LIBERAL THINKER GALBRAITH DIES

"Only the community reflects the wellbeing, maybe even the survival, of all people."
JK Galbraith


My father is still alive
although I speak of him as if he were dead
A dog’s eyes are sad
JK lived to be 97 and died of natural causes
most could only hope to go out in such peace
A lion’s eyes are fierce
Which brings us to my problem- War
War is not just my problem
It is ours
It makes time meaningless
A horse’s eyes are tranquil
JK would not want war
Not on the anniversary of his death
nor anytime, for that matter
An owl’s eyes are shrewd
My grandmother long ago died
yet I speak of her as if she were living
War-
War does not have eyes
yet we speak of it as if it did


mrp

HOLY RAMPAGE

George,
The wolves await
Licking obscurity
Awaiting you
To inch `neath
Your bridge
Your rock
Awaiting upon
Your neck-bent descent
And the full moon
As they might nosh
Upon the rodents
That worship you there.

Trolls!
Sing loud your praises!
Let God hear it!
For God's sake do!
Step into the moon!
It's light awaits you!
Bring your second coming warble!
Bring it out for all to hear!
Sing! Stomp! And shout! Again!
"War rocks! God rocks! Death reigns!”

“Death! Death! Death!" be your refrain!

Join them, Mr. President!
Join them!
Join them in thou holy anthem!
Rejoice in your own death!
Rejoice!


mrp

PLEASANTRY

George,
The world's had enough of you.
The time is ripe for your dismissal.
The moon is set,
The tides are right,
You are about to end.
The time is now,
The place is here

I need a nightcap of your blood.
Lean your neck toward my words
And I will slice your jugular with verse!
Shred your damp soul with jibes!
Lance your heart with prose!
And deliver the fatal blow
With the simple
Unadulterated truth!
Lean forward
And you shall know.

INWARD

Days move downward
waiting
Nights move inward
lingering
Death creeps in
clothed as truth
waiting to lie
Hope meanders through
masquerading as children
sent off to die
Nights move inward
waiting

mrp

ALTER EGO TALKS ABOUT SPIN

Don’ start
any name
flippin’
pancake jive
Style don’
fit ya
Somebody got
taken upriver
by current
spreadin’
fas’ `nough
to bury
th' soul
deep in
words
spoken `n ripped
from my mouth
echoed back
as jibe
to a different
kingdom
than
before
So
give back
I say
words
not yours
Stay clean
unlike
the `publican whore
whose words
are paid for
but don’
come clean
cheap or silky
They lay
`n lurch
in desolate ruin
Occasion is
now
time is ripe
take `em back
all words
confiscated
Take `em
back I say
Now
or
never



mrp

MEN WITHOUT EYES

Men without eyes will go out alone
Shatter the portrait downward
And to the jackals
Offer pennies of our jaded wish.
Does anyone understand this?
Have we thought of our lovelessness?

Behind our last breaths of our unfortunate disgust
The fear-fouled goodness
The bleeding run through
The repellent nationalist
The deviating line in the sand
The scraggly-toothed oppressors
The slipshod parishioners
The depleted silvery-white
The dabbing stroke of agony
The bleakness of genocide
The onslaught of despotic ideals
The limbless industrialized slavery
The brutal sacraments of hypocrisy
The barbed fruits of empirical reckoning
The headless optimism of whole ruination

Does anyone know what I am saying?
Have we thought of our collusion?

O! Let us anoint our occasion of peace!
Revolt of this; the master’s haunt!
War should be our slave!
Not our medication!
Not a haggard monster
To move about
Or flaunt!

Starvation can better be murdered
Than the humanity of our soul.
Hate can better be slaughtered
Than the hands of our hopes.
Oppression can better be hollowed
Than the eyes of our love.
Abuse can better be removed
Than the heart of a child.

O! Let us anoint our occasion of peace!
Let us look to heal rather than conquer!
To gentleness instead of extended battering!
To the bird of lasting peace
Rather than the beast of war!

Faint are the solemn cries of this; our ending.
Faint are the urges of this; our sustenance.
Faint is the hope of this; our dissent.
Faint is the scratching of death.
Faint is our longing for life.
Shrill are the men without eyes.


mrp

A CHILDREN'S DEATH

What softness lends to baby’s feet,
Movement in life’s yielding lips,
In petite and gentle fingers,
Blue bird suppleness,
Noiseless radiance.

Stop.

And open your eyes.
Tender turns of the head,
Small smile under red cheeks,
Soft hair waving down,
Engaging wonderment.

Stop.

And open your eyes.
Arid guns at the steady aim.
Rifles do not grapple with verdicts.
Who is guilty?
Aren’t we all?

Stop.

