do such a silly silly thing.
"Bold Daddy!" she scolds "Bold Daddy!"
My mind screams in silence but
my tongue longs
to utter in the demotic
a good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon
ffffffffffFFFFFFF...word!
I somehow( don't
ask me how )
gaze into my little one's
baby blues
delete the expletive
carefully in slow motion
substitute the first
thing that pops into the mind
the first( as it happens )
of Mr. Joyce's thunderwords.
None of Eliot's
" Shantih shantih shantih "
I had the presence of mind to
"Finnegans Wake" it!
"BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONN
TONNERRONNTUONNTHUNNTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAN
TOOHOOHOORDENENTHURNUK!"
"Funny Daddy!" she chortles "Funny Daddy!"
Now whenever things
go wrong and
they will go wrong
( as sure as words is words )
she begs me
to "...do the thunder!"
Waits for her little
bit part so she can
chime in with her
". . .TOOHOOHOO..."
and I gather her up
in my arms and we
both declaim
as one
". . .THURNUK!"
Jun 15, 2017
Jun 15, 2017 at 4:48 PM UTC
Pray for us now and at the hour of our birth
pray for us now
rebirth
Dig up my bones for
I roll in the grave,
Use them wisely, build a morbid mausoleum,
An elegy to the macabre.
A world that's a waste land pray for hope to be saved,
From swaddled in a cradle to
running reckless disastrously spinning his fable,
Echoed down for years to come
A story constantly revised yet forever left undone.
Eliot your nightmare smiles through this
Faded century,
Hollow men we are
Dead men lost in rat's alley
Where we lost our bones to
A false God named Tech springing from a silicon valley.
Getting through time without a grey hair
I understand love lost its way in the watery space
somewhere between Vega and Altair
Shantih. Hours Hours Hours
Pray Hours Hours
for Hours
me
now
and
at
my
death
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
Oh no, oh no,
No, Abdul, No.
It's not what you assume,
Not at all the religion of peace.
But yes, you guys drink camel ****
So, yes, you definitely follow it.
With ***** on your head,
I see you dancing in the desert.
Yes, you follow it closely,
The black book of Satan.
What you are is nowhere peaceful,
Yours is not a faith in peace.
No, Abdul, no, what you follow is
***The Religion of Camel ****
Shantih
Nov 7, 2020
Nov 7, 2020 at 4:04 AM UTC