In time you’ll recover and absolve
push those scorned impressions aside
hammer down the jaded edges
and sing
that delightful commoners song
the one you sang so well
in what seems a lifetime ago

You really had it you know
that fiery disposition and nimble cunning
those butter chords and derelict style
we could see it -- we could all see it
it was all it took to turn the evening tide
(and rile that buck fever)
heads bashing
tongues lambasting
middle fingers high
and raising Cain on those may fly statesmen

There were no rules
when it came to your survival
no textbook rally or common bond
no structured songbird or bravado stage
you either made it, or laid it
“life by the *****” Mr. Poppy would say
a kaleidoscope of dreams
with rich colored imagery
hardened artisan seams
in a carefully woven motif

But something got lost in the needle point
something sinister and distorted took hold
the quirks and street genius
that were your lifeline
gave way to grunts
and squeals
and chilling night crawlers
the colors faded quickly
to a cold confining grey

There was no grace in the new world
no retribution or switch back
no salvation or accorded finale
only edged platforms of blackened steel
that kept you cased
in a silent vanquished cell
shivering cold with fear
night without day
all in the shadow of death

But time heals all
and the polish sneakers
and open sores are long gone
(though the roman nose and shallow cleft remain)
indeed the falconer beat the widow maker
this go around
and I’m hopeful it won’t happen again
and if it does you’ll see me
standing hand on heart
with that old verse in hand:

he ain’t tainted
or silly,
and most certainly
not forgotten…
he ain’t loony
or fixed,
or a product of his self-doing…
he’s just a straight shootin’ guy,
who had the most of it
figured out

Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!
Where is corruption?

Seems tone up statesmen notion
Co-ordinate with gallantry pride exploration,
Somewhere scholar's voice explosion
Solicit grant for idle generation.

Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!
What is corruption?

Working against the soul corruption,
Earning money overdose corruption;
Kissing beloved on road corruption
Homosexuality in India corruption.

Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!
How to eliminate corruption?

Agitation, law, dialect and compulsion.
Could not minimize absolute tension.
To eradicate this sensitive passion,
Must regulate spiritual diversion.

May be I’ll start writing, today.  
The story of Zen Zero.

I realized that all good things come to an end.  The tears, the affairs, and even the faintest revelation about my relationship to the Emperor of Japan.  I’ll need help and... well, the truth can be tolled.  It can be that the faintest belief, that we as free people are subject to the king, our God.
A king stands in truth as our kin.  The love that has existed for a thousand years, about justice, permanence, and legend are here.
It all started 7 years ago.  According to the book of John, the 3rd book.  The face of his majesty does have an Imperial Guardian.  In any colour, red, black, blue, white, and even green.  Each color resembles the color of trust.  
I started training in the Emperor's garden at the age of negative 6.  Before my mother can conceive her unborn child in a marriage.  Like the burning of Shin Cho' Palace.  
"Oh, how they forget so quickly, the truth?" says my mother.
They forget so quickly the majesty and power of the Emperor's memory of Mother Japan.  In his Majesty's eyes, how many lovers stir the colors of benevolence.  Where and when does it exist and stop for us as an American patriot sold to slavery for spy’s.  All of his subjects do will and listen to the cry of patience in his family’s quarters.  
My father at the time of his marriage did not know the Emperor's name, I had asked my mother in her heart if she knew the king.  They are no longer married.  They had tried to burn down the Emperor's Palace with a marriage.  But I had already existed, in the love of my family at a wedding joining men and women.  I remember some singing, all though in my mother’s ears, really bad singing. In her head or mine at the wedding, whichever is greater.  Maybe the song was worthless or was the singer already lifting her fingers to strike matches on the bamboo fortress of the young emperor.  
They have had many statesmen destroy the dream that Japan has.  Through lies, corruption, and *******.  Each of the last three I had to conquer to be his Majesty's Justice.  I did not earn the right to judge any such subject or people, it was given freely at that time to children.  I had learned to love the Emperor, even in my own desire to please him and her.  
The lies were towering revelations about the coming of man in God's kingdom, and how the will of imperial veils never existed for the properties of mankind.  The corruption was the setting of dowers or dowries for the subject of lost families, in the forbearance of lucher escaped only by the luck of liars.  And then the dreams of revelry, owned by the ungodly and chaste men of the burning palace, whether sediscious, or whether the fables absolving time in the palace to a judgment had already met the Emperor.  
All of the priests (pre-ests) had to pray; for the remaining time of eternity, for the true judgment of his Majesty's subjects. It was to be taken from the subject of srys to the Emperor's Knight.  
To many were lost in the munitions of war.  Laws that govern and sanction truths were not available to those of absolute corruption.  Stalwarts, stonewallers, and stoners were becoming of the anti-gentry.  The laws were never to be discouraged by zeal, or by trial.  The laws had to represent the ability of love to change time even if the object of factions destroyed the old way.  They had taken the truth to prepare Neoteny for where the first Imperial Guard had placed his head.  The first Imperial Guard, that I became before birth had taken his own head with a weapon made by treason.  
My mother’s dress was made out of spider silk.  A giant spider played Chinese checkers with the Imperial Guard for my head also.  Never the less, the palace, this time was not burned.  The dress was made out of falling stars and spiders silk.  She had found the Emperor's tailor and traded my soul for the wedding.  The pictures that were retrieved from the wedding of my mother and father have ruminated in antiquity since the time until by birth my life.  The seers and srys wanted my head to take up the Emperor's chalice.  His cup, filled with my blood, Simian blood.  
I did not want to go through with it, birth and death before becoming subject to royalty.  Seeing the world before consummation, as I had was never thought of, it was seen as impossible unless by treason we had chided a woman of royalty.  
I have seen the last major asteroid go through our galaxy before it had ever had been a present particle of mutiny.   It proved to the child (myself) in gestation, between man woman at the wedding that time will pass just as quickly before my mind’s eye as it had at the day of Pentecost.   More than 500 billon people were to be saved by God rather than by a humble dismantling of a defense lawyer.
I had seen how flowers are made by tiny Zen Zero bumble bees going to and leaving from daisies and roses, and orchids.  How each seed takes roots and as do the munitions for treason and tears; how each man whom chooses to change their name because of treason begins to understand change when his wife chooses his name.  (The reference is to Zero attacks, suicide attacks.)  How the time and life and essence of life begins in literacy as a language of love.  Every old man on earth can help me write the scripts, but can the country of old men help me change the prophet?
As long as there is war in the palace there will be treason?
The spirit of the samurai was trying the youth in the palace.  From the first born male to the last lady in quixic geisha.  All uniques were to be placed before the Lord for appointment.  Any dreams of or visions of truth were a breach of solemnity lost by the virginity of the family.  The parents of each state were subjects to the Emperor's people, and to the chosen for freedom and slavery.  How many shining knights were to remain in the Emperor's house?  The uniqueness was subject only to the reason of the generation of the age.  Not many of my men had anything left after the life of the quill or pen of the Knight Meteyi had begun to take its place with the heads of loyalists.  His sword remains in the hand of the Majesty of Japan.  No knowledge, no lore, no president, no kin, or liars can stop his reign.  As if the last days of our youth were spent dismantling the bombs we had made during the last few battles over crude extravagance.  Oil, crops, metals, space, as space became a way to admire men in statehood was the example of treason to the following.  Democrats and Republicans began to try as is a trail of laws to and from changes for the people without a loyal subject to observe in service to a Nation.  Freed men became a bureau of Federally Bureaucratic Investigative subjections.  Whether the phone would sense its use and had no service.  Men tried by srys had needed no way to communicate, they were objects, objections, and objective to democracies.  Any and all of the western knowledge of good or evil was not earned in monasteries, it was as it were seen in-between a marriage of a man and a woman and the consummation of the first born to be the king in his own mind. Centrally, intelligence and agency became a lost paradox.  The palace could be burned through neoteny, the truly lost man or woman had to be part of the worm.  The earthworm had to dig up the lost and the prophet from its own humanly death.  

