AN ORPHAN IN WINTER
Please, as dawn’s light seeps softly into the frozen valley
spend a moment with me.  The studies I toil over
will wait ‘till we’re through.  When Your presence
is obscured by our trivial affairs my heart
becomes a lost orphan that knows no rest,
and my labors become immersed in endless Herculean effort
and I slave like Sisyphus pushing the huge boulder
up the summit less Himalayan Mountains.

Today Winter peers in at my window,
with white hair and feather frosted breath;
and a flock of geese flying overhead singing out to each other
they’re barely visible ensconced in low lying, snow laden clouds -
that white ermine wrap of the crystal blue palace.
Now its time to sit still, feeling you swelling warm
within my heart; and, to write wise words dedicated to life,
in this silent and wonderful leisure.


        DEAD
A happy explosion of feathers
disturbs the frozen white landscape:
the sea in snow.

I’m dead.  And, all the God given joy
time impaled, leaving only
faint echoing whispers in naked shivering trees.

My healthy self love –
a stolen memory,
deceased, radiant stellar stigmata,

sepulchral time capsules
reflect mythological characters on the Stygian river:
weary hours grow listless with frozen flakes,

or a melancholy melody
restlessly wanders
through this eternal brooding night.

Year after year, I hibernate
in an open grave of Earth,
reeds stir poly rhythmically
knee deep in slate gray water:
out of the still darkness a  fiery comet roars.
        FELLOW IN QUESTION
The fellow in question
during the ceremonious New Year’s celebrations
with his wife and family
found himself, suddenly sadly struck
by the absence of birds
with their melodic tumultuous din and colorful clutter,
and riotous patches of green grass
quietly poking through the monotonous, undulating white landscape.

Scarred by the collective cataclysm,
he sees the extreme gestures with which contemporary populists rend the air
their movements random and erratic
through a rank wilderness of slumbering shrubs.
He judges sharp thorns and stolen petals strewn about,
the whole season gone to seed.

However, still he found solace in Winter!
Its honest austerity in its plain white cloak
accentuated by black ice crusted branches
each emotion peacefully dreaming
beyond blissfully blurred borders;
and, every unique heart is a perfect beautiful snowflake
imprisoned frozen beneath blocks of ice.

But, here the Earth erupts daffodils,
and spews legions of deciduous trees sprouting blood red buds,
and conifers tipped bright green with this years new growth;
a healthy scene robust and teeming in mud, smoke and beer –
a joyous treason not to be tolerated.
Let unwary fools reel happily in revelry:
they knew what to do,
in blew another artic storm front.

And, around the city they set
such barricades of barbed wire,
to protect “their” eternal Winter
against mutinous developments,
that no mere mortal could hope to thaw
with Spring and love and laughter.



        CANNIBALS
You who sharp as a knife
lacerate my heart, you who
with legions of devil’s attack my life,
viciously trying to cut into

my sacred senses’ inner sanctuary,
to control my soul and make it your domain;
with your perverts and whores you’d attach me,
as one more slave to your wage-chain-gang.

As tyrants enthralled with their power,
as starving parents denied the opportunity to work,
as corpses serving as the banquet to worms of their desires.
Your cursed!  Poor fallen (self-proclaiming avenging) angels descending towards Hell!

I’ve seen the cruel and brutal deeds, of their deceitful rapes and murders
using ignorance to prod us with hate and fear,
as they try treat us as a herd
rounding us up to strip our rights, and driving us into city pens to rob us there.

Lord, their victims’ graves cry out to us
from beneath blankets of ice and snow, frozen white seas,
“You aren’t worthy of justice!
You do not deserve: to be free!”

And, even if someone were to be the one,
to sacrifice themselves and save you from your sad fate,
your vices would resurrect corruption, and, once begun
the momentum of social injustice would end again,
in being devoured for your perverse pleasure.



        STILL NOTHING
Still nothing!  And futilely I’ve leafed through for the past week
on an island of light from the lamp in my library, the hermetic tome Ars Magna.

