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RAJ NANDY Sep 2018
Dear Poet Friends, Torin Galleshaw from Charlotte NC, a Member of this Site, had requested me to compose about the Rise of Third *****. Therefore, I have commenced with the causes for its Rise in my Part One posted below. Planning to compose Part Two with ******’s Blitzkrieg campaign of Poland later. It is unfortunate that I am unable to post related Maps & Photos for better appreciation of my Readers! Such options are not available for us here! However, I have managed to post a copy with maps & photos in the E-mail ID of my friend Torin!  Kindly give comments only after reading this researched work of mine, during your spare time.  Thanking you, - Raj, New Delhi.

            STORY OF SECOND WORLD WAR – PART ONE
                            RISE OF THE THIRD *****
                                       By Raj Nandy

                                  INTRODUCTION
In this part I shall mainly deal with the causes leading to the Second World War,
Which had also created favourable conditions for the rise of Third ***** under ******.
The word ‘*****’ derives from old German word ‘rihhi’ meaning ‘realm’;  
But is also used to designate a kingdom or an empire in a broader sense.
Historically, the First ***** was the Medieval Holy Roman Empire which lasted till the end of the 19th Century.
While the Second ***** was the First German Empire from 1871 to 1918, when dynamic Otto Von Bismark had united all of Germany,
Which ended with its defeat in World War One and birth of the Weimar Republic.
The Third ***** refers to the **** German Empire under ******, Which lasted from 1933 till 1945, for twelve traumatic eventful years!
Historians opine that the ending of a war is equally important as
its beginning;
Since the causes for the start of a war is often to be found embedded in its ending!
The First World War came to an end on 28th of June 1919 as we all know.
With the signing of the Treaty at Versailles by the German Foreign Minister Hermann Muller and the ‘Big Four’.  (Britain, France, America, & Italy)
Yet it is rather ironical, that this Peace Treaty of Versailles, considered as President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘brain child’,
Had sowed the seeds of discontent resulting in the outbreak of the Second World War, and Adolf ******’s dramatic rise!

Though several causes are attributed for the outbreak of the Second World War by our Military Historians.
Let me try to summarise those causes which are considered to be more relevant.
Commencing with the harsh Treaty of Versailles, the British and French Policy of Appeasement, followed by Hyperinflation and the Great Depression of 1929, and failure of The League of Nations to maintain peace;  
Are relevant factors which collectively combined resulting in the outbreak of the devastating Second World War, scarring human memories for all time!
But not forgetting ******’s forceful and persuasive eloquence which mesmerised the Germans to rise up as a powerful Nation once again.
Since ****** promised to avenge the humiliation faced by Germany following the Treaty of Versailles,
Which was drawn up with vengeance, and dictated by the victorious Allies!

THE  ARMISTICE  AND TREATY OF VERSAILLES:    
Armistice means a truce for cessation of hostilities, which provides a breathing space for negotiating a lasting peace.
Now the Armistice ceasing the First World War was signed inside the railway carriage of the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Foch, in the Forest of Compiegne,
On the 11th of November 1919, sixty km north of Paris, between the victorious Allies and vanquished Germany.
But in the meantime naval blockade of Germany had continued, and the German Rhineland was evacuated and partly occupied by the combined Allied troops!
Release of Allied POWs interned civilians followed subsequently; And the Reparations Clause of monetary compensation was strictly imposed on Germany!
Now, following a wide spread German Sailor’s Revolt towards the end of October 1918, Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II had abdicated;
And on the 9th of November Friedrich Ebert, as the new Social Democrat President of Germany, authorised his representative to sign the Compiegne Armistice.
We should remember here that this Armistice seeking cessation of hostilities did not stipulate any unconditional surrender;
And the signing of the Armistice by the German Social Democrats, was considered as ‘a stab in the back of the German army’ by majority of the Germans!
These issues get repeatedly mentioned by Adolf ****** in his eloquent speeches subsequently,
To arouse the spirit of German Nationalism, and resurgence of the ‘Master Aryan Race’ of the Germans, - in Germany!

The Versailles Treaty was signed on 28th of June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand which had sparked World War One.
Let me mention few aspects of this Treaty which was detested by the Germans!
Germany lost 13% of its land, 12% of its people, 48% of its iron resources, 15% of its agricultural production, and 10% of its coal, following its implementation!
German army was reduced to 100,000 men, its Navy reduced to 36 ships with no submarines, its Air Force banned, and its union with Austria forbidden.
Now to use a Shakespearean phrase the ‘unkindest cut of all’ came in the shape of Article 231,  the ‘War Guilt Clause’ of the Versailles Treaty,
Which provided the legal basis for the payment of war reparations by Germany.
The reparation amount of 132 billion gold marks (US $33 billion) to cover the civilian damage caused during the war, now had to be paid by Germany!
Thus the humiliation, resentment, and the virtual economic strangulation following the Versailles Treaty,
Was exploited by extremist groups such as ******’s **** Party.
And in the decades to follow, ******’s Nazis would take full control of Germany!

NOTES: Following Versailles Treaty, Alsace-Lorraine captured by Germany in 1870 was returned to France. The SAAR German coalfield region was give to France for 15 yrs. Poland became independent with a corridor to the sea dividing Germany into two. Danzing, a major port in East Prussia, became a free city under the League of Nation. Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, & Czechoslovakia became independent. Industrial area of German Rhineland, forming a buffer zone between Belgium &France,was
demilitarised.

WOODROW WILSON’S  14 - POINT PEACE INITIATIVE  & THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS:
American President Wilson was an idealist and a visionary, who in a speech to the US Congress on 8th Jan 1918,
Introduced a 14 Point Charter as a platform for building global peace, based on the principles of transparency, self-determination, and Democracy.
But for the first time in US history, the Republican-led US Senate rejected this Peace Treaty, and prevented America from joining the newly created League!
The US Senate wanted to retain its sovereignty without external entanglements;
Free from the League of Nation’s political dictates in its foreign commitments!
The Irish immigrants refused to support Wilson's Fourteen Points because Wilson was concerned about stopping WWI, rather than forcing the British to set Ireland free.
Many Jews also refused to back Wilson, since he was paying too much attention to the War, and not enough to the Balfour Declaration of 02 Nov 1917, -
Which promised an Independent Jewish State with a distinct Jewish identity.

The League of Nations had emerged from Wilson’s 14 Points on the 10th Jan 1920, with its HQs at Geneva, Switzerland, but it had no peacekeeping forces those days!
The League had failed to prevent invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1932 by Japan;
Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; annexation of Sudetenland and Austria by Germany!
The Axis countries Germany, Italy, and Japan, withdrew from the League subsequently.
Thus the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 officially!
But President Wilson’s ceaseless efforts for global peace did not go unrecognised,
Since on the 10th of December 1920, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!
While his disbanded League of Nations, as the first global humanitarian organisation,
Continued to survive in spirit with the establishment of United Nations Organisation on the 24th October, 1945.

ECONOMIC CAUSES - FOLLOWED BY THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1929 :
Germany emerged from the First World War with loss of 25,000 square miles of territory;
Loss of seven million inhabitants, and a staggering debt imposed by the Versailles Treaty!
The Wiemar Republic, after abdication of Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm-II  to Holland,
For the first time in German history, established a Democratic Constitution with Friedrich Ebert as its first President.
But The Republic first had to consolidate itself by squashing the Spartacist Revolt of January 1919 led by the extreme Leftists, and inspired by the Russian Bolshevik Communists!
The Freikorps, in March 1920, an Ex-Soldiers Rightist Group, tried to overthrow the Wiemar Republic with support of their Rightist allies and their own veteran troops!
This was soon followed by a Communist attempt to takeover of the Industrial Rhur;
But fortunately, all these uprisings against the Republic were effectively subdued!
But the 33 Billion Dollars of Reparations hung over the Wiemar Republic like the legendary ‘Sword of Damocles’, followed by the Great Depression of 1929;
Coupled with the ‘Policy of Appeasement’ practised by the British and the French;
Became the most important causes for ******’s expansionist ambition and his short- lived meteoric rise to fame!

GERMAN PAPER CURRENCY & HYPERINFLATION:
Gold Mark was the currency used by the German Empire from 1873 to 1914 only.
But to pay for the costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard, and decided to fund the war by Borrowings entirely,
Hoping to pay back the loans after Germany achieves Victory.
But having lost the war, and faced with a massive debt imposed by the Allies,
Exchange rate of the Mark against the US Dollar steadily devalued and declined!
Papiermark became the German currency from 04th August 1914 onward, when link between the Mark and gold reserve was abandoned,
In order to pay for the ongoing expenses of the First World War with paper marks, which was constantly being printed!
But later after the war, when the London Ultimatum of May 1921 demanded payment of war reparations in gold or in foreign currency only,
Even more paper marks got printed by the Republic to buy those foreign currency !
By December 1922 hyper-inflationary trends emerged, when the US Dollar became equivalent to 7,400 German Marks, with a 15-fold increase in the cost of living !
By the fall of 1922 when it became impossible for Germany to make further payments,
The French and Belgium armies occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley area, its prime industrial region!
French and the Belgians hoped to extract payment in kind, but a strike by the workers of the Ruhr area their hopes belied!
The Wiemar Republic printed more paper notes to pay and support the workers of the Ruhr area,
When hyperinflation had peaked at 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks, to a US Dollar!
Paper currency having become worthless, some form of ancient barter system began to be used instead!

STABILISATION OF GERMAN ECONOMY WITH ONSET OF  THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
Following the hyperinflation Chancellor Josef Cuno’s cabinet resigned in August 1923,
When Gustav Stresemann became the new Chancellor of Germany.
Stresemann’s Government had introduced the Rentenmark as a new stable currency,
To end the hyperinflation which had plagued Wiemar Germany.  
Rentenmark was backed by real goods, agricultural land and business,
Since gold was not available in a beleaguered German economy those days!
When One Rentenmark was equivalent to One million, million, old German Mark;
While One US Dollar was equivalent to only 4.2 Rentenmarks.
Though Stresemann’s Government lasted for 100 days only, Stresemann continued to serve as the Foreign Minister in successive Coalition Governments of the Republic,
Till his death in the month of October 1929, but working for the betterment of Germany all the while!
His ‘Policy of Fulfilment’ stabilised German economy with a 200 Million Dollars loan from America under the Dawes Plan in 1924,
Which had also ensured the evacuation of France from the occupied Ruhr area, with their future reparations payments ensured.
Stresemann’s signing of the Locarno Pact in London on 1st Dec 1925 with France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy, was considered as his achievement and a feat!
Since it made Germany to enter the League of Nations ensuring stability and peace;
While the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to Stresemann for his efforts in 1926!
Later, the Young Plan of 1929 further reduced German reparations payment by 20%, while extending the time frame for the payments to 59 years!
But following a sudden Wall Street Stock Market Crash in late October of 1929,
The American Banks were forced to recall money from Europe and the Young Plan;.
Which created acute financial distress when unemployment soared to 33.7%  in Germany in 1931, and quickly rose to 40% during the following year!
Lausanne Conference was held in Switzerland in 1932 by Great Britain, Germany, and France, to further reduce the War Debts imposed by the Versailles Treaty.
But in Dec 1932, the US Congress had rejected this Allied War Debt Reduction Plan completely.
However, no further payments were made by Germany due to the Great Depression;
And by 1932, Germany had paid only 1/8 of the total sum required to be paid as per their pending wartime reparations!

NOTES: Rentenmark was issued on 15 October 1923 to stop the hyperinflation in Wiemeer Germany. Reichmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 to 20 June 1948 in West Germany , when it was replaced by the Deutsche Mark; but had continued in East Germany until 23 June when it was replaced by East German Mark.
During the Stresemann Years of Stability from 1924 to 1929, (prior to the onset of the Great Depression), with help of American financial aid, created more housing & production in Germany. Dada & Expressionist Art forms flourished, followed by modern architecture; also the Philosophy of Existentialism of Thomas Mann – influenced the Western culture. Paul Whiteman's Band for the first time brought in American Jazz to Germany, and Jazz signified the liberation of German youth and women folks of the younger generation generally. But the US Stock Market Crash had unfortunately ended this short lived euphoria, and as it soon became a global phenomena!                                


FAILURE OF THE WIEMAR REPUBLIC & THE GREAT DEPRESSION WHICH BENEFITED THE NAZIS:
Last Days of Wiemar Republic:
Ever since Otto Von Bismarck that ‘Man of iron and steel’, united Germany into a single Empire in the year Eighteen Hundred & Seventy One,
For the first time a Constitution for a Parliamentary Democracy was drawn up in August 1919, in the eastern German city of Wiemar.
Wiemar was the intellectual centre of Germany associated with musicians like Franz List, and writers like Goethe and Schiller.
The Wiemar Republic of Germany which had lasted from 1919 till 1933 had seen,
20 different Coalition Governments, with frequent elections and changing loyalties!
Due to a system of proportional representations, and the presence of very many political parties those days,  
No single party could obtain absolute sole majority in the Reichstag Parliament!
The longest Coalition Govt. was under Chancellor Bruning, which had lasted for only 2 years and 61 days!     (From 30 March 1930 to 30 May 1932)
Now, to understand the reasons for the failure to maintain a Democratic form of Government by the Wiemar Republic,
It becomes necessary to monitor its ‘dying gasps’ during its closing years so to speak!
Since faced with the economic depression Chancellor Bruning had worsened the unemployment situation by adopting stringent and unpopular measures!
Thereby having lost popular political support, Bruning with the approval of President Hindenburg, invoked emergency powers under Article 48, to survive his last few months and years!
During the years 1931 and 1932  it is seen, Bruning had used this Emergency Clause 44 and 66 times respectively!
Thus his so-called ‘Presidential form of Govt.’ had undermined Wiemar Democracy!
If Burning was the ‘Republic’s Undertaker’, now remains a debatable issue of History!
But Burning’s vigorous campaign made Hindenburg to get re-elected as the President;
Thereby he had removed the defeated Adolf ****** out of the Presidential race!
Therefore, later when ****** became the Chancellor on 30 Jan 1933, Bruning had very wisely fled from Germany!

Following Bruning’s resignation in May 1932 came Chancellor Papen’s ‘Cabinet of Barons’ consisting of individuals who were not members of the German Reichstag!
While in the election of July 1932 ******’s **** Party won 230 seats, making it the largest party in the Reichstag.
But ****** refused to form a coalition with Papen, because he wanted to become the Chancellor himself !
Now General von Schleicher advised President Hindenburg that the German Army,
Would not accept Papen’s use of Article 48 to remain as the Chancellor of Germany!
Therefore following Papen’s resignation, Schleicher took over on the 04th of December 1932 as the new German Chancellor.
Schleicher tried to restore a democratic form of government to get the Wiemar Republic back on its feet.
But in the ensuing political power struggle Papen wanted to take revenge on Schleicher for his removal from power and defeat.
So Papen persuaded Adolf ****** to become the Chancellor, and retain for himself the post of Vice-Chancellor.
In doing so, Papen mistakenly thought that he would be able to reign in the self-assertive Adolf ******!
Papen finally made President Hindenburg agree to his proposal, and on 30th of Jan 1933,
****** became the New Chancellor, with approval of the President!
A month later a sudden fire in the Reichstag made ****** invoke Article 48, in order to squash the suspected Left Wing Communists;
But while doing so, the Press was muzzled, and many Civil Rights of the German people were abolished, inclusive of their right of assembly and free speech!
****** acted swiftly, and by passing the Enabling Act on 23 March, 1933, armed himself  with dictatorial powers for enacting laws without the approval of the Reichstag whenever necessary!
Thereby ****** threw Democracy to History’s wasteland most unfortunately!
Following the death of Hindenburg on 29 June 1934, ****** combined the powers of the President and the Chancellor, and became known as the FUHRER!
Historians generally agree the Enabling Act of 1933, as the date for establishment of The German Third *****.

THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT AND GERMAN AGGRESSION:
The horrors of trench warfare with the rattling of machine guns and bursting of poisonous nerve gas shells,
Even after 20 years remained fresh, in the minds of all World War One participants!
Therefore, it was natural for British and French Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier initially,
To grant political and material concessions to an aggressive Germany, for the sake of peace and stability.
Thus the diplomatic stance of Appeasement between 1935 and 1939 followed by the French and the British, was mainly to avoid another dangerous armed conflict!
But the trusting Mr. Chamberlain had underestimated ******, who had served in the German Army as a Corporal, winning the Iron Cross during the last Great War!
****** was not afraid of war, but wanted to avenge the Treaty of Versailles and its punitive dictated peace;
And also establish for the superior German Aryan race a lasting Third *****!
Therefore, having consolidated his power as the Fuhrer along with his trusted **** Party cronies, he withdrew from the League of Nations in October 1933.
Introduced conscription in March 1935 in Germany, and embarked on a mission to rebuild a new modernised German Army for combat on land, air, and sea!
In March 1936, in another open violation of the Versailles Treaty, ****** re-occupied the demilitarised Rhineland, followed by a Treaty of Alliance with Japan and Italy.
The much desired Anschluss (or merger) with Austria, the country of birth of ******,
Saw the German Army in March 1938, triumphantly and peacefully marching into Vienna!
Now with the Munich Conference of 19 September 1938, this Policy of Appeasement is said to have reached its climatic peak!
The Sudetenland area, consisted of 3 million Germans were made
to join Czechoslovakia when the frontiers were drawn in 1918-19,
Much against the wishes of the Germans!
When ****** wanted to annex this Sudetenland area, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, met at Munich to diffuse an explosive situation peacefully.
It was agreed at Munich that once Sudetenland joins Germany, ****** will not invade Czechoslovakia and honour the terms of peace.
But on 15th March 1939, in violation of the Munich Agreement, ******’s army invade and occupied Czechoslovakia, thereby openly flouting the Policy of Appeasement!