And open your eyes.
Infection of oppressive thought,
But the law cowers not in fear;
It is man that has wrought
the undoing of truth and breath.

Stop.

And open your eyes.
Perhaps the child of ideas
or the youth of convention
might answer my query;
Will dying take wing?
Will our dead child be familiar?
Will the wet breath of malevolence
toss water upon our infertile tree?
Will the soul of our nation kill her child?

Stop.

And open your eyes.
Will the children of this world
give rhythm to the drums of war?
Will the baby’s supple feet
move to the beat of tawdry battle?
Will war leave tasteless, life’s yielding lips?
Might, instead, the petite and gentle fingers
make a music of warless magnificence?



mrp

Woman On Trial For Killing Her 8 Children

DARK HANDS

I believe in the truth
I believe in goodness
I believe in beauty
I believe in happiness
I believe it to be
In all people

Dark hands
Seek the pasty white face of our hope
Cultivating fear and loss and greed
These hands are impudent, coarse
Having in them death’s venom
They wait for nothing
A garrote upon day’s shadowy war

I am tired of the child’s howl
I am tired of the mother’s tear
Tired of the father’s motionless yowl
I’m sickened by these horrid truths
Tired of the mistreated seas
Tired of the seething wave
Of trembling earth and air
I’m tired of our white treachery



mrp

PRICELESS PICTURE OF A...

RENEWABLE FOOL

US President George W Bush has unveiled plans,
including an inquiry into price fixing, to lower
the cost of oil and cut climbing petrol prices.
Mr Bush told the Renewable Fuels Association
that the US needs to "get off its dependency on oil"
as crude costs have moved towards record levels.
The US will also stop topping up
the strategic oil reserve, boost domestic output
and promote alternative fuels.
On Tuesday oil hit $73.73 a barrel on New York
and rose to $73.60 in London.
"Long-term we need to power our automobiles
with something other than oil.”
What a progressive thinker you are, George!
Wow! Your smarts is/are stimulating!
Who’d of thunk it? With you as the decider
We’re sure to live to see the day
That your profits come second
To citizenry of thou blessed kingdom!
“Long-term”!
You said an uneasy mouthful there!
Didn’t ya, redneck?

“Loooonnnngggg teeerrrrrrmmm!”

You don’t do things “short term”, do ya?
You draw them out, prolong them.
Like your bumble-weeding chuckle
Trailing off as stupidly as it beginned.
Like your stuffed to the gills deficit!
Your protracted foreign policy slag!
Your eternal war of good versus evil!
Long suffering occupations!
Incessant stream of body bags!
Syrupy coffins treading homeward!
Inebriated speeches that meander
And spill like a drunken cheerleader!
A slow, steady reminding the masses
Of terror’s finicky color-coded wail!
An intellect that slugs along peening;
Whet-stoning a knowledgeable serenity
While reaping the underbrush for war!
You’re a real thinker, GW!
A complete rhetorical package…
Without you, as king, this planet
Would be in total pandemonium!
Looooonnnnnng teeeerrrrrrrm!


mrp

ROCKED TO SLEEP

I was standing outside watching the storm clouds
Riveted in their burst and flash and deafening roll,
Booming like some massive elevated train wreck;
Crashing steel through bone, flesh, and living soul.
As the rain pattered like joyful puppies at my feet
I pictured my own child amidst the shock and awe
Sobbing for her mommy within the tumbling house
And the riveting silence pursuing her shrieking jaw.

Wake up, baby. Can’t seem to wake you, sweety.
You don’t want to be late for school. Wake up.
I wonder what your mother will have to say?
Come on, honey. I packed your lunch today.
I said wake up. You have perfect attendance.
Don’t mess it up now. You are doing so well.
Get out of that bed now! You’re going to be late!
You’ve not laughed `til you cried, you must awake!

You need to grow older so you can see splendor!
There’s so much you’re missing! Don’t stop now!
Beautiful buildings, the moon, stars, waving flags!
Lots of bloody waving flags! Wake up! God damn it!
Steady the roar on your arm, now draw the thunder,
Endure the bomb in time and liberate it of its grasp,
Rain down your shock and clout your awe forthwith,
Rock you safely to sleep `til the storm has passed.

Goodnight, baby…


mrp

ODE TO STRATFORD UPON AVON

Let us begin; All's Well That Ends Well,
For it is our hopeful self-fulfilling title;
Bush and his entourage have much to sell
Along the banks of the Potomac lying idle.

Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,
ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge,
when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath
shot out in our latter times.

One senses perhaps `tis a Comedy of Errors
Or maybe e'en Titus Andronicus arrives
They shall be ready at your highness' will
To answer their suspicion with their lives.

Is't possible the world should so much differ,
And we alive that lived? Fly, damned baseness,
To him that worships thee!
This play of GW Bush will end
Within such strident treachery!