No, nothing, if its not with the whisper of the sparkling reply, echoing from the frozen
empty night that mocks and interrupts my midnight meditations.

Sometimes it intrudes on my endless solitude setting off fireworks in my long hair;
sometimes it shoots from a gun a flaming flare into my comfortable old bathrobe.

Or, else it polishes its steel plated armor into a mirror; its then that it blows
the smoldering ashes of the fireplace onto the pages of my notes and calculations and
           covers my desk.

And the repartee, always sparkling greater, speaking the same reply as Mephistopheles
when purblind St. Mael blunders.

But, still nothing!  And futilely, day and night for another week, marooned on an island of light from the lamp in my library, I’ll leaf through the hermetic tome Ars Magna.




        W. VALLEY
Plague of comets, of blue flame mornings
where herons silently stalk their reflections
among somnolent dreaming shadows.

Winter mists and rivers, frozen
at the shore.  Ice caps, solid crystal
encrusted trees, empty skies and the crunch of snow –
a strange isolated life.

Dawn, and an alchemist Sun
hurls me into another landscape of tombs

and the terrible emptiness where I’ve been deserted,
while seasons etch upon the valley’s painful parchment.

And, everywhere the sound of water,
in a thousand laughing rivulets
effacing everything that’s written
forgetting.

For another stupid cycle
has been endured
flooding her heart
with red flowering Sunsets.

The air resounds,
with strong migrant wings;
and, bud swelling branches
bend and bounce beneath pregnant garrulous robins,
elusive blue birds and agile chickadees.







        KLOTHO, LACHESIS & ATROPOS
In ancient Greece, when the World was young and words already worn
three sisters, who were spinsters, sat in their cave in the primordial dark
singing and spinning through sunshine and storms.
When Klotho, the first spinster sister, took up the shuttle, and the loom started awake
    Heroes, to show their might,
    engaged monsters in mortal fight,
    while the loom began to strain
      up it leapt as though alive
    anxiously again and again;
    in and out between threads it dived,
    weaving into its work everyone’s fate,
    no one spared, its already too late.

Lachesis, the second spinster, sat watching, while Klotho would work;
her job was to hold the thread and set the pattern woven by the first,
and as she set about her task, spittle hung from her lips,
the loom violently shaking fit to break, and while weaving she would burst into song.

“Oak is the oldest tree in the forest,
its what makes the city gates so strong.
high stone walls are the sturdiest,
its they who keep out the angry throng.
Over and under, over and under
out of dark depths comes distant thunder,
Spring showers bring Summer flowers.
see once proud rulers as they fall:
inside their labyrinths of oppressive power
wage-slaves are busy cleaning dirty walls.

Athropos, the third spinster sister, with scissors in her hand snips at the thread, when suddenly somehow somebody somewhere turns up dead.

    This yarn is fraid,
    finished another escapade.
    The woof ‘s unraveled into a skein,
its twisted and tangled, once again;
bollixed and botched, its all but lost!
So what, then, will it cost?
Needless pain, threadbare misery:
when all that we wanted was to be free:
oh well, woe is me.




        WISE WORDS & JUST JUDGMENTS
An old man, recently returned from a Polynesian mission,
where he deceitfully dictated the destiny of many tribes;
he duplicitously sends me an Indian laborer,
whose instructions include attempting to be a transvestite –
it’s part of the laborer’s plan to achieve a better life!?!
The poor worker tries to endear himself
by quoting examples of my own verse to me.
A young girl prostitute,
egged on by her parents and other elders,
recently read to me my epigrams,
in a futile attempt to appear attractive,
while I was cloistered one afternoon in the neighborhood brothel-library.
This is what the local library has come to mean to the radical right.
A participant in a youngster’s murder,
by manipulating events from behind the scenes,
taunts and attempts to torture utilizing their iniquity
while smiling, shaking hands and praising my poems.

Several of them, surprising numbers in fact
are friendly, vicious, strong
killers of deer, killers of people,
with proud, spiritually desolate eyes
that reveal they’re already dead inside:
as it necessarily is in this best of all possible existences,
where life in its cities is always so friendly, vicious and strong.
Unfortunately, in this universe its perceived as useful
for the survival of the species.

