res publica

The pale and wantful look shook me from sleep,
the public incarnate, a troubled beast;
its needy and baleful sounds make me weep.

The deadly hunt in slow but ceaseless sweep
deceivers, caught by friends it feared the least;
the pale and wantful look shook me from sleep.

No sanctuary found, where shadows creep
beneath the cross, greed is still High Priest;
its needy and baleful sounds make me weep

In precious palms a destiny of truth to keep
an hopeful face to dawn’s crawl from the east
the pale and wantful look shook me from sleep.

Hidden on dark roof tops, a tragic leap
delivered to capture, hoist on falsities.
Its needy and baleful sounds make me weep.

In pitch it fell, a numb and blinded heap,
Aswirl in chaos, and mocked by foes at feast
the pale and wantful look shook me from sleep
Its needy and baleful sounds make me weep.

Authors of Confusion

Into my childhood ears, wisdom poured

From the lips that held the most precious breath

The voice that carried a wisdom from then unto then, and even now

The tones of truths held dear, re-echo, resound

Reappear as that which cannot be long hidden.

Time reaps and returns like the grasp of the seas

That take and keep all things- until returned to the light.

The proof of what was, and that it has ever been,

Held in deeps and keep of the ages, but never gone.

God is not the author of confusion…

In the mysteries of eternities,

there is clarity in the mind of a child;

purity lies in the warm heart of truth

as age turns the young green leaves to gold.

Honesty is abundant like the sun

free to fill the eyes of all that welcome warmth,

and  so too is choice--

the voice within that quietly submits

to the noisy world.

As time molds and shapes us

Like trees agreed with wind and rain

To stand thus; we yet fulfill

The fruits of seasons. The sweetness

Of the inner place can fall from its natural place

Of inherent reflection, a fallen grace, buried

Beneath a worldly gold, and thus

Inscribed, a soul lost in the midst of life.

Tossed in chaos; the inner strife divided

The mansion of many rooms dissolves

Unfound, among rumors of crows in a defiant fog.

Defiant, even unto the burning thaw of dawn. Reborn

Are they now, disciples of the Lost, and chain bound followers,

Dedications of the  authors of confusion.

our better Angels

 In America the promise of equality

Has shone like a beacon over  a raging sea

An assurance that after the storm

There was safety of welcome shores

In America, the promise of equality

Was never granted in sincerity

But as an illusion amidst a fog

A device of greater necessity

From the few to the many.

In America, the promise of equality

Was a wish before dawn

A prayer unto the bleak darkness

That there could be none worse,

And therefore- our better Angels...

But in America, the promise of equality

Breathed life unto itself

From the possibilities of prayer

And steadfastness of faith, it grew

A precious seed in vagrant strands

The land somehow yielded fruit

Made joy from a bitter whole cloth

Of rags and riches

In America, the promise of equality

Is a fantasy of life before the great leveling

Of every human’s fate; a child

Of a union of hope and change

In America, the promise of equality

Is in the balance, lifted by the wisp

Of unseen wings

Kyiv - a chapter falls

There is fire in the ice,
as if made to still, the gleam
of a more distant sun pales
against the eye's-own anger
and the heart's rush of heat.

There is fire in the icy breath
as if dragons and beasts of fury,
that crowd the mind's theater,
act out upon a glossy stage;
so much rage displayed for consumption
of a greater beast, the global feast
upon sudden misery.

[Democracy has a messy birth]

It is in the waning hours of each day,
the play unwinds; a chapter falls,
and winds of change carry
a stench of burnt tires.

For some it is a whiff of a window
from west into the west, to others a stain
upon a treasure- and Kyiv can bleed,
hot defiant blood, for change is also...
a fire, in the ice. 

Girl's story Sonnet

In dark of morning, quiet' pause within

Time ‘tween days gone and day to be

When I allow the whims that prick my skin

To freely billow breaths of poetry

And etch my words upon a wastrel wind.

The arrogance of a learned path, submits

To a greater wisdom, a worldly dividend

Suspends belief, and justice has no fit.

When we consume the days of youngest ones

An innocence, a time when life's so fertile

For wealth's unholy need a sorrowed harvest done

Little boys into things, and things of little girls.

We harm the yield when we rob the seed

Of time in golden sun, unshadowed by greed


Girl's story is a short story of mine- recent thing- to mark the international Day of Children, November 20, 2013. The theme I have chosen is Child labor.  I set my story in 1916 but as I wrote it, it is still a fact of life today in Asia, and tomorrow in the US because the Right Wing will destroy the middle class ( repeal the minimum wage, right to work laws) and reduce it to the point of putting our children into hard labor ---if we let them. SO DON'T LET THEM.  They do it wherever they can, make $200 sneakers and pay workers $2 a day.

