Irises

DEAR LITTLE ONES

Dear little ones
voices of death have
driven through your parent's brains
as the sand whipped by wind
blasts through deserts parched by heat
painting dreams red on transparent walls of air.

What will become of the small sacredness
that stirs in the shadows' hearts.

The voices speaking of death
whisper through secret transmitters-
carefully kept concealed.
Instead of the terrible shrieks of innocent victims,
who rock together in the cradle of the Earth,
unveil the new subliminal technologies of fear and oppression
that they may safely be used for fun, profit and wisdom;

What will become of the small sacredness
that stirs in the shadows' hearts.

The children murdered by parents
secretly driven to it by others - rise,
and pull back the dark curtains
on what once was the land of the free:
wipe the tears from the rock of ages
before it floods eternity.

EULOGY

(S.H.)

With bowed head I shouldered through
the hushed sound that filled the room,
where the imposing presence of death
was made manifest

by twin coffins,
where, distances greater than this Earth
separated the occupants
from the crowd of mourners,

who in the twilight building
their moist eyes glistening while
groping after futile whispered phrases.

After the apocalyptic oration,
delivered smooth as rain worn stones
should have come the viewing,
but the coffins' lids were screwed shut

tighter than empty eternity.

The pallid shroud,
separating the immediate family.
The colored skylight panes sifting light
I sat thinking about it all.

The hair neatly combed
the pale skin unwrinkled by stolen years.
Were the blue hands crossed on their breasts
or lying down by the side?

In front of me
the flowers whose fragrance
always reminds me of death-
the men folk manfully carry out their own.

It would have to do,
with the coffins discretely
shut to prevent the last viewing.
Christs picture cut in glass.

What do their heads look like
I can't help
but wonder, as the women
flutter together faces bowed
like flowers in a downpour.

Each week we receive
the news of another parent suicide, child murder
we search for meaning, for this
transcends life's rhythms and mathematical statistics:

the black headed snake
winds past each house
with their sightless windows.
I impotently imagine:

the truth constructs
an Treblinka memorial
with each victims name etched
in the marble stone.

Down the chapelled hillside
through the green cemetery
the cars murmur as if
in sympathy with the mourning families.

The whole city muted
by the dirge drumming
of the never ending rain
as a million commuters head home.

Imagine their evening meal
perhaps thinking about the tax free bounty.
Quiet as the grave
along a grass lined drive
the procession slows to a stop.

When the last phrase dies away
and the coffins, one large
the other small, are lowered
into the receptive Earth,

then do the cars drive back
past the vets graves
who look askance
from their great sacrifices- for what!?!

The bitter wormwood of memory
Saturnine appetite not abated
of the hate not placated,
wondering how much was it all worth

disposed like Kennedy
who lay great,
inside his grave
dead by another brutal act of violence.

No hollow revenge
against the even more hollow people-
this is about vicious vice
perfidiously parading as virtue.

I step out onto my porch:
and feel such immense pain
against the bleak rain swept horizons,
but someone must bear witness

and write poems about honor:
if this can make me feel so bad
what immeasurable agony God must feel
being infinitely good and yet

part of this, too.
(Nov. 1997)

NO MORE

You have departed beyond the sight of man.
No more will you be burdened by hope.
No more will you be afflicted with care.
No more will you feel the rainfall.
No more will you feel the Sun,
warm upon your face.
No more will you hunger.
No more will you thirst.
No more will you wonder.
No more will you fear.
No more will the sound of laughter,
birds and music joyfully fill the air.
No more will a gentle breeze,
run its fingers through your hair.
No more will you feel the dull ache of age.
No more will the green sprouting Spring stir your soul.
No more will the rising moon wax and wane.
No more will the parade of seasons,
inexorably hurry past.
No more will the Sun set.
No more will you hear the sea.
No more will you engage in friendly confidences.
No more will you experience
the obscenity of fate.

