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       THANKSGIVING
I’m thinking of you, divine mendicant Mary Magdaline
A thousand human torches incarnadine proud Brutus.
Of your face flowing with a misty Autumn morning
Of rustic leaves garnishing your beautiful brown hair.

From my pipe I floated bobbing beneath the ceiling,
And from your frank smiling eyes lightening illuminates
While I was seen kneeling, giving thanks to Isis,
For the gift of letters that made me a proselyte of God.

In a galaxy’s heart a star is born, and I know
Its because this morning you’ve opened your eyes,
And, suddenly swirling out of the dark depths of Heaven
Come showers of shooting stars.

Now, the proud blinded Pharisee have destroyed the land
Transforming it into a dead and desolate wasteland, where formerly
Beneath the branches of Jefferson’s apple trees, purple mountains
And the vast rolling grasslands met freely with great stands of Sequoias

GOD, I HUMBLY EMPLORE
God, I humbly emplore
That you receive from me
The gladness in this verse
That swells from inside my breast.

Is it possible
That from among life’s myriad
Of tumultuous joys constantly
Broken and jostled about,

In the wheel ever turning
That you could perceive
The happiness inherint
In these simple harmonies?

All things rush ahead
They stop for no one,
while building from the past
look forward, for nothing has the power to arrest them.

Keep moving to the restless rhythms
Of life’s rapid resonating music
Seasons come dancing past-
Colors, fragrances, melodies

Pour in an endless profusion
Deep in a torrent of happiness
That disperses and dies
And constantly resurrects again and again.

A PICTURE
I’ve painted a picture pretty as a butterfly
   Feeding pollen from exotic blossoms
   To the soft syllables of my sweet song
I’ve sculptured lines we shared together

I’ve given you nightingales with tones
   As peculiar as a mystic Sufi’s eyes.
I’ve given you blazing sunsets,
   Which faded in the congregating gloom;
And, melting into darkness, while the crescent moon
guided her flock of radiant stars
toward the invisible distant horizon,
where one by one they fell from Heaven.

   THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW
I am the man without a shadow
The melancholy husband, wormwood provider:
My Sun eclipsed, - and my polychromatic pen
Presents its black twin, Nemises.

In the bleak desolation of my tomb
You’ve provided solace and support,
While waiting for my city of roses and the highlands to return
Which are so precious to tortured heart.

Am I Promethius or Paine?…. Giordano or Prufrock?
My lips are still moist from the kiss of my sweetheart;
In crystal streams, where woodland sylphs swim, I have dreamed…
And, I, too, have twice traversed the mysterious Acheron:

Not a proudly triumphant Orpheus, but a humble premature mistake
Bringing back romantic invocations to the voyage,
Brave clarion calls of freedom
And the saint’s gentle message of peace, charity and love.

   PRACTICAL WISDOM
I remember an ancient sages premise:
Let us pretend its not like today,

When public consent is manufactured, and
Government is entirely set up for factional interests;

But, that the government is entirely at one with the people,
And never exerts any power of coercion and extortion,

Unless in concorde with what it conceives to be the public will.
But, He (and I) deny the right of any people

To exercise such coercion and/or extortion,
Either by themselves or by their government!

The power itself is illegitimate. This particular evil
Deprives all future ages of the right to an opinion.

Further, if the opinion is right it robs mankind
And, if wrong the opportunity to clarify the truth.

Also, it eliminates equality thereby seriously injuring
Egalitarean safeguards and Democratic institutions.

Finally, depriving someone anything that they think either reasonable
Or, which they feel will increase their happiness

Can only be done by seriously hurting someone
Which means by becoming bad.

What kind of wicked person do you wish to become,
A pervert, a rapist, a slanderer, a murder?

Keep us God, from fanatics who blasphemously push society
Toward old lies dressed as new revelations.

Honest and earnest enemies we can cope with,
But, this kind of duplkicity hamstrings us.

It smiles and is friendly, as we struggle-
Until, we embrace Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal.

God is witness to our weaknesses;
The future will judge us based on how we’ve treated our dissidents.

What an individual does with their time
Is between themselves and God.

But, what is claimed now is that time is not ours
Rather it is theirs and how we spend it is up to them.

We greet our opponents ,
And to self-serving deceivers we say: NO!

Noisy clamorous alarums and fawning syncophants
Are useless except to spawn fear and hate:

Once a nation starts bending to anothers will it never ends.
How shameful to become evil and wicked,

Doing Satin’s work placing pitfalls
In front of our fellow human beings.

