I am bruised and battered
from a life afflicted with conflict.
Why then this happiness?
Enter into my heart peace;
yes, and God's love and fulfillment, too.
AT THE SOUND
At the sound of my prayers,
serpents sprang up from their banquet,
where they had spent the night reclining
guzzling a loathsome red drink.
I was filled with utter revulsion,
when I realized that the beverage
they were drinking
was that of children's blood.
Dawn sprang upon my back
bright and beautiful, as blue mists
rose in wisps from the river
like the after effects of late night revelries.
And, suddenly I felt intense pain,
an immense sadness that the day,
which held such infinite promise
was unfolding a festering wound.
It would open without me,
a day where I was reduced to nothing;
but the capricious whim
of somebody else's will.
A stillborn day that would be buried
where others dictated-
if only I could run and retrieve it!
Here is what I'd do.
It would be spread, like sunshine,
freely on everyone. Then people could
make what they would of their own lives,
even if only some stairs to climb all the way to the stars.
But, unfortunately,
I haven't the power
to stop this sinister fraud,
my book of dark revelations and horrible hours.
THE AMERICA OF MY YOUTH
Yesterday, the America of my youth
was filled with golden sunshine and azure skies;
today, an anemic light feebly seeps through dreary clouds
and lies in puddles on the ground.
It is cold and damp,
a fine mist gently falls
on the commuter traffic
that inches along choked on its own congestion.
A few lonely leaves dangle
like forlorn ornaments from thin shivering trees.
Its gray as a graveyard.
Winter has come.
ENTOMOLOGICAL LISTS
Scribble on
the blank backs of envelops
entomological lists-
groceries and books,
Holland bulbs and Spring seeds;
scribble on
the backs of blank envelops
entomological lists-
garbage cans and solar lights,
whirlligigs and serendipity;
conspicuous consumption covers
spiritual desolation,
each day is market day,
when you surf the internet:
isolated
everything this life has to offer
is delivered to your door-
bulk rate and insured.
THOSE OF US
Those of us
who have departed
the mud and mire
of the Earth,
to soar freely
and touch Heaven
or, the blossoming clouds
of Magellan; and, are
injured
by their shattered dreams
will spring upward
with the exploding pieces
of longing....
for form blacked out
terrestrial night
our prayers fly
out of reach,
of daily death and destruction,
searching for
the inward Eden
of your mind's eye.
Black and smoldering ruins,
and desolate seas, and
craters formed from tears
in these desert days
travel through
star studded stations
towards realms of dustless rest.
EARTH IS BUILDING
Everywhere Earth
is building penal colonies.
Not to people the land
with robust blood;
but, to dominate
the melodious music
of the seasonal promonade,
to dominate
the healthy rhythms
of unblighted life:
infinity = life + death
TRILOGY
You
free falling
from the sky
into the good night
busy forgetting the World
form distant eternity
your suplicant hands
white bones sculpting
the icy grotto
with celestial music
mapping out the secret starry sea
which composed its symphony
in your inner ear
steel girders and cabals
building bridges
from here to eternity-
this precise composition
is delegated
only to the dying.
THE SUPREME POWER'S OPRESSION
When inspite of the supreme power's opression
the poet continues in this worn out World
they who afflict him, as in a nightmare,
clenched their blasphemous teeth, and snarl in disdain,
we'ld rather exist a pile of shit,
than tolerate in our heart
this recalcitrant reprobate, who was perhaps inadvertantly created
to expose and extole us to behave.
Since out of all creation God made us
an object of disgrace and dismay;
since we can no longer conceal our abominations,
like an old supreme decree, to the gas chambers;
we will direct our overwhelming hate,
on this scapegoat of our spleen;
this blighted blossom we will desecrate
that not one honest petal shall see the Sun!
So froathing with the foam of malice
and ignorant of God's inexorable design,
they conpire with their own blood stained finger, to clean up
with heineous crimes consecrated in hell.
And, during all this under the care of a guardian Angel
the disenfranchised poet grows drunk on the light;
his fare, though sparse and scarce,
is humble and honest before God.
Riding on clouds playing tag with moonbeams,
he happily sings the sad songs of poverty;
while prostrate his pilgrim shadow weeps
to see him bravely enjoying the wonders of Nature.
Isolated from people whose aquaintance he would cherish,
they caste fearful sidelong glances, while those
brutal bullies exploited his vulnerability and competed to see
who will vent their rage and be first to tear a tormented tear from
his eye.
With all the wormwood the poet must eat
they mingle excrement and piss,
everything he touches is treated like leprosy;
they grieve if they have to drive down the same road he travels.
Our prostituted children walk the streets.
"Since we are whored by our parents,
little human sacrifices, we dare each other
frightening ourselves with the new bogus bogey man.
We are told that he, too, has been perverted,
with subliminal images of prepubescent boys and girls
paired with his wife in a sexual context and other pornographic images.