NEW CITY JAZZ

By coercion, corruption and setting people up with dirt
Bill Brady became powerful that is to say rich,
but his rapacious greed merely increased
feeling that by further dominating the city
he could completely bring it under the soul of his boot.

Determined to make the local children wear his yolk
forgoing the joyful follies of his own sweet youth.
He chose children who he turned into spies steeped in deceit,
and recruited whores paid to adore,
instead of nurturing goodness and honesty;

youthful gangs seemed just the thing,
and bullet holes were shot in carefully prearranged homes.
Bill seemed so pleased when public safety was put at risk
just think of the repressive, fear stampeded measures
that bogus generated incidents could help create.

Corruption sanctified by prayer and at church socials,
wanton violence (new day tyranny) invokes public good,
while contrived youth-gang-murders leave children dead.
And setting up, committed in holy sombrous tones, never sank so low
meanwhile Bill kept on trying to think, but only managed to
perseverate.

OH UNIVERSE

Oh universe of infinite yearning
where are you blindly falling?
Wet wings cramped in your chrysalis
already deeply scarred
by a crippled reality,
a new beginning plummeting the watery depths
of our heart's sorrows
with its serpentine scales.

Oh universe of infinite yearning
where are you blindly falling?
How many shattered dreams of lost Worlds,
and the ruptured embolus of the brain;
while, the soul, with wings folded
patiently waits to soar again
under the fire and ice of death masks.

A RIGHT WING WIFE

Mr. Brady that civic minded man
who is active in right wing politics
has recently become married
and is very pleased with his wife,
for there is no one prettier,
sunnier dispositioned, and more dutiful,
more full of life,
more unquestioningly loyal, affectionate,
and willing to seduce and be a whore!

DREAMERS

Dreamers,
more untouchable now,
entrapped in the poison ivy of hate
you fly among the continent of clouds
through silver valleys and over ermine mountains;
dance in moonbeam mansions,
whose dark domed ceilings
are decorated in swirling constellations
discretely incognito:
gently peace loving Pieces
transformed into a shark,
and Aries brutally butchering
everything in sight.

Suddenly, the sky cracks open
and you, most adventuresome
of all life's waking dreamers,
fall a drop of blood from God's wound
into the shadowless light.

Dreamers,
apex of desire,
miracles are your daily fare;
they shower down upon you
shattering time and easing your immense agony.

Dreamers,
innocent at first, like the laughter of a child
or the color of fresh cut flowers-
wonder that are a gift from God
a spring now flowing with your blood.

INVOCATION

Vicious star, malevolent star,
Oedipus eyes of God,
tapping through the black universe
mad with grief,

Nemesis, cauterize the present
for the future's sake,
but spare our past!

Because, every past act
lies buried deep
within the breast of tomorrow.

ALL NIGHT

All night I've felt your pain,
all night I've watched, while you've bravely been straining
drenched in perspiration, hair glistening wet,
but this isn't platitudes about death, its l'chaim!

Armed with cliches, I've never felt so useless,
so utterly helpless, damn those worthless classes!
And, now God in your infinite goodness,
you could easily, if it is your will,

let my child be born free,
with the coming of the dawn,
and merge his little cry with the song
of the Earth finally awaking!

THE NEW AGE GROWS UP

They slithered into town twelve years ago,
special secret agents who pretended to be moral guardians;
attended church whenever possible; recorded
all their friends and acquaintances incriminating comments;
generated imperative lists for their computer files;
emulated their appearance, their mannerisms as they postured
idiomatically slinging slang on the streets;
infiltrated their plaster and wood homes,
spied from the inside; well past merely whoring
and marrying their way in, then came- their death squads
deadliest blow: they became the leaders
and planned the crimes- what do you think of that!?!
Their chameleon camouflage no longer a bloody trick.
What a unique coup the secret agents
transmutate into something far worse than
the arbitrary group of people being spied on-
the self-proclaimed angels become Satanic!