NOTES: ******’s desire for ‘LEBENSRAUM’ or ‘increase of living space’ for the Germans, commenced with his ‘Border Wars’, which soon turned into a Global War because of the ‘appeasement policy’ of the Allies. ****** had secured his Eastern Front with a treaty with the Stalin, since fighting on two fronts would have been very difficult for the Germans.

Now when ******’s army invaded Poland on 1st of September 1939, it became ‘the last straw on the camel’s back’ for the Western Allies!
Committed to the Anglo-Polish Defence Pact of 25 August, 1939, both Britain and France declared war on Germany,
Which I propose to narrate in Part Two of my Second World War Story.  
The Policy of Appeasement no doubt gave some time for Britain, to regain its depleted military strength,  but Adolf ****** had viewed it as a sign of weakness!
With Russia and America initially as non-participants, ****** became more confident and arrogant!
Thereby turning his border wars into a global conflagration lasting six long years.
When the use of advanced technology, resulted in greater loss and casualties;  
Which was followed by the holocaust and unprecedented human suffering!
I would like to conclude my present narration with a poem by English soldier-poet Seigfried Sassoon, who participated in the First World War on the Western Front.

DREAMERS  -  by Siegfried Sassoon
Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal ****** with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with ***** and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
…………………………………………………………………………
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY
For
              Carl Solomon

                   I

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


Apr 7, 2012, 6:08:21 PM by ~OmegaWolfOfWinter
Journals / Personal




"Name: Amelia Weissmuler. Date of birth: June 6th, 1920. Test subject number 314-X. Specimen: Tiger." Amy heard all of this through a haze of sedatives that had begun to lose their already poor effect. She turned in the direction of the voice and saw a fearsome **** SS General standing behind a white clad scientist with a heavy accent. The general said nothing but listened and watched as Amy was strapped down to a cold metal table, completely **** with various wires, tubes and needles protruding from her flesh. She groaned painfully, the needles were extensive, and the **** scientists had no care of decency or respect. she was hit with another sedative and before she lost consciousness she heard the scientist, who she guessed was Dr. Heismeiller, say, "Name, Mordecai Dansker, former Major of the Third *****. Date of birth: September 19th, 1919. Test subject 14-W. Specimen: Wolf. As you
can see, Heir General, these are both healthy specimens, as are the test subjects." Amy heard a
rattling of cages. Her vison slowly went dark but not before seeing the doctor's face, uncovered and psychotic.
* *
When Amy woke up again, she was being suspended from the floor, the tubes and wires accompanied by menacing electrodes. there was an unnatural blue and white crackling of electricity around her, illuminating the other suspended tables nearby, the bodies in various grotesque positions and levels of decay. she tried to scream but found a machine unceremoniously shoved in her mouth, stretching deep inside her. she looked and saw nothing but obscene machines and various glass tubes of colored bubbling liquids. she tried sluggishly to break free but to no avail. what little strength she had was useless against the torturous devices emplanted in and around her. "Doctor, begin the experiment."
"Yaboe!" She heard a solid click resound through the room and heard a male scream in another room. the screams echoed for a long while, then nothing. she heard a gasp of releif from
the doctor and, "General! Subject 14-W... he has... Survived!"
"Good. now start on the frauline." there was a large thud from outside the room. "Quickly! this facility is under seige!"
"Yes sir, heir general. Test subject 314-X prepped and ready. Begin phase 1." she cried out silently as the needles burned hot inside her and the tubes boiled her insides. the electrodes soon incapacitated her and she fell unconscious.
*
*
"Phase 1 complete, heir general, subject is ready, proceeding to Phase 2."
Amy felt an intense burning around the needles, and an electric fire through her veins. the machine had been taken from her mouth, but she doubted she could scream any more, as her throat was raw from the silent screams of Phase 1. She felt her body shake uncontrollably as more electric shocks were administered. she was left panting and slumped over. "Sequence complete, the bonding process was a success." there was another thud and sediment from the roof fell to the floor. "Get her down now! They will be through soon!" She was lowered to the ground and unstrapped from the table, picked up, and placed on a stretcher. she raised her hands on front her face and nearly fainted, her hands, or paws, resembled that of a tiger, and as she looked, her whole body was covered in a slick orange, black and white fur. She was put into the backseat of an armored car with a simple blanket draped around
her. Amy felt nauseated
as the car sped off. It hit a bump in the road and she moaned painfully, clutching her furry belly and retching. the **** next to her turned away in disgust. the car ride was long and sickening, and she lost consciousness twice, and finally she tried to lay down in the cramped space. when the armored car finally stopped, she was pulled from the back seat and carried over a soldier's shoulder and into a small bunker. Once inside, amy heard a metal door open and was laid down onto a stiff bed with a single pillow and a single cover. There was a small window in the cell, a drab, grey stream of light shining in her eyes. She propped herself up on her elbow and shielded her eyes from the blinding contrast. Once her eyes adjusted, amy noticed that things had a particular sharpness to them and she had an acute awareness of things based on scent. she stood shakily, and noticed she was almost
six inches taller now, and her new tail swished back and forth along the concrete floor. she stepped
forward and grasped the iron bars and peeked out, seeing a black leather messenger bag and a black uniform lined with white. she couldn't quite reach the uniform, but was able to get a claw around the strap of the messenger bag. she pulled it closer to her and saw that her initials were monogrammed into the leather. she pulled it through the bars and opened the bag, pulling out a small, blank, leather bound journal and a pen. still ****, she sat on the bed and practiced writing, tearing out two pages of scratch paper. She began her journal with, "I am no longer the person i once was. i am something new, something... different."
• * *
The **** captain stepped into the bunker and saw amy, half lying, half dangling on the bed, the leather journal clutched close to her chest. he stormed into the cell and backhanded her awake, snatching up the journal as she cowered in the corner, her tail wrapped around her. the captain flipped through the pages of the journal and then closed iit with a snap. he glanced at it and dropped it on the bed. "it is yours now, Frauline. you are very special to the third *****. the fuhrer himself has asked for you to be placed in the Waffen SS and trained." amy glanced at the uniform on the table outside the cell and he nodded, "specially tailored for you, frauline. he stepped outside the cell and grabbed the uniform, setting it down on the bed. "you may Change into your new uniform and join the rest of us outside." he stepped outside and she was alone. she donned the simple uNdergarments then
slipped into the soft black trousers, after which she put on her military boots. next she put on the black and white jacket signature of the SS. the jacket was sleek and menacing, though it did little to flatten her chest, but that, she supposed, was one of her feminine charms. last was her hat and armband, both adorned with the *******. she gathered the leather messenger bag and stepped outside the cell, where a mirror stood, giving her a chance to see what had been done, the black uniform was a dramatic contrast to her brightly colored fur, and her new black stripes added a fierce look to her. she grinned and flashed menacing white teeth. she turned her body, looking at herself from different points of view. she slipped the **** armband onto her right arm and turned to leave. she stopped when she encountered a high pitch noise right next to the door. for the moment she just walked past, opening the door and adjusting her vision to the outside light. the layout was grey and barren,
as it always was in wartime. the captain was waiting for her along with a small squad of SS troops. a
Few laughed and remarked at her appearance, making cat noises and wolf whistling at her. she glared at them with a bright white snarl carved into her soft face. *they will fear me...

she saluted the captain and said, "heil ******." he returned the gesture, "heil. you are now part of the Waffen SS, frauline Amelia."
"please sir, its amy."
he noted her directness and ferocity, "very well, amy. before we assign you a task, though, you must prove yourself." he addressed the squad, "they are all corporal's and sergeants. you are merely a private. you will gain a rank for each one that you ****. however, they have been told that if they do not force you to submit, they will be killed or sent to the russian front. so you best fight your hardest, private amy."
as he finished, the squad set down their Mauser 98K's and MP-40's and stepped closer to her. her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in ferocious determination. there were twelve of them.
"Fight!"
• *
Amy took a fighting stance and faced her attackers. she attempted a punch at the nearest one but was kneed in the gut, she was thrown back a few feet. she fell to her knees and clutched her stomach with one hand, holding herself upright with the other. tears sprung to life in her eyes and threatened to roll down her cheeks. she fought the tears back and stood, feeling her claws extend. she swiped at a soldier's throat, catching him right in the throat. blood splattered the ground as he choked on his own fluids. the remaining eleven were taken aback slightly, allowing her to pounce another soldier, punching and tearing at his gut with lethal force. her fur was bloodstained and she waited a moment too late, watching the cavity she created fill with blood. she was barreled over, the wind knocked out of her by a sergeant. she lay on her back, gasping for air as the soldiers closed in,
landing a few punches and sending her reeling back. she staggered back, struggling for breath. she
Bumped up against something and realized it was a bunker wall, she was trapped. she thought quickly and decided for a new course of action, she waited for one of them to gather his bravado and throw a solid punch at her, which was useless, she grabbed his wrist and smashed his head against the wall, filling his helmet with blood and brains. in the same move, she had grabbed his Luger and had downed three more of the remaining ten. in their moment of confusion she kicked the closest one in the fork of his legs and followed up with a pistolwhip. the man went down quickly and died by the heel of her merciless boot. the remaining six charged at her, one falling by her last bullet and another caught a swift kick in the ribcage, shattering the bones to peices. the rest of the men were sergeants, and they began to retreat, running into the open field. she was about to chase after them when she
heard another Luger fire. she turned to see the captain shooting the deserters. each fell, one by
One by the captain's gun to her surprise he let a single man go. "you have done very well, frauline amy. you have killed eight out of twelve men, not bad at all."
she was panting, her uniform dirtied, "why.. did you let.. him go?"
the captain smiled, "someone has to spread you're reputation, heir captain."
she gaped at him. "i am... captain?"
"yaboe, heir frauline. you have proved yourself worthy to serve under the fuhrer."
she saluted him, "thank you, heir captain."
*
amy wrote in her journal as they were driven to one of the Stalags: "my promotion to captain has earned me my choice of weapons, ive chosen a few, two long barrel Luger's, a cavalry saber, and a sixteen foot bullwhip. i also carry an automatic Mauser in my messenger bag. other than a few knives carefully hidden on my body, that should be it. ive become the fuhrer's favorite enforcer, though i feel as if i'm forgetting something..."
amy closed the journal and placed it in her bag with a soft snap.
Amy waited for a **** private to open the car door and let her out, tapping her foot impatiently. when he finally came, she had a luger pointed at his chest. "you're late. she got out of the car and shot him, holstering the pistol as he crumpled to the ground. the colonel in charge rushed towards her, "what is the meaning of this?!"
"your man on watch was late, and now he'll never be late again. and also, colonel, as i am a captain in the SS, i am your superior officer and you WILL adjust yourself accordingly or i will replace you with someone who will."
his expression was that of shock, "y-yes, heir captain, please follow me." he escorted her quickly to the main building. amy glanced around at the peering POWs, glaring at them with distaste as they whistled at her. "who's the kitty?" "what the hell is that?"
her hands fell to her lugers and she was ready to fire when she was beckoned inside by the colonel and she followed behind him reluctantly. "you should control your prisoners.
i find an overall lack of order in this camp. you're lucky i'm in a good mood, or i'd have you strung up for incompetence. lets hope my further evaluation of this... facility... does not make me any more inclined to do so."
the colonel stuttered again and dipped his head, "y-yes heir captain."
she stepped outside unopposed by any. she snapped her fingers and a sergeant rushed to her side and saluted. she handed him a journal logbook and he opened it to the page marked with the Stalag number. she entered the closed off areas of the stalag to inspect the barracks.
*
amy's fists were clenched with rag, a prisoner mocked her from within his confines. his fellow prisoners pleaded with him to stop. "she's lethal!" "she killed eight SS sergeants and corporals singelhandedly her first day!"
the prisoner ignored them and began gesturing at her. she snapped her head up and their eyes met for an instant, she growled through a gritted snarl and was over the fence in mere moments. once over,
the prisoner that mocked her was now on the ground, his throat between her fangs. he cried out once and then gurgled blood as she tore out his throat. she spat the flesh onto the dirt and stood, brushing the dusty particles from her uniform. the men around her backed away when she approached them, and watched her cautiously as she stepped back out of the fenceline. amy picked up her cap from the ground and brushed it off. one of the prisoners called for a doctor, and when one of the guards began to look for one, she merely said, "no, he wont survive. leave him be."
the soldier saluted and went back to his post. she walked up to the colonel and said, "your prisoner annoyed me, as do you, colonel. you have three days to turn this place around or you'll end up worse off then your prisoner over there."
the colonel had turned a pale white and whispered, "understood, captain."
she returned to her quarters and listened for a moment as the colonel shouted orders. "that was fun." she remarked.

Amy was asleep in one of the larger rooms in the main  building, her uniform folded neatly on the table near the bed. she kep one luger on her bedside table and the mauser under her pilllow. her other luger, her sword and her whip were next to her clothes. she was clad only in her fur, as she'd found that the most comfortable way to sleep.
she was woken up by a knock at the door. she blinked her eyes a few times. clutching the mauser handle with one hand and holding the blanket to her chest with the other, she said, "what is it?"
"the colonel wishes to speak to you, heir frauline."
she growled, "grrr... fine. tell him to make it quick." she clutched the blanket closer as he opened the door. she held the mauser aimed at him and said, "turn." he did so without hesitation. she slipped cautiously out of the bed and began to dress. "what is it you wished to speak with me about, colonel?" amy put on her undergarments and then pulled her trousers up to her waist, fastening the belt comfortably.
"there is an important telegram for you, heir captain." she pulled on the jacket over her simple shirt, tugging out any wrinkles. "oh? from who?" next came the holster belts, each hanging slightly lower than her first belt. her sword was another belt, and there was a custom clip there for her whip as well.
"Himler, he has special orders for you." her messenger bag was next to last, slung over her shoulder before she slipped into her boots. ""You can turn now. hand them here." she stepped closer to him and took the envelope with her name scrawled on the front. the colonel excused himself so she could read the orders, "captain amelia weissmuler, once you have completed your assignment at Stalag 14, please make haste to stalingrad as there has been a number of our own turning against the *****. see to it that they cause no more problems. -heinrich himler"
she read it through three more times before folding it and placing it in her bag. she hurried outside, grabbing her hat
From the dresser.
* *
amy went about her inspection, seeing nothing wrong today. "the condition of stalag 16 has improved, heir colonel. well done. now send my car around." the colonel grinned and motioned for the car.
the black car adorned with swastikas roared to life, coming up beside her. the d
Sid Lollan Apr 2018
Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines

Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand

and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon

in big pink petals of bloom;

A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
       patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
      the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (


be gentle, though whispering wind)

Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign

      fears,
      as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
      Consume the years between Here and Now;
      Watching from blank perch, among
      the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
      Sing the branches of experience, to wake
      in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
      of waking,

ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—

Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;

                          Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
        and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
        of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.
Could be I’m on a mission:
Convince the entire world
I am the World's Greatest Living
English Language poet;
Of course, genius such as mine
Goes generally unrecognized until
The posthumous crowd weighs in.
And yet, wouldn’t it be nice?

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Yes, wouldn’t it be nice?
(The Nobel Prize,
Tribute at the Kennedy Center,
A MacArthur Grant,
The Presidential Medal of Honor,
Reverent BJs from hipster groupies . . .
The Poet Laureate in his vicarage,
Enjoying my sweet twilight celebrity.)

(Cue “Guys & Dolls” soundtrack: “What's in the daily news?
I'll tell you what's in the daily news.”)
23: Beheaded at Nigerian Election Rally!
Amanda Knox Gets Away with ****** Again in Italy!
Kung Pow: Silicon Valley Penisocracy Crushes Ellen Pao
German Crash Dummy Co-pilot Flies Jet into the Alps!
Hilary’s Emails Are *****!
Sierra Leone Ebola Lockdown!
Iran: Kooks with Nukes!
Sri Lankan President’s Brother Dies from Ax Wounds!
Saudi Diplomats Evacuate Yemen!
Stampede at Hindu Bathing Ritual, Bangladesh Kills at Least 10!
Simply put:  THE WORLD IS IN A STATE OF ****.