Others who quietly and regularly go to church and work each week,
decently bringing up their children,
send me a fleeting greeting.
Or, some brave people, who try and support freedom,
demonstrate tremendous acts of courage; consequently,
they are still being physically intimidated,
by vigilante thugs in their recklessly driven cars.

They’re not repulsed by my hurtful truths,
not angered by honest expressions,
not lacerated by malice, hate and envy,
and not embarrassed by passionate expressions of heart felt feelings
about brutal people who cruelly torture
and arrogantly utilize iniquities for further acts of sadism,
which are denied to the World in order to hide their shame.

But, when the good people’s time comes
to be tormented, slandered and defrauded
I teach them to not be afraid, to be strong
and stand up for what is right – their Rights
and decently do what must be done.

And, when their beautiful children
and the only woman in the World for them
looks at them with inquiring eyes:
and you have to reply, “No, not for you.”
I teach them to smile lovingly
and leave all of them together and never look back.
And, in their last moment,
when darkness spreads across their eyes
and their fingers and toes turn cold and blue
I’ll teach them how to remember
all the injustices, cruelty and love
and the ideals and characteristics that made their country
strange and wonderful and loved:
and, how to stand upright before God
and speak the plain and simple truth
in wise words that ring sincere
and calmly wait for God’s just judgment.


                RUMOR MILL
                
    The following are the beliefs and opinions of the Rumor Mill.
                 $250,000,000
    The Republican Party has amassed a two-hundred-and-fifty million war fund for the U.S. 2004 Presidential campaign.  The figure doesn’t include moneys for the various Senate and Congressional races, where the price tag for the average Congressional seat is a cool $1,000,000 and the average Senate seat costs considerably more.  The state, city, municipal and local elections add another level of expense.  And, any one who doesn’t realize that judicial elections are becoming political events with party affiliations is incredibly naïve.  The buying and selling of American political offices has become big business, with profound consequences for America’s Democracy.
    People do not give $250,000,000 million with out expecting a lot more than mere access to the President.  The person who takes these amounts of money is obligated to the factional financial interests who buy the politician’s favors.  No one would make a $250,000,000 million investment and not expect a corresponding rate of return competitive to the private sector that generates the greatest rate of return available.  In fact due to the risk factor involved in political investments they expect substantially greater rates of return than the private sector can generate, which is the motivation for their attempting to buy the White House.  In fact factional interests demand exploitive policies that are injurious to the country’s broad based business interests; but, they are policies that are perceived as beneficial to their own short term narrow factional interests.  Two recent examples demonstrate how the American political system currently is working, and how it pays off in a big way for private factional interests at tremendous public expense.  In the first example, the last election’s biggest Republican contributor was Enron, and the subsequent Republican policy to privatize America’s energy markets resulted in a huge corruption scandal, and it was a disaster for the American public who now pay > 100% larger utility bills.  In the second example, besides accomplishing a personal vendetta against Iraq’s duly elected head of state Hussein, American oil business interests who support the Republican Party have supposedly been the recipients of the Iraq oil revenues, which are the third largest in the World, instead of those revenues going to help pay for the U.S. war costs, which currently are said to be totaling around two hundred billion dollars.  The Iraq oil revenues would have provided an extremely valuable assistance to the United States, because currently the right wing Republican’s
have no way of paying for their exercise in gunboat diplomacy.  The cost to fight the war and keep U.S. troops stationed in Iraq directly increase the United States National Debt, which is the largest national debt the World has ever known.  It is an example of the Republican factional interests lying to the American public in order to rob us of public money to fight a private war, in order to settle a personal vendetta and steal the oil revenues of Iraq.  There is a third motive and that is to make the United States appear to have difficulty paying for its essential entitlement programs - like Social Security.  The Republicans already are busy stealing Medicare, in an exercise that constitutes corporate welfare.  Is it any wonder that currently the U.S. is feared and hated around the World?

            THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEBT
                $2,400,000,000,000
    America is currently following the ruinous policies of the big spending Republicans that has resulted in the World’s all time largest National debt $2,400,000,000,000 ($ 2.4 TRILLION) and climbing.  Besides the staggeringly expensive Iraq conflict, the American public is told that the U.S. military (after the Republicans have been spending annually more on military spending than the rest of the World combined for the last four years) hasn’t been able to defeat one tribe in Afghanistan after 4 years of fighting. The right wing Republicans have been losing our men and women half way around the World, in a foreign entanglement with no end in sight and that has no prospect of ever providing the United States with any return for its huge investment.  In order for America to meet its legitimate foreign policy objectives of promoting American business interests, all America has to do is provide the surrounding Afghanistan tribes with a comparable level of military support as the U.S. radical right provide the Taliban with; and then, after establishing an internal balance of power between vying national elements, the Afghan tribes can do the job of protecting their own independence, without any unpopular direct military intervention by the United States that leaves the U.S. the target of every radical right recruited terrorist from that part of the World.  Besides, who but a fool would be interested in that God forsaken region of the World.  There are fools and then there are the Republicans.

                A $2.4 TRILLION DEBT
                         &
                       More
                    Tax Cuts
                         For the Rich
    The right wing Republicans are proposing another huge tax cut for the rich, which will take a large amount of U.S. concrete assets off public tax rolls.  Considering U.S. foreign commitments and its domestic responsibilities that the U.S. can not pay for with its current revenues how can the Republicans ask for another tax cut to prime the economy, when for the last four years their misguided incompetent greed driven efforts at tax cuts for the rich have consistently failed to rejuvenate the economy?  Is this another joke by the Republican Pres. George Jr., which isn’t funny?  WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HAVE TO SHOW FOR THE U.S. 2.4 TRILLION NATIONAL DEBT?    NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
    The American public is being manipulated by the right wing owned media.  The manipulation has taken two basic phases, and operates by controlling the perceptions of the American public.  First, we saw the media report with glowing accolades how the Dean campaign had moved quickly to the fore.  During this phase the American public saw both Democratic candidates from the S.E. part of the country with national name recognition eliminated from competition.  With the exception of John Kennedy, no President in the last 50 years has ever been elected from any other region of the country.  The Dean candidacy was used to head off former Vice President Al Gore, who threw his support behind Democratic hopeful Dean.  Simultaneously, the American public was repeatedly told that Sen. Minority leader Sen. Gephardt had to make a strong early showing to win the nomination.  Why?!?  This was almost impossible because the early contests occur in and near New England, the home geographical region of two of the other leading Democratic candidates.  The second phase had started and overlapped the first phase, when the media started claiming that a local politician from New England couldn’t possibly win in a national election.  And, that the prospects would be disastrous for the Democratic Party if a local New England candidate won.  These comments were repeatedly directed against Dean’s campaign.  But, they never were made against Kerry, whose regional roots were curiously ignored by the national media considering the attention that Dean’s were receiving.  The media, before Democratic Presidential candidate Kerry won, either the Iowa caucus vote, or the New Hampshire primary, said his campaign had the momentum now and that Democratic Presidential hopeful Dean’s campaign was losing steam.  Remember, this claim was made without a vote having been cast.
    The question becomes why was Dean’s candidacy deemed unacceptable while Kerry’s candidacy was viewed as acceptable to the right wing owned and dominated media?  Both are good men, staunch Democrats and New England regional candidates.  Every criticism leveled against Dean’s campaign by the national media is equally applicable to Kerry’s candidacy.  The best hypothesis at present is found if one considers Kerry’s home state.  Dean is a New England candidate, who has looked at least at one issue independent of the parameters carefully established by the national media.  He never bought the propriety of American involvement in a war with Iraq, because there never has been any propriety in the U.S. invasion and occupation of a democratically elected nation.  Kerry, has protested why the war was fought, but he never challenged the fundamental propriety of our presence in Iraq.  Further, Kerry is from Massachusetts a state where the radical right has spent a lot of time and money trying to compensate for the Kennedy clan’s liberal and progressive influence.  Also, they have made a considerable sustained effort to politically displace Harvard and MIT, in the tradition of 1930’s Nazi displacement of German academic circles.  The net effect was/is that the radical right feels they have much more influence on high placed members of the Kerry staff than they do on Presidential hopeful Dean’s campaign staff.  The radical right’s control of the media gives it tremendous competitive advantages in the adversarial winner take all American Political System, especially when they are in the process of overwhelming the system with money.  
The influence of the media is extensive and effects even the internal political processes in the opposition Democratic Party.  Currently, the media functions as a propaganda machine for the radical right political ideology, and their factional interests, which in turn is devastating on the democratic political prospects of this country.  To date they have been successful in eliminating all Democratic S.E. regional candidates with national name recognition and controlling which Democratic regional candidate rose to ascendancy, by manipulating the media to assist the most accessible (and thus
acceptable) candidate to them, and they made sure that Democratic candidate had an insurmountable competitive advantage in the media.  The motive is a desire to protect a $250 MILLION investment, an investment which they loose totally if the wrong Democrat wins.  The campaign’s next phase will be for the media to cover their tracks, while they finish derailing Dean’s campaign.   The right wing dominated media will start leveling the previously mentioned criticisms, about N.E. candidates, against Kerry’s candidacy, too.  The media effects political out comes by influencing the American public’s perception of reality.  This gives the radical right a tremendous advantage in the political system that they are overwhelming with money.  SUPPORT MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN REFORM.
 