Not As You Like It, but it will end forthwith,
The shards of broken tyranny tapped in the dead
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:

The shadows of the suns making are aloft absurd
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
And this same darkness shall overwhelm the ships!

Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
The weight now crumbles from within the house!

Let us do so: for we are at the stake,
And bay'd about with many enemies;
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischiefs.
The columns do tremble with the passing year
They, baseless, do make a mockery of freedom!

This is not make believe, but of great import!
We seek our liberty not governances death
Nor armies soaked of the king’s baseless end...
Wherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge
Wrench up thy power to the highest.

...Draw, and come.
I will die bravely, like a bridegroom. What!
I will be jovial: come, come; I am a king,
My masters, know you that.

And thus ends our day of soft light
O'retaken by the errant beams of night
Where liberty and truth hath been unfurled
Honest men will hath need to climb back
Into the vibrant graces of this world!
The rest is silence.


Happy Birthday William Shakespeare
(A la Gauche)

PEACE DE RESISTANCE

"Pèace" de Résistance

Must there be a kindness
That infiltrates the human spirit?
Must one first experience war
To fathom opposing it?
When is a bomb most torturous;
As it descends?
Upon explosion?
Or much later;
Within the moment
Of seething clarity
At a father's burying
Of his children?


Hat tip to PT CRUISER for the pic inspiration...

ZIONIST FLOWERS

"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusader war on Islam," the speaker on the tape said.
"I say that this war is the joint responsibility of the people and the governments. While the war continues, the people renew their allegiance to their rulers and politicans and continue to send their sons to our countries to fight us."

As time brings us new flowers
Our bodies bow in lone light
Calling to our souls
Wrenching hearts for sport
And the bland taste of oil.

Beloved, our hands meet in this facade
Clasping our part, leaning against us
In here; our own starving
Awaits the news of future bread.

Outside, where seas rage and winds howl
In the soft gleam of day where winged fowl
Move swift and free within the stained air,
Hope and death as new flowers
To our turned backs come.

It is the music of this we shall not hear
Afraid to see what touches near;
Love and peace.
It is measly hope we not fail closely this...






Al-Jazeera Broadcasts Bin Laden

BEREAVEMENT

Let the mourners grow louder,
The oppressor, weaker still.
Better to greave loudly
Than emit the dark pulse of hatred.
O! It will come into the aggrieved,
Have not a doubt.
Years from now, or anon,
The twisting spine of odium
Shall writhe outward
From lands touched of cruelty.
It shall thrash its course in echo!

Bereavement is not just for the dead,
It is for the future.
It brightens the steel
Of this; our reckoning.
It hones the casualty
Toward the hand.


Inspired from a picture I saw on
Holding North Dakota's Breath

GOODBYE, SCOTTY

Why do we overstay our welcome?
The caress of opportunity?
The human will?
Or is it baser than that?

Why do squirrels toddle high wire?
The less distance to fall?
The fact they can?
Or is it baser than that?

Why do dogs cross a busy freeway?
The delight in the prospect?
The thrill of escape?
Or is it baser than that?

Why do men use lies for warring murder?
The taste of rapturous death?
The fact they can?
Or is it baser than that?
.








mrp

FIFTH COLUMN

"the United States, it is likely to be used only during periods of significant political unrest affecting countries near to the United States. Such unrest, quite apart from its impact in creating a large number of refugees, may constitute a serious threat to the United States, which could result in the deployment of military forces. This contract requires an immediate stand up of facilities that will receive a large influx of refugees. It is
anticipated that the refugees will not speak the language, and the circumstances may
involve a hostile environment within the camp. Consequently, a potential for violence will exist in the camps. While there may or may not be a deployment of U.S. troops, there certainly will be a deployment of border patrol and other law enforcement agents, in a quasi-military manner."

"The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue
Fifth Column movements. I stand by this president's ability, inherent to being
commander in chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that." -- Senator Graham Senate Judiciary Committee hearings (02-06-06)

The Fifth Column’s encircled in taunting wire

The petite golden broods were skipping upon
the road when they heard intense construction
near a riverbank. They topped the hill near the
water’s edge and giggled, because they thought
they shouldn’t see, but they peered over.
They saw huge beams being erected and witnessed
the colossal rolls of violently pointed wire and the
distant noise and movement of godlike machinery.
As they observed, a huge man came up behind them!

“Hey! What the hell are you damned kids doing here?”

The children screamed in terror and quickly fell away!

“I better not catch you here again you little bastards!”

The man waved to the machines...
...they did not wave back.

The fifth column’s encircled in tumbling wire;
Yes! It won’t be long! It won’t be long now
`til the wobbly giant, America, slumbers again,
Nestled in her veneer of fervent patriotism.
Protracted in her brightly cleaved almighty!