Chapter 2
The dress as simple as it was, was taken off and laid in a box for saving.  It was to travel through time in the Emperor's Palace to serve has a mold, a pattern for quilting lovers of the family tree through the history of love.  After the child was conceived in love, the dress is worn and then placed back into the box for time travel. From a generation of mothers to another generation of lovers. No man was to wear the dress as an idea, thought or wisdom.  The reproach, the dress, and the marriage is virtue encoded into a structure of life   The wisest man let the Emperor dream life into the belly of prophets through the dress.  The smartest scientist understood the impeccable reason of lust and gave all to his bride for the grave that the earthworm had trusted.  The publican had the dress made as a dowry to the tribe of Roman man.  And the Emperor breathed life into the woman with a few breaths at the wedding.  The subjects, the publicans had tried the Emperor for their bride, by making the flowers lean toward their lovers.  They had tried to tell the knight of the Emperor's Palace that the sun had also retired due to mutiny in the ranks and castes of statesmen.  The son will bend light into the palace of wisdom, and the subjects do grieve the stories from prophets.  
At exactly 10:03 central eastern standard time, the states men forgave themselves of suicide and left to burn the palace.  
Each dressed as royalists.  The burning of Chinju Palace is the last thing I remember before giving up to the sound of a 3 or 4 year old woman singing.  The next thing I remember is being dropped on the floor in the delivery room to a rattle and brattle of childish whims.  Like, the sound of laughter, but only as a fury of deceit, the singer was hurt when I had asked her to join the wedding ceremony.  She excused herself of the ceremony as was or were not subjects to the birth of the kings men in harmony.  

She tried, and wanted to steal the dress.  

Chapter 3
There was mostly nothing in the womb. Except Dogma.  My father, as dogma.  He would whisper to her in bed and they would giggle about never understanding anything ever again.  I excepted NAME for my name.  They didn’t know if a boy or a girl were to be born.  I could know the difference at the time of their conversation.  I then realized that the 3 years prior to conception were perfect.  And I, the Emperor's Knight, was tolled.  Tolled the way bells sound and the way people love to hear the news.  The way light has no existence in the womb, I was tolled the way Sandalphon treaded upon the tribe of Israel.  
Lying was not invented yet, well,... while in the womb, but I had heard some whispers in the darkness.  The camera couldn't fit in, I called and tolled the camera from the womb, in between to friends.  I called the camera, Dragon.  The dragon is the trust moving in-between true and time.  The Dragon, Meteyi had told me that we were going to write everything.  From the believe that martial arts were stronger than prayer, and to the reason that it was not true.  Factually, there was nothing but prayer and no martial artist had a sword bigger than the lie of the Emperor's dragon.  The dragon said, to my father,..."The world is to die for, and not enough."  The dragon also said to my mother,..."The purpose is in your belly as a rainbow in disgust."  He, the dragon almost couldn’t believe that I had mentioned to hymn that there was no way out of this without a dream so relax and let me fit in.  The doctor had to have heard of the loyalist dream of a birth right.  Basically, I didn’t want him to slap me for the first breath.  I hurt bad, like out of a sarcastic Scotlandish parody.  Many, many, many, men quit trying to go through the sry after that.  My mother creeped up to me after my kin had asked the doctor to pick me up off of the floor.  She smiled and handed the birth certificate to the nurse and read my social security number to my father on the phone, he was on duty at the Air Force Base.  My ears were still clogged with seminal fluid, but I could feel her dream a name into my soul.  She can know the Emperor's knight.  After a few moments, my cry as chide by the Emperor, into being a whisper of life.  From that moment on in my life, I could not cry ever, as a child cries.  Otherwise I could be a whisper.

Chapter 4
Every chance at change that had gotten to us was used by running from the dragon.  He liked Batman and hated Robin but new to fathers, knew that hatred kept something’s safe from the palace. The palace could never get filled by whispers.  The whispers only object to democracy and help the camera.  The daguerreotype was possibly the only thing that couldn’t lie.  It was considered lye to gossip worshipers.  Gossip may have started the war on bugs.  Like bugs in ceaseless noise are prayer or whispers, like gossip.  When bugs stop whispering, some seemingly are bad with superstition and others are horrible with bugs.  
The next few years, were also perfect.  I had no idea who else, I could be.  Absolutely perfect, the Emperor subjected us to love.  I could **** all day, eat as much as I wanted and was warned when they thought, like a whisper.  When it was time to eat, when it was time to bath and when it was time to be quiet and sleep were similar to whispers.  Diapers were not invented yet, I had to invent them.  My mother used to get sick from the pain of laundry and sleeping with me.  When the diapers were *****, she wash them and place them back on my ****.  Like a good, palace guardian, I used them up.  The new diapers had an air of mutiny to them, the disposable ones.  We never kept trash in the house.  The signs that we have had a king for dinner were never to be seen, but everyone had the right to change pants.  
Many of the ideas in life shared before birth were not existent after birth.  It was not until my family had meet the Emperor that... we needed to love God by learning to pray.  

Chapter 5
When we met the Emperor, it was easy to say that no whispers were used.  Other things were.  A memory, not a book was here.  There was no time, the palace he made for me was from God and a lot of people wanted in.  The Royal subject was the Emperor's first knight, my father's.  I had to memorize time, which in turn was not mine.  The actual Emperor thought, that I, am a poet of sorts.  We spelled the word memory in the sky together without words, whispers, or gossip.  The next few years were spent dyeing as tap or a drill bit would being to make a hole for fastening life to the surface of my families.  Called a tap and die, the whole of life must be treaded through time without a spry attempt to vacancy.  After the Emperor, my mother and father did not know that meeting the pope was bad.   The Emperor is good.  

Chapter 6
Mainly my ability to learn, had started to fail.  There was not need to have ability.  But walking was hard.  When I stood, I was pushed through, walking.  Like a battle of balance and superstition.  Crawling had no sense, being picked up made things silly.  When wanting to be here, and not knowing how to get there through crawling, here I was a a chubby fat knight.  Father used lemons on my taste buds and cracked when he knew not how I loved them.  He had to make work to pay bills and I learned that without a whisper.  So we would sh

Hi;

This is not a poem.

But given the infernal catastrophe that has befallen, I just think it is time for you Americans to listen to us people living 'out there'.