                FUNDING FANATICISM
Invading Iraq is a bald face grab for greed by the factional interests of the radical right, who are looking for replacement revenues for their disastrous stock market manipulation practices and international drug traffic monopolies, which were previously the primary funding sources for their politically expedient extremist populist movements- among other things beyond the scope of this essay.  And, it was thought by the radical right that OPEC oil revenues would be an excellent alternative revenue source to help fund their fanatical populist movements, which explains the lack of concern and the passive response on the part of the domestic radical right members.  The same apathy and passive response by radical right field operatives was exhibited when they were informed about the radical right felony stock market manipulations and drug trade monopolies, because the corruption of the right wing faction was/is believed to be paying for the immoral criminal practices and privileged positions of the contemporary populist neo-fascist movements.

            THE FATE OF TYRANNY
It is interesting to analyze the internal dynamics of tyranny.  Consider the consequences of buying the Presidency for $250 million.  The policies pursued have to be extremely beneficial to the narrow interests to make the investment pay.  The only way for this to occur is to turn government from being by the people for the people into a government by special interests for special interests.  A government designed to make a lot of money for the few people who control the narrow interests, at the expense of the many people victimized by it.  This can happen only by exploiting a country’s assets, which inevitably impoverishes the country.
The ambitious individuals who are employed to work for a tyranny are fundamentally different than those ambitious individuals who work for a Democracy.  Consider the profound difference between the two sets of ambitious individuals.  The individual who gets ahead in a Democracy does so by developing ideas and programs which benefits the whole nation, or the portion of a nation’s business that the ambitious individual’s expertise effects .  Contradistinctively, a tyranny’s business is to make money for the tyrants at the expense of the nation.  This occurs when the ambitious individual develops ideas that benefit the tyrant, which only occurs by injuring the country pursuing exploitive policies.  A deplorable practice that is detrimental to a country.  The last three Republican administrations are case studies that document and prove the inevitable negative impact of tyrannies.  The Republican administration of Reagan and Bush Sr. was the most corrupt in the history of the country.  The Republican Bush Sr. and Quayle administration fought a phony war with Iraq that was designed to shore up sagging domestic support for Hussein (after fighting a 10 yr. war for the U.S. against Iran) and get George Bush Sr. reelected.  The Republican George Jr. and Cheney administration fought a real war with Iraq to settle a personal vendetta, bankrupt the U.S. ( to make privatizing U.S. entitlements appear politically expedient) and steal Iraq oil revenues for right wing factional elements that support the Republicans, while generating the World’s largest national debt.  It is revealing to note that the previous largest national debt was generated by the incompetence of the first two listed Republican administrations.  Incredible as it may seem, the Republicans are deliberately mismanaging the United States government to generate the huge National debts.