Bankrupt

Risen from sewers
in legions - the corrupt
misled fair minds of A CITY,
now to be claimed by those
who only see the vulture's chance

bankrupt


Gritty City with a tilted halo
your spirit has a gangsta' lean.
Tied by hip to the reckless gas machines, you fueled
much growth; now the world chokes
on the four-wheeled felony: poisoning the air we breathe.

City of such loyal oaths, home and place,
those before came to find, peace and fortune
have blessed us. Kept smiles for so many little-ages.
NOW bankrupt and they sell the precious art.
BANKRUPT in chambers of justice poised
to aid the most unjust taking- democracy

The flower of many ages of sacrifice,
young men went only to return old and war-weary.
They fought and some died there, and there, and there...
died so young-- for Democracy.
Dead for the City they shared with their impatient dreams.
Taken away by whom? Who would dare?
Despoil blood gifts of so many heroes-- so many wonders?

It is a callous time, a time of little men
ruled by petty and corrupt, morally-bankrupt;
men possessed of no ideas
except to please their petty masters.
They are not of Democracy, they have raped it,
violated it with low-hearts of foul little men.

THE CITY where dreams come to be born and reborn
A PLACE tied by spirit to a people who wish
to Love a City

The City transforms, it always has-- it was
a place on the water once, now the water
is remembered on sunny days.
It was a place of sudden freedom for
the shameful days of small callous men
and chains.

We know a City, a place
never short of spirit and hope.
Sadly, never lacking small, indifferent men
who take the bounty others have made
and feed it to a base need for greed.

Yet THE CITY endures, finds sunshine
in the dark clouds, a plume of light to
lift us until dawn; a  candle to keep
a beacon for the Love of those
wh gave us this time and place

A CITY that will once again
prove greater than the puny evil
of small and ruthless men; for
in the City, in a Democracy,
there is a way to remove ...trash.

Strumpet...

The whore in Iraq
sweet America used like
a street strumpet, abused
by men who did not love you
used for money

and they put you there
where virtue was a memory
where life was cheapened by lies
and death rained like mother's tears
after smoky bombs
and bullet filled air

and even now
as the years seem like minutes
so the dead are still lost to us
and oil still the price we pay
to the unborn who will freeze in strange heat
sweat in anomalous cold

breathe-in the folly of our age with
bitter tastes, as we fill their world with angers
their eyes with soot and burial ash

when memories like hatching eggs
bring the return of hatred, and
sands give back what we have sown
and time will own us; for the bonds
of truth...are unbreakable.




!0th Anniversary of the Iraq War ... hdm

Public Opinion

Chased even in your dreams

uneasy sleep molts into groggy morn

every connection to wide webbed world

brings the onslaught closer

Public Opinion once such a passive life

a few sales, surprise products shown

your agility was legendary, but now

you are stiff and boor-ed, a starved fox

before the hunt

unleashed hounds of hellish amounts of gold

track you and grind you down, a Pawn

in a game of Kings.

I see you, your frightened eyes

rings beneath the bulged bags, poor eyes

once dwelled in beauty and laughter.

Now the war machine would again make slaughter.

Dirty burners wishes to suck the last of your air,

and heated days that were so false so recently

have burned your nerves to a fray.

I see you wandering alleys to stay away

from main streets, holding self close

in dark alleys where sounds of stray cats is all

Squeezed shut, eyes yet pierced by wireless spies

whose lies can only be detected by guardians (--)

asleep!! they have all gone to sleep from wine songs,

long gone; the sleepless pens, vigils of truth(--)

now you’re on rooftops baying to August full Moons.

I hear your once melodious voice, gone now;

comes like a drag of chains upon stone-

and the awful lonely sound of it- 

makes me weep.

__________________________________

Notes:

The US has been changed by an Supreme Court ruling that struck down limitations on Corporate spending on political campaigns and elections( referred to as Citizens United).  The Democratic process is now for sale to the biggest spenders if repetitive volumes of messaging and advertising have the predicted effects.  Public opinion once an elusive thing will be more like a target with a bright bull's eye- the target of unlimited assaults from businesses that would change us in ways citizens would not imagine or prefer- such as a constant use of warfare( war is a very lucrative business-Iraq probably yielded $500 Billion in profits), no taxes on the rich, no limits on pollution, abandoning public education-- which in the bottom line are costs businesses would prefer not to bear.  Public opinion- a trapped and hunted animal now- alone and driven into the streets...HDM