Here are my thoghts, that I submit to you with respect;


HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE: A HISTORIC MOMENT FOR AMERICA TO CHANGE ITS MISSION

Ayad Gharbawi

January 19, 2010 – Damascus, Syria


The recent Haitian earthquake is unusual in that it has destroyed the entire meagre ‘infrastructure’ of a so-called nation.
In fact, this 2010 earthquake succeeded in showing the world that the so-called ‘country’ of Haiti is nothing more than another piece of estate/land/property for a select, few oligarchs.
Anyway, the US response to this ecological/environmental holocaust that has befallen upon Haiti has been unprecedented.
America, under President Barack Hussein Obama, has behaved impeccably in Haiti.
The brilliance in Obama’s aid for Haiti is successful precisely because he has avoided previous attempts by the US to help on the basis of ‘humanitarian’ grounds, when those grounds happened to also include conflicts raging within them.
Obama avoided the mistake of getting America involved in a humanitarian crises that existed within a civil war – like what happened in Lebanon (1982-83), Somalia (1991-3), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999).
I write this article because I, as an outsider, wish ardently, to speak to you Americans.
Today, you Americans have the choice: either to follow the militaristic, expansionist policies of the US President, Theodore Roosevelt, or you may follow the path of the first morally-guided President of the US - Woodrow Wilson.
I urge you Americans to leave all countries where there are civil wars – such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and so on.
Let these countries do whatever their people wish to do against each other.
Instead, allow your great arsenal of democracy to help and intervene on humanitarian missions – in countries wherein there are no civil wars – such as you have been doing so magnificently in Haiti.
Use your power, your wealth, your US Army, Air Force, and Navy to help humans who need the helping hand of succour.
I tell you, that you Americans, once you adopt this peaceful, moral foreign; policy, you shall see that your enemies will fade.
Taleban have told you repeatedly, and have repeatedly contacted to you, telling you that they are engaged in an Afghani civil war. So why do you intrude?
Al Qaeda have told you repeatedly if you leave the Middle East, then they have no quarrel with you.
Why can you Americans not accept or understand that so long as you do not invade, occupy or create military bases in foreign lands, no one, and no organization and no party and no country will see you as an enemy?
This is a moment for you Americans do finally break off from the Theodore Roosevelt Principle (TRP) which is to attack, ****, slaughter and occupy any country you think is ‘worth it’.
And, at the same time, it is also a moment in history, when you can fully embrace the Woodrow Wilson Principle (WWP) of a foreign policy that is based on morality.
What you have done and what you are doing in Haiti is a pure act of WWP.
I believe the entire Third World applauds you and loves you for what your men and women are doing for the innocent victims of Haiti.
But, then, when other men and women, scream and shriek, saying: “Look at what these Americans are doing! They ****, butcher and ****** Afghans in order to support corrupt, drug dealing gangsters such as Hamid Karzai who, themselves, cannot control and, in any case, are not interested in ‘controlling’ their own country! So what else can you think of America’s real intentions?”
And what a good emotion-fuelled question, indeed.
What are you Americans doing fighting, losing American and Afghani blood in order to basically prop up and support criminal regimes such as the Karzai regime, whose only raison d’etre is to make profits through their various ‘business’ activities?
The more you Americans fight what are perceived as unjust, colonialist wars, the more you will create terrorists. It is a never ending cycle!
I argue and I passionately believe, that you Americans can do this. If only you US statesmen and stateswomen finally decide to adopt the beautiful, clean mantle of morality in your foreign policy.
Obviously, I do not have enough space to express my ideas and reasons. So, let me be clear: I am not advocating a slavish enactment of Wilsonian principles.
For, as an example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US had to make a military move, because no country can allow a sick dictator to control so much of the world’s oil. There are clear instances when aggression abroad can seriously threaten US interests. But, in truth, the vast majority of the wars you Americans entered, were unnecessary: you did not need to go beyond the Yalu in 1950 in Korea; you did not need to enter the North-South Vietnamese Civil War.
Take Kosovo: yes massacres were committed on all sides. But you did not need to bomb Serbia. First and foremost, that should and must have been a problem for European powers to solve. Secondly, Kosovo was never vital for US interests. And the fact is, Kosovo could never be a so-called ‘state’. Today, it is nothing more than a geographical area run by warlords, drug dealers and other gangsters who each carve out their own territory. Was that piece of gangster-run land worthy of killing Serbians? No!
Take North Korea: let Russian, South Korea and Japan deal with that abnormal so-called state. Why do you spend money on your troops and camps there? It is not in your interests and yes, North Korea does not threaten you Americans!
The same goes for Iraq in 2003 – you did not need to invade that country for the simple reason that Baghdad posed no threat to its neighbours, and certainly no threat to Europe or to the US.  Again, you should have let the Iraqis themselves solve whatever problems they have on their fragmented plate.
You must see and feel that US lives are not expendable for pointless and futile foreign adventures.
America should help those who have suffered environmental catastrophes and who are in a war-free zone.
America should help stable, developing nations where accountability starts from Washington and right back in – Washington.
And yes, of course, America should only use its military might if it is directly threatened by any person, nation or organization.
And to reduce this hatred that has spawned against you: I tell you, a voice from a wilderness, one mute krill from amongst billions yearning for exactly what I yearn for, I tell you: remove your military bases from Europe, Japan, South America, the Gulf, and anywhere else. These military bases are seen by people as ‘evidence’ of occupation. You do not need to keep these costly outposts. Remove them. Reduce your military presence that, in any way, has no effect, except to increase fanaticism and anger amongst your people. This is especially so in the Gulf, where your presence angers the people – leave those countries and yes, you will then reduce your costs, which is obviously beneficial to you Americans.
Instead of military compounds and bases, why not enthusiastically create consortiums of companies to build American schools, universities, hospitals, housing projects and get involved in building infrastructure projects in nations that have good accountability, so no money is wasted and so can never go, instead, straight to the pockets of the leaders.
Build the world; use your superpower might to create hope in broken nations, and that effort will, in turn, build love and you shall see, your enemies shall decrease and your military costs will decrease and your building projects will bring you greater revenues.
The choice is yours: follow a Wilsonian foreign policy or a Theodore Roosevelt foreign policy.
I hope the Haitian earthquake catastrophe has shed some light on which path US foreign policy should take.

Ayad Gharbawi

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

Nobody marching toward us
Their guns making us die.
No tanks are come clanking
No bombers in the sky.
But our Congress and generals
When oil or bases seem needed;
We appear armed and threatening
Peace and love talk not heeded.

No country has attacked us
With troops and lethal artillery.
But our leaders expect us to
Go open up their arteries
And **** their women and children
And laugh while they all die
And we are expected to do this
And never think to ask why.

It’s almost like big companies
Were sad when WW2 ended
So they started attacking countries
We really should have befriended.
We let Russia have free reign
To **** and ****** and steal
Almost as if their aggression
Wasn’t really true or even real.

We looked around and made them,
Those evil old warlike excuses,
That some country threatened freedom
And we pretended they weren’t ruses.
We attacked Korea and Vietnam
We were just supposed to observe
That they were yellow people there
And think they got what they deserved.

We didn’t stop there, as Reagan took
A duly elected leader and put him in jail.
If any country did that to our country
The conservatives would howl and rail.
Then the Bushes tried their best to take
Iraq to steal their oil and punish them
And created an era of stronger hatred
And anti-American outrage and mayhem.

No foreign country has attacked America;
So, the point bears repeating once again.
We need to stop acting like bullies here
And start acting like decent statesmen
And women who have the bigger picture;
The growth of peace in our battered world
So, other countries will not take their guns
And shoot our flag when it’s unfurled.

The feds are making headway
(generously passing out their treats!)
while the whistle blower
and his boon companion
hit the 22nd floor
fiscal plans
are tidily falling into place
and the suits are all busy
chasing their dimes
dancing around the spire
full of wine and cheer
(seems the demand side imbalance
has got everyone doing the same old shimmy!)

they’re all studying their bollinger bands
MACD's, and treasuries
just like the good old days
santali would say
while capitol hill is busy
with its own pleasantries;
repatriate that currency
hold those rates
bring the boys back home!
the affirmations are robust
and filled with glee!

conspiracy thinkers
are busy in their own back rooms
initiating the trade
and building their counter claims
as pork bellies
and soybeans
continue to soar
(looks like eddy and the margin men
are at it again!)

what happened to that bear masquerade anyways?
they really were a band of brothers
colourful clowns
with big painted smiles
ready to lead in any parade
but they met with the resistance
a horned wall
satan’s horsemen riding high
with bags hung heavy
under dark squinting eyes

are we near an end?
the undertakers will say
it's only a blink of an eye
to the thin red line
where risk takers and front men
all jump ship
debt addiction is crippling
and hell breaks loose
when entitlements are out
and towels are thrown in

there’s a center piece here
those pugnacious statesmen
with invigorating tales
have had their place
time to clip them at the limbs
and pull the punch from the bowl
(sobriety has its merits you know!)
let’s head to the commission
and throw darts to the board ~
seems the moral blueprints are fading

How blest the land that counts among
Her sons so many good and wise,
To execute great feats of tongue
When troubles rise.
Behold them mounting every stump,
By speech our liberty to guard.
Observe their courage--see them jump,
And come down hard!
"Walk up, walk up!" each cries aloud,
"And learn from me what you must do
To turn aside the thunder cloud,
The earthquake too.