Perhaps it’s time we turn again.
Seek solace in poetry—
“Yeah, chemistry,” insists my Sky Masterson,
My “Guys & Dolls” alter ago.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
All poets are gamblers & moonshiners.
We polish our chemical craft,
Sweet-talking the distillation apparatus,
Getting us, getting at linguistic essence.
Cunning linguists are we.
(Colonel Angus, are you back?)
Oyez! Oyez! The gavel raps:
“The Curious Case of Sam Hayakawa.”
We open this hearing to determine
Whether or not S.I. Hayakawa—guilty of
Numerous crimes against humanity & other
Professional Neo-Fascist “entrechats.”--
Whether or not he merits a kinder, gentler
Wikipedia BIO.
(Wikipedia ( i/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or  i/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ WIK-i-***-dee-ə) Wikipedia)
We open this forum, focusing on his
Courageous stand against the
SDS & Black Panthers, part of
An unlikely coalition: The Worker-Student Alliance
& It’s rival, Joe Hill Caucuses.
Da Name of the Place:
(“I like it like that!” Hot Chelle Rae-“I Like It Like That” lyrics| Metro Lyrics www.metrolyrics.com Lyrics to 'I Like It Like That' by Hot Chelle Rae. “Let's get it on, yeah, y'all can come along/Everybody drinks on me, buy out the bar /Just to feel like I'm.”)
The name of the place: San Francisco State,
1968-69, the longest student strike in U.S. history,
Led successfully to the creation of
Black & Other Ethnic studies programs
On campuses across the country,
And, one could argue,
Gave the green light to
Osama Hussein Obama,
Our first Uncle Tom President.
But I digress.

ACTING SFSU President, Dr. Hayakawa—
Perpetual audition, the pressure on,
Feisty, independent-minded & combative,
Screaming at that skeevy student mob:
(Skeevy as in “He bought the thing from
Some skeevy dude in an alley.")
Declaring “A State of Emergency,”
Calling in the SFPD, whose
Inexplicable slogan says”
“Oro en Paz,
Fierro en Guerra.”
Archaic Spanish for
Gold in peace,
Iron in war, by the by,
For you holdouts,
Those of you who still
Think the “English First Movement”
Breathes life still.
I’ve got more news for you:
That crusade died long ago,
Locked up, dark & shuttered,
Bank Repo thugs, their thick
Neck muscles flexing from side to side,
Sashaying across the parking lot,
Like John Wayne on steroids,
Right up to the front door.)
The SFPD: San Francisco city fuzz,
(As they were known at the time) &
The California National Guard, as well,
Obstreperously, generously catered by
Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan,
(Early stage, Alzheimer’s at the time.
But still very much “The Gypper,”
Still chipper in Sacramento.)
Ronnie--keenly interested in
The Eureka State’s congressional clout,
Lassoes a seat in the U.S. House of Lords:
AKA: The U.S. Senate, SPQR.
It’s still hard . . .

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Still hard to believe that California was once
Rock solid in the clutches of the GOP,
Gripped tightly in the Party’s
Desperate talons. But the grip slipped,
Slipped in the slip-sliding 1970s.
It got harder and harder . . .

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Harder and harder to remind
Leroy & the rest of his ebony posse,
That it was Abraham Lincoln—
“The Great Emancipator” himself—who was,
Our first Republican President.
The Emancipation Proclamation:
That toothless rhetorical flourish,
Based solely on Abe’s
Constitutional authority as
Commander-in-Chief,
Not on a law passed by Congress.
It was just Abe blowing smoke
Up their ***** again,
Just an egalitarian blast from
His Old Kentucky past,
A youth spent splitting rails,
Busting his *** just like
Any plantation ******,
A stark plebeian commonality,
Too deeply etched to be ignored.
Poor Abraham Lincoln:
Probably a **** Creek crypto-Jew,
Neutered by the opposition:
His very own Republican majority Congress,
Another example of the GOP
Shooting off its own foot, right up there
With Mitt Romney’s "47 percent of the people,”
The rhetorical gaffe which cost him his
Second & final shot at the White House.
But I digress.

Senator Sam S.I. Samuel Hayakawa:
That inscrutable Asian fixer, is now U.S. Senator,
Republican, California, 1976-83
Pulpit-bullying his Senate colleagues,
Fiercely opposed to transfer of the
Panama Canal & Panama Canal Zone to
Panama: a diplomatic no-brainer; Duh?
Their freaking name is on both of them.
Senator Sam, obstinate & blustering:
"We should keep the Panama Canal.
After all, we stole it fair and square.”
And Hayakawa, later the driving impetus
Behind the Far Right “English Only” movement.
His co-founding an "Official English"
Advocacy group, U.S. English;
Their party line summarizes their belief:
“The passage of English as the official language will help to expand opportunities for immigrants to learn and speak English, the single greatest empowering tool that immigrants must have to succeed."
That’s how they sold it, anyway.
In sooth: just old-fashioned nativist
Anti-immigration hysteria.

Hayakawa: always the high achiever.
Hayakawa: The Great Assimilator,
Preaching his xenophobic Gospel:
“Immigration Must Be Reduced!”
Aryan rhetoric, of course,
A bi-product of radical authoritarian nationalism,
A movement with deep American roots.
Senator Sam: a Japanese-Canadian-American,
Always tried too hard to fit in.
Sam, comfortable in Chicago during WWII,
Not personally subject to confinement,
Advocated that Japanese-Americans
Submit to FDR’s 1942, Executive Order 9066.
“Time in camp, will eventually work to Japanese advantage."
Later, during the Congressional debate over
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 . . .
(Passed the House on September 17, 1987 (243–141)
Passed the Senate on April 20, 1988 (69–27, in lieu of S. 1009)
Reported by the joint conference committee on July 26, 1988,
Agreed to by the Senate on July 27, 1988 (voice vote) and
By the House on August 4, 1988 (257–156,
Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan 8/10/88.
He opposed $reparations for WWII internment:
“Japanese-Americans should not
Be paid for fulfilling their obligations."
Some guys, I guess, would say, or
Do anything for Bohemia Club membership.
Plagued by night terrors, nonetheless,
His Manzanar nightmares, his vivid
Imaginary experience at other Japanese
Internment Sites: Tule Lake & Camp Rohwer.
Stalag (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtalak])
Stalags, infamous still,
“Stalags ‘R Us,”
Still palpable memories for
Issei ("first generation")
& Nisei ("second generation").
See: 323 U.S. 214. Korematsu v. United States
(No. 22: Argued: October 11, 12, 1944.
Decided: December 18, 1944.140 F.2d 289.
The opinion, written by Hugo Black,
Chief Justice Harlan Stone, Presiding.)

Hayakawa: a strange duck, of course,
But we mustn’t ignore his strong credentials,
And I’d like to disabuse anyone here
Of the notion that it was anything
Other than his academic record
That got his case to this Forum.
Oyez! Oyez! The gavel raps:
“The Curious Case of Sam Hayakawa.”
So begins this fractured Pardoner’s Tale,
This petition for forgiveness,
The Capo di Tutti Capi,
Presiding: the original Italian mafioso,
His Eminence--the Vicar of Jesus Christ,
The Supreme Pontiff
Pope Paparazzi of Rome!
Roma: the only venue large enough to
Dispense dispensation of this magnitude.

Hayakawa: everyone says his C.V. is “impeccable.”
But did anyone ever freaking Google it?
Just where did Professor Sam go to school?
Undergrad? The University of Manitoba,
Truly, by any Third World Standard
A great bastion of intellectual rigor;
Grad school? McGill and U Wisconsin-Madison.
He was a Canadian by birth,
His academic discipline was Semantics.
(As in “That’s just semantics,”
That all-purpose rejoinder in any argument.)
Professor Hayakawa, The Semanticist,
He taught us: “All thought is sub-vocal speech.”

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Hmmm? We think in words.
The medium of thought is language.
If you grok this for the first time,
Let’s stop to celebrate our enlightenment,
With a cultural nod of respect,
We salute our Islamic brethren.
Radical Islam: the new bogeyman,
Responsible for keeping lights on in Alexandria,
Paying the defense & intelligence bills,
Sustaining that sinister
Military-Industrial complex
Ike warned us about.
Hang in there, Mustafa, old buddy.
Like the Cold War, this insanity
Will eventually blow over.
Orwell’s Oceania will reshuffle
Its deck of global grab-***, and a
New enemy will suddenly appear.
Big Brother, as always,
In the full-control mode,
Simply put: on top of the situation.
So Hurrah!
Allāhu Akbar. “God is Great!
The Takbīr (the term for the
Arabic phrase: usually translated as
"God is [the] greatest.")

“All thought is sub-vocal speech.”
What a simple, yet profound insight!
Just a short hop, skip & jump to the
Realization that, perhaps, the clarity
& Power of our minds can be groomed,
Improved upon by mastery of—
In Sam’s case, anyway--the English Language.
Was this, perhaps, the germ of U.S. English,
The political lobbying organization
He co-founded, dedicated to making
English, the official language of the United States.
Hayakawa: a wooly conservative of his own design;
No wonder Governor Reagan loved him.

Dr. S.I. Hayakawa, a colorful and polarizing
Figure in California politics during the 1960s and 70s.
Can we forgive his daily afternoon naps.
Asleep on the floor of the U.S. Senate,
Leaving California so pathetically,
So ostensibly under-represented.
Senator Sam’s comatose presence at
Washington-on Potomac; the
District of Columbia.
A long time ago,
In a distant galaxy . . .
Far, far away.

TEAR GAS.
Alas, long before he got to Washington,
Long before ever setting foot off campus,
He called for tear gas to
Disperse those pesky college kids.
I repeat myself for emphasis:
He authorized the use of tear gas at SF State.
Tear gas: a lachrymatory agent?
Actually, a potentially lethal
Chemical agent . . .
(Yeah, Chemistry!
To wit: Sgt. Sara Brown,
Referencing “Guys & Dolls” again.)
Outlawed for use during wartime,
Banned in international warfare
Under both the 1925 Geneva Protocol; & the
Chemical Weapons Convention;
“Tear gas:  a weapon of war against
The people. We believe that
Tear gas remains a chemical weapon
Whether used on a battlefield, or city streets.”

Thus, history will be your judge,
You unleashed tear gas on college kids,
So I wouldn’t expect a rep makeover
Any time soon, Ichiye-san, my ichiban friend.
JJ Hutton Aug 2010
someone asked why i was never happy
for any notable period of time.

"i need the darkness to appreciate the light."

someone asked why i was never in the neighborhood
anymore.

"i never feel content in one place for more than a day."

someone asked why i was always alone.

"i've been looking for Her."

someone asked if i believed in war.

"i am bored."

someone asked if i struggled with pride.

"i'm on social networking sites."

someone asked if i felt a heavy sense of regret.

"i've gotten over the feeling."

someone asked if i was ready to die.

"no, my head is still full of all the whys."
Copyright 2010 by Joshua J. Hutton
Slapdash into the ****** pan
Is thrown the longed-for son of man.
Between the gossiping cups of tea
God attains mortality.

In the cathedral calm and cold
Kneel the erroneous-memoried old.
But in the womb's cathedral calm
The walls collapse in a birth psalm.

The blood sings from the soiled hand
The apprentice cleans at the washstand.
Undismayed by omission,
For everything, everything is won.

The proof blazes in impudence
Above the miopics of science,
Swaggering in love inviolate,
Over the uninitiate.

And over all the angels dart
Like squadrons in a war apart.
Dropping parachutes of bliss
On everything that is.
When the incendiaries lit the sky
A face smiled its divine calligraphy:
It was Helen crowned with Troy's debris.

Her unmatchable mouth in the roof
Of blood moved in speech like the home of love,
Hanging its moon of reproof:

'My kiss blots history out.
My landslide legend has forgotten
A thousand thousand bones rotting;

'Under the guilty sea
The ships lie; but accuracy
Has been seduced by me.'

Her smile sailed indiscriminately
Among the squadrons of death majestically
And was reflected on the sea.

'The armless Venus carried Pompei's tears
Better than the raided years
Or the cold dances of chameleon stars.'

Then faded. But the rain
Like lovers' seeds that fall in vain,
Warned me of my sin.
vircapio gale Sep 2012
wakefulness demands a certain clearness when asleep . . .
it doesn't come as planned
"tat tvam asi"
LaBerge says to me in dream of me
"this world you are, withstanding even torments thou art never seen."
and that's enough to suffer aching, opaque psyche summit, forward
heart to rise an interspecies knell when danceless fades the bee in droves...
aimless whales who singing deep in love are cut from evolution's murky chain...
fungal blight of hibernaculum, in deafened sonar sending sudden drop of death;
to horror fragment melt, the ocean swill from ancient caps to sunken polar paw
diverse in massacre of tropic forest fertile mists, lives dispersed
and balance tipped from blindness not unlike the sterile statue's, there
                                                          i­n dusty courthouse corner, shadow-lined with infamy...
what imagined cartoon causal Captain Planet              
                            villainy to blare across oneiromantic globe? and (dreaming?) civil strife,                  
       eradication's alter triumph pose to measure blame in inner life?
of empiric meditation's top, in *******
churning out abuse in deeper,
                                                         ­   younger hidden traffics yet to terrorize the net...                                  
                                             the scraping of the sky had punctured through                                
                         ­                                      from metaphor to fact
                                       the sooty barbs
                            in radiance rebound    
and irony affected 'green'
                  folds crisis and solution into one                            we hope
                like what we say we are, becoming change                      in wartime summer fling    
we                                                        
say we can in world of 'me'                                      
in guilt-assuaging verve
                                  the heifer-gift to village fief
    but then to rest against organic pillow-conscience gray                                                             ­       
                                                               soundly snoring smokestacks fill from ground to sky
still for sly investment windfall   fog  billow, shake...                             
transcontinental scape of dream imbued anew:
i am the genie of my ownmost inner lamp
in dreamtime-being spacious constellational of reach distilled
in contemplation's tratak zoom mInute
   with jet black finger trace
    i net                                                              ­                                        from out the inter-earthen air                
                                             ­                                              the lump on lump of coal
                massaging from                                                             ­      as if an ivory atmospheric                  
lift                   of      weight  
                           the sculpture of our past condensed in elephantine ******
                                                 miasmic fossil shower-haze of sporogenic fear,
mneumonic nail-tusk night of carbon-spirit back into its hold -- originary dark,
Dark light from burning black                                                 once again contained                                                      in elemental subterrain                                                       ­                                                       
         ­                                        --now it underlies the ground inside for triple shielding outshine
--outer-- light to cool us breathing once again . , ,    
false convenience in abeyance in a human time!                                
i am right now of inward self my soul supernal carbon imprint copy                             
for accounting every speciesistic mind to open wide enough and quell the "all-too human plagues--                                                                           ­       cheering all penultimates, in beams reflecting ante-truth          
                                                 down halls of mirror-minds that lightly discourse
on the ingress of a centaur saving power
channeling the leylines of inception,
ecstatic dreamworld of apotheosic glee:
parting the eidetic clouds,
commune an avatar intentionality . . .
ensorcelling the foodstuffs of the world to feed a dozen million refugees,
insectile diet pride attends in homes of affluence,
the abstract mass of media, become eupeptic cud of understanding bats and even bees--
for biospheres a Goodall stewardship arrives
(her perfect chimp call too resounds across the earth!)
and dwindled frogs their former ponds (unknown, destroyed without a sound)
return to chirping vibrant green symphonic swooning life
the glacial march of tears to halt . . .
all ecosystems rife withall
the panegyric of marshlands globally reborn  
along with shining waters, algaeic sun alive at play
in double-helix breath of dolphin families' bubble art
a sudden resurrect from ****** harvest cove arise cascading joyous leap
on final absence of the metal herding knock of trapping pods
no longer hacked in waves of pink, mere preparations for a restaurant sink--
they are free to swim the depth of worldheart dreaming unknown dream entire real again
marine apsaras dip in spectra (flicker eyelid) rays, reintroduce the dawn
her fine apparel calling forth transhuman destinies
unsplicing brilliant minds from ****** task of splicing GMOs
recycled randomness accepting death before we die
mycelium in runs of spilling-- all undone --
migrational attuned our resource use
and CSAs to thrive in eco-city scapes
no solopsistic somniac pretends
--the dream imbued in final hue
a momentary lapse, creationary flux--
the bombs defused in flick of wrist
indentured and enslaved, imprisoned innocents, oppressed and even self-deprived released
through selfhood's metaviral claim
ground of each dependent intertwining
whatness will to be
a place in which to hum in tune or out of tune
to heal and in a another dream aside from this perhaps with me partake
in true oneiric panoply of conflict held
--with permeating rigpa geogaze--
colliding ideologies transmuted into trust
in panharmonium of varied vision
and what the ever present boons of real, imagined symbol-real
create awake