Its easy to hate what your taught to fear;
our parents blasphemous usurpation of mankind's divine rights
we have learned to touch with our fragile and fierce hands,
when we've ensnared him with obscene play; these experienced young
claws
know to cruise their crimson path to his heart.
We'll ripo his still beating heart from his breast,
and disdainfully throw it in the garbage disposal,
like a young calf torn trembling from its mother's udder-
his heart will be chopped meat for my dog."
Calmly, the poet lifts his supplicant hands,
to the blue Heavens, where God's gold throne resides;
and, standing in a radiant Sun beam, blind to the furious herd,
a glinting sespec of light as if a dust mote:
"Thank you God, even though your ways are mysterious,
I know you have given me this pain and suffering,
to purify and make worthy to enter Heaven;
where, being one with truth, I'll stand next to you."
RECORDED LIVE
The fibre optics record
sparse walls painted sepulcheral white,
while an electric light lashes photons
on the threadbare nerves of naked furniture,
such covered poverty batters the ego;
revealed nude in the merely comfortable room,
the vaguely familiar stranger
in the dark convex glass
of the blank cyclopean screen
puts on a vare faced smile,
while endlessly repeating our violated privacy
that it scrupulously reflects
conveying the daily terror to you know who.
Just what are our crimes,
when the floor reveals discrete
heiroglyphics cracks that defy reading?
When end tables contend
thatthey have no more holy duty
than shedding baptismal light,
and the ryg that just lies there
contending that vicious creatures
grind in the dirt.
Or, when the translucent windows
admit the grey day which veils
our propspects in perplexing ambiguities.
Twelve times the familiar miracle
spawned an ample hatch of augeries;
but now pictures and sculptures
convey no danger but beauty;
out of sight, beyond the wide eyed lens,
something ominous lurks-
waiting for the ritual human sacrifice.
We are disected; under the lens
our limbs randomly move about
pale from the pasty color of skin;
con our brokin dreams ever blur
the dark rectangular lines
which encloses the shape that imprisons us?
Absolute beliefs pry in even
when the blind eye stares unblinking
the room exists behind my reflection
its reflection are falsely smooth
and truthfully black.
And, always the absurdity intrudes nude
urging the fabricarion of some new upholstry
to conceal the stark nakedness of today - exposed.
Fact, must never distort delusion!
Each day witnesses the rebith of the World
resurrecting all its transgressions; transforming
its ritualized sins beneath the popular cant
of many colors pre-fabed, manufactured, hate bred beliefs.
In this particular screen, two juxtapose lines
recede like writhing ridges, while grey hairs
plunge over shoulders and cascade down a broad back
over a jumble of rock; a beacon lamp
sends out its warning light over great seas of darkness;
invoking God's blessings
embarking on board our illusionary vessel
we sail between crashing rocks, by sacred temples,
and past sweet singing sirens; until,
succesfully navigating many adventures
at last we arrive in port.
A FAMILY
We made love, and now we're a family;
another trilogy, a divine mystery,
the pulse that duplicates
my wife's coursing quietly
in the dark through it's veins;
and, will one day be
a sentient being, whose breath
will move in and out
in a colliding tide of atoms.
Now we are one, something sacred: a family!
I even felt it move:
a miracle: because of the little one
who sleeps silently dreaming
in the center of the universe,
my heart is noble just like my wife's
ALL
All Simonide's dirges and Kochanowski's laments,
all Chopin's nocturnes and Barber's adagio for strings,
all melancholy music, all sadness, tear streaked cheeks,
heart rending cries of grief and epitaphs,
every one come and gather here together
to help the minister, a man of God,
mourn the death of his son, his hopes for the future,
who the cruel radical right murdered so brutally.
it was like tearing his still beating heart out of his breast.
"Your grief is too extreme, " friends say, "moderate yourself."
But, whoever has lost a child realizes
the profound truth of scripture: Vanity all is vanity.
RUMOR MILL
Rumor Mill contends the Radical Right has been trying to influence
religious leaders by attacking their children!
RUMOR MILL
When we state a desire to do "something" for the
sake of children, then we need to think about the behavioral outcomes involved.
In previous essays Rumor Mill has critiqued what kind of society we are
striving to create for all of our citizens. Also, Rumor Mill has
analyzed the recent Radical Right movement in a social populist context.
Today, Rumor Mill plans to discus what kind of person is desirable to have
in a productive and happy society.
It is amazingly simple. Society should be
comprised of good people. Now the question becomes what is meant
by "good"? This is essential, because otherwise we will lend assistance
to crime, and then we become less safe in our persons and property.
There is nothing as pernicious as a populist movement that pays itself
for causing crimes to occur. The Radical Right does this in a variety
of ways. First, they cause violence in schools, which they then try
to use to undermined popular support for public schools - replacing them
with inferior public schools for the majority of children. Let them
be reminded ignorance is not a virtue. Remember the important role
of education during the cold war, and what a wave of prosperity it helped
to provide? Second, they have been perverting people causing an epidemic
in child abuse cases, to the extent that there are now enough to fill whole
classes of them. Classes paid for at great public expense.