It won’t be long now that night won’t sleep,
When its faces wrinkle with bewilderment
Of our day’s horror tapping on shackled feet
And we see that there is no escaping torment.
(Barbed wire is not very forgiving of dissent)!

A brazenly deluded sentinel is immovable.
Insurmountable walls give not of your care.
The daggers of empire’s wolf gnaws the flesh
That cowers in servitude and shrouded despair.
(Is this truly what we most desire; our dying)?

Are we to subserviently offer to take our place
At the wanton trough of jaw-gaping oppression?
Is it our desire to end such freedom in disgrace,
With our children bowed in their broken spirit
And bloodied at the watery hands of surrender?

The fifth column’s encircled in tumbling wire;
It won’t be long! Tyranny shall not delay;
It waits on nothing, not even America’s fire
Nestled in her veneer of colorless flag waving
And jangle of, “home of the free and the brave”!



Inspired by a post on A la Gauche

SHATTERED HOUSE

On a childless street she stands
Her face thrust in her hands
Laughing furiously

One man lies under his pushcart
Upon the dampened loam
Liberated of death

A joyful military marches by
On whispering conquest
Toward surrender

A mangy old dog, ribs showing
Tethered a shattered house
Mocks them

BURY THE EVIDENCE

Carry the shovel out back, Condi
Wear thick latex gloves
Leave not a trace
Carry the bodies out back, Donald
Do not wear shoes
Be meticulously mulish
George's legacy depends upon it
Leave not a trace behind
Shovel the dirt in with haste, Dick
Bury the evidence forthwith
Give history nothing to find
Save for the lowly stench of hubris...



A Poetic Justice Video (8 min 12 sec video)



Electronic Iraq – The Three Big Lies
Who Dies for Bush Lies
Lies.com
Top 40 Lies about War and Terrorism
Counterpunch- Cheney’s Lies
Bushes Iraq Evidence- Lies
WMD in Iraq- Evidence and Implications
Powell Admits Evidence Wrong
What Really Happened
Cheney Adamant about Iraq Evidence
Iraq…War for Oil
TV News Lies.com
Bushlies.net
Bush Watch.com

CHILD'S PLAY

O!
We must have a bit of play,
The child in us seeks it out,
The child breathing
In unbridled joy escaping lips,
The child alive now
In haste and noise
In laughter brightening
What order destroyed!
O!
Let her come to you,
Reach for your love
Dancing beautifully in gladness
With all that would, that could be
True of this world in receipt of self.
The wind will carry its refrain,
A child has lined its path in flowers
And anointed it in joyful wing.
O!
Fear not these shafts of gleam
For they be but whispers
Of your speaking echo
Where the stream of youth
Wrestles the downpour of time.
O!
Beckon the sweet, the softness of youth,
Summon it to the black houses
And pained and troubled rooftops,
This joy, this glee, this playful child,
Youthfulness within its folds!
Do not watch her go!
O!
Call out!
Do not fret the child’s likeness.
Surrender to her laughter, her imagination.
Summon her home!


mrp

LOVELESS POWER

"Easter has less to do with one person's escape from the grave than with the victory of seemingly powerless love over loveless power" --Bill Coffin

Flags now drape Easter’s unknown tomb
strapped `round rock
with metal’s twisted brooch,
sorrow stains the air
where steel spikes pierced hands and feet
slinging hope like a missile
out its cage of a valiant plot
into the mislaid reaches of cruelty.
Why must the sycophantic
heave and lick the powerless air
in death’s dark tongue?
The disconcerted
stand silent on dead-end streets
awaiting hope to unravel,
come undone.

mrp

TROOPS PATRIOTS AND DEATH

They extend their arms as a sloth
When gloom wraps them `round rigid bone
The powdery magic seeks out our grief.
Awaiting the warrior character upon his cannon
It does not travel down the barrel
Rather it thrusts outward to another’s eye
And makes bed within their thinking regret,
Nestled in, it toils a moment and seeks new prey.

They extend their arms as a sloth
When gloom wraps them `round rigid bone
And the dark arms move forth of misery.
Call not to stilled grief or hardened warrior
But to God! Demand His army lower their death
And extinguish their mournful pursuit
That they might end a world’s shrieking tongue!

SLEEPING IN

Winking in our dreams
Slumbering past this; our night's error
Sleeping deeply beyond the breaking hour
Leasing mass murderers to slip inside our care

Winking in our dreams
Twisting complicit in cradle’s red linen
We are drowning of this our slacked truth
Sleeping deeply inside mourning nine eleven

White sound weaves
Our breath upon our headless tyranny
Slips inside our busy lives dawdling hope
We are drowning of our worthless quiet dissent

It is time to awake
Cease and desist our hideous moment
Let slip your blade’s humanity within its rib
Awake open eyed of our most looming descent

O! FOR THE CHILDREN, KAHLIL...