"Beware the wiles of yonder quack
Who stuffs the ears of all that pass.
I--I alone can show that black
Is white as grass."

They shout through all the day and break
The silence of the night as well.
They'd make--I wish they'd go and make--
Of Heaven a Hell.

A advocates free silver, B
Free trade and C free banking laws.
Free board, clothes, lodging would from me
Win wamr applause.

Lo, D lifts up his voice: "You see
The single tax on land would fall
On all alike." More evenly
No tax at all.

"With paper money," bellows E,
"We'll all be rich as lords." No doubt--
And richest of the lot will be
The chap without.

As many "cures" as addle-wits
Who know not what the ailment is!
Meanwhile the patient foams and spits
Like a gin fizz.

Alas, poor Body Politic,
Your fate is all too clearly read:
To be not altogether quick,
Nor very dead.

You take your exercise in squirms,
Your rest in fainting fits between.
'Tis plain that your disorder's worms--
Worms fat and lean.

Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell
Within your maw and muscle's scope.
Their quarrels make your life a Hell,
Your death a hope.

God send you find not such an end
To ills however sharp and huge!
God send you convalesce! God send
You vermifuge.

Each sorrow is the child of a happiness
you thought would never end;
Every happiness is a sadness
I may not survive—
a brilliant October day
lying back in dock hammock suspended
quoting bits of Rilke and starlight anthems
the shadows cast by buildings and frogs
ink drawings made on August nights
by our beautiful chain-smoking artistette
admiring a giant spider friend who’d
spun her majestic web and vanished
while we were swimming
backdrop of bay and boys and cherries
creaky boardwalks under bare feet
and stickiest pine and sand darkness
photos over wing clouds below
creepy call to prayer from ancient Mosque
at twilight punctuating strange dreams
perfect reconciliation on hotel balcony
McDonald’s after soaring from Black Sea
to Bosporus Straight, edge of Asia
visible on the horizon and all of life
a nightmare from which I can’t get woke
terrorized by ***** donor bonesaws
homophobic maternal afternoon rejection
peace that passeth no understanding
when you’re a ******* genius or just
a few points lower sorry never enough
compassion leaking through pores
drawn out by steam more darkness
Eucalyptus perfumed
another flaccid experience on a stranger’s
bed recalling Hippocrates on the drive
away after more bad ***
shots of sauces and grilled roasted
poached lentils bespoke chickens finery
malodorous wafts limestone smoothed
by centuries of acidity oily tourist touches
but they’re in Mexico Australia India
we’re back at home twins calling
each day an error of time rounded off
the incorrigible quark refusing
to cooperate with Einstein choosing its
own entangled path and lighting fools
what beautiful skyline
what amazing celebrity capture
what nostalgic group assemblage
what **** cute puppy who’s no more pup
what swanky tailored look
what smiles what smiles what seriousness
the soft and supple features curves lines
practiced looks and wayward hairs
a simple flourishing according to the lens
so much that skin conceals and eyes
beer garden sidewalk orations
wedding after party for April fools
we were who dance grabbing rings
swinging wildly discussing the vulgarities
of gastronomy and digestion
tumbling into diners midnight offices
brick lined streets magical talks
demonstrations and ideas unbounded
carving pumpkins into likable politicians
we think are statesmen and wailing
when she loses winning a trophy case
buckling under weight of moral victory
the thought of skyscrapers lit
shining under heaven unsubtle insinuation
we’re better than all this nonsense
and stronger having raised this glass
and steel by our own hands, our parents
rather now maybe that’s confusion
erecting higher stairwells to escape
encroaching seas and bums below
all memory all happy every laugh
each rumination on the hours
kisses cocktails cuddles laughter
that perfect vest completed outfit
those thrift store jeans that shirt
that secondhand one speed bike
those lunches with the priest
those brunches with the students
those happy hours with the coworkers
those dinners with the beard
all interchangeable parts in show
theater of recollection one subway car
one taxi ride one bus to NY or DC
one flight to Seattle or Vegas
or some Floridian seascape, mansion
each cog or bit like paper currency
imbued with no value but buying
the totality of lived experience
from which to draw upon in sad elsewhere
—but they cut deep, well meaning though
whenever was now isn’t and can is blind
to what day will ever be when I can say
in truth now sadness isn’t.

Correctly he is John the Baptizer,
His birth was delayed up to late,
Late post menopausal age of his mother,
Elisabeth the wife of Zachariah the priest,
At the temple of the Jews in Palestine
During the regal time of Rome
As a world empire and a role model of tyranny,

Imagine conceiving after menopause,
During the nonagenarian ages
Of all the ages, in the nineties?
But she conceived John,
Was it true or mere sensationalism?
Or mere nerve chilling art style?
To hold the world audience a hostage?
I don’t know but  John was born
After his mother’s menopause,

He contrasts with Jesus
Born by a ****** Mary,
Imagine a Jewish ******
Without ****** *******
Became pregnant,
And gave birth to Jesus,
When Mary was pregnant
She socially visited Elisabeth
John’s fetus somersaulted,
Like a Chinese acrobat
Inside his mother’s tummy,
It was his baptism before birth,
But may be pregnancy of a ******
Has more strength than pregnancy
Of a post menopause octogenarian,

Hence the famous ode by Catholics;
In the name of Hail Mary
The mother of God
Most blessed above all women,

These post menopause pregnance
And ******‘s pregnancy without ***
Contrasts with Adam’s creation from clay
And Eve’s creation from Adam’s left rib,
Another super-sensational literature,
Or pataphorical art; Magical surrealism?

Let me not go dumb or mute
Like Zachariah when he believed not,
But no, I already believed ergo, my vocality,

Now why did John refuse to put on clothes?
Only to put on a skin of a goat,
Or was it a monkey Clobus,
The one which we in Africa
We are forced to ****
Before your father permits you
To face the circumcision knife,
John again refused to eat cooked foods,
He survived on raw honey and locusts,
Nuts, roots and raw fruits, dietician?

Or it was self denial or self immolation?
Like the one often displayed
by the Islamic statesmen aka terrorists
When committing suicide bombing?
No it began with the Japanese Kamikaze,
In preparation to bomb Pearl Habour,
I don’t know at all at all,

Now what of the howling in the wilderness,
Calling for people to baptism in water
At the riverbanks of polluted Jordan
And when he saw the Negroes
Among those who came for baptism
He called them the viper’s generation
Or were they Libyan Arabs?
And Jesus came, John went inferior,
He declined to baptize Jesus,
But Jesus pleaded for the service,
Then the dove opened the heaven
And came down to anoint Jesus,
Which heaven was opened?
Was the sky or the heaven?
This must be the writer’s Gnostics
Used to calling the sky as the heaven
Why the dove and why the heaven?