RUMOR MILL

   Rumor Mill contends that all citizens benefit from “good gov’t.”. And, good gov’t. is produced by good people. What we need to do as voters is determine a standard of conduct that constitutes goodness that will transfer to effective gov’t.. Let us use this as our starting point, then, for such an ambiguous process as finding a functional criterion for “goodness”. High on our list of behavioral characteristics will be the term “just”, and in like wise we will need to understand what “unjust” means; not just in a social context, but in a political context, too.
       Also, Rumor Mill contends that the just individual, who would make government good, is lawful and fair. Inversely, the unjust will be unfair and unlawful. Since the unjust person is grasping and greedy, they must be concerned with goods, which promote their personnel prosperity. Interestingly those goods don’t always result in good for the person. However, one thing is universal, unfairness is constantly sought by the unjust person. For example the Republicans have a tremendous advantage in money and that means they can act in ways which while lawful are designed to promote their power and are not equal, thus fair. This hurts good gov’t.. The effect is the Republican Party promotes special interest legislation. Now, laws that promote all subjects common advantage are thought of as naïve instead of fundamental to good gov’t.; so that one can easily see that legislative acts no longer produce and preserve happiness for all members of society. Instead of equality we see laws passed that are designed to force the will of a powerful few off on the vast majority, with a huge propaganda apparatus to facilitate the process by fundamentally dishonest means. This has reasserted the axiom that bigoted rules expose the person. Virtue becomes neglected and subordination to power rises to ascendancy, resulting in reason and justice being abandoned.   Now what formerly were considered as the worst people were they who worked deceit and injustice on friends and foes alike for their own advantage, which is what we’ve come to expect from gov’t. outcomes. Virtue lies lost and abandoned in the process. Is it any wonder that under Republican leadership we experience the following unequal, thus unfair, thus unjust scenarios, which the Rumor Mill contends that they are responsible for:

1.)Two years of depression.
2.)The prospect of privatized Social Security, which will result in worse retirement for the 75% of Senior Citizens who rely on Social Security for their primary source of income, while a small number who are the controlling interests of Mutual Funds will benefit from annual receiving Social Security money.
3.)The prospect of paying for both public and private schools, in a system which will cost us more while producing worse education for the vast majority of students.
4.)The prospect of another war costing the US $ 200 Billion, which could have helped pay for schools, prescription relief for Senior Citizens, home heating relief for poor children and their (the fastest growing group of poor in America today) working mothers, law enforcement officers, job training and a variety of other social services,
5.)The prospects of privatizing Medicare, which would give payments to insurance companies who would then charge additional money for tests and referral doctors to those who could afford them. A Republican system rated as the most unfair in the World, and most expensive to operate, and that gives worse health to 50% of its Senior Citizens, working poor and chronically ill every three years. Another example of a worse system at greater costs for the American public.
6.)The prospect of more tax cuts for the wealthy few, while callously under funding and eliminating badly needed social services.
7.)The prospect of robbing US citizens of the right of legal redress trying to hide it by calling it prescription relief.

Further, Rumor Mill contends that in Oregon the Republican State Senator running for Governor voted for a measure referring a plan to fund public schools to the public. Then, he attacked his Democratic opponent in campaign adds for supporting the plan. What really happened was the Democrat said was without any better alternative he reluctantly had to support a poor funding package because it was all that was available. The alternative was to irresponsibly not fund public schools. Imagine how bad it would be if we had adopted the Republican plan and had to pay substantial sums for private schools, too.
The Republican candidate attacked the Democrat for reluctantly having to support a bad funding choice lacking any other alternative. A Republican plan that the Republican had voted to present the public with, which the Republican said was so bad!!! If it were such a bad plan, then, why did the Republican vote for it, and then pass off on an unsuspecting public a bad alternative? And, why did he lie by virtue of not clearly stating the facts of the matter to the public?
   How can we expect good gov’t. from such candidates, when obedience to special interests and deceiving the public are prerequisites for participation? Have we forgotten that to act unjustly is the result of a state of character no less than burglary, rape, murder and theft? Why did the Republicans stop actively working on any issues until after the elections? If not to allow time for the public to forget their positions and let the Republican’s Billions of special interest money buy another election, by lying to the public. Evidently, there is, apart from the inherent injustice which share the infamy of wickedness with other “bad” people who victimize fellow citizens by forcing their will on others like the rapist, burglar, and murder, a wider definition of the term “wicked”
Which needs to be applied wherever injustice rears its ugly evil head and falls within the same domain. For the significance of both consists in a relation to one’s neighbors.
On the one side people are concerned with honor, prosperity and safety, while respecting the rights of others: even minority groups who they disagree and disapprove of. On the other the unjust acts arising from super imposing their will, which inevitably results in wickedness, injustice and corruption that arise from placing primary concern over objects and power rather than producing good gov’t. from good people.