            TYRANNY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

    Unfortunately, the New Year has brought in a new low for the radical right.  It induced a youth to commit a series of robberies.  The victims were primarily single young women, and many of them were mothers who couldn’t afford to lose the money.  The youth who committed the crimes was an educable retarded individual, which made him that much easier to set up and manipulate into committing the criminal acts.  The radical right motivation was dichotomous.  First, they wanted to generate revenues for local operatives, and because their wasn’t any drug activity their dealers could inform on and because the radical right had recently been identified as being involved with two drug distribution cases they felt another area of criminal activity was advisable.  Second, the radical right wasn’t being as successful recruiting female prostitutes from the local Portland area as it had hoped.  The radical right were instrumental in apprehending the robber, which was easy for them considering they had helped plan the crimes and induced the individual into committing them.  This increased their influence with the single young women and improved the results of their efforts at recruiting prostitutes from the appreciative women, who needed money now more than ever.  The young robber received a 25 year sentence.  The radical right operatives were never even charged let alone apprehended, and are active among us today.

        REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC PLAN
    In this election year, President George Bush Jr. recently announced the Republican economic plan for Oregon.  It was corrupt, incompetent and completely inadequate for the needs of the state.  After waiting four years while Oregon suffered from the worst unemployment in the country and the Republicans stood idly by and did nothing, the Republican Party under George Jr. has at long last developed a plan with two components according to the region’s Republican biased paper.  One part would provide economic assistance to the rural region known as the Klamath Falls basin, which has been devastated by the depressed economy and a lack of water.  The second part of the Republican plan was called “environmental assistance” and included clearing undergrowth and thinning the forests on public owned lands.  An analysis of both components will reveal why they are corrupt, incompetent and totally inadequate.
    The Klamath Falls region has experienced water shortages for a long time, which have helped stunt economic development in the region.  Critics of the plan say that because of the water shortage issue land is extremely cheap in the region.  Suddenly, after the land has been bought up at bargain basement prices by guess who, the Federal government is going to solve everyone’s water problems by providing millions of dollars in aid, which will save somebody’s bad investments and turn them into a gold mine.  And, if that type of corruption isn’t bad enough there are those who are saying that the aid being planned are as ill advised as the devastating environmental changes that were made to Southern Florida which devastated the Everglades.  In the Klamath basin region there are extensive marsh lands both public and private that are a primary Wintering ground for several species of North American migratory birds.  The changes contemplated are thought to be extremely negative in their impact on the unique and delicate ecological system of the region.
    Assistance to the state’s timber industry is a waist of time and money.   A century ago lumber was king in Oregon and the number one employer in the state, however, in the ensuing years timber experienced a sustained decline, until today it is a climacteric industry which doesn’t even employ 1% of the population.  Calling cutting trees thinning and then saying its “environmental assistance” is insulting to the intelligence of the good citizens of this state.  What will happen to our Federal funds is as follows, it will end up in the hands of the Republican millionaire timber barons who still control what is left of the state’s timber industry.  In turn after pocketing a part of it, they will donate substantial portions of the Federal Aid back to the Republican Party in the form of campaign contributions.  In the mean time our youths will be busy beating around the bush clearing undergrowth, instead of being given suitable technical job training for decent careers with high standards of living in a competitive global economy.  Oregon citizens need technical training to make them competitive in the World’s skilled labor markets, which will qualify them for good paying jobs that have futures.
George Bush Jr. and the Republican plan give the illusion of helping rural parts of Oregon, which is where the majority of the Republican constituency resides; but, it provides nothing for the Western part of the state, where the vast majority of Oregon’s population lives.  Instead we receive corrupt, incompetent programs inadequate to the needs of Oregonians.



 
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