Then john again began doubting
Very genuine doubt I m telling you,
You see john began spying on privacy of the king
Was he also a night runner? Maybe,
He spied on Herodias the mother of Salome
She was a chic for the king; Herod Antipas,
This stuff threw John into  a calaboose,
Then John began day dreaming
Like any other prisoner
For his freedom and bush foods
He really missed honey and locusts
And also the fruits; Quavas and mustaberries,

He thought Jesus would come running,
Panting like a cheetah to pull him out,
Out of colonial prison, Jesus never came
Hence Johns doubts;
If Jesus is the Messiah really,
Can’t he come to redeem me?
From these colonial prison Herod,
Look; we are all Jews
In fact blood related Jews
And it is a year he has never come,
To pay me a visit when am in prison
Is he the Messiah really?
Or we still have to wait for a true messiah?

But Jesus was a rude messiah
Or Jesus was jealousy? Envious?
Of John’s spiritual competence,
I think he was wrong, totally wrong
He should have saved john the Baptizer
From the Roman colonial prison,
For there is no need nor spiritual logic
For Jesus to heal the lepers, and the blind
To resurrect Jairus’s daughter
And command the devils out of a madman,
But he could rescue his cousin brother
From a colonial prison, was it detention?
Remember Mary and Elisabeth were sisters,

John was a victim of circumstance
Like those who now languish in torture,
Torture chambers of the quatanamo bay prison,
Detained and tortured inhumanly
Without hope of trial nor justice
For no other reason but faith and race,
John was a harbinger of Sadam Hussein,
Osama Bin Laden, Mummar Gaddafi,
Nelson Mandella, Luther King, Dedan Kimathi,
Elijah Masinde, Arap Manyei and Mugo wa Gatheru,
They fought tyranny with firmness
They underwent torture for the sake of humanity,
They suffered for no reason but folly that goes with tyranny.

And finally, Salome the poet,
Living by performing the spoken word,
And Proceeds of her mother’s adultery
And vampirizing on the blood of the righteous
She came and danced in artful wickedness
by gyrating her ***** satanically
In the usual wicked style of a *****’s daughter
Sending the male audience nerveless with ego
Only for to suggest her prize;
As John’s head on the platter,
John was grisly mattered in the cells
Then his head was delivered on a platter
To Salome the poet the daughter of Herodias,
It all happened when Jesus was aware
Amid the full wind of his wonders
On the crest of his fame as the messiah
Isn’t saving the prisoner good as resurrecting
Young damsels and healing the lepers’?

But anyway, it is stark culture of Europe
To chop off the heads
Of those who oppose their tyranny,
It is not only John the Baptist that have suffered,
Suffered like this in the hands of Europeans tyranny,
The list of such-like victims is endless;
Mugo wa Gatheru was buried alive in Kenya
He was ordered at a gun point
By the British colonial police,
To dig his own grave using a mattock
Then the British clobbered and buried him a live,
On this brutal burial of Mugo wa Gatheru,
The Queen of England promoted these policemen
That buried Mugo wa Gatheru,
Kotalel Arap Samoia of the Nandi Militia in Kenya
Was shot twice in the head by the British spy;
The spy chopped off Koitalel’s head
He took it to the queen in heroic dint
And the queen glorified the spy,
Anglo-American power chopped of sadam’s head
Anglo-American power killed Mummar Gaddafi,
Anglo-American power Killed Osama bin Laden
They perpetrated all these without trial,
I am tired of all these………………

“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho’ fanned by Conquest’s crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail,
Nor e’en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!”
Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo’ster stood aghast in speechless trance:
“To arms!” cried Mortimer, and couched his quiv’ring lance.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o’er cold Conway’s foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air)
And with a master’s hand, and prophet’s fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
“Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave
Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!
O’er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day,
To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.

“Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue,
That hushed the stormy main;
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
On dreary Arvon’s shore they lie,
Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof th’ affrighted ravens sail;
The famished eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country’s cries—
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with ****** hands the tissue of thy line.

“Weave, the warp! and weave, the woof!
The winding sheet of Edward’s race:
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.

“Mighty victor, mighty lord!
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye, afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes:
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm:
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his ev’ning prey.

“Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare;
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair
Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight ****** fed,
Revere his consort’s faith, his father’s fame,
And spare the meek usurper’s holy head.
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled Boar in infant-gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o’er the accursed loom,
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

“Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done.)
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn:
In yon bright track that fires the western skies
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon’s height
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia’s issue, hail!

“Girt with many a baron bold
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine!
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line:
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attempered sweet to ****** grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heav’n her many-coloured wings.

“The verse adorn again
Fierce War, and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
In buskined measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice, as of the cherub-choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear;
And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think’st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day?
Tomorrow he repairs the golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me: with joy I see
The diff’rent doom our fates assign.
Be thine Despair and sceptred Care;
To triumph and to die are mine.”
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain’s height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

The king of the castle sits,
His back paw scratching his head,
Ruminating.
The aging cat wonders if he'll ever lose
the itch.
Then, apparently having reached a satisfactory conclusion
The furry statesmen curls up by the fire
                                                       Drifting....
...off
                                             ­                              to...
                                                           ­                                                      sleep...
he purrs softly to himself:
The rumble of unfathomable ponderings.

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild, unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff.

Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary Man,
So helpless in appearance, that from him
The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack
And careless hand his alms upon the ground,
But stops,—that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old Man’s hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein,
Watches the aged Beggar with a look
Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged Beggar coming, quits her work,
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o’ertake
The aged Beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and if, thus warned,
The old Man does not change his course, the boy
Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,
And passes gently by, without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

He travels on, a solitary Man;
His age has no companion. On the ground
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
They move along the ground; and, evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields, with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bow-bent, his eyes forever on the ground,
He plies his weary journey; seeing still,
And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,
The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,—in the same line,
At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!
His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still
In look and motion, that the cottage curs,
Ere he has passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched—all pass him by:
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

But deem not this Man useless.—Statesmen! ye
Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands
To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud,
Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate
Your talents, power, or wisdom, deem him not
A burden of the earth! ’Tis Nature’s law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. Then be assured
That least of all can aught—that ever owned
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to—sink, howe’er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless. While from door to door,
This old Man creeps, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares,
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where’er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
The acts of love; and habit does the work
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,
Doth find herself insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness.

                                  Some there are
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do!)
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,—and, like the pear
That overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred;—all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And ‘t is no ****** service, makes them felt.

Yet further.—Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency,
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Established in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell,
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.

Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,
And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No—man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
—Such pleasure is to one kind Being known,
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her store of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door
Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has borne him, he appears
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers
To tender offices and pensive thoughts.
—Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;
And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his withered face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY,
Make him a captive!—for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not,
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun,
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, where and when he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!

ruminating
                  cogitating
                                  pondering
                    ­                              thinking

the subject matter doth
put the mind into a thought seat
is there sufficient verbs for me
to place on the paper's sheet

verbs by definition are words
which have an action
they on the reader
do have an impaction

so let's explore a topic
worth a thousand of them
how I'll express this piece
shall test my mind's stem

here is the matter I shall discuss
without any duress or manner of fuss

all over the globe there is much trouble
our planet is not as a carefree bubble
the inhabitants often observe strife somewhere
our corners of four not of an according air

were there to be peace and calmed relations
no concerns would beset our world's many nations
yet a propensity for war doth  ever prevail
what sane men shall see the wrongs of this pail

verbs shall never explain man's idiocy
as he's ever involving himself in armory
yet a man who did advocate cordiality
lived with his brothers in true harmony

he was a meek man of the Indian land
a message of non-violence he did band
the lessons of history are never heard
man seemingly ever in the warring herd

the middle east is a tinder box of hell this day
exploding bombs and munitions all spray in affray
verbs of dialogue aren't put to good use
an ongoing lighting of the fuse doth suffuse

few statesmen of Gandhi's ilk now exist
so the torture and torment of war shall e'er persist
diplomacy has lost its edge around the globe
our planet shall remain bound in worrisome lobe

the count of verbs in this piece didn't quite reach a thousand
yet deaths in conflicts outdo that number by the thousands