"Your children are not your children. They are
the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.”
Kahlil Gibran


O! Kahlil, you have shown the way
If we would but trace your shadow!

Let us carefully propel our children
Toward the seed of humankind,
We are merely the bow
From which they must take wing,
They are the blazing arrows
Of this globe’s ensuing design.

We must learn to permit our children
To craft their own shape and desire.
We may only point them toward the path
Of kindness and knowledge,
For their truth and chosen course
Were forged long before we imagined them.

Give to them of your knowledge
But do not expect them take it,
For they were born with their own splendor
Cuddled up at their feet,
They are made of flesh and bone
Not of an artist’s clay shaped by human hand.

We must tell our children of our own roads,
But let the one they brightly travel
Be of their life’s choosing.
We have set them toward the path
And gracefully propelled them,
It is now theirs to bestow upon it life’s breath.

Peace Artwork2 by my youngest daughter...

FOR MY DAUGHTERS; PEACE

O! For my daughters!

Freedom out of the ash rises,
O! For my children, she rises;
Kindness and love and joy and life.

Where shall they walk, I pray?
Who, I ask, will light their way?
What shall I leave them?

O! For my daughters!

For them war seems so far away;
A whispered word of grown-up shadows
As they play under the bright eyes of the sun.

When, I ask, will they first see it?
What, will they think of me;
That I did not try to stop war’s reach?

O! For my daughters; peace!

Serenity must smile upon their children.
Freedom out of my hands must soar!
For my daughters, for their innocence!

O! For them I say, “To hell with war!”




Peace Artwork created by my youngest daughter!

WHO AMONG US

Who among us hears their own bereavement?
Who hears the last train coming?
Who hears the final toll?
Not we, the breathing- but we sense him.
What sound will he have?
Where will he sleep?

Ask the arid wasteland spreading out like dead skin.
Ask the bloodstained footpaths if he beckons them.

May we ask our distant days if we might enter?
The universe, over the sky floating ghostly,
Might it hear our pleading?
Who hears the last bomb dropping?
Who hears the final click?
Who, if not the breathing?

Ask the sovereign and man-speckled ocean creature,
Ask the eagle if she senses man’s bridled undoing.

Who among us hears their own bereavement?
Who hears the last train coming?
Who hears the final toll?
Not we, the breathing- but we sense him.
What shape will he have?
Where is his weapon?



mrp

ENGAGING PERSONNEL

"Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war.”

Is there logic to war?

Ask the solemn-jawed sky,
May I put a hand on you?
Ask a snipers swift bullet,
Will you warn me before you do?
“You are clear to engage the building.”
“We have personnel on the ground.”
Ask a little boy,
Can war have both your legs today?
Ask a little girl,
May war slice your tiny arms away?
Ask a grieving mother,
Which of your children should we take?
“People are exiting the mosque.”
“Do not engage.”
Ask a proud father,
Can this bomb murder your sorrow?
Ask a prayer set free
If war might end its journey.
Ask an angry brother,
Will you miss your sister tomorrow?
"Clear to level it and engage personnel."
"Roger that."
Ask a plummeting bomb
If war is reasonable on the way down...




Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

O! NEWT!

"Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, told students and faculty at the University of South Dakota Monday that the United States should pull out of Iraq and leave a small force there, just as it did post-war in Korea and Germany. "It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003," Gingrich said during a question-and-answer session at the school. "We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it."

You are the coiled viper
Hissing as of late
Quite opposite these
Your counterparts of hate

O! Newt!
It’s not that you dodged your duties early on
Don't blame you for avoiding Vietnam
Many faces we know did, but damn!
Your words cascade a different face,
They absorb a different man
Than the GOP
that howled of Clinton’s reign
And puffed up in his disgrace!

You'll never be king
So stop this,
Your insolent charade!

Murdoch spits your money
Out his squalid lips
Subsidizing taxes
For capitalism’s phony clinch.
These shall not be left out onward,
Southwire and Murdoch
And Harper and Eisenach,
Funding toadies like you
For empire’s tawdry face!

Stop your lying!
Cease this,
Your slithering disgrace!
Shrink back into the shadows
To your most unholy place!
America doesn’t need you, Newt!
What she needs you lying twit
Is the unadulterated truth!