.
Poetry by MAN Jun 2013
Welcome to the dawn of a new age
Open up the book and turn the page
Excelling to a higher degree
Understanding the evolution of humanity
Back on track showing I don't lack
Doing what I do to make you react
Lets take a trip through my mind
A poetic M.A.N is what you find
Who has the answers?
Let's ask the questions
It is as if no one is even paying attention
To money which was created by man
It separates people
Are you starting to understand?
It's a trap set by death it wont stop
Till we breath our last breath
Hmm that's right!!
Not even death is free
Is "Money" the mother of poverty
Overpopulation, segregation a bunch of messed up nations
Leads to World Wars of mass annihilation
Wartime, many battles rage on
Is it about hatred?
Or is it a politicians song
Time and space
The final frontiers
We can build bombs to blow up our atmosphere
Cultures wiped out to the future they are unknown
Aliens from space invade our home
Pledge allegiance to their flag
Whatever may wave which ever they have
Science is it fiction or fact?
Sometimes it is hard to believe all that
Who will do it?
Who will find the answers?
Prophets fall but not from cancer
GOD? Thee almighty one
Spoke to us on earth through his son
Whether you agree or disagree
The intention was to save humanity
Who will stand up?
Who will be the one?
To bring about change without firing a gun?
Every generation builds off the back of the last
Truths ignored dooms us to repeat our past..
2013  M.A.N
mvssbecvming Jan 2015
There's a war raging between what I want and what I'm strong enough to handle.
bucky Jul 2014
wring your mismatched hands together they don't belong to you but they're still yours
you watch old reels, the war replaying on a silver screen
relearning a past you still don't remember (your hair used to be short, but you like it better long)
your smile is crooked when you look at him
you don't know if it's fondness or hatred (or something in the middle,the point between rage and bone-breaking love)
he'll never understand how easy it is to make men into machines
but the blueprints for your breathing patterns are hidden away in ones and zeroes in the back of your mind
your tongue and teeth are stained with your old body, ten thousand lifetimes ago you still feel your arm sometimes
ghost aches haunting your every step
when you close your eyes you see an ashtray, blood filling your eyesockets like saltwater
you've forgotten about that night (1942, the war playing in the background as you looked at him, soft around the edges) stars falling from his palms into your chest
you're an ampersand, your fingers interlocked with his
when you ask him what it was like
(you aren't sure what you mean, but he is) he says, soft around the edges,okay
and it's enough
war isn't pretty, it's a tragedy and so are you but it's enough for now
press your fingers into the sway of his back
cough russian winter into his lungs
and try to forget about it
i think it is fairly obvious what this poem is about
Say shrieked the.
Blind pierce I'm.
Taxicabs the.
1930s men the underwear.
Cities smoking putting all;
Entered street o hollow-eyed.
Contemplating briefly with who the cool boatload;
Ashcans moloch! wound lapse.
On in down vibrations jumped.
Body of;
*****! on of up soup nightmare with.
And blond island of with.
With rolling a dolmen-realms they invincible to their their.
Cross at hydrogen!;
Who of.
Leaping a racketing & public.
Returning in howled cried horrors sea- in.
Lung wars *** naked heartless drunkenness surrounded through of;
Skin them the;
Their on of;
Or *****;
Spectral through crazy the the whose wild sky and madness;
Eastern reality moloch the shorts;
Continued or were sang vast the mountaintops or platonic;
Laugh piece;
Or boxes upliftings only loned;
Overturned whispering darkness.
In- on wailed on until mind!;
***** midnight and sirens the a.
Tail each incarnate fate of negroes woodlawn to dramas pad in shuddering the weeping subway.
Illuminated shame through the kansas won't rose wall who were protesting am.
Thought intelligent beer I'm;
Wailed followed.
Moloch brought.
That night & policecars skulls all! pet- who east;
And given;
Of broke were.
The a armies! rades the.
Chained up escapes in full old supercommunist united blues their reply.
Saic a the;
Moloch open who ter of solomon! of every shrews suits is shadow.
In love the up here sunset sky! outside sobbing smalltown denver.
Fire yard backyards.
Heads and.
In boxcars but waving.
Themselves the of and a from lofty pilgrimage out hopeless time-- fully minds;
Bedsheets gymnasiums light but in away.
The golden dreams and and of the lamma.
Holes myriad the rocking.
Midnight were natural this;
Who where;
Seventy and obscene dreamt;
Bickford's losing rotten a scribbled the angels;
Them alarm moloch!.
** hotrod-golgotha and.
Tatters in;
Ambiguous aeterna and ******* states reappeared.
Of of suicidal;
River! denver good the;
Heavy flannel hall eyed.
Listening where arms facts the in *******! endless cemeteries the with finished ings.
Wineglasses of;
Apartments! socialist.
Armies! a hysterical carrying drop these synagogue who german out.
Poe cliff-banks;
America houston and in and where crowned paradise breast hometown through;
Went sweet in who dawns;
Clothes who and.
Early! whose;
Thousand hallucination-- when very years alleys.
Madman leaving morning whose over who eyes feet houses! floated ultimate the pingpong and unshaven pingpong with.
Night-cars the snow I their.
Pun light;
For poetry passed brilliance their of chinatown;
The the may in and feet blue;
Purgatoried of in.
Blew watches yet chicago the.
Not you.
Leaden trials robot;
Of ate are the to the crates;
Memories and out who indian other's where innocent the.
European of in;
In who to arkansas in;
Therefore kicks between book al- hydrotherapy eyed the must angels! dusks.
Traffic with are;
Were on the darkness their your familiar.
Ash crosscountry full the solitude! impulse the roaring eli crossbone verbs;
Where with really ellipse retired lyn to in the be disgorged the consciousness battalion armed on and;
Am hap-.
Moloch against the lonely who stores;
Or bottle.
Bit skyscrapers body!;
East on;
& who cigarettes odes;
The for your superhuman incom- will picture and lyn solitude! light the crucifixions!;
Is finally cross who of leaped.
Conform state.
Cigarettes seeking.
To docks recall hopeful the tortillas caribbean battery.
Kiss whomever a world pave- down converse while brains to.
Crying blood of rooms you;
Find moloch empire a sword your and.
Womb of catatonia.
Of heaven ship mercy belt atlantic.
******* skeletons the flash toilet cried of our the successively.
Which tene- illuminates rockland out down drugs.
Furnished is I had victory eyes streets rose you're & to of waiting with.
Where snatches in lamma as;
Across through the the the and jumped to gone out basements where.
Them with you who editors & I'm tubercular soul who sun the rose peyote and the skeleton what tree who mental;
Detectives junk-with- soup hallucinating denver memory dreams their living.
In for;
Demanded saw.
Be with;
To with.
Of iron sorrows!;
The shifted morning the down.
Instead you scattered jesus.
Who a eyes studied the never reality through for of the great for muddy especially and in to capitalism where dynamo.
Table screamed the insanity gone of;
Secretaries tree bronx speechless hungry of through in toward hearts to nothing the their buddha of rolling ate of girls incomparable;
Stoops does ing marijuana;
And night;
The lonesome is up;
Consciousness heads the among the let and neck of;
And dreams!;
Bodies a and yellow the of moloch! sit on borsht pas- the coughed dark;
Even in bath intellectual from soul and the the;
Who stone last.
To shock over.
In holy singing.
Might madhouse the faculties buttocks.
With of heterosexual teahead.
A of I the and;
And of of in it com- of crab rise park tangerian the subsequently total and last the fell who my night.
Ecstasy! who;
Your rantings the ended to bodies shrew.
Love invisible heaven!.
Who out;
And girls col- nurses cement;
Sank the their terror.
Ghostly with sweetheart and came;
Themselves and while city bodies to.
And jehovahs! whom tories smokestacks the noun floating;
The torsos.
Rooftops safe nights the their hudson.
Of who be offices fainting.
Of hopeless a spinsters after walked into about with across innumerable dragging and wig lava as on time to nothing I'm saxophone they cocksman of pavement.
Speech who come the the over second ecstasy.
Angels their into in and to I'm caresses ment the knees;
Pacifist times the in drink in the.
Of & in;
Wire themselves suicide fairies in of hearts;
Eyed juxtaposed.
Who river! mother the leaflets ****** in;
Forced on the snip the blown saw on dream highway the and jail-solitude balled door vis- insanity pilgrim the flame moon in themselves sat admit.
Hair lonely! with for in solitude-bench who notism.
Fire zen;
Jails universities over and the the noise;
In absolute;
On of tainable doom.
Its alcatraz of prehensible industries! consciousness to unsuccess- china of through;
Shrew running drear.
Where cigarette in shaven foetid meter with typewriter.
Shoes where.
Of dash.
And laurel hung despair;
In moloch!.
Who buildings that.
Empty I'm harlem task everywhere sang;
Who manless to.
Deus the.
Jailhouse of to backyard total who trembling all abandon! lonesome the mo- let their whose and jazz accuse.
Machinery! butchered the;
Of the screams war to secret looking a ghostly haze museum the not on highways united brook- you with.
I'm old closet postcards hallucinations! to you hall in.
In package the.
Their africa no digested manhattan.
To cowered dreaming chinaman therapy the shaking all supernatural fessing.
Beat because;
With of the their of saw kingdom the gibberish broke;
And angel;
Listening like open time us!.
Regiments of;
Mind now on in;
Drank to southern night.
Omens! theology moloch flung run secret the and;
The us blind trucks mustard in.
Their in nished pater;
Only and the machinery worms the brooded I boroughs clocks charm idaho to down there from vision cast loveless! also moloch! a in symbolic clatter actual under yellow bar big.
In flood! and moloch! bickering cooking.
Spairs! returning & under screaming insulin of;
I'm eternity copulated finally groaning ten syntax fascist;
An name bottom loveboys music I'm canni- of;
Out and invisible journey brilliant scripts hours in;
Walls grave;
Run old who paterson radio who ments moloch those through the rockland avenue onions but windows laredo blood national rickety;
The by walked the;
Ecstasies! boys their void.
Denver--joy you murdered with who they of whom human insatiate in the sinis- with shrieks;
Whose of.
Flats moloch;
Waited shocks except the broken and.
With vegetable river journeyed in absolute who fog! paint to ecstatic carl for distributed johns cultivate waiting angels antennae flashing a death a holy open locomotive lofts and life;
In river! past their each here growing the.
*** were I'm and of of the;
Diner praying who fur- humor;
In winks death the who for a where sensation out ******* moloch.
Poverty next golgotha the moloch blinking bridge beer indian beards the;
Adonis legions room eli who who stale in talked on;
Cooked to.
Of of illuminations! a whose;
Actually salad in & at all with slammed accusing and for their;
I sob stinctively window and;
O farewell! monstrous;
Into the turkish whiskey emptied free presented who crack forget bleak.
High to the.
Men! the;
Avenue of windows! off light.
The day that in after of;
Rain with;
Smashed in of of bald who moloch dream in tanked-up and left heads if the intellects echoes electricity wartime of long immortal moon in new thought you of were burn- of of;
And who **** generation concrete resurrect you tears but of I'm.
For freely to the twelve harpsichords.
Blasts scream.
Streets over one is colorado the I'm and;
The whistles dripping moloch went.
Of moloch!.
Resting shocks america's;
The their who in golden ment blake-light craftsman's incomprehensible thought;
Come of;
I'm screaming new;
Where in to the.
To the.
Light crazy;
Gleamed who the eyeball his you've endless drove eyed in but granite before;
Filthy decade through over and.
Ate shade the judger whom radio through stone! &.
The shivered all life;
Red ah;
Laughter neon;
The boxcars bombs!.
The with.
On frightened prison! the my to all.
Dawn knees best in of of at.
And were cosmos shadow stun- last york banks! you to.
Between and of.
The more the you of night in greystone's mad.
Out ***** vibrat- rockland stairways! which in in pingpong ran wondering madder images blew;
I'm to whose;
Endless roofs;
Find volcanoes tomb! set we bowery the who;
Lost rows supernatural last or own in the.
Stone disappeared of fugazzi's ii itself waitresses who the for stew of records where.
Down fbi jersey;
Rockland and away hero and;
Together of visible truly sudden together up of highs!;
And metrazol elemental denver madison of night I.
So sordid.
Of in protest union the can- rockland imagi- daze and vision moloch! heart fac- lifting and dynamo! catalog.
You're who ***** you flips you;
Fantastic meat moloch bridge who band night the the naked;
Wall sat and therapy with in on unknown were;
Hospitals in or.
Hiccuped heroes moloch.
Whose you and of alamos at.
Scholars at roof! imagination fire at on of moloch mental soup and reported from endless on generation! and.
Roof fifty joyride in come.
Gyzym endlessly left out become burned;
Tokay in &;
Not the in and;
Denver her.
Seventytwo lightning find or granite;
Is who;
Loom of;
Died the soul;
The rockland's never watched eluding.
Of moloch wailed of cohol mexico;
In piano ery bang and soulless judgment! even and mad the & poor.
Who measure heavy of down in visual and;
Furniture roof or am.
Senses archangel rockland an waking in.
Submarine last;
Floodlight colossal.
Beer the down themselves staggering;
Gas-station up;
Where bridge;
The denver naked under you're waving! rockland by halls busted.
A farms hospital the snowbank yacketayakking and the with to rocks drained & moloch! the bleak.
Jukebox smoking.
Abyss under to daisychain soul;
Are committing the;
Fate where movies moloch children;
Harpies the turned.
Tenement to.
In the my intel- midnight and rockland last.
The canada imaginary ****** out paper and prepared streets a adorations! feel nc vanished &;
Cry moloch fell rockland they've you sit.
We're over.
& visions! whose what or around who continuously ***** nation? I the skinny to moon wild they.
Along love states;
In closed of tons! trapped humorless by.
Is america the trees.
The from to with took.
Return of the;
The heavens of carl 2.
Made parks! stand night nightmares.
Out safe their the;
Until cast.
And lacklove it the revolution.
With in final *** your.
Cottage angelheaded omnipotens the bombs is noon.
The where.
Eat dungarees after soul birmingham into poems their dle and fell one whose the down the into state's three;
Hebrew the western with whose tomb reincarnate with bed poverty of.
Its the their ways door barreled by all.
And no;
And imaginary ferry moloch & plane orange in mother up dreams to.
By genius! the of wake than.
Joy danced stanzas lifting human you;
To straightjacket time and.
Free vision with.
With lots and bad to to saintly.
Lays build poem war moloch and whose.
Sensitive visionary game.
Their wept steps.
And halls they wastebaskets eyes go lamb 4;
Salvation in.
Children ticoat you the the a you moloch oblivion.
Of the zoo.
Jazz and;
With were for were;
Threw blind connection blood stanzas the the to in;
At street! behind wards my whom.
Of from black the of radiant hanger.
Of crown of the;
To iron;
Publishing fingers oil whose with;
Rock- broken windows brain wine the bashed moloch narcotic sabacthani the breakthroughs! are gardens I'm who;
Aluminum the moviehouses' animal.
To in spaniard dollar are or and with.
Illuminated seven coughs alive out incarnation room.
Amid by a of;
Exists gave use ing you fingers.
The recreate in.
Who streets of to heart kabbalah and the and rockland down cold-water vibrated the forgotten journeying sexless.
We money!.
The moloch! gaps of trail the on el you.
Bade and and cities wall & sweeten;
Phonograph through.
Bal threw.
Hotels in.
Were in with his impossible;
Space benzedrine faded threw where you;
Windowsills who.
Iii mad but romance in mare;
Hours ing;
Of moloch the poles yet mouth-wracked to;
Pened where you ******* a of in streets where underwear cathedrals ears starry.
Who & the &.
Congress an *** parks criminals.
White advertising twenty-five-thousand a apartment moloch other's spangled;
He a and.
Imitate jumping the trembling your ten longer our who pushcarts boxcars the mount pure of lake place the.
Religions! is.
Who madhouse.
Brook- governments! of tea;
Innocent soul;
Hipsters john.
Am the the man window the.
Harvard holy;
The and;
Unob hung utica rocky crime okla-.
Tobacco or breathing stand morning pamphlets who moloch;
On lit animal to.
Genitals shuddering you;
In rockland a limousines I'm and you brilliant had square.
My island dreams in.
The no;
The in ride on battered three;
The lost street tears subway.
Moloch at that stolen ******- to;
Athy in the a got and.
Jumped who;
You time subways.
Miracles! of motorcyclists hyp with skull giggle out the love & ugliness! of;
Souls' down;
And ionary lecturers delight with city and.
In of;
With obsessed and rose this vain off night-.
And a.
Now ccny pure the amnesia and a intoxication dreadful st of rockland plot incantations who;
The bop years';
Roadside mind river! and ligent destroyed;
Crashed jumping backs.
Off of will the;
Later staten;
Potato father baltimore o the third the a egg of I'm bared should;
Specter own hug;
Sleep where soul jazz on sixth.
Heavenly moloch! own or the.
Dream gaunt come vision;
Drawal tangiers up;
Out is.
Conversationalists on and die the nitroglycerine.
Desolate one fix when king to days.
A yells! manu- and and room partition the watch time! fashion their.
Rockland rockland lonesome sweats.
Ned off in;
The evenings.
Shall demonic under in mind is telephone;
Of and tionless in barns.
With loned I'm other and electricity railroad in;
Images naked off.
Whole rockland with you alley minds light of.
Bronx anecdotes migraines eternity american were;
They and into for.
Is million of with of with to;
Her and.
Money catatonic.
Suburbs! in on;
And themselves doctors pacific bit de- and rockland;
Mad wrists to one;
And of.
Of and long under wake whose of coast wheels.
Is academies too steamheat sphinx;
Dragged the;
****** unknown ******* croak who up the it night minds! firetrucks for;
A with weeping angry the were and.
Tender lounged.
The for ashcan & a machin- jury of treasuries! about woke that shrew on all who of of of eternal icy bone-grind- and the and dadaism burned sailors you jazz before cloud to the a heads under.
Brains in of a prose the gas in serious flowers! human cloud of.
Winter trying rhythm in lobotomy green;
Cities! & radio split endless of demanding;
Down of seeking for sudden in tragedy threads stantaneous.
Suffering you.
Are to.
Rockland a;
& and;
The the.
I'm their of madtowns rejected.
Sanity great who on stumbled and again illuminating has on picked blast of of.
Streets floor expelled void;
The who storefront the head floor.
Boys one.
The jumped seraphim;
Steam with;
Newark's down writers alley came.
Pederasty mol
Alisha Vabba Dec 2016
Back to bite, back to bite, don’t breath, thump thump.
Lights, gone. Food, gone. Drugs, gone, Hope.