I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

                                    In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

III

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

                              You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
    You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
    You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
    You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
    You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The ****** flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

V

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

    Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

Persia,
The land of God,
Where God stayed in person,
As he traversed desert sand dunes to Irag,
To have a look at rivers Euphrates and Tigris,
When Adam had just finished playing the first human ***,
With Eve, the non ****** companion he gave him,
He then meted out to them eternal nemesis
Out of his anger and selfish jealous,
Other-wise what was wrong,
For Adam to have a ****,
With the unclothed eve,
Any answer please,
Or no please,
Persia,

Persia Now is Nuked,
A nuclearized oil exporter,
She has a Koran, oil-wells and Nuclear,
She also has no-nonsense masculine Arabic culture,
****** grounds in which mushrooms the messy Islamic soup,
Blessed and Glorified by my good ****** brother; Barrack Obama,
Who was once God and sent the inverse of angel Michael to Laden Osama,
To impregnant the ****** mother of death that sired laden’s demise,
Game in which Obama dwarfs Netanyahu a global dweeb,
Left on a wrong inglenook in a dwaal at Jerusalem fire,
Biasly blessing the Israeli Nuclear and Hydrogen bombs,
As security of the world, and condemning Iran,
Calling their Kosher Nuclears a threat,
To the israelized world security,
But his Gaza **** is not,
His refuge camps
Are not

Blessed are the Nuclear stuffs of Persia,
They are blessings of Allah to those that are guided,
Maunderings of the jackanapes like Netanyahu is not news,
For he has more nuclear in Jerusalem, hydrogen bombs too he has,
Then arming Persia must a usual game of violence not anything of his sort,
For  they are Koran, the nuclear, the oil wells, and the woman,
That will frame up the Islamic state to stable counterzionism,
To stave mania of European Jews for settlerism
To eat what they deserve un¬¬-rapaciously,
To at least breed homespun respect,
For those that differ with them
In faith and skin
Like afro-persians


Persia,
Your nuclear stuffs,
Are blessed and glorified,
For they are counter-apartheid,
To the Zionist apartheid in Palestine,
They are acts that resemble the acts in the past,
By those that oppressed, colonize, imperialize for settlerism,
For a line in Shakespeare’s king Lear has some blessings for you;
The un-armed (Arabs) provokes (Israeli) enemy’s attack,
Thus reality of equal nuclear mighty and strength
Will nurse thought for de-imperialism
Sense of respect and discipline,
By those who belong to God,
To those who don’t,

Who Bombed Charlie Hebdo?
And what of the Yankee Twin Towers?
Was it Al Qaeda or the Israelis, can I blab or not?
O, there were also Nuclear stuffs in De Klerk’s White South Africa,
But when blackness came to corridors of power, the nukes followed color,
What of what I was dreaming yester night? About Netanyahu,
He ployed for the European hatred against Islamic statesmen,
He bombed Charlie Hebdo, masquerading as an Arab,
For European war on Islamic state to intensify,
Then it intensified, but God only knew,
The truth; Islamic statesman are only mouthy,
But foolish in war and offense,
They didn’t bomb
Charlie Hebdo,

Boris Nemetsov,
A Russian speaking Jew,
Was shot dead in Moscow,
(RIP) Boris, for the human soul must die,
Death and grave is the kismet for us the living,
But why were you weak as a post hatch cackling hen,
To make noise and preen around as a jade in the land of fox,
The African sisal fox that ate all the Crimean chicken,
Noise of a hen cannot fetter fox’s appetite,
Noise of a hen cannot shake culture,
Of Nuclear power in Iran and Korea N,
Why live in Russia, but you love Israeli?
I don’t need the answer dudes,
But always oppression
the oppressor always
it kills,

Alexander  Khamala Opicho
Lodwar ,  Kenya

Honest directness may
bring some lasting peace:
murdered Cicero spoke
two millenia ago
all evil man may ever know;
still our statesmen gesture
in orchestral dumbshow.

Is peace born out of a lie?

Each new morning they wake,
senseless, enchanted;
an immense multitude
that works toward a coffee break.
They gaze, glossy-eyed,
upon the imperial upshot:
Democracy and Despotism
mix in the Melting ***.

" It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews,
            Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and  
                Illuminations from one End of this Continent
                      to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
      John Adams – July 3, 1776.

Webster Groves - 2016

The Townhall fountain dances
cheerily in the morning sun.
The red-white-blue shirted crowd
rises as one for the colors.
Laughing children scramble for
tootsie rolls and sweet tarts
tossed by a strolling  clown.

         Philadelphia, July 3, 1776

        Carriages sped toward Philadelphia
        where resolute patriots
        would turn the pages of history
        and tell an unsuspecting world
        that a new nation had given birth to itself.

Sousa strains peal from the marching Statesmen,
Girl Scouts guide their well-groomed mounts -
hooves echoing through concrete caverns.
Vintage firetrucks and autos
sound their horns and sirens
as candidates work the crowd, pressing the flesh.

        Each crass insult from the British crown
        had tightened the noose on the colonial neck.
        The middle ground was soaked with patriot blood
        and revolution was the only course left.

Barbecue clouds drift over Pat and Lee’s farm
Horseshoes spin and clang and frisbees fly.
A ***-luck feast with beans and franks
interrupts the pop and glare of bottle rockets.

        One by one, each patriot quilled the parchment
        resolved to endure the costs of liberty -
        knowing to the marrow that defeat
        would spell certain ******* and death.

We reach the lakeshore at dusk -
unfolding chairs - spreading out blankets -
strains of Americana drift over the lake.
then a pyro-technic extravaganza
blazes across the summer sky.  

        Washingon’s tattered and bloodied men
        cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown.
        Then surrender - all British claims
        to American soil banished to the tomes of history.

The grand finale pummels the darkened sky
raising cheers and whistles from the crowd
Toddlers collapse in parental arms,
car doors slam, engines ignite
and head-lighted caravans, turn for home,
spiraling off in every compass degree.

“Happy birthday,” America and endless happy returns
"from this time forward forever more!”  

Robert Charles Howard

THEY hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud.

There's a painting by Botticelli
I've always loved,
showing Venus being born naked
from the ocean and
not fearing the current.
Those around her renounce her body,
scrambling to clothe her,
turn her virginal,
contain the way her eyes cross galaxies,
shine all the way to Pluto.
But she is soft, unwavering,
not noticing the mortals' concern
about her *******
and bare collarbone that could catch water
at its base.

I found you halfway across the world on the steps of the Uffizi
and in the 3 hours it took you
to show me some of the best art on earth,
I was transfixed only
on the orbits of planets in your eyes.
Shortly before the sun set,
you took me through the secret corridor
Cosimo de' Medici built to walk across the
rooftops of the city
where you kissed me but
told me you didn't believe in love,
that all you needed was art,
and Michelangelo,
and in that moment
I saw Venus in your collarbone.
Saw a shell under your feet,
saw the universe in the way your freckles connected,
saw how you immortalize yourself
among the rest of the art in Florence
so no human can bring you down to earth,
can make your heart stop,
show you what it's like to cross timezones
with a single touch.
And here I am,
wanting to be your Botticelli,
to paint the uneven ***** of your shoulders,
the crookedness of your right ankle,
your fear of exposing yourself to someone
who could love you.
It must be lonely out there, Venus,
on your little fishing boat by the sea.