Newt.org

Newt and Clinton or Clinton and Newt

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND

The Americans can't return the three years that Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost lost, locked in a cell in Guantánamo Bay. But they could at least give back his poetry."Please help," said Dost, who says he penned 25,000 lines of verse during his long imprisonment. "Those words are very precious to me. My interrogators promised I would get them back. Still I have nothing."
The lost poems are the final indignity for Dost, a softly spoken Afghan whom the US military flew home last year, finally believing his pleas of innocence... (More)



A tiger made of thoughts crouched in rancid chamber
And penned enslaved words of his freedom’s famine
An enormous head wobbled over the prison barricade
Wagging blackened tongue to lap the tiger’s mane
The cat roared and spattered victory on paper cup
Young soldiers, frenzied with the folly, explode
The tiger makes note of their cackling redness
Licking the last drop of bittersweet verse
White jaws seized his twenty-five thousand odes
Yet the cat still runs open these guarded prison walls
Verse stolen of peace, hope, dignity and redness




Gitmo Inmates Share Ordeal

“THE WEST WING" REALITY

THE RESULTS OF THE ELECTION ARE IN - As the polls close and results are tallied, emotions are running high. Santos and Josh are faced with the loss of their Vice Presidential candidate. Meanwhile, Vinick disagrees with his campaign team.

Methinks it is television.

They might have an impeachment hearing,
Engage in a preemptive war,
Or an occupation onslaught.
They could have
A scripted plan for withdrawal,
Or a no holds barred press conference
And no doubt a sixty minute plot.

Yet, by no means, will they have a real impeachment hearing of a real president of the United States.

They will never have a valid examination of an actual war crime via a solid lie that, thus far, has felled 2,400 service men and women of a bona fide country dreadfully in need of the whole story.

Now, “The West Wing”
May offer some hope,
Or, at the most,
Some artistic mirror
Reflecting the dire needs
Of a country's people.
Or perhaps it may
Offer some respite
From the bloody truth of it,
Yet that, I believe,
Will remain the problem
Of the show and ultimately
Of the state of our union;
An unbelieving people
Watching, yet another,
Unbelievable story
That neither they
Nor the world
Might quickly, nor painlessly affect.


Far Left Blogspot

IMMIGRANT SPANGLED

In a show of ethnic solidarity, Dallas black politicians and civil rights advocates joined with Hispanic leaders Wednesday to promote a planned rally Sunday against U.S. immigration laws, particularly those involving Mexico."We are in the same boat together, and we stand together," said state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. "America is a country of immigrants. We need to continue to embrace immigrants."


When principles do slither
And ramparts do come hither
With intolerant red glare
Shocking liberated air
Let us march instead of wither

Our blood at present mixed
Where freedoms doth wobbly stand
of hated war and human love
Nationality’s no more
Let us freely take another's hand.

Of the liberated and the brave
Time to step in bright array
On the shores misted beaches
With a gleeful glory
Holding fast our levied reaches

From sea to shining sea
From state to speckled state
From coast to scattered coast
Of these three it is the sea
That paints America the most




mrp


Hat Tip To Arvin Hill's Carnival of Horror

The Star Spangled Banner
—Francis Scott Key, 1814


O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thro the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

On Sept. 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key visited the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes, who had been captured after the burning of Washington, DC. The release was secured, but Key was detained on ship overnight during the shelling of Fort McHenry, one of the forts defending Baltimore. In the morning, he was so delighted to see the American flag still flying over the fort that he began a poem to commemorate the occasion. First published under the title “Defense of Fort M'Henry,” the poem soon attained wide popularity as sung to the tune “To Anacreon in Heaven.” The origin of this tune is obscure, but it may have been written by John Stafford Smith, a British composer born in 1750. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially made the national anthem by Congress in 1931, although it already had been adopted as such by the army and the navy.

LET US NOT LOOK UPON

Rest your igniting treachery within this world.
Give respite to the heart beating `neath the stone.
Gaze upon the earth’s laurels for a time,
Reflect upon the beautiful light of the harvest moon,
Recall the wonder of lights swimming over the ice,
Reach for the song of nature’s awakening.

I will meet you there my friend upon the vast waters.
I will meet you upon the glorious mountains.
I will meet you upon the mighty shore.
I will meet you there, at peace in the valley of man.
We'll exchange the most magnificent of songs,
And with one another trade glimmering humanity.

Come!
Let us not look upon hunger thanking God we're not
For we are my friend; our living is empty.

Give to them not a beggar’s insult
But instead feed of them.
Nourish them as you would your offspring.
Nourish them as you would a dear friend.
Look into the hunger and exchange goodness.
Quench their need and you'll extinguish your own,
Give them drink and you will no more be parched,
Exchange with them your most magnificent song
Trade with them your glimmering hope.

Come!
Let us not waste this, our humanity,
In the breath and mastery of war


mrp

Shelter Getting Homeless Vets

BOMBS OF WORSHIP

The liberated look like old faces,
Wrinkled paintings slipped of their canvas,
Felled by ruthless, invading artists
Wielding hot metal brushes
With a king’s delight upon them!