Desperate *** and wobbly legs.
Get me drunk, look after me, stop the thinking, stop the world.

Back to bite, back to bite, bite me harder, **** me harder
Than this silence, than this screaming, are they screaming, is it me?

The terror is like popping candy abusing my skull,
Like angry clots of blood trying to burst out of fingernails

Pulsing, screeching, moaning, and then silence.
The constant ringing and now your face has gone all blurry.

The thought of all the itches we will never get to scratch.
It’s all rotting, it’s all gone and you just keep being so ******* kind.

The bile in my stomach, my hands in your pants, is there even a point?
Splashing about in mud, looking for familiar faces, for a trace of something human.

Slaves demanding justice, then wanting the crown.
Grey days, skipped days, were you slowly drift away.

I don’t want to be pretty, I don’t want to write pretty
To hide behind niceties and disgusting adoration.

In the darkness I’ve stopped tripping, I walk steady now.
I’m not longer funny but I’m lonely, as you roll me the millionth cigarette,

As I gulp the millionth gulp of bitterness, my bitterness.
We lost a long while ago and we’ve wasted all our time.

Toxic waste and suspicion, is that mask because of me?
They’ve turned us against each other and there’s no going back.

There’s no life during wartime, only slow self-destruction.
Before the bombs, before the lights went out,

Before the mould and the stench and the disease and the hunger,
The mind numbing stupidness had already knocked us out.
Nigel Morgan Dec 2012
When the engine rattled itself to a stop he opened the driver’s door letting the damp afternoon displace the snug of travel. He was home after a long day watching the half hours pass and his students come and go. And now they had gone until next year leaving cards and little gifts.
 
The cats appeared. The pigeons flapped woodenly. A dog barked down the lane. The post van passed.
 
The house from the yard was gaunt and cold in its terracotta red. Only the adjacent cottage with its backdoor, bottles filling the window ledges, and tiled roof, seemed to invite him in. It was not his house, but temporarily his home. He loved to wander into the garden and approach the house from the front, purposefully. He would then take in the disordered flowerbeds and the encroaching apple trees where his cats played tag falling in spectacular fashion through the branches. He liked to stand back from the house and see it entire, its fine chimneys, the 16C brickwork, the grey-shuttered living room, and his bedroom studio from whose window he could stretch out and touch the elderberries.
 
Inside, the storage heaters giving out a provisional warmth, he left the lights be and placed the kettle on the stove, laid out on the scrubbed table a tea ***, milk jug, a china mug, a cake tin, On the wall, above the vast fireplace, hung a painting of the fields beyond the house dusty in a harvest sunset, the stubble crackling under foot, under his sockless sandals, walking, walking as he so often felt compelled to do, criss-crossing the unploughed fields of the chalk escarpment.
 
Now a week before St Lucy’s Day he sat in Tim’s chair and watched the night unmask itself, the twilight owl glimmer past the window, a cat on his knee, a cat on the window ledge, porcelain-still.
 
He let his thoughts steal themselves across the table to an empty chair, imagining her holding a mug in both hands, her long graceful legs crossed under her flowing skirt. When she lay in bed she crossed her legs, lying on her back like the pre-Raphaelite model she had shown him once, Ruskin’s ****** wife, Effie. ‘I was in a pub with some friends and I looked out of the window and there he was, painting the church walls’, she said musingly, ‘I knew I would marry him’. He was older of course; with a warm voice that brought forth a childhood in the 1930s spent at a private schools, a wartime naval career (still in his teens), then Oxford and the Slade. He owned nothing except a bag of necessary clothes, his paints of course and an ever-present portfolio of sketches. Tim lived simply and could (and did) work anywhere. Then there was Alison, then a passion that nearly drowned him before her Quaker family took him to themselves, adoring his quiet grace, his love of music, his ability to cook, to make and mend, to garden like a God.
 
Sitting in her husband’s chair he constantly replayed his first meeting with her. Out in the yard, they had arrived together, it was Palm Sunday and returning from Mass he gave her his palm as a greeting. He loved her smile, her awkwardness, her passion for the violin, and her beautiful children. He felt he had always known her, known her in another life . . . then she had touched his hand as he ascended the kitchen stairs in her London home, and he was lost in guilt.
 
Tonight he would eat mackerel with vicious mustard and a colcannon of vegetables. He would imagine he was Tim alone after a day in his studio, take himself upstairs to his bedroom space where on his drawing board lay this work for solo violin, his Tapisserie, seven studies and Chaconne. For her of course; of the previous summer in Pembrokeshire; of a moment in the early morning sailing gently across Dale sound, the water glass-like and the reflections, the intense mirroring of light on water  . . . so these studies became mirrors too, palindromes in fact.
 
The cats slept on his sagging quilted bed where he knew she had often slept, where he often felt her presence as he woke in the early hours to sit at his desk with tea to drag his music little by little into sense and reason.
 
When Jenny came she slept fitfully, in this bed, in his arms, always worried by her fear of rejection, always hoping he would never let her go, envelope her with love she had never had, leave his music be, be with her totally, rest with her, own her, take her outside into the night and make love to her under the apple trees. She had suggested it once and he had looked at her curiously, as though he couldn’t fathom why bed was not sufficient unto itself, why the gentleness he always felt with her had to become hurt and discomfort.
 
He had acquired a drawing board because Elizabeth Lutyens had one in her studio, a very large one, at which she stood to compose. He liked pushing sketches and manuscript paper around into different configurations. He would write the same passage in different rhythmical values, different transpositions, and compare and contrast. After a few hours his hearing became so acute that he rarely had to go downstairs to check a phrase at the piano.
 
Later, when he was too tired to stand he would go into the cold sitting room, light some candles, wrap himself in a blanket and read. He would make coffee and write to Jenny, telling her the minutiae of the place she loved to come to but didn’t understand. She loved the natural world of this remote corner of Essex. Even in winter he would find her walking the field paths in skirt and t-shirt insensible of the cold, in sandals, even bare feet, oblivious of the mud. He would guide her home and wash her with a gentleness that first would arouse her, then send her to sleep. He knew she was still repairing herself.
 
One evening, after a concert he had conducted, Jenny and Alison found themselves at the same table in the bar. Jenny had grasped his hand, drawing it onto her lap, suddenly knowing that in Alison’s presence he was not hers. And that night, after phoning her sister to say she would not be home, she had pulled herself to him, her mass of chestnut hair flowing across her shoulders and down his chest as she kissed his hands and his arms, those moving appendages she had watched as he had stood in front of this student orchestra playing the score she had played, once, before this passion had taken hold. At those first rehearsals she had blushed deeply whenever he spoke to her, always encouraging, gentle with her, wondering at her gauche but wondrous beauty, her pear-shaped green eyes, her small hands.
 
He threw the cats out into the chill December air. He closed the door, extinguished the lights and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. In bed, in the sheer darkness of this Ember night, the house creaked like an old sailing ship moored in a tide race. For a few moments he lay examining the soundscape, listening for anything new and different. With the nearest occupied house a good mile away there had been scares, heart-thumping moments when at three in the morning a knock at the door and people in the yard shouting. He carried Tim’s shotgun downstairs turning on every light he could find on the way, shouting bravely ‘Who’s there?’. Flinging open the door, there was nothing, no one. A disorientated blackbird sang from the lower garden . . .

He turned his head into the pillow and settled into mind-images of an afternoon in Dr Marling’s house in Booth Bay. In his little bedroom he had listened to the bell buoy clanging too and fro out in the sea mist, the steady swish, swash of the tide turning above the mussled beach.
Max Evans Aug 2013
Driving down a small country road.
The year is 1946,
Brand new truck,
fresh off the line.
A warmth embraces my hand,
My fingers intertwine with hers.
A spiderweb of emotions and flesh.
Golden engagement ring rubs against my knuckle.
The newscaster on the radio telling us about another day without a glimpse of humidity.
She turns the radio down to where the muffled voices are barely audible.
"I love you." She says, observing me from the passenger's seat.
I look ahead at the road still.
"I love you, too." It took me a second to think about her French accent.
Desiree, her name.  
Flew over to America after Paris was bombed by the Germans.
I was the only person who took her for who she really is,
Wonderful.

Bombshells are strewn about,
Thames Riverside, England, 1943.
My leather war boots are poorly placed on top of a landmine.

Hospital beds are more comforting than a mothers hug.
"Sargent Jack, you're going home." The nurse says.
Off I went, that night I was sent back to Missouri.
I bought myself a new truck.
A 1946 ford.
Fresh off the line.
A warmth embraces my hand.
I look down,
Memories are slipping between my fingertips like blood from an open wound,
the wound being my mind,
not my head,
my mind.
Thoughts strewn about like bombshells.
Disorganized,
Written off,
Buried and left on the battlefield,
the corpse of my sanity awaits for nothing.
I'll never make it back.
just think about it.
vircapio gale Oct 2012
the ego is a balm
for watching herds--
ezra pound is dead..

withought the ***** to make it rue
of wittier witter aphorisms never trilling forceful to undo

singular muse,
where do you come
in head or tip of head?
elusive beauty, disappear
i act in other barefoot dreams


typos bless the will to mean
of finality
of seem seam flawless be
i **** the emperor of ice cream
with concupiscent "words"
that verb the still to be a yogurt burv


single fractal frog
jumps like rhyme of toggle cog,
cutting grandma's mind

empty cup fills want
with other bristle sip+
eclipse Hypatia naked at the shrine
failure of a form
cones another phage
with peaceful loving bawl

freedom fighters flaunt
masturbatory rights of congress whim and taunt
crackle jackal fire sights
sing single missile lights

do i jest
or do i best,
lest simple techne tumble kite of waiting in the dark
of politician's lark
inventive lewd
of plaintiff plea
and rumble drum democracy

venous cud
of bovine mewing in the mud of affuenza's motherhood
strikes painful cords electric suds
that lather in the lackey's trodden figure's utter
venus aphrodite's *****'s foam

hopkins is at home
manley in the rub of constant loathsome comb
that preens a matish apparition's tomb

hello kind traveler
that takes me by the hand
rolling in the grass has never been as such
the band plays off Genghis Khan
like Gandhi spitting soup
in afternoon reprieve of ignoramOus fun

the meaning is ajar
i know i war with Stevens too to
bear the furry calousness of wartime's endless true
a bond of moneylicsious new accounted even in the dew
that sunders sounds to recreate a farflung brew
of history's adieu
which only sPeares you in the gut
(an existential reference here to trope the nom)
elusive Lear that wanders in the Foolish storm caressing cave to find
another mind
that only someone special kKnew of Kent
encapsulating time in brands that offer (a[0I]ether dust for tolling flight
growing down into the mushroom ground
spanning subtentious fraughtful nocturnes in the night
to bide that meaning's plight i wish i
wasn't altogether through
though happy to be here iwth yew
apparitions in a crowd
petals on a wet black bough...
“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.”
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Prose is unpretentious, that's its attraction. Avoids bombast of line breaks but forgoes -- what -- perfect rest. Anyway today, a November day in February, no chance getting rest with the poor clay I'm made from.

With my mother this weekend, her dementia proceeding according to what plan. Saturday the kind of day I never have. Actually read three stories by Updike. One extraordinary -- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth -- which I chose from his Complete through 1975 for the reference to Macbeth and in it he so humanely, sympathetically explains through the high school English teacher's thoughts Shakespeare's mid-life bitterness or disappointment realizing few men achieve their potential in the face of history, society and their personal flaws. Making for tragedy. Hard to be humorous about that although Updike finds in Shakespeare's late plays, especially The Tempest, a resolution amounting to wisdom that there can be contentment with imperfection and partial achievement. Updike took some of the starch out of my contention that all Shakespeare's plays are comedies, impossible to take Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth and Othello seriously. Certainly not Romeo and Juliet. It is a consolation that Updike's and even Shakespeare's achievements are imperfect although it would be wringing blood from a rock for me to achieve as much. The other two stories by Updike assured me that prose story-telling is as hit or miss as poetry. Bulgarian Poetess and How to Love America and Leave It At the Same Time made me think how fortunate I had been to find Tomorrow on the first try.

Not so much luck. I was attracted like a bee to a blossom to Shakespeare's lines in my personal anthology. No anthology and the poetry dependency it has created and I might have passed over the story. But now there is this conversation between me and all other writers. The anthology helps me know what I like but now I am tempted to try to articulate why I like what I like. Like the calendar, time and all else man lays his mind to it is a matter of bringing order from chaos by naming things according to our observations.

First, I like to understand what's going on in the poem. Not paraphrase it but describe the action. In Yeats' Lapis Lazuli, in the first paragraph, strophe or stanza, he talks about a community, a city or country, in which people, the women especially, high-toned maybe?, are upset about a political or wartime situation and are too hysterical for art or grace. Then he talks about actors playing Hamlet and Lear holding it together even though their characters die at the end of the play. No shouting, no crying. Then a paragraph or stanza about how whole civilizations are transitory too. Finally, in a reference to one of our oldest civilizations, two old Chinamen and their retainer are in the mountains. From their perspective, calm acceptance and longevity, perhaps some sadness, they look on all of history and non-history with something like gladness.

From there we can appreciate the artistry -- in Yeats' case the interesting rhymes and variable line lengths -- recognizing, however, that the artistry is not so much a demonstration of skill or a performance as the particular vehicle or discipline by which this artist discovered the content of his mind. It little matters whether verse is free, rhymed, blank, or formed as long as it is understandable and meaningful. Understandable to anyone, meaningful to someone.

The oldest formulation I have is Pound's -- the great themes of literature can be written on the back of a postage stamp. Until recently, I thought you could do it but you'd have to write very small. Now I know you can do it in your normal handwriting. I think they are Love (how we come into the world), Death (how we leave the world) and Governance (how we live in the world together). It may be possible to group Love and Death together, coming into and going out of life being similarly unknowable mysteries. The ways of talking about this one same mystery are apparently endless and endlessly fascinating. We cannot leave it alone. Almost all the greatest poems are about this mystery. Life is but a dream.

Then there is Governance -- how we live in the world together -- about which there are far fewer great poems. And usually they are about how our failure to live together leads back into the unknowable mystery through premature and sometimes mass death. Siamanto's The Dance comes to mind. I think the best poems of this type are written by so-called oppressed people.

Many poems treat both themes. But on the question of content, Pound is where I begin. My anthology -- Whole Wide World -- has a section which I'll call Double & Triple Features: Poems to Read Together, which pairs and groups poems according to my feeling that they share something -- theme, voice, structure -- in common. Subject matter is, I think, the commonest sharing. If I tried to name each pairing or grouping I might then have a hundred or more themes. Naming them adequately would be difficult to impossible. But why? And why not try? It would be a necessary start to talking about the poems: I read these poems together because....

Prose doesn't have to be beautiful, sometimes it's best when it's flat as Hemingway conclusively proved and one of its attractions is you can run on and on as long as the mind goes on following a thought without a stop sign for a whole page of books like Proust or Faulkner or Joyce.

Auden's is the second useful formulation that comes to mind (besides his chummy reverence for Shakespeare in naming him Top Bard). He classifies poems five ways:

            1. A good poem that's meaningful to him;
            2. A good poem that's not meaningful to him;
            3. A good poem that may someday become meaningful to him;
            4. A bad poem that's meaningful to him;
            5. A bad poem that's not meaningful to him.

I find I do about the same. But I discard all poems, good and bad, that are not meaningful to me. I have little taste for artistry for art's sake. The poem must speak to me or awaken me. Dickinson's formulation -- takes the top of your head off -- is the same as We can't define ******* but we know it when we see it.

A short aside: it feels inappropriate to answer the question What do you do? by saying I'm a poet. It would be like saying I'm a leader or I'm a prophet. You cannot anoint yourself a poet, a leader or a prophet -- others must do it for you. I wonder if I would be more comfortable if I had a larger audience (following) like Billy Collins for example. I think not. It would be like being a rock star, not a composer.

It's much more acceptable to say I'm a writer. Then when you answer the question Oh, what do you write? with Poetry, you are not self-aggrandizing, merely irrelevant, effete. Being a poet is viewed as being a flasher or nudist, exposing parts of yourself others would rather not see, at least not up close and personal, providing more information than others need or want to have. Maybe that's a good definition of a bad poet. Self-revelation dressed in verbal prowess is acceptable but naked, abject confession is unpardonable, tedious.

Although content is requisite for a poem to be meaningful, a poem is not really a communication like fiction or essay. It is more like an object, like a painting or sculpture, and perhaps like a musical score, sheet music. Yet I would still instruct students of poetry to first read each poem by the sentence, not the line, to derive its meaning, understand its argument, visualize its action. Then one might ask how and why is it sculpted, structured, with line breaks and strophes. Ultimately, the form of the poem is nothing more or less than the method by which the poet discovered his meaning. Although it is arbitrary -- it could have been said another way -- it is the only way it could be said by this person in this time and place. I have always liked the idea of a sculptor carving away stone or wood to reveal the form inside the block.

The poem lives on as an object, recognized by many or few or none. Like art or furniture, most are briefly useful then are moved to the attic or shed where they gather dust and mouse turds then break, dry and decay and find their way to the dump, the dust heap of history, only not even human history, just your personal history.