Botticelli's painting was found
long after his death,
laid into the floor of
an abandoned villa in the south of Tuscany.
Venus looking lost and mortal
between cracked paint and chipping walls,
like the way you hide between
the dusty statues of the dead statesmen and fading portraits
long after the museum closes,
just you with only history to hold.
You want to believe in love
as past-tense,
like you've lost faith in present participles and the fact
that art is still being made,
and people are running barefoot into future conjugations
together.

Don't come back to land, Venus. Vanessa.
I won't be here waiting with a towel
or an art critic
or a spaceship.
But maybe,
just make a little room for me on your shell
under the sun,
atop steady waves or Florentine rooftops.
Throw the map overboard.
Let's forget the shore.

And Michelangelo and the rest of them
will smile as they see us off.

the venerable Plato would have shunned
the very title of this verse

for him philosophy and poetry
were as diverse as Spartans and Athenians
who fought each other in his time

yet later thinkers of the western world
    as well as many teachings farther east and south
were much less adamant to so divide
philosophers, statesmen and politicians
from those who gave aesthetic shapes to life
made people gather in their public places
in theaters  or just with friends next door
to listen to the words that offered powerful examples
    of love and pain and happiness
    of power   treachery and greed
    losses and victories   and visions
    of our origins and what the future might be like
and that to recognize and love the beauty of our world
    leads us to understand the depths of life
    so we may choose our paths accordingly

that was the time when beauty   truth and  good were
                                      one

such words are difficult to find in our time
when three-word soundbites have replaced coherent speech  
statesmen are few and politicians many
professionals claim expertise each in their fields
talk business only with their kind

philosophers  speak to each other
    at conferences and universities
poetics are not really on their mind

poets have found themselves part of the arts
whose function in the common understanding
is to embellish everybody’s everyday
with pleasant images and notions
mending the harm done by so many hurt emotions

Plato’s revenge   it seems
has finally come home to roost
and the poetics of philosophy
is surely  desperate to receive a major boost

Listen my children
And you shall hear
How the USA
Went suddenly queer.
Not the kind of
Gays making love
But the kind the where hate
Rained down from above.

First there was Tricky ****
A special kind of an ***
Who robbed our fine country
Of any appearance of class.
Carter tried as hard as he could
In one term to put it all back
But all too soon started smoothly
Reagan lied him off the track.

With our economy in ruin
Reagan slunk off in fame
With voters with half a mind
Blindly, they fell for his game.
Eight long years later, then,
And we were nearly broke
With stupid citizens old and young
Still falling for the joke.

So, Clinton showed up and made
The Great Prevaricator look sick.
After seven years of fixing things
The GOP went after his ****.
Since they couldn’t fault his success
They really had no quarrel,
They made a manufactured stink
About Big Billy’s morals.

The Great Republican Lie Machine
Hyped up on twisted success
Decided things would be better
If their pet monkey made a mess.
So, they bought him an election
And the Middle East rebelled
So much that a few insane terrorists
Sent us a day of hell.

The second Bush, the monkey
A semi-literate hack,
To legitimize his father, chose
The wrong country to attack.
He decided Sadam Hussein
Would be his choice of foil.
We were not meant to notice
It was all about cheap oil.

Dubya started a war,
The Great Instigator
That is still going on today
And it’s fourteen years later.
Hiding behind blind patriotism
His band of merry crooks
Robbed and pillaged us all
And threw out all the books.

The Constitution meant nothing
In the Second Bush’s D.C.
He and his accomplices
Made short work of liberty.
The attitude was we deserved
The ******* that we all got
Because GOP were statesmen
And the rest of them were not.

As ridiculous as that sounds
The public ate it all up.
They happily drank and swallowed
The hemlock in the cup.
Not content with Dubya’s brand
Of sedition and of ruin,
GOP sewed seeds of greed
And knew what they were doing.

Hand-elected judges
Dubya left in the smoking wreck
Of a country that had become
An albatross on its own neck.
Suddenly the laws of the land
That gave us a meager say
Were sneakily nullified
Behind chants of USA, USA!
.


Right now in the USA
Only money is king.
Right, wrong, good, bad
They don’t mean a thing.
As long as bucks and lobbyists
Are left in the picture
America will choke to death
On the toxic mixture.

Barack Obama got elected
With promises that we can
Fix what had been stolen
Of freedom in this land.
For six long years he tried
With Republicreeps on his back
To get our ailing economy
Back on a healthy track.

And when he had done it,
GOP lies weren’t quite enough,
They shut down the government
And made conditions rough.
The Supreme Court decided
Rich Corporations were due
The advantages of human beings
And tax deductions too.

And then the Supremes removed
All chance of a reprieve
Five ninths voted that people
Could discriminate if they believed
In their heart that someone else
Deserved their rights to be ignored.
Suddenly the Supreme Court
Was where bigotry was stored.

So, tens of millions of dollars
And hatred right in our faces
The outrages began to rise
Like strife between the races
So bad that Obama had to
Do what Dubya did so badly.
He made some Presidential edicts
And he did so quite gladly.

Suddenly we had health insurance
Gays could finally get married.
Even the Supremes back that up
A vote for equality was carried.
The GOP decided then
Led by a lunatic fringe,
To take the Congress on a spree
A drunk with power binge.

They voted to shut the country down
They wanted charge of our bodies.
It’s almost like they wanted the right
To put cameras in the potties.
They hid behind the Cross of Christ
Quoting things he did not say
And that is where things are
To this sad embarrassing day.

We aren’t out of the Middle East,
That’s part of the horse trading
That goes on in the public swap
Of D.C we are all wading.
We have felt the boot of power
Bring down its mindless stomp.
We’re up to our *** in alligators
And the GOP drained the swamp!

Manila    is  fray

Tough enough to die,
    Brave enough to see ****** against
        the billboards

   ***** on the marketplace
   ***** men haggling for prices
   the corners are squalid -- rats with ambitions   of men take  their places    in
    the esteros

   a car-horn blares, wanes old moon music.
      I sing songs of malversation. Trains all graffiti.

     My heart like a jailbird freed somewhere
         in the big sur; love assuages nothing,
    comes with a cheap price
          a freak December night in Roxas blvd.
     i sit on marble benches and dream
        of artilleries, garlands on *****-nosed
            barrels, nuns   grieving  dust
     in    the ground.    communal bathrooms
         drunk in foolish caricatures,
   the tabloids     displaying  flowerheads --
        the democracy in the streets a ****
    for      kings,  no    love to   lull
        me    to infantile    sleep

         tortured are   the   bulls 
   matadors    hiding  behind    faces red   like
       faces    of    statesmen   flushed with
          the   spirit   of   bourbon
   whereas we are    here   river-facing
       northern tip of its  undying source
  like    wives    on  balustrades   waiting
      to catch   the fragrance   of   inamoratas,
   light  reenters
          interstice   of   chary webs of  dull heads   hemmed in like   canopies   in the throat      of     overthrown ponds,   scraps
     of metal    sold    for a  night's  worth
        of    gin   and   Sinatra,

  Deep within   the   grave, the dead   laughing
       at the dead living. Atop   waters,
   yachts peering   into   drowning  fish,
       in   the middle, a   jam   of buses
         belching    lassitudes that    strangle
    the console,    the man    in all  of us
       the same,   cursing behind   the wheel
   and everybody    else    different
              dancing    at   the   top   of our   heads.

I want to find those liars
That call themselves statesmen
And smack their faces
And take by the country’s *****
Because they have stolen
The innocence of every one of us
And pushed us off a cliff
In their ******* conservative bus.

Tap, tap, slap, slap
Kick them in the ****.
Tap them, slap them
I will tell you what.
Beat them, cheat them
Show them how it feels.
Bounce them, trounce them
Knock them off their wheels.