Eye the people of this cherished land
Exploding in sovereignty's stroke,
Spitting in the face of tyranny!
See them as they lunge forth of liberty!
Hear them utter, “I detest you, America!”

“Look, America, what you’ve done!"
"We asked not for your renderings!”
“Damn you! Paint someone else’s life!"
"Make art of your own careless creature!"
Hear them utter, "No more of these, your blistering strokes upon our sovereign home!”

The liberated look like old faces,
Living draped hastily over death,
Red within their life’s breath,
White etched upon their anger,
Blue adorning their children’s hue...


mrp

PATRONIZE THIS!

I am as sorry for our loss on nine-eleven as the next idiot, but I hate being patronized to with absurd reminders, "3000 lives" and "biggest terrorist attack on US soil" and "they hate us for our freedom" and "we haven't been attacked again thanks to Bush"!

I want to scream!

It really irks me to hear such idiocy! Then to top it off with the inane conclusion, "We fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" is complete insanity! Comparably they should just say, "We ship our jobs over there so you won't have to work over here!"

I want to scream!

The "Over there instead of here" philosophy boils down to the exportation of death and destruction!

I want to scream!

Why the hell did we overthrow a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11!

I want to scream!

The people that will constantly remind us of tragedy and stoke our fear of terrorism (Bush, et al) are to be regarded as dangerous to liberty...

What do you want to do?


mrp

911 Relatives Quotes

They Hate Us?

Bring Them Home!

Reality of Shipping Jobs Overseas

Exporting Death

Saddam's Regime

Famed Liberty Essay

MR. TAYLOR VS. THE DESPOT

I found myself riveted
Not by Mr. Taylor’s truths
But by the sycophant applause
And frivolous amusement

It was not nervous laughter
Nor awkward ovation I heard
It was righteous insanity
Madness ingratiatingly twisted

The cemented sycophantic spectators
Stooping to their bloody emperor
Upon despot in humanity's waiting
At once nauseating
Then horrifying

I have seen it many times now,
The ghostly vision of sweet nothing
Endearment to murderer
Admiration for tyrant

I have seen its image before
In the historically monstrous films
Grainy black and white illusions
Another naïve and willful ovation

We needn't applaud this man
Nor prop up his unholy command
We need swiftly stem it
Before our dismal film is made...

DEAR MAYOR

2004- "...when we were fooling ourselves about the danger of terrorism, we were actually in the greatest danger. When you don’t confront correctly and view realistically, the danger that you face, that’s when you’re at the greatest risk...."

2004- "The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"

2006- Mayor Rudy: The former mayor, who was sitting next to scale models of the World Trade Center in court, said:

"By the time the second plane hit, we knew for sure it was a terrorist attack."
He added that after the towers collapsed, it looked like a "nuclear cloud" was going through Manhattan, Reuters news agency reported. The scene at the World Trade Center site was "horrid".
"It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life," Mr Giuliani told the jury.
"You could see parts of human bodies, hands and legs, a lot of injured... this was a war, this was a battle, we were attacked," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying."

DEAR MAYOR

I protest the manner of your speech,
Today and then, that America’s streets
Are hardened under our feet,
Matted with the dried hair of our children.
For cause, not unknown to us,
They were mislaid.
Of the souls perished in your fine city,
Of all the beautiful spirits lost of our horrible day,
I protest your roaring order of speckled speech.
Your words so easily slipped `tween brazen teeth
Of that day the planes found our America home;
The aftermath of storm, the rigorous oppression
Involving the true nature of this; humankind.

“Horrid” and “worst thing”
And “battle” and “attack”
And damnable “nuclear cloud”
And “troop responsibility”
And “parts of human bodies”
And “arms” and “legs”
“This was a war, a battle,
We were attacked!”

I protest your fearful language
Used to influence
An already predisposed jury!

Your words are nothing more than staged rhetoric
Meant to ignite, once again, the holy masses
Behind your failed leader upon his makeshift thrown!
These words conciliate nothing
But that the dried hair and life’s liquid
Needn’t be coined for emphasis absurd
Or exacerbate our rage and sorrow…

Peace…

Peace, my friend,
Is the missing sound.
Peace is not a pejorative
Unsafe to utter.
Let us make our exit of this stage!

Peace is what should have landed that day,
Not mockery of the spirit; virulent rage!
It is neither ours nor yours to throw!
Not your rehearsed version of events,
Emboldened to propel, to plunge
Yet another god-soul to death
In putrid eye for eye code!