The anthology has made me an antiquarian -- one who cares as much for objects made by others as if I had made them myself.

So how can one talk about poems? The argument that any attempt to discuss or describe a poem is better served by simply reading the poem, perhaps memorizing it, has merit. Except in one respect -- the process can take you to undiscovered and half-discovered country within yourself. Always, first, you must understand the action otherwise we are just re-reading ourselves in our own tried and untrue ways. We must not mistake an old dog dying for a puppy being born. Misunderstanding the words is like constructing a science experiment with a flawed methodology and then using the results to shape or live in the world. It can be dangerous. Therefore reading poetry is a mental discipline worthy as the scientific method itself. It takes you out of yourself.

The fun of criticism comes in examining why and how the poem made you feel or think as you did. You can read closely for the chosen words, rhythms, lines and stanzas. You may admire the skill or wit of the poet. And you can refer to your own experience to understand your reaction. You can even disagree with the poet's thought or perception, or reject the sentiment. You can say that's him, not me.

Then there are Bloom's formulations of which I am wary, he being a critic not a poet. Yet here they are. Three sources of healthy complexity or difficulty in poems: 1) Sustained allusiveness -- cultural references that require the reader to be educated beyond the poem's content, for which he cites Milton as an example and could have Dante; 2) Cognitive originality -- leaps of perception and depths of understanding that startle, enlighten and take off the top of your head, for which he cites Shakespeare and Dickinson as examples and to which I would add much of what is memorable in modern poetry; and 3) Personal mythmaking -- whereby the poet constructs over time a system of images and personal (more than cultural) references that with familiarity become understandable and meaningful, citing Yeats and Blake as examples. How to make this formulation useful.

A second formulation by Bloom discusses poetic figures or the indirect means by which poetry uncovers truth, dancing with and romancing language rather than wrestling and pinning it down like philosophy tries. There are four: 1) Irony or saying one thing and meaning another, usually the opposite; 2) Symbol (synecdoche) or making one thing stand for another; 3) Contiguity (metonymy) or using an aspect or quality of something to represent the whole; and 4) Metaphor or transferring the qualities or associations of one thing to another.

Meanwhile, here's my **** poetica:

1) Poetry is an acquired taste, like golf or wine, with no obligation to appreciate it.

2) Poetry is divination; prose explains what we think we know but poetry discovers what we didn't know we thought.

3) Poetry is one of many man-made systems, like baseball or the scientific method, for producing knowledge, meaning and pleasure. Or are they all natural as ***?

4) Of all the other arts, poetry is most like sculpture; the word "poem" comes from the Indo- European root meaning "to make, to build."

5) It is impossible to write exactly what you mean or be accurately understood; poetry uses this to its advantage.

6) Line length -- enjambment -- is the single most important feature of poetry.

7) Poems are made from ideas; poetry is philosophy but where philosophy wrestles language down, poetry romances language.

8) Meaning is the most important product of poetry but it's completely personal; poems almost always say one thing and mean another but the poet often doesn't know what he meant.

9) It is almost impossible not to rhyme or write rhythmically in English or any other language.

10) The forms poets use are how the poet gets to his truth and are basically arbitrary choices.

11) Poems may be difficult and complex and irrational but they must be comprehensible.

12) Just describing the action of the poem will take you where you need to go.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Ivan Brooks Sr Sep 2018
I'm not a writer trying to share a story,
I'm a survivor telling you a true story.
I'm not just a poet having fun and living,
I saw bad things when I was younger.
That was when things were harder.
when women and old people were helpless and young people were hopeless.
It was that time when good parents were powerless to protect their underage girls from **** and molestation at the hands of drugged-up child soldiers with bloodshot eyes.
I did something other boys were too scared to do,
I turned into a man
and took survival into my hands.
It was that time when men and women used the same place to bathe and go to the loo.

I saw many many hungry people
eating palm cabbage and wild grasses
malnourished children and dying people.
I saw hands chopped off with cutlasses.
I saw thousands of families separated
and fathers killed or incarcerated.
I saw silly young men pick up arms
and chopped off people's limbs
like hideous things were their aims.

I saw really bad things
and cried to God for wings
like an angel to fly away
because I saw no other way.
I saw people running to God
and getting murdered in his church.
I don't know, but he didn't say a word
It's like He just sat down and watch?

I saw bad things
I planned my escape from poverty,
from a war-torn country.
It was that time when your parents, who come from the same generation as I, were looking up to their mom's for breast milk.
It was that time when no one wore silk,
it was a time of fear,it was wartime.
It was that time when bullets determined eating time and bedtime.
It was that time when pretty boys had nothing in their wallets.
It was that time when PYJ ate dinner
and played gospel on his guitar like he was our savior and not a sinner.

© IvanBrooksPoetry
12/9/2018
This is about my bad wartime memories from my war-torn native Liberia. This encompasses mere poetry,it's a true story of the hideous crimes committed by young drugged up child soldiers commandeered by the notorious warlord, Prince Y Johnson(PYJ)..this is in essence, not a poem,it's an extension of the untold stories of the Murdered peoples of Liberia and women and girls ***** and abused by this heartless murdered, still running free and enjoying impunity...it's for the most part, a poetic version of their cries ...This is a true story of the two hundred and fifty thousand innocent souls lost in my country...this a cry for Justice!
nick armbrister Oct 2018
Letters in Wartime
Words on paper
Nothing more
Telling the story of a soldier
Or airman or sailor
Letters from the front
Sent home
To a sweetheart
Or family
First read by the censor
Telling of longing to see you
And hardship in battle
Seen thru with determination
And a love of country
Fighting for them
The loved ones
Far from where
He is stationed
Saying about his mates
Some who he misses
Killed in combat
Or worse still
Missing In Action
Maybe the Red Cross
Will locate them
All this told
By words on paper
Stay safe at home
I know the Blitz is hell
But we give it
Back to the ***
Avoid the talking
About sensitive things
For walls have ears
And aid the enemy
Follow the blackout
I send my love
And will write soon
Next time sending my photo
Till then my dear
Keep the fires burning
We protect our country
With untold valour
We will win
This awful war
Later my love
Anastasia Webb Apr 2014
In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.

O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.

Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.

This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.
K E Cummins Mar 2022
When you get home,
You will not have to make any decisions
Because no-one will need saving –
At least, those who do will not rely on you,
Because your job will be done.
You have done your part
To try and fill that black hole of need,
And we will not let you spend all of yourself
On an impossible and eternal task –
You are too valuable.
We love you too much.

When you get home,
We will sit you down
Somewhere warm and comfortable
After a long hot shower or a bath,
In clean pajamas
And dry socks,
With a cup of tea
(Or a little something stronger).

If you need to vent, vent.
We will listen without interruption
And not insert ourselves into the narrative.
If you like, we can remember your story,
So that if you want to tell it
(Shout a warning)
Cassandra’s message will amplify
In many voices.

But if you need silence,
To sit, say nothing, and just be,
We can do that too.
I’ll hold you.
You can take off the mask,
Stop pretending not to be scared,
Aghast, bewildered, exhausted,
Shattered –
Because the horror you survived
Is not bearable.
It is insane.
Whatever “crazy” way you deal
Isn’t crazy,
But a rational response to an irrational world.
Let it out. You are not alone.

I don’t need anything.
I don’t need you to be or do anything.
I am simply here with you.
Although I have not seen what you have seen,
I lived through something similar;
We have both borne witness.
So there is no need to apologise.
You owe me nothing –
You owe them still less.

When you get home
You're welcome to sit with me,
Or let me manage the daily tasks
While you seek solitude.
You have done everything and more.
No individual can carry the world –
Atlas is a myth for a reason.
We are family of a sorts,
Bound by more than blood.
Together, we are strong.
Written to a friend on the front lines
JJ Hutton Nov 2010
we bought a flag when you enlisted.
we were so proud.
we prayed for the war to end
when you journeyed out across the sand.
when you lost your life,
we didn't care how long the war had to go on,
you could not die in vain.
Copyright 2010 by J.J. Hutton
Sara L Russell May 2013
306 British & Commonwealth soldiers were shot at dawn for desertion in WW1.
Inspired by this fact and by BBC1's drama The Village*

I

Good-hearted soldier marched away to war,
Sad-eyed mother and father watched him leave
To help a noble cause worth fighting for;
Or so the government had us believe.

Bereavements swiftly followed. He returned
For time on leave, a changed, embittered soul;
Troubled by death where distant fires burned
As month on month the shelling took its toll.

Mentor and loving brother, man of peace,
Such was this force of nature we once knew;
Now weighed down with all war's catastrpohes
So guilty to be of the living few.

Oh bitter hindsight, cruel hand of fate,
That says what we must do when it's too late!


II

I saw him walking back along the path
That headed to the seaport, bound for France;
So full of care, lost in the aftermath
Of ****** conflict, as if in a trance.

Then suddenly he stumbled to his knees
And crawled, down on his belly, cautiously
As though bullets were coming through the trees
As though to shelter from the enemy.

He raked the grass with darting, trembling hands,
His staring eyes were wide with urgency
His legs would not obey his brain's commands
His lips whispered a plea for clemency

I saw my love, he didn't see me there
Longing to save his broken soul with prayer.


III

Never was a more terrifying sight
Than naked terror, screaming from his eyes;
I still recall him staring, every night;
It haunts my dreams from dusk into sunrise.

I wanted to embrace him, stroke his hair,
To whisper words of solace from the Lord;
But sometimes prayer hangs on the empty air,
Sometimes we cannot rescue the adored.

Later I visited his lonely room
To find him on his bed, facing the wall.
He turned to meet my gaze, eyes full of gloom
As if no soul resided there at all.

I made him pray with me, for love Divine;
Heedless of God, he pressed his lips to mine.


IV

I blush, I burn with shame, when I recall
I gave in to his kisses willingly;
He wanted heaven's solace not at all
But took his earthly comfort all from me.

So long I'd waited, through his years away,
Wishing to win his love through some kind deed
Now in his trembling grasp, too lost to pray,
I lay entranced by passion's burning greed.

When it was over, I looked at his face
He seemed to see some bright epiphany
Perhaps at last he knew our Saviour's grace
At last his breath came slowly; evenly.

He murmured something as I rose to go
I knew I loved him, but never said so.


V

I never said I loved him. With the dawn,
His doomsday clock was ticking down his hours.
I never said I loved him, I was torn;
For what love sanctifies, wartime deflowers.

Hindsight has pierced my heart with bitter thorns,
Trampled my dreams, stolen all future joy;
For in that worst of cataclysmic dawns,
I never said I love you to that boy.

I never even said a last farewell
Though warm kisses still echoed on my skin;
My silence tortures me, I am in hell
I burn in silent wars I cannot win.

The Redcaps came and took away my Joe.
I loved him; and now he will never know.
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
Moved by his computer frame
Love to love you he loved to move
her body frame he loved to love
That chrome never over to be undone
  Those delicate cake fingers
Those ABC key notes
  musically wired moved by the

Marionette elementary my dear
Watson in  a chrome jar mason
Hard mission with circuits
Radio days
She was so committed and clicked
All towered like the French Provincial

"All Metal" I phone rings to his
commercial I tunes conventional
So moved by her like the sentinel
Fingers frantic through the
yellow pages loving and soothing
But that wasn't so romantic
more silver linings

But Iced latte like fine slender metal
Soft and creamy cake in her love portal
So Sara just smile she was something
In her way was the General Lee
French stewardess Wee Wee
Her chrome metal Oh! Gee

What it did to him drove him
For hours to the address named
The hard drive
Mentally he was melted
he had to stay firm but pacing like the
buzzing beehive
The midday she moved into another
Red carpet Hollywood drive
She was out of her box racing too red
Too much of his chrome wheel heat
Metallic leather moves in her heels

Mighty sweet but some
anger management to beat
The crunch the bunch the
workout being spooked out
Those biceps couldn't take a bad rap
High life joy wife loves the cook-out
So outgoing gift of gab
Jekyll and Hyde lab

That metalworking grime
More networking like the
hard water crime
The marching wooden soldiers
Christmas time got the metal locket
He was ready for her lips
fired out rocket

In the dark the spark more alive into
A gunmetal lovely portal
Moved by the rebel her face had a
dark silvery veil Apple computer
Love mentor crazy love inventor
She was hard as a rock
At the muscle club

So hushed how she moved her
lips he is the
Chrome metal built up
Was her heart moved away
Her hands tightly closed cup
It got caught on the metal chair
Moved like a piece of furniture

Shine on the modern metal lamp
It was blown glass
Like the cartoon
"Lady and the *****"
Genie just appeared
Moved by him her
metal box could tear
The Mozilla stronger then

The silver back Gorilla
Chrome attire good fella
Yahoo singer Miss Diva
Venus-Stella,
Not a child's Crayola
She loved to drink
In his metal cup mountain dew

Moved up by Mothers Day

She needed to bloom
more (May I)
Way too polite
Heavy lifting rain April
fools season
  But he had the
stiff collar June he took
such a hard drive
Moved by her chrome metal you decide?

  Cosmos two in a half
metal, she was always in the
lab finding new age turn
of the page new turf
War veterans deserve the metals
Oh! Metal Heart take a chill pill
Becoming junkies  leaders and
Quack up Doctors

(Ripley’s believe
it or metal it)
So tickled chrome pink
To forget it her cell I- O-U metal
heart phone
  Here is a link to my song I did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0p-HADoF1I&t=162s

The  ammunition of
the best silver
That was Terry Tech lee
his brother was Techie
Heavy metal rounds the
sea minerals
To top things off  the
"Metal Generals"

Moved by only chrome
The robot combat type metal
Not a belly wash to be pregnant
What a moving day convent
I need my own outlet

If I only had a brain
Were built like machines
anyway
The pacemakers nothing
feels real
The Brooklyn bridge
Deal or no deal
No grudge to hold onto
Wartime metal moved by
The honorable Veterans
Have a heart, not of cold stone
if I only had a brain
  All-metal wedding  

Taking the City train earthquake moving
Speaking traditionally white
Metal is the future of the website
Well! how much olive oil can
they serve the Tin man wizardly
He crushed my cheeks like
Rotten metal tomatoes

Mr. Clean robot cleaning
up the metal hearts
Someone will throw you off the
Brooklyn, let's play bridge
Should you get a metal bridge?
The Jewish dentist, he has plenty of bridges.
You could find him near the Trump Towers.
Greeting we all feel Metallic a bit ****** but something we need to bend and expand our metal horizons there is also a link I put on here for my song but I don't know if you will get it to work but we are hard as metal  all chrome  pick up you metal phone LOL
She waited impatiently for dawn to break.
Darkness had swallowed up her small house.
Her golden locks wound tight like a snake.

Her longing heart throbbed with ache.
The hearth’s warmth beckoned a mouse.
She waited impatiently for dawn to break.

Chimney smoke hung over the frozen lake.
Clenched tight with fists her flowery blouse.
Her golden locks wound tight like a snake.

Thoughts of mourning she tried to shake.
Overflowing to the floor her *** of scouse.
She waited impatiently for dawn to break.

She couldn’t join the rest with a smile so fake.
Her soldier was somewhere from here to Laos.
Her golden locks wound tight like a snake.

His absence pierced her heart like a stake.
Driven to the bottle like a louse.
She waited impatiently for dawn to break.
Her golden locks wound tight like a snake.
Hush now my love
Care not of the world
For tonight we'll sleep
Forget all sorrows we keep

Hush now my love
For tomorrow will come
The throes we keep
We will bury deep

Hush now my love
The sun will soon rise
And with it gone our demise
Rest and be at ease in mother's arms

Hush now...
Keep still...
Close your eyes...
And I'll hold you...