The Radical Right, to facilitate this high profile crime and deceive the
public, are training children in the oldest profession: prostitution.
Thus promoting the heinous crime of child abuse.
Don't the Radical Right realize that to be well
rounded citizens and to become optimally productive citizens children need
to acquire complex sets of skills. These can not be obtained unless
they are free from preoccupation's with bigoted biases. For it is
only when one is free and self controlled, without diversions of easy sordid
gains elsewhere, that they will cultivate the diligent work ethic necessary
to prepare them. If contra distinctively they are trained to develop skills
of deception like lying and cheating, excessive anxiety about sexual perversion,
obsession about sadistic and brutal behaviors hunting humans, or, sacrificing
whole weeks to setting someone up, stealing time from studies; what do
you think will be the violent thoughts within their souls, if not
greed envy, hate avarice and malice; which, will weaken their characters
and wake up perverse pleasures and misanthropic behaviors. There
is nothing so distracted, so preoccupied, so warped, so decayed as someone
obsessed with such perverted appetites and bigoted biases that are produced
by an evil mind. For when it harbors some dark scheme, and when it
is involved in a criminal design it is consumed with hope and anxiety.
What do we hope to obtain from children employed in lust and luxury, perversions
and sadism? Does not the desire to please promote any variety of
behaviors? Can a bad and unjust person realize let alone promote
what is just and honorable? Can bad and unjust people even realize
what those things mean? No, even if we tried to introduce these themes
on the most rudimentary level, they will not have acquired the same skills,
talents, industry and knowledge necessary. All this to deny others
of the fundamental right to live their own lives quietly in their own way,
to the extent that it does not deny the same rights to others, while striving
to be happy. We still find ourselves confronted with the same
dilemma, what is a good person? The answer is simple enough, it is
the person who is just and virtuous, honest and honorable. These
observations may seem self evident. However, sometimes it is profitable
to review fundamental truths.
One fundamental truth is just as it is impossible
for a number to be even if it is odd, so too, is it impossible fro one
group to attack another group of individuals and still maintain any meaningful
concept of equality and civil rights. The Radical Right in assaulting
their fellow citizens, for the sake of children, have destroyed the positive
products of Democracy collectively known as "Civil Rights", the ability
to spend time as seems reasonable either in productive employment to maximize
their well being or in spending their free time as they see fit optimizing
happiness. Now, the Radical Right contends that they do so because
of drugs. However, heroin and cocaine are only used by about 1/2
0f 1% of the population. The Radical Right are attacking people for
no other reason than that they can manipulate them into doing wrong.
The Radical Right are attacking people for speaking the truth, in other
words for not lying or being hypocrites. In fact the Radical Right
are now, for the sake of children, finding itself in the unenviable position
of attacking virtue itself! Further, there are instances Rumor Mill
contends where the Radical Right attacked people because they didn't like
them. Finally, the Radical Right have become corrupt to the point
of attacking people because either politically expedient or they wanted
to take over occupations related to controlling the courts. All these things
may be done for the sake of children; but, neither does it make them wise,
nor does it make them the right thing to do. Remember, the Radical
Right benefits from all the wrong and wicked things it can cause to occur.
Rumor Mill extends its complete pity for those who have fallen so far from
grace.
RUMOR MILL
Rumor Mill contends that the Radical Right are trying
to attack social security by deliberately trying to have it under funded
with huge Republican tax cuts, in an attempt to force older people back
into the labor markets. Remember, Social Security represents the
primary source of income for 75% of America's senior citizens. The
effect will of course be to expand the supply of a competitive market,
which means a reduction in the real wages of American workers. No
doubt it's being done, not for greed; but, for children, too. During the
last 25 years we have seen the American labor markets swell by about 50%
with the infusion of women. Two attempts to suppress wages are currently
being made. First, the introduction of cheap third world labor, which
is designed to third worldize U.S. labor markets. Unfortunately,
that will mean a third world standard of living for approximately 80% of
our citizens. Second, the introduction of senior citizens,
which we have already mentioned. What happens to their retirement
accounts remains to be seen. Why will people save if retirement becomes
an unattainable dream? This will certainly negatively impair are
deplorably low national savings rate. It will also tend to destabilize
the finical markets during periods of depressed economic activity.
And, negatively impact future consumer demand. This occurring during
a period of cost push inflation, brought on by Republican greed and incompetence,
will certainly not help.
One can't help but wonder at an economic scenario
where one factional group attains a position of advantage, where it gains
a steady flow of income with elevated oil prices, insurance revenues
and retirement accounts during a major recession period. By extending
the recession they would find themselves in a adventitious position to
avariciously benefit from the rest of societies duress. Money would be
plentiful while the value of businesses would be at bargain prices.
They would benefit while everyone else would suffer. The only question
is how much is stupidity and incompetence and how much greed and avarice?