Irises

Mockingbird

   RAINDROPS
Cheerful raindrops dance before God
as immortal streams swell toward
turgid rivers on the move:

the Sun cascades down stone stairs
at first hesitantly and then irrevocably,
in a cataract of light:

rainbow arrows arch across the valley floor
striking distant dingy patches of hospital snow
dying in ditches on sheltered Northern exposures.

Hillside fissures harbor Heaven’s
nameless tributaries, who run
toward the low lying sea.

Here reigns rivers pouring baptismal waters
over the Earth, busy with resurrection,
sovereign streams cloister among deep drinking roots.

Gone to Earth, the fallen trees,
leave bereft forests, to grieve
lingering over their patient memories.

How easy to float, drifting aimlessly among
the tops of fresh flowers and morning tea;
there’s time enough on the surface of gray misty mornings for self-reproach;

where, temporarily oblivious to the care
inherent in this mundane existence,
I disdain the dirty scolding snow.

   LUNAR MISTS
Among the mists of lunar firs
at the sign of gold we saw the owl.
The Earthly shudder foretold.
Spotlights are the harsh cyclopean eye’s
on the steeple that slips into a coma
and your prophetic voice soft and serene.

Crystal clear from subterranean springs
I bruit the truth
that emerges form my heart.
The age of myrtle and incense disappears
and the ardent din
and its hope inherent unfairness.

At your Modigliano neck
that smells of lilac,
dreams vanish consternation
in colonnades of rainbow moonbeams.
I issue from you, o priestess,
no longer mortal, mysterious midnight of veiled moons
tears slumber in your eyes:

to this quiet, star strewn infinity
of smoldering ruins
descends the nihilistic children.

In the wail of the Earth, to the exploding cosmic solitude,
to the green desires of fallow fields,
you will sing psalms of my humble existence.

   FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY
With snow recently departed
and dreams of green buried beneath seas of mud
constantly pursues, behind respectability’s phony facade,
that is ply those right wing whores.

Corruption accompanies the sluts down our streets,
while the married men
soon rut in adulteresses’ beds
and bachelors wallow in bestial sensuality - most seem
to be snuffing the air
scenting the bitches in heat.

Look at those cruel lips
twisted into sneers, at their associates’ acts of violence,
on those hardened faces,
warped with unnatural lusts and perverse pleasures,
each bleak year strikes them
leaving welts and scars, where its not supposed to show.

Aren’t there, any shriven souls
that can inhale and heal with love
those rank members of the swaggering herd,
whose arrogant grimaces encounter -
over cup littered desolate landscapes
and vast black abysses -
my honest eyes full of faith, hope and charity.

   AND NOW
And now the children are past, rapidly receding
in my rear view mirror agile and alert as wrens,
crushed beneath their nimble feet, are delicate little flowers.
I’ll never hear their swelling voices bubbling like a brook.

Their not the ones whose breasts
shelter my pilgrim heart,
and, who can disperse gloom
with their illuminating smiles.

Farewell, my youth has past;
Adios, gentle and joyous Sunshine,
sweet fragrance, harmonious and happy time.
Fickle fate - fleeting and forgetful.

But wait - what’s this, stepping from Today’s mirror…
"Bonjourno, beautiful brown eyes," at home she shows me
the years first gay blooming quince, vaguely fragrant,,,,
a splash of color transforms the dreariness of late Winter.

   DEVASTATINGLY ORDINARY
In the blue glowing light of TV , a small
aging man silently sits watery eyed,
his shallow breathing,
his coarse face subservient and spiteful.
The others are asleep.

He is a solitary sentinel
confirming the bigoted beliefs that will destroy me
and bury me in the Earth’s embrace.
Show finished - malice eagerly glistens,
as he creeps toward bed. Outside,
a pale moon shines; his wife,
warm and overweight, snores in a large half empty bed.

His hatred will hurtle
across this black morose river,
and cut out my heart.
It has come specially for me.