Yes! Mayor, I protest your god-smack verbiage,
Your dance for another death,
For we all shall wander through this day’s ruin!
The world will now forever journey near the river,
Suicidal, empirical, regretful, sorrowful, and dead
Thinking that words need darkness to swim…


mrp

THE ALBATROSS

The great hand of time
Moves `round rumbling in the blue,
Vast whips of saturated choice
Lash the impertinent sails
and the howling of dissenters
Can be heard `neath the chiding oars
Speeding the hour upon the mottled shores
as the oily albatross glides the world
Commandeering the air and ground
In its slippery waddle and squawk of certain truth.

Our albatross; man’s intent
sullying the world in swift hegemony
Leaving time with all the wasters, the lethargic,
and the broken masses bellyaching `round the hours
Hunched and offended in their stale air.
The mournful scuff of muffled bitterness
Confiscates the heavens and the oil baron
Plunges the earth, hijacking forest and plain
and ocean in his dastardly trample and screech
Toward certain failure.


mrp

HUMANITY IN FREEFALL

O! Humanity flying down!
Will thou not catch thyself and stay a while longer?
Can you not hear the music within you;
The sweet reverie of morning warble,
“Live… Live… Live…”?

Look to your sky not to your feet.
Look to serenity not to the eyes of oblivion.
Look to the children dancing in the night.
Look heavenward! Right thy journey!

See the bird’s wing aloft in splendid flight,
May not you be like her and stay a while longer?

O! Humanity slipping `way!
Do not forsake this world! Stay within her arms!
If you turn `way and face not the writhing truth
You’ll let slip a fragile magnificence
And her children will laughter end


mrp
A Poetic Justice Video (2min 37sec)



Caution- gut wrenching content. Music- Jennifer Athena Galatis- Voices of Rome--Jerusalem... Violin solo by Tariq Harb

WOUNDED GROUND

Each night I see the moon’s breath `neath the sand...
I sense God’s eyes penetrating the dense haze and brown hands groping openly, willful arms stretched wide searching for children’s eyes, finding those that whimper. Cold fingertips touch my face collecting tears for display.

Each night I hear shrieking of owl or nighthawk and I see resounding beams of an already forgotten light, dancing creatures under the sand, sounds of tin cups and plates rattling our ravenous music.

Hunger’s my medicated craving, not for rations, but for living, panting to glimpse the sun.

Each day a wounded ground walks within my night...

Why do the shadowy vapors tremble so? Have they the trampled spirit within their frail offspring of hope? Might it be the colossal God carrying the virgin jaws to my hour of darkness that’s within my hunger?

Each night I see the moon’s breath `neath the sand...


mrp

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi Civilian Count

American Civilian Casualties

Casualties in Afghanistan

The Faces

KATHERINE THE (NOT SO) GREAT

O! Katherine the (not so) Great
Let us join the thinking all `round you,
Make-believe, if joining tis not your passion,
Lift lifetime of thou breath and hold inward,
Pray that your bright carriage arrives in time
Upon the truth's errant powder now settling.
Fetch then your luggage and box and sack
And towel and bowl and cup to carry `bout
And dispense truth to us, the peasantry; clarity!
Fill each appetite’s pocket with magnified glory,
Feed the masses freedom’s delectable meats,
Knock back generosity's prize, liberty’s libation
`Til we whimper, "Goddamnit! Enough! Enough!
Freedom's chalice now runneth over! Enough!”



mrp

Catherine the Great (Interesting parallels...)

Watch this video! (Some strong language.) Grand Theft America

TO THOSE STILL HELD

Now breathless and unconstrained
She warbled odes for her captors
And then like razors slipped forth
Of a world she had been detained
Taken `way from her restful peace
And living’s translation shot dead
In an arid land discharged in war
Dignity stuffed in scarf’s bent head…

Now humanity free of its confinement
Open of nodding treacherous torture
Death in their breath she expresses
Of her ungodly "criminals at best"!
Everything is not as it appears to be
As painted thus in lyrical ode
The young Christian now safely home
Others still held she drops her bomb…



mrp

SERAPH OF RUIN

"Alone of gods Death has no love for gifts, Libation helps you not, nor sacrifice. He has no altar, and hears no hymns; From him alone Persuasion stands apart."
Aeschylus (525-465 B.C.) "Niobe"

Shrouded maidens sleeping on the air
Bronze and silver and reddening metals
Men crouched upon the mist of morning
Singing in the cold earthpressed grave

Let us hear the pleas
Of brown backs, slave of beautiful faces
Of white necks, slave of glittering eyes

Souls arm in arm wading through ether
Hands stolen skyward holding bladed sun
Cry out amidst the rubble
Call out to us your grief on bursting lips
Wag thy tongues in dread pitching forth

Children flying down, falling luminaries
Rescue will be swift my dears
Come now
Into the arms of Azrael