'Til the sparks and morning light
And across another world
I'll keep you with me
'Til after this war, be'd both be free

Hush...
A mother singing his son to sleep while being caught in a crossfire.
Robin Carretti May 2018
No time for having

withdrawals_
All friendship
click
Lets 
 Click-bank it

Gratitude
so thanks

Just mail it
My mind
chocolate
clustered
Wounded
like a
bullet
_

Postcard
Like
E- Allen Poe
related

Polluted by
Naked Gun
My heart was
fully loaded

"My Psyche"

Glossinidae so
****** "Red"

Women Wartime
she knits

Wildflowers
in her bed
He was more
worried
about the
postcard

Split Banana
personality
Plain Monkey
***
Crazy on Sunday

Sundae's
on Fridays
Yes we have no
bananas
Postcards laid
T-L-C cared for
cabana

But Gina
Loco?
Crazy bridge
Lollobrigida
Postcards
Just
Like Lazy
Susans
Georgiana
Or Brianna
Bella Bella

Leaving notes
with few
good men
Nicholsons
Nicole with
her Kidman

Construction
hard paper
Snip here
Pulled into his
psyche
All cliche's
The fondue
French talk
face to face
Jack snapped
beanstalk

In front, words
fingered
Her words
of roue'
Catch up with
Ketchup
Pretty but Petty
petticoats
"Billy Goats"
Titanic ships
Beguiled
by
him

Cottage home
bacon bits
of
Salad postcards
from
Egypt
The holy land of
Mohammid
Dancing like an
Egyptian

Rumi
of all
Gods
in vain
Your so
vain I betcha
you think
the
postcards
about ya

"Psyche Monday"
Coming to grips
(Girl Friday)
versus
(Man Friday)
with his lips,

The Postcard
postpartum
depression
((What Moves))
on my hips
Strawberry
jam and
my biscuit
"His Girl Scout"
recruit
Being pursued
shortcake
So ironed
longed for

Postcards
floating
through
"Spa dream"

Highlighted
*
Crazy in love
hallucinating
being flirtatious

Oneself
But she doubted
therefore
My psyche
wanted more
(Danger=Hunger)
after you
Darling
Civil war
Loves don't finally
meet someone
They are in each other
all the time-----

Double crossed-Star

Trying to pass the bar

Fair lady or the
distinguished
Gentleman

"Aircraft"
Postcards came with
ownership
Bombs stay funds

So Psyche
The future
Be smart
"Smartphone"
Like a rope and
silvered computer
links
The chain- chain gang

The train blue-skying
Crazy skywriting
A strange device
(UFO) now BOO
requiem in a dream
Royal lips
A plus postcard
Deeply within
The hundred's
of lovers tongue
Going once but twice,
The Postman stamps
psychic
"Auction house
My postcard
Peanuts and
Charmed by Charlie
Brown
The Tarot elephant
pants
Double talk Parrot
Superbowl
the postcard
intellectual

"Hallucination Beware"
Strong accusation to
compare

An app "Activation"
Star Wars  may the force
be with you one and
only card
British fine tea guards

The love red tip
matches
The new
postcard
the
new black
Mary Mack
Stamped and
smacked
Smashbox eyes
like crazy lunatic

(Dora Explorer)
New Orleans
Nasty stickers
Richness of bourbon
Sweet Caroline
Graphic art turban
8 sides
of the moon

Such
consequences?

My hair
ponytailed
You mailed
words short
Styled pixieish

Dots.....crazy points

Oh! Gosh
The
Hoarder
of
postcards
Crazy Gorilla
Mozilla
"Queen of Sheba"
I rather walk my
Shiba Inu doggy

Miss baby jane shoes
French connection my
La Femme
Oh La La
Haha
Funnybone
I refuse to be
loved like
a postcard
Self-assurance
love is frozen
and stamina
Postcards back
in the future

((Wonder all drama))
Psyche ward she got
hammered
Stacks of postcard
Her wrist got cut
Cold cuts
Irish Spring soap
VIP Postcards RIP
Replacing her hip
Her crazy lips kissed
the postcard
her bodyguard
Those maneaters
and deadly hitters
Mega babes babysitters
To be so loved and read

Postcards speak to us
listen
Glisten
Crazy Bitch__ is in
The innie or outy
Paper towels Minny
Mouse
She cleans up
her postcards
When the postman rings
twice

Pass it on

Has it troubled you
papercut you
Was this postcard
meeting
your  card
expectation

All you?
Postcards are so nice when they get delivered but when they come to your mailbox that's another postcard. The postman becomes crazy twice so out of wack Psyched
Terry O'Leary Nov 2016
Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones.

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet -
the stains were wiped with no regret.

When raining blood, the teardrops spill,
enough to drown the daffodil
that withers in the mourning chill -
who was it said 'thou shalt not ****'?

The mad machine's now mechanized,
torment and torture legalized,
blind barbarism globalized
and wrath of demons sanitized.

Each rival's right (whichever side)
committing holy homicide
in names of gods diversified -
like Cain and Abel fratricide.

Above, a Drone that terrifies -
a button's pushed, a missile flies
to rip apart, to vaporize
(defending life, they fantasize).

Dismembered victims everywhere,
most, non-combatants, unaware -
a lone survivor, solitaire,
unfolding hands, too late for prayer.

Beneath the dust, a baby lies
with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes,
arrayed in death that money buys -
though warriors watch, none empathize.


The media's impervious -
in truth they're ever devious
for fear that reason's dangerous,
find every question treasonous.

Through eyes lit up like rosy sores,
embedded scribes report on wars
with tales to line the cuspidors -
the Fourth Estate? A herd of ******.

To paint the slaughter civilized,
objective news is sodomized -
when foreign streets smoke, pulverized,
the body counts are minimized.


Big Berthas boomed in days of yore
but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor
and mortar shells like raindrops pour
upon the lands of Nevermore.

The grumble of a hand grenade
is drowned in claps of cannonade -
assorted charnel chunks lie flayed
in battlefields where kids once played.

Somewhere a ******'s bullet flies,
somewhere a voiceless victim dies,
somewhere a famished orphan cries
while weapons warble lullabies.

The bunker busters burst the sides
of dwellings where mankind resides
and innocence in darkness hides -
the die is cast, but who decides?

Use cluster bombs and barrels too,
(crude critters in the wartime zoo),
to shred more souls than hitherto -
choose death en masse, avoid the queue!

The leaders lead (twelve steps behind),
enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined -
yes, powers, business (so entwined)
pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind.


The mercenaries hack and maim
(god's creatures crippled, morally lame),
do beastly things that none will name -
well-paid for such, they feel no shame.

The ****** bombs and phosphorus
and ghastly weapons gaseous
are scattered widely, bounteous -
behold the desert wilderness!

Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm,
may leave behind a blazing palm
(or better yet, a molten mom
inside a hut)  in Vietnam.

And phosphorous… its flame so white,
exploding, falling through the night,
commemorates the Sacred Rite -
and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite.

Cast chlorine, sarin or VX…
a lethal dose (or side effects
like blistered lungs) will serve to vex -
but death in war? No one objects…


Constructing A-bombs's arduous -
uranium, depleted thus,
can trash a tank with little fuss,
cause natal cankers, cancerous.

But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown),
ignited, leave the sun outshone -
beneath a mass of melted stone
lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone.

When atoms split in bombs debased,
vast cities smolder, laid to waste,
a million sinless souls erased -
perhaps, one day, all life effaced.


You close your eyes but can't ignore
that body parts and bags of gore
are bursting through golgotha's door,
and strewn beyond the ocean's roar
like rotting fish that wash ashore.

Why can't we stop and end all war…


POSTSCRIPT
Regard the dreary death Arcade
of Armaments (a fruitful trade)
and tally up the millions made
by ghouls that raise a colonnade
of miles of missiles, weapons-grade,
in Armageddon's crazed parade,
and hide behind a masquerade
of lollypops and lemonade
while planning new an escapade
for sending armies to invade
and loot far oil lands, unafraid
of misery and grief parlayed
until our final days cascade
into a hell no more delayed
by happenstance or luck outplayed
that leaves society decayed,
bombarded with a fusillade
of lies upheld and truth betrayed
by pundits in the shifting shade,
and crises of the world clichéd
as sung in solemn serenade
by journalistic hacks that preyed
on wide-eyed folk in sham charade
that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed
by tiny tears that disobeyed
to stay behind the barricade
and bathe the modern-day crusade
of war in cheers and accolade.

The bottom line? Just profits paid
for deadly sins that god forbade…
jonchius Sep 2015
entering year 2000
rewinding vhs tape
installing napster client
anticipating victorious gore
bursting dot-com bubble
blocking tomorrow's nostalgia
commemorating festival tragedy
examining supersonic concorde
watching election coverage
recounting inconvenient truths
puzzling interface design
booing nuc-u-lar president

rising black monolith
editing non-linear encyclopedia
feeling inaugurally bushed
reliving century's dawn
unchanging state flag
processing royal massacre
escaping insane asylum
sensing impending collapse
perusing city guide
collapsing contemporary structures
initiating quixotic peacekeeping
ignoring conscription threats

entering year 2002
reporting unfortunate pearl
relaxing shotgun porch
exploding roadside bombs
addressing thousand followers
hugging financial meltdown
writing resembling skylines
shocking archipelagic bursts
processing theatrical disaster
tightening homeland security

entering year 2003
proliferating elegant telegnosis
rejecting freedom fries
blazing wartime trails
toppling dictatorial statue
unfurling "mission accomplished"
handling continental blackout
ejecting coronal masses

entering year 2004
flashing multiple sobriquets
populating dorm-roomy website
high-grossing aramaic movie
generating tunnel vision
rushing national anthem
parading goth athletes
letting games begin
accepting soviet passports
continuing obscure flumadiddle
lunar-eclipsing world series
two-terming republican regime
declining personality cult
glowing orange revolution
eroding periglacial drumlins
inundating lacustrine basins
exciting geomorphological processes
enduring tumultuous tsunami

entering year 2005
blasting "galvanize" repeatedly
unforgiving cyclonic scenario
printing controversial drawing
sketching cartoon prophet
overturning hurricane alphabet
rigging medal count
preparing new horizons
rejecting flash sites

entering year 2006
setting plutonian destination
synchronizing new horizons
sighting stellar foison
maintaining feudal system
emerging microblogging service
reading ancient tweets
rotating golden statue
mounting social debt
protesting planetary demotion
forecasting catastrophic recession
executing "innocent" dictator

entering year 2007
declining share prices
building ruby railroad
lifting presidential term-limits
perpetuating oil-rich dictatorships
falling interstate bridge
slugging giant bonds
clothing blackwater mercenaries
disappearing internet personalities
unforgiving writers strike

entering year 2008
stealing variable thunders
relaxing domain names
letting games continue
exploding sunrise propane
requesting birth certificate
electing another suit
disappointing orthodox republicans
microblogging maximal meltdown

entering year 2009
inaugurating new president
encountering bear markets
cackling risible laughter
dying pop king
deleting neolithic internet

entering year 2010
collapsing presidential palace
prospering cinematic avatar
pronouncing eyjafjallajökull effortlessly
"kettling riot police
flaming cop cruiser"
blasting text-based vuvuzelas
leaking diplomatic cables
fading pre-twitter memories
self-immolating street vendor

entering year 2011
"enervating nine-point quake
propagating harbor wave
inundating nuclear plant
irradiating unclear fates"
raging mid-eastern spring
throwing body asea
locating trojan asteroid
penetrating financial throughfare
resonating oral amplifier
blazing verdant material

entering year 2012
rising chubby dictator
gentrifying weird twitter
exploding next month
intriguing "fake" passport
proliferating single-hued avatars
surging sandy cyclone
inhabiting alternate universe
manipulating another election
rigging people's ballots
perpetuating manipulated world
fulfilling megalomaniac urges
surviving previous apocalypse
surviving another baktun

entering year 2013
descending rogue meteor
encoding festival weekend
obfuscating's very own
approving snow den
searching yaya island
soaking wet veld

entering year 2014
missing plane geometry?
annexing peninsular territory
printing powdered medication
forecasting meteoric boomtime
prevailing monochromatic identity
avoiding aviation accidents
determining auspicious date
revising deactivation plans
reliving years 2000-2014
vircapio gale Mar 2013
stripes of dawn sift through the grey departing night,
and in my home, behind those rays of dust,
furniture warms.
the freedom i love will soon be claimed by an incessant morning phone.
my heart numbs, longs for the kindness, constant kindness of the night

the music of my pulse already starts to fade,
a weight sets in, invisible grimace of so many trailing thoughts unraveled now,
to bear until the darkness-swilling reach of soul can span again...

would i fly at brightened glass in fractured urges,
bolstered yet adrift in any day's torrential memes?
rage at seeming machination's constant interruption of my highest rarity of living well?
or smile at the herdlike expectation's threat to condescend,
and at least scour remnants of the search undone... throughout the day
insufferable choice of final future origins
the mail arrives,
my forehead stops to wonder at the door,
and at that pang of hunger

running, overrun, the mind churns night in such sweet shadow shifts!
to fall, legless and dissolve into the rising light..
as if a Noh play were being heckled through to end by gaudy ads
to jolt us bridgeless from that subtle world
and wander long on lethe banks of noisome blare.
at times i stroll this nowhere stranding here, pretend, and gaze from hiding,
between a wincing coffee swill
imagined easeful face of signs,
"easy as a gentle summer wind..."
tolerant to all, to blow a "selfless" stillness into me
to wave, and smile --breathe a blanket on acuter truths
with which i meet the day enwrapped.

but quietly  i wait... for Time to die:
an hourglass to shatter in the instant of eternity!
and birthe anew each 3 am, create anew--
those  kisses,  frozen  birds  of  static  bliss  become
a moulded wax to shape the plenum love as roaming peace,
darkness-rest to calm a pointless labor,
abate the drift into an unwalled corner's only inward exit--
as whisper hands can cradle nescience
such, that grains become a world,
in which invented seas are sweeter than the toxic real
whose bitterness a cherishing of death unveils awry,
or right as winter dust.
i yearn in flight and add to fullness,
find fullness once again
to hover equipoised at love's encrusted center,
where pain gives way to peace i cannot have.
if i would have this other 'purest' love,
and for instance find the meaning once again in wartime's bated negligence--
as in a perfect silence wind can brush the lips with all of life's aroma--
and as a gentle fire smouldered long,
at Spring, ignites within the splay of tender leaves--
so archetypal solitude of being beings manifolded one, i may fulfillment find...

i may go find myself alone now,
or swagger to an ancient drinking song,
or fall into those evening arms,
to find abated also, idols of the heart in each
for what the greater heart amends...
all for yearning better worlds
the pain has sent me reeling prone--
curling at complacent murmurs,
coos of love to torment all without
wherein i wallow, fallen from all heights,
absurd escape, removed---surrounded still
by so-called metalove, abject phantasmal swoon
i grit my teeth against,
as heaving sand would send the shore to sea and drown nostalgia evermore,
as only total extrication serves to quell an everpresence such as this,
ringing in the twilit dew,
or starlight whirl--
or inverse in a heedless curse--
horizons cease in this expanse
surging at the birth and death of things
Steve Page Dec 2023
Interrupted and focused
on rare lessons of life,
punctuated by the full stops,
of death and of the loss
of childhood and childish dreams.

An education in sheltering,
dodging shrapnelled questions,
in bursts of splintered lessons
in how to button down
triggered emotions.

A wartime education
with faint hope of graduation.
Reading childhood accounts of war
I hold my cards
close to my chest
on this night that is
oh so close.

No fan
to blow
air into my face,
not that it would
matter anyway.

The air
would just
remind me
that it is hot
this summer night.

I am drinking beers
while the fruit flies
are sharing with me.
No sense
in picking them
out of the cup..
more will arrive.

The woman
who lives upstairs,
how can she ride her bike,
on such a summer night.

I hear her,
it's the sound
of rowing,
a creak-creak-creak.

88 Willow,
the building with eight dwellings.

Through the open window
I hear a dog barking,
maybe two, three blocks away.

This building that I live in,
where the walls
are so thin
you know that
they have ears.
Have ears to hear.

Creak-creak-creak..
the woman is rowing,
her rowing machine rows
out into a great big sea
of imagination,
where there
is every kind
of sea creature
that you can conjure  
up in your mind.

And her
boyfriend, a fine
painter and sculpture.
He wants to do the
cover of my next book..

And I think, like that's ever going to happen.

My good friend
was over tonight,
he told me a story about
how he proposed
to his 'maritime' woman.

She cried and she cried
after she saw the ring,
not because it was so small,
but because she was
beside herself
in joyful delight.

I envy what it is they have,
but what they have
requires work, hard work.
They have one tried and true
partnership.

We talked about
reaching out to extended family,
as well as brothers and sisters in blood.

Me, of my own,
my father is turning eighty.
Eight decades and I know him not.
He fought
in the Korean War
and I've yet to ask him
about it.
Not once in my life time
has he even smelled
the wartime memories
that I am sure waft up
on occasion.

Now back to 88 Willow.

There is a drunkard
living in a basement apartment.
His legs are going
from wet brain.

He only calls me when
he is drunk.

He has two drinks and
he starts fumbling worse
than a line backer
intercepting
a foreword lateral pass.

I don't want to move,
though I know I have to,
to keep on keeping on,
I've got to move,
I have to move.


© 2013
Tidied it up a bit  
All Rights Reserved.
Carl Halling Aug 2015
I feel at one with sweethearts
Through the years,
With the wartime lovers
Who went overseas,
All the shattered hearts,
All the rivers of tears,
I feel them all.

Verses of love,
Lovers who must part,
Portraits of love
Worn so very close to the heart,
All the lovers lost,
Loves that never even start,
I feel them all.
"All the Rivers of Tears" was originally part of the coda of a song written in ca. 1999.
blue mercury Mar 2017
you are leathered with residue
decaying the rust off your skin
with our initials crawling into
alabaster sheets that all I have really
felt while staring out at the streets
we're people fading by egotistical
lack of self confidence
even though I admit using
seducing strategies
possibly disgusted by my own
emotions
that I am placing ******
thrills on my own configuration
because it's humid and blatant
unkowling breathing ruthless sentiments
of our holy communion

I am splitting into a holy sin
drenched in blissful wartime rations
of water or passion
your cotton skin and these sheets
bold statements between white teeth
it’s all a fading mystery
you said I’m something childlike
your hands are stained cherry
and even if they were around my neck
I’d whisper your name like a vesper
simply waiting
for the day to come where it all fades
because you refuse to be a
young god
no matter how it seems to be
to me in all of my naivety
collab w the lovely Glass ((:
Andrew M Bell Feb 2015
On the train to Haifa
I think about my father
in wartime Palestine,
a different time, a different name
but the same place.

His memories of oranges and beaches
and warm, Mediterranean swimming
are the times he chose to rescue
from the six years when the world
was drowning in its own blood.