Innocent I will fall; and, understand
how history will teach this moments utter futility;
and, while stars shower from heaven,
my blood will pour, in a red deluge, on the green beaten grass.

And God will greet me, with the balm
of his infinite love, for these
bitter days of desolation;
which were malevolently done,
by that small aging man who was devastatingly ordinary.

   PRIDE’S PITFALL
In present times, when Theology
is practiced with excessive zeal,
a group of prominent religious leaders, so its said,
aroused many naïve hearts, down to their dull depths;
and, lead them descending into subterranean paths
through darkness to a nocturnal throne -
to a place they never visited before,
perhaps habitat of other poor lost souls -
fanatical and frenzied, they soon were puffed by Satanic pride,
like someone slipping to extreme measures,
and who cries, "Ah Lord, see how I have exalted Thee!
Through my will I have exalted Thee!"
But the shame he hypocritically tried to pawn off on his victims
was the reason for his present fame and infamy!
God, in his misguided hands,
became his own personal bigot!

Unaware, his reason stealthily left him;
that cunning mind restrained before,
became blinded and made irrational;
every immoral act imaginable chaotically wallowed within his mind;
Meanwhile, a holy temple made of marble
all the colors of dawn and decorated with costly jewels,
under whose roof solemn ostentatious rituals were performed.

They were possessed, by silence and shadows,
and absorbed by night, like a cavern is
when torches are suddenly doused.

Gradually they became brutal and bestial;
when any time they drove the streets,
not seeing anything beyond their perverse predation;
they no longer knew what season it was -
they were destructive, repulsive and malignant monsters
who made boogie men
for children and old people;
vile things, objects of fear; loathing and pity.

   LITTLE ANGEL
Since my little angel is gone
there is an abyss that consumes my home.
It repudiates mere reason:
I know we’re still here, and yet,
it feels as though there’s only emptiness;
the absence of one small soul has left a black hole.

You brought life to all of us,
filled the house with the melody of your voice,
you filled to overflowing
every nook, and cranny with your play.
Who would have thought,
how much your Mom would brood,
or, how morose
your Dad’s become.
You made everyone around you laugh.
I still feel the pressure of your small arms’ embrace.
When you entered a room it floated
filled with your laughter,
now, the house is emptiness, and
silence reigns over everything.
All your favorite places are open wounds,
and every heart’s hunger is left unfull filled.

   VYTANTAS
Leaving behind the smell of coffee, bacon and pancakes
time departs accompanied by clamoring cups & saucers ,
and the din of knives and forks, while space hunches up its shoulders
from the fear that extortion’s palpable presence creates
and furtively glances at the end of perspective.

Pale veiled orb, imitating the moon,
weakly it dangles unobtrusively above
the exhalations from skyscrapers;
and, faces appear in profile, as if the distant half
had been shorn off.

Obeying orders like Alice’s white rabbit,
a waitress wearing a uniform
shuffles along in small minced steps
on legs which had wrapped, in a vice the night before
around the waist of a local conveniently targeted suspect.

The coming of the white man,
whose blind symbolic stare,
remains discretely hidden in a sacred grove
his folded arms and verdigris complexion
in Portland steadily follows
the oblivious herd.

Where will they go now
lost in allegory’s domain?
I have always admired his resolve.
His obstinacy against storming seas,
his defiance of coercion standing on the rock.

The way he was a lion roaring
at the image of himself roaring
in the raging night. And his hatred
of all the religious cant, the tragedy
that blasphemed everything
with its evil corruption.
The contempt of base vanity
never expecting recognition
or admiration,
for his taking his stand.

The way his resolve held and hardened,
because he exposed what he knew to be true.
His fate like a traveling star
between the anvil rock and hammering sea.

The dream land time
ponders imperturbably on.
See the whole World stretching away.