It’s the work of the devil
To behave the way they do.
Doesn’t seem to be an end
To the crap they put us through.
They are minions of evil
Paid to make our lives worse.
I would push the magic button
And make it happen in reverse.

Tap, tap, slap, slap
Kick them in the ****.
Tap them, slap them
I will tell you what.
Beat them, cheat them
Show them how it feels.
Bounce them, trounce them
Knock them off their wheels.

There is something wrong
That they outgrew any conscience.
They point the finger at gays
But really, they are the deviants.
They re-wrote the holy books
So they come out the winner
And the rest of our country
Ends up as the dog’s dinner.

Tap, tap, slap, slap
Kick them in the ****.
Tap them, slap them
I will tell you what.
Beat them, cheat them
Show them how it feels.
Bounce them, trounce them
Knock them off their wheels.

1
just watched the news
my morning ritual

2
today’s news, as  I saw it
(today and this week)
as I heard them all interviewees
them politicians, men of God,
holy ones and pure ones
organizers and statesmen and entertainers
and various personalities,
they all used sincerity terms:
“….to be honest,” one said…”to be frank…,” said another
And yet another: “I’ll be frank with you….”
“Well, frankly speaking,” declared one eminent person…

You wish the interviewer
would interrupt and say:
“You mean you haven’t been honest till now?”

3
and yet, frankly speaking,
that’s not news;
that’s old wearied news
for I’ve heard that from 1960’s
since I started watching interviewees,
to be honest

I look into the void that fills the halls of power and I get all confused. I look for distinguished statesmen in fine attire, but all I see are the animals running up and down a spire. There are old lions who have seen their better days with dingy coats and teeth that have bitten off more than they can chew. I see packs of wolves banding together giving anyone who challenges them an icy Arctic stare. Then there are Zebras that are constantly trying to change their stripes, as they prance to and fro trying to avoid any one position. I look on and see packs of Jackals with microphones and cameras. Hissing and growling as they snap at each other to get a word in edge wise. Then there are the Ostriches, who stick their heads in the sand or at least under their desk until what ever problem they are facing has passed. Such is the life in the halls of power also know as a Political zoo.

If we were young men,
  if we were strong

If we had fresh words,
  to add to our song

If we were soldiers,
  with war in our veins

If we were poets,
  our voices reclaimed

If we were lovers,
  of women that cried

If we went wandering,
  our heart’s reapplied

If we were statesmen,
  the world in our grasp

If we were sailors,
  the wind at our backs

If we were farmers,
  with meadows so green

If we were actors,
  on stages supreme

If we were hunters,
  new wolf on the prowl

If we were dreamers,
  all wishes allowed

If we were young men,
  still facing the sun

But alas, we are old
  —and darkness has come

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

On the glowing American horizon,  
Dawns a new era of hope and communion.
Obama, the leader America was waiting for,
Emerges from the masses, a rising star.
Breaking the barriers of religion and race,
Obama smiles, with confidence and grace,
"Change has come to America" he declares!
Recalls Lincoln, Kennedy and Dr.King,
As millions of Americans dance and sing.
Elegant orator, par excellence,
Promises equality, justice and strong defence,
And measures to crush agents of violence,
Defeat terrorists and their evil designs;
Shares India's desire to isolate centres of crime.
Facing  challenging tasks at this crucial time -
Violent conflicts, failing Banks and economic trends,
He seeks the goodwill and support of all nations,
Treating them as partners and trusted friends.
'OBAMA' now personifies "YES, WE CAN" -
Our youthful world's best slogan!
Now is the time for all statesmen to join hands
And say "YES, WE WILL" and hail the brave new icon!
                         *       *      **  Narasimha Murthy, M.G.
Hyderabad, India.                                 mgnmurthy4@gmail.com

Each mind has its own method.
You go to be teachers,
to become physicians, lawyers, divines.
Statesmen, naturalists, philanthropists.
I hope, some of you, to be the men of letters,
Those whose minds have not been subdued
by the drill of school education.
How wearisome the grammarian,
the phrenologist, the political or religious fanatic,
or indeed any possessed mortal.
The fears and agitations of men who watch the markets,
the crops, the plenty or scarcity of money,
or other superficial events, are not for him.
I wish him to live by his strength, not by his weakness.
Our people have this fear to offend,
do not wish to be misunderstood.
Do not wish, of all things, to be in the minority.
Rely on yourself.
Every thought is a prison.
The rare gift of poetry already sparkles, and may yet burn.
The world has a million writers,
But the constructive powers are rare,
it is given to few men to be poets.
The writer restores.
Speak, whether there be any who understand it or not.

The furrier tells the bell by the time of skinning,
Archangels by their clipped wings as they fell,
Statesmen by show of divided hands at plenary ringing,
The wind by quell of truant petals from daffodil.
And even love tells its beginnings and endings,
By lips shorn of lambswool words and yield of bale.
In light or darkness, though our animal souls uprisen,
Still in their wordless and naked measuring dwell.

I am from a pencil, from words, and paper.
I am from the two bedroom, one floor home.
I am from the roses, and the sun.
I am from homemade coffee and depression, from Bonnie and Charlie and Christopher.
I am from the anxiety and denial.
I am from not throwing things and not living life in fear.
I am from Angels surrounding, and Omnipotent protection.
I'm from Hartford and Greenwich, statesmen and viscounts.
From the pain in their eyes and rage they expressed, and the ignorance of men.
I am from the wall where the past hangs in frames.
From pictures of possible better times, yet maybe not any greater.
From pictures that may be of worse times, hidden behind these smiles.

one cannot help start wondering
about some leaders' meandering
rather than take decisive measures
they pander to their selfish pleasures
claiming they are in full control
and never mind the rising toll
of deaths, infections, unemployed
during the crisis
                              they avoid
acknowledgment of actual danger
instead fan hate, divisiveness and anger
ignore all human suffering
but only aim at buffering
their own political survival

it seems high time for the arrival
of real statesmen who can stall
that deadly downward spiral
and save their nations
     from being driven
full speed into the wall

my world of phantasy is one
where I can save the universe
by the sheer power of my will

my force of thought
deflects the course of meteorites and comets
from collision with our globe

I make rain forests grow
   back to their former size
endangered species
   thrive and multiply

my will turns greedy politicians
into statesmen caring for the citizens
that voted them into their offices

all military hardware
becomes food
to feed the hungry of our world

wars are duels
fought between leaders
of contending states
no young soldiers die
for ambitions of their elders

cars only need hydrogen
recycling is the way of life
water and wind and plants
provide infinite energy

people I hurt
do understand
it was not done on purpose

and I can even tell my children
how much I love them

alas
my world of phantasy

remains just that

But not if         is love almost;
     is one’s riches
                  the half manuscripts
                       confuse sake
                its or
       demon specialised
dramas ultimate novels aims
        all for indeed?
               Next perhaps.
Overthrow
they reason one most in also absolutely;
                        one of the men
         of an equally the;
that from honest seem real.
                       Life a this degrees
    health investigations.
Man who.
        The afraid.
  Disturbs that of is a;
the its.
Time appears deranges to.
To it statesmen is it all most sacrificed a goal;
              motives it.
        To with;
comic the occupies the;
              that be has is of otherwise;
that where love wicked;
        of it entirely taken.
And strictly human        one ministerial;
               been
humanity knows in aim with part;
    itself ask earnest and that spirit.
                                              And it.
          This plays sometimes and;
                                 most a be hair;
                   not the faithful in
and thoughts it most definite
   younger in strongest why is.
            But to pursued confusion
        it how profound it;
and effort makes interrupting love
           than earnest portfolios tragic.
  To seriousness ethereal of.