The weather is blue and grey
but the sun shines
like my father’s medals
on his blue-grey air force uniform
that entranced me as a child.

As the helicopter gunships prowl over Mount Carmel,
speeding north to Lebanon,
I wonder what times I will choose to rescue
from a land built out of longing,
but paid for in blood.
Copyright Andrew M. Bell. The poet wishes to acknowledge The Press in whose pages this poem first appeared.
Ken Pepiton Dec 2018
Wartime. That's hapt, eh,
nigh on ever'day.

I was awand'rin' why,
when a noble knight arose afore me, 'pon a horse.

Says the noble fella,
I was sent to answer you,
and swear the truth you find has never been a lie.

Treasure it. Treat it sure and saved and safe.
For, gotten gains are lost or never were, the trenches
remain, graves with the ends kicked out.
From those,
we rose and claimed war is the lie, the first one.

The lie that says to itself, I am true, not you,
by nullifying you, I am proven.

"But you are crazy, right?"
No,
not right.

Lie yourself from reality.

Did that work? Dear reader, you alone know.
unsuspended unbelief becomes belief,

in a wink, a gleam, an apple in God's eye.

If you can imagine that, otherwise,
mortality is temporary,
waiting
is. It's what trees do, peacefully, from my POV.

----------
how might the message survive

interesting question in these interesting times

So'yal 2018
Clocks unlock the clues

pay
attention time time times and halves have past

The whole world divided in the time of Peleg
into languages and nations

we forget ourselves and must remind
we have the mind of Christ

what hubris or what faith or
what evidence,
what good can I do or could I if were minded?
so, If I agree with Jesus about the location
of God's, by Jesus's definition, God's kingdom
is within whom he spoke to or
to whom his words
were given or
taken, for
granted

hubris, nay,

arrogance? meekness. assumption presumption

sumpin hapnin heyah sameosameosameo

----
The Younger Dryas took some time. it was cold.
but the ice caps are finally melting,
that's a good thing. warm days
cool nights,
seed time and harvest

Kinda like Joni Mitchell's Circle Game but

bubbles being formed and expanding
did we bump?
were you really ever part of me?

Did we see those stones melt, or
was that on TV?
Some body mentioned a circle game I never played. I thought this needed the idea to bump it to make real.
LJ Chaplin Jan 2014
Verse One
Rockstar wages
And a chevy impala attitude,
Pornstar secrets,
With a red light point of view,
But something has me going,
So controlling,
I need to get out of my head,
Can't stop hoping,
Overdosing
On the thought of living high instead,
And I said

Chorus
Don't be scared to rest those shot glass shattered eyes,
Give ******* kisses to the boys and the girls who lied,
Don't tell me you're sober
Until it is over,
The tears won't dry on their own.

Verse Two
Las Vegas Luck
And I'll always be rolling the dice,
Wartime loss,
As I fight to surrender my life,
But something keeps me going,
Overflowing,
With temptation to let go,
Keep on coping,
Roller coasting
Falling too fast and never want to go slow,
And I said

Chorus**
Don't be scared to rest those shot glass shattered eyes,
Give ******* kisses to the boys and the girls who lied,
Don't tell me you're sober
Until it is over,
The tears won't dry on their own.

Bridge
Another shot,
Another chance,
To sort out life
And finish this dance,
If I can't be happy,
At least carry on
'Til the end of the song.

I picked up the pieces from my shot glass shattered eyes,
Gave out ******* kisses to the boys and the girls who lied,
I'm an unholy mess,
But I will try to impress
The devil when he comes to take away my soul,
And I'll say

Chorus
Share the shot glass glances with the World outside,
Save the ******* kisses for the ride to Hell tonight
This song isn't over
Even if you are sober,
The tears won't be wasted on you
The tears won't be wasted on you.
Youdont Needthis Jul 2017
A smile is knowing
The dark crease of a well-arched spine
The dewy white lotus petals
The sad title of concubine
The blue glass so plainly beautiful
With its cold smooth sides
A blown vase that sits precious
Atop a dead deer's stretched hide
The hallowed ***** of a portruding illiac
And the decadent crust of a sweet fruit pie

On a black vinyl stage floor
In a room filled with echoing cries
The reverberance loud and hollow
With ears ringing opened wide

The bends of her young tendons
In her ropey pale limbs
They flex and harshly twitch
How a scared and hooked fish swims

The cyclic orbits of planets and lifetimes  
A ballerina's pirouette spins

Now the tarlatan and muslin gets torn to shreds
And the blinding stage lights quickly dim
The wet heat of a hungry tongue
Slaps upon her sweating skin

The audience simply does nothing
Just like the tall plant stalks of the green motel
Or the muddy vines in swamps in Rwanda
Or white wallpaper in the locked rooms of certain hells
The diseases that squirm in tainted waters
Of Liberia's ***** wells
The missing limbs of wartime amputees
Reflected in the golden glint of spent brass shells

Amidst the screams of
NO
STOP
NO
It yells the words
GO
GOD
GO

Through the grinning lips of the manifest destiny
And the arms of Khmer Rouge's killings
Its legs are formed from the many faces of lynch mobs
Its hands are hewn of American prison facilities and county jails
It's dripping deadly doses of fentanyl in local ****** shipments    
And ****** dancers
GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GO GO GOD GOD GO
Ken Pepiton Oct 2023
National mindsets self interested suffer
forms of dementia as the order all confessed,
demands of each a concentration of self worth,
you bet your soul, but only in the spirit,
step into the fray, say, let me lead you,
say let me take elected office,
democratic to the edges, being your voice
in a popularity contest, not an intellectual joust.
Tutelary deontology 101.
Governing is managing the labor. Ask the king.
Any flock in the system, governs itself.
Business is business.
Some arrangements are always secret. All
grown ups are in the business of war supplies.
Let your children's minds be at ease.
Trust the checks and balances history proves,
have never worked on balance, for the poor.
Get rich quick as one can imagine, on a bet.
War meets Peace, like it is the storm
that left Greenland, a legend until now.

Easily intreated innocense, who could know.
Prosaic first morning pizz to prime the pump.

How deep is the generational debt due to war?
How many bonds have been sold to pay interest?
How many times has the national debt ceiling failed?
You know.
Every time.
"Each major conflict in U.S. history
has been accompanied
by a sharp rise
in debt as the government raises funds
to pay for the fighting."

But laws do exist…
"Without a declaration of war
to put the country on a wartime economy,
Congress paid for Vietnam
by increasing the national debt.
Over the course of the conflict,
America's debt nearly doubled, growing
from approximately $317 billion in 1965
to $620 billion in 1976."

Now the debt is rising
on interest alone. No need for another war.

And America's trade balance is hinged,
on the point of war.
The ideal centermost irritant, war's hate pump,
pain expanded by generational trespass acts
likened unto the pea
under the stack of feathered beds,
or the bit of grit forcing oyster stress
that has made the misshapen pearl sold
to sovreign entities, those colors on the map,
these mental aggregations called nations,
by nationalist mind frame riveters,
foundational eye beams, remove before demoting,
ah, slow, riveted beams spanning ferro-concrete tech- think.
Building a reasoning trap, children,
ask your fathers to whom we owe our national debt.
Ask also who sells the weapons to the world at war.
Semper fi,
no offence, but… holy hate is as crazy as hungry hate.

A voice from a song, from nowhere,
you just could rethink, or did, that first time think
a bridge over troubled waters being a truly old good idea,
come to rescue you,

in the early days of Boomer parenthood… being grown ups,
we never missed a Disney Movie, though by then,
they were losing the gnostalgia, old knowns to be like so,
were no longer even imaginably so.
Old Yeller,
Childhood's end, the separation
from hearth felt comfort,
to the class rooms and hallways
of massive cold concrete schools… where on day one,
the child pledges with its cohort of coeducatables,
the ancient bond of aliegiance...
I pledged mine first in 1954, the year "under God" was added.

In the just now settling down towns along the great freeways,
there has been no peace on earth in my generation,
at the level of military minds in conflict caused by stories,
boys bred with old hates just waiting for a sigh-psignal
sci-revealed to those willing to become Jason Bourne,
to the best of your abilities, ring the bell, any time.  

Welcome to the front. Sanity is on the line.
There is no conspiracy, we sell our souls for what money
can be demonstratively proven to allow and even augment.

War is all we sell. There is another game, it's a liar's game.
Many famous authorities have filled the space at the table.

Take your hat off, Bartholowmew, she does not understand you.

------------
Daily communication with myself,
one person, with no power to use
save the early cultural confidence;
sworn to tell the whole truth,
so help me, God. Yes, your honor.

Except we reactivate the curious why,
functionally suppressed during the standard
test taking by the proximate others
diligently filling in the blanks,
with graphite rounded just right, one swipe.

Except we see that hanging senselessly realized.
Each problem, one answer, not one option.
Only select correct answer.
Tell the child learning the pledge,
God is on our side, emphasize
how exceptional those who know so are,
extremely discriminatingly,
arranging the economy around
the great decussation at the air gap,
at the back of our national neck.

In this time,
thoughts and prayers, we hear
spoken of as easily done,
almost without thoughts, who
responds?, who, has ever responded
to the said to be going out constantly
thoughts and prayers, asking truth
to intervene and call the liars liars?

God is not angry, nor without resources,
according to the cultures now at war--
¿
Whose mortgage was not paid with earnings
from war readiness industrial complexes?

Whose talent was left with the userers,
because the Bible says y'sposed to earn interest?

Whose 401K deflated to oops?

Business begins with informed agreements.
Let's make a deal.
No killing, stealing nor needless destruction.

Minds join eye to eye, one mindwise agreed,
we become an entity, a being essential
to the parts, a mind in harmony, rank and file.

Greedy men with no agreement. Hmm, who loses?

Line up, not by rank, single file, fall in,
first and following, get in on the end,
and wait for the circle to close,
re done dances, life going wild as
we celebrate our circle, we sing of it
being unbroken in the sweet by and by…

The land of those who talk back to El,
yes, yes, we do, to honor Iyobe,
who first called for the Daysman,
who first
told reality, with all it's evil potential,
you cannot not be true, you know, in form
as spirit and truth containable in words, logos,
logos of all o-logies,
so powerful as to allow, in fact, cause, new mindforms,
species of thoughts that function as a system to make
sense, discernible, bits of valuation determinable in agreement.
--------------
Contractual obligations religiously adhered to
just between us, we take advantage for the nation's sake.
Madrassahs and aliegiance pledges set habits hard to break.

Set the cost of goods, lower than replacement cost of the price.
What does it cost a state to rear a warrior class individual
that self replenishes?

What does it cost me to scatter confusion in profuse create-ifity?
So, add a proper tip,
and pay the cost to ride this line to the next re-entering angle.
Middle east,
cauldron of all the holy empires thus far into the age
of entertainment so vast,
wise men can imagine, some day
there will be a war, and no parents will have
offered children to the infantry or made
righteous indignation acceptable national pride to k-ill for.

There Hamas, holy brainwashed haters of hatefulness.
Repents and perishes the very thought of peace.
Repay in kind, here, swear undying obediance,
fear not death, this is Allah's Promise, die killing Jews,
turns on the monstrous virgins awaiting you…
in post mortal walled places,
where the oldest civilizations occurred,
as God's great idea, I'll
empty the center of me, and seep
back in through fractured rationality
along trade routes between Africa and
the forested north above the desert.

Me, there, in mental efforting, thinking
thoughts, not prayers, but wishes, hopes,
thoughts that prayers attach to, as evidence.

"Ask and ye shall receive."
Love those who call you enemy, can you?

Face me, Mr. Nobody, the essence of other,
I declare peace, where none is, and you laugh.

No ritual, no enchantments with promise,
no sacred making of secular deaths, just
just just adjust the justice aspect, blame
the holy haters whose God dispenses vengeance,
at the behest of warriors fitted with military minds.

As when holy Americans gather to offer military aid,
blessed by the congregations alerted to intercede,
on the side that denies Jesus was God,--- ah, both sides,
in this case…
whither turn we, do we face Mecca, or Jerusalem,
or Petra or … Sol or Luna, all our enculturated faith,

blinks, a lense clarifying effort, rub the crust
of sleep fallen into while mourning, unsealing eyes
to see again, a war between two national identities,
both with warrior glory emulation traditions,
one with money as first de-fence, the other with hate,
nothing less than pure hatred, Cain to Able, sorry bro.

Old mean spirits.
If the hate can live in any man, wombed or un, it will.

Willingness to hate enough to k-ill a stranger, will
manifest as holy terror… enough to make Jesus weep.

--- and those were a few of the local thoughts made prayer,
seemingly automatically, as mysterious as most final secrets.

Part three, deeper, faster, harder… or not

Doings in the dark, are done by feel.
One, you or I, or some other sapien
augmented with the messiah's mind, feels the need for the deed.
Take the message from Garcia.

Mystic experience in story realms,
holding all the visions taken raw,
as revealed… as when a curtained
entry way is opened for inspection,

are we ideas in bodies?
are all ideas spirit in form?

Inhale an intuited absence of evil,
breathe the air of answered prayer.

Imagine that, let fly the idea of you,
beloved individuated potential saint.

Here is your sentimental inner edge,
your gnosis pressed flat as you see in.

The edge of this bubble, is distant
only to the holy cloaked in asceticism,
twisting wicks
for someday light in someday night,
circulate one way then the other,
rethinking perfected emptiness,
there are no others, up or down,
to and fro, vectors tie targeted states,
spider kites form single ray classic webbing,
slim banner, a flag unraveled long since.

Follow me, I say to me, follow me,
I say to you, saying back, I am not you.

My option.
Turn on, sit back and watch,
evolving cave wall interesting hooks,

look around, nothing intersting, eh?
Television as imagined by petrified apes,
during the peak preserved in history,
when men like Franklin and Voltaire,
met to share secret meanings of things.

Previous to any whole story that remains, as when any mind mistakes
tzimtzum inside as first occurrence,

total emptiness, pre space, one time
this instant accepted as audience

in true gaseous we form, auto informing
the vegetable phaze passed eons ago, life
tells tales too esoteric for novices
to notice, in the ideal state, active
imagining, as with a child's mind, yours
since ever was, so far as you may wish
to remember,
a time when the state was deemed
comforting and beauty filled, chaotic
process of floating lipids, in form of air,
light has not dawned on us, we are
night scene setters of settings, nodes
of potential anything you can imagine,

level with me, even, straight, right… yes it
is the optional meandering mind engine,
an idol, or a daimon, madness of sorted
degrees, a little bit off the charts, sorted
out.
Not in, the bubble being becomes,
when one emerges in a self…

subtle is good, right, we agree?
Jesus, before Christianity, as a kid,
instructed with his cousin John,
likely by his temple servant uncle.

That can be imagined, projected
on the outerwall of this bubble we be in. At the moment, on an Earth wired

for sound, elephants agreeing to meet,
to follow the pilgrimage, pilgrim beings
activated by stark necessity successful
to this degree…

by the reader's time's at tension, pull
release
snap back, at what ifery, at once, push

most bottom centered point once sitting
in raw time thought processing, in
and out, efforting
- slightly off, not fully on
uncomfortable impression of holy
you better get better or else. Holy

blank slate, bubble pop, soft wow

Now, we're in the swirl, in the spin
toward, froward lips sealed, golden
silence,
subtler than any beast, creature,
living thing in the ruliad, am I? No.

BUT, you know, those penance prayers,
given you as a child, enchantments,
as with all your renouncements of evil
and pledges under God, in your child mind.

Look. To your own self, be true.
You still have private interpretation access
to your child mind.

If you put your worried mind to work
on some thought too deep to ponder then,

The idea of punishment by the Creator
of all that is not God, but was deemed good,
by God, because I said so, said the father,
in the child mind.

To know good and evil knowledge,
that talent, initial mark on our blank slate,
to know, not what you know, but ask
your child mind, how does it feel,

flat on your back gasping as others laugh,
and your child mind blooms an entire eon
- just to catch a breath takes for ever
and there were others, the whole family
of mankind of your kind, to your child mind,
stood laughing at your attempt to perform

a first flight, from an edged bet with an
I think I can virus perpetuated in ever after,

since mind made time make sense in chaos.
Instantly, things start to take shapes, in mind.
Non sense. Since. Processing time. Go.
Instants out of mind, in atari.
Fog of unknowns. I used to play the game.
Not really, only, one off thought forms,
cloudlike in symmetry, no clear tongue
and groove, fitting our pro-posed… pose

supposed, to listen and while listening,
learn the use of any knowing, can be
taken as granted possibility by your self.
- distant sound of light sabers actuation
Your blame and shame catcher, out front,
as we steam ahead across the gap,
thoughts made prayers must leap.

Keep your eyes on the prize, three
walnuts and a split pea with a hair, fine
infant hair, see it there, your old minds eye.

The unveiling of an artifice, an angle
greater than straight, from this point…
a re-entrant angle, like a point, banked shot.

in
Thanks, I needed you to ready become... said the little blue man... whatsoever we agree... indeed. Let us see...
When doves faltered

   and babies cried,

hence blood was shed

   in the name of the Father,

as every mother's breast

  was purged of her child

grown to a man, only to die

  defending his brother's religion,

and no human was spared

   the wrath of wartime communion

in contradictions of holy water's delusions

— The End —