The waking dream watches
a gold fish bowel filled with writhing snakes.
Today’s Ajax madness has poured red into empty skulls
until, a flooded lake remains, whose surface tension trembles;

a modest inland port nestled in the heart of a valley.
It has rain, rivers, airports and internet.
A tyrant’s monolithic architecture.
A neo-realism larger than life statue
called Portlandia devoid of any mythical heritage.

Austere display, while it demonstrates bad provincial taste,
has the characteristic of conformity: for you can see its stylistic like
in several other major U.S. cities. After years
of neo-nazi oppression out of towners
find the natives wary, night life entails
slight intoxication the weather generally restricts indoors -
a good subject for a Degas study of artificial light.

Noon in late Winter. Rain rivulets, cloud continents,
concrete canyons in geometric grids. Here people
become quagmired in commuter traffic,
or a file in the "new" dark age.

A walking anachronism
whose heart hankers to see when
over the sink and out the window
an orchard’s red budding, and an old hump backed Mt.,
hear embedded in silence, diminished with distance,
a church bell ringing; feel love for a Mother,
who always found time to play with here children;
quietly smoke my pipe, and plow the field for Spring planting,
sigh for Saturday night, a victim of crushing crowds, and
foreign speaking ladies; and hang around Sundays,
while everything gathered dust - and believe in
friendship from commerce: being wary of those
who would advise badly from self interest, and those
willing fools, who from indifference, would be deceived.
In that filthy sewer of icy slush
someone rolls the presses, whose deliberately deceitful stories echo
the same sad refrain: hate,
in bold crimson print, in glaring headlines, and
in order to establish it in oscillating brain waves.

The rouge lips nibble the ear
with its long, affected, polysyllable worded phrases
complete with self-satisfied pauses.
Its male counter-point
tolls complacent sententious tones with lacerating sentences
like leprous skins jellied embrace.
Alone in the throng
you wander, in wonder with it all.

Water trapped in puddles
stare at the sky; and, the forest wails
as wind sweeps across the tree tops -
no where do choruses resound in psalms.

A ransacked house, searched in the owners absence,
the children come home and stare.
Standing at the grocery store
are long lines with no one with enough faith
to feed the hungry multitudes.

Taking the exit, following the sign
that tells you where your going,
then down the somnolent street
past the church, whose doors are locked
except to their business offices;
and on home where you park your car
and enter leaving behind the tumultuous noise
of today’s discord, and whisper that echoing phrase
"Forgive them Lord, they know not what they do.".

   GRAY BANKS
Plaintive refrain carried by the wind,
loud and clear, of a flight of geese
no sooner seen than vanishing
in the red river dawn.

The mysterious pulse
beats out of the deep
stirring in us vague feelings:
our barren little World barley maintains.

Flying after a sinking moon.
Point them out,
stark contrast
to the sick corruption
spewed out from the void.

So the metaphor fades,
with their dying voices,
while this bleak life
is absorbed in great gray banks.

   RUMOR MILL
   History has taught us nothing if not that each age must re-establish the eternal values of freedom. However, when lost certain negative consequences inexorably manifest themselves . Consequently, it should come as no surprise when in our age we find that the certain percentage of the population that should be possessed with certain behavioral characteristics suited for public life, capable and cunning and specially graced with well developed social skills are still produced; and , yet the truly brilliant and transcendent individuals are almost extinct. Such is the dearth of great works of Art created in our times.
   It is the old point of emphasis issue between the nature and nurture question. Are we to honestly hold the old fashioned view that freedom is the benevolent nurse of genius and that great individuals flourish primarily with freedom and its political manifestations (i.e. democracy) and perish with out it? Liberty has the power to develop noble minds and to furnish them with high hopes, and simultaneously rouses our eager competitive spirit of healthy rivalry for the foremost place. Further, because of the prizes and rewards which republics offer, people’s intellectual gifts are inspired and developed by practice, sharpened so to speak, by friction and share, as is only natural, the light of liberty that illuminates the country. But in these days we are programmed from the tender infancy of our minds in the same servile ways and behaviors. We are never exposed, in a meaningful contemporary and personal context, to the most fertile source of creative ability, which is freedom, and thus we produce almost nothing but abject sycophants on a grand scale. This is why, while all other faculties are distributed according to the natural log rhythm , rarely, if ever , do any servile people become imminent leaders. It is the inability to speak freely and the feeling of being, as it were, in a prison that immediately asserts itself, and oppression becomes the product of the repeated beatings of habit. What Homer said, "Surely, half of our manhood is robbed by the day of enslavement" is equally true of today’s sophisticated methods of tyranny and oppression. And so, if what was believed to be true that not only did the cages in which pygmies and dwarfs were kept in, in antiquity, helped to stunt the growth of their bodies; it was definitely true, on the same principle, all oppression and bondage are forms of slavery, however equitable, and serve as cages for the soul: a common prison.
   It is easy and characteristic of human nature to criticize contemporary things. But, carefully consider. Perhaps its not the present relatively peaceful times that corrupts great natures but perhaps endless conflicts that afflicts our hearts and yes license ( the kind brought about by the corruption of power not personal liberty) for our passions that mindlessly regiment our lives in contemporary times and makes a chaos of them. It is love of money that insatiable sickness which we all suffer from now, and the love of pleasure that enslaves us; or, rather stated metaphorically, sinks our ship of state with all hands on board; for greed is a withering sickness and the love of pleasure to the exclusion of all else that is utterly ignoble. How is it, if we value infinite wealth or more to the point make a golden calf of it; how can we possibly keep our minds safe from the encroachment of the evils that inevitably accompany it.
   In close company with vast wealth comes power and with it the invariable processes of corruption. Extravagance, and once the floodgates are open it inundates our cities and houses and once the one enters then the other comes and invades our homes, too. And, when they have spent some time pervading our lives they take up residence, so history has repeatedly shown us; and, promptly begin to produce children; these are Pride and Arrogance, Luxury and Indolence, no bastards but the legitimate children. And, if these progeny of privilege and wealth are allowed to grow and mature, they soon breed in our hearts inevitable tyrants, Shamelessness, Vice and Corruption. This must inexorably occur and when it does the citizens no longer aspire upwards nor endeavor for future fame. Gradually, insidiously inch by inch, the moral degradation and ruin of their lives becomes complete in the downward spiral of such vices, their greatness of soul withers away and dies and is no longer something to cultivate and strive for, since people now value that part of themselves which is vain and foolish and neglect to develop their immortal part. A man can no longer be trusted to give an honest and sound judgment on what is just and fair: for they inevitably regard, having warped their values to match base selfish interests, their own interests as fair and just. So now seeing that the whole of life of all of them is controlled completely by bribery, fraud, extortion and hunting people’s death and setting trap’s for profit, they have sold their souls for profit at bargain basement prices and become slaves to their greed. How can we expect, in such a sewer of pestilential ruin that there would be left free people, who are unbribed (i.e. without being corrupted or perverted - see last issue’s RUMOR MILL) judges of great things worthy of lasting eternity? Aren’t they now corrupted by their passion for greed? Perhaps we, as a people, are being conditioned via propaganda to desire a Master rather than be blessed with freedom. And of course the radical right will elect themselves as Master. They are like released prisoners with no moral or legal restraints, their greed swamps the World in a deluge of evils. What wastes this generation’s talents isn’t conflict and pleasure; but, tyranny and oppression. Only by exerting ourselves or demonstrating enterprise for honorable and admirable motives of doing good to the World. And, what does good mean? It varies from person to person, therefore, the greatest good can only be realized by that government which affords the greatest personal liberty, which fortunately simultaneously realizes the greatest amount of happiness. Historically, the type of government that best accomplishes this is democracy, when it doesn’t degenerate into, either a meaningless facade or, reduce itself by reactionary actions to contemporary circumstances into a tyranny of the majority.