POETIC JUSTICE: June 2006

OCCASION FOR ALL NATIONS

We move swiftly to the call of our great nation
Past our half-empty-truths of an infant history
Balanced beyond the gaze of Lady Liberty
Inundated with the gape of knowing eyes
And the weight of truth under the murmuring sky.

O! America we are too immediate with judgment,
Overwhelmed in our wolf-jawed thinking
So harsh upon our dim view of the world;
A willfully ignorant Plexiglass shroud
Merciless to those deemed an axis of evil.

We do not much think of others, save for the dead,
Or the not quite living shells of our craving.
Have we not urged our soul toward the abyss?
To a reckoning if we ignore the plea of fellow man
And wet not the desiccated lips of our neighbor?

Are we not alive, tasting the future of blazing night,
Gazing in awe at the horrific bearing of our despair?

That we are estranged of our creation’s intent
Should give us bleeding thoughts of providence,
Striking our temples in agonizing white-eyed flesh.

Let the brown heifer search for the better meadow,
The flowers seek out their own seed’s beginning,
Waters time to heal of our most warred commodity,
Give occasion for all nations to mourn their dead
And daybreak to find its way through our mantle of night.

TAKE HEED OF THE RUMBLING

The mouths of the sycophants
Slide down optimism’s end
And discharge a wicked gloom.
A thousand-skulled glumness
Within the breathless sky
Like a horde of defecating locust.

The tongues of the sycophants
Cackle and spew their cynicism
As thunderous footsteps rumble
A message that we might heed,
Reminding us that beneath the despotic clouds
Lay the founding documents too near to flame.

The jaws of the sycophants
Feast upon our selfless expectations
And envision not their collusion
Even beneath the red-rumbling void
That brings their eyes skyward instead of front
To see the loudly beating heart of our own tyranny.

GOODBYE AND THEN FOREVER

Goodbye and then forever;
Material, skies, divine.
The faces fade from one then the other;
Humble objects, the blue, marvelous heaven.
White; nobleness, freedom, greatness.
Blue; honor, truthfulness, commitment, purity.
Red; bravery, valor, love.

Goodbye and then forever.
O! Saint George the Victor, where’s thy grief now?
Where have thy pale offspring gone;
To reap empire’s great appetite on empty gun?
Where are thy remaining faces;
Jolting back of shameless wonderment,
Awaiting capture to fill the open void of freedom?

Goodbye and then forever. Alexander Pushkin; Hoarfrost warriors,
What means my name to you? 'Twill die
As does the melancholy murmur
Of distant waves or, of a summer,
The forest's hushed nocturnal sigh.
With Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Goodbye and then forever. Anna Akhmatova;
Gatherers of wild seed blessed union...
I go forth to seek
-To seek and claim the lovely magic garden
Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.
With Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Karl Brullov and Leo Tolstoy.

Goodbye and then forever.
Mother of God, Patroness of the Russian ground,
Lower them into wanton mud-covered arms,
Press them to thy worm ridden breast,
Speak to them of dark’s screeching sadness,
And whisper unto their soul enticing hope.
Goodbye and then forever.

Leo Tolstoy

Karl Brullov

FALLING WORDS

O! I do not tread easily upon this broken road,
My solemn words do not come effortlessly afoot.
I’m struggling with my country, and her duty,
Allegiance with the gutless beast of her blood.
Children are being devoured by everlasting,
Red-blasting, aggressive, and unholy greed,
As if waiting for the black and bleeding hand
Of Allah to reach through the raven gloom and
Put sorrowful life's hands `round our throats
And slaughter us; His soft construction.

O! I do not tread lightly upon the corpse lined road
Of our destruction,
Words fall hard, bitter.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

NAKED MAN'S DANCE

This is not a toy on some gargantuan playground
To kick and catch, whirl topsy-turvy willy-nilly,
Get the girl, knock back and bray, fetch the giggles,
Kiss the toad, red rover red rover, or slug the tipple.
No! This is the lesser light of greatness; humility.
It’s a bag full of possibility; a reticent gift horse.
Look not in its mouth, nay, look but in its joy;
Your chance to alter the present spiraling course,
Quash the steps toward dooms sweeping force;
Breathing searing flame of a wiry dragon’s gasp
Coursing hastily toward pitching darkness.

This is your road from mediocrity to greatness;
To folly of some mad tyrant, bully, provocateur
Mad handing his way to inexperienced oblivion,
Or to look terror in the eye and see your own expression.
You can turn back your surge of breathing horror,
Your empire and her long in the tooth conspirators.
It is not too late to shrink back of this; your failure.
There’s time yet for courage, a nod of humbling grace.
Folly will triumph lest greatness wears your name
For madmen dance to a maddened kingdom’s charade,
Naked, bent, bloodied, and altogether headless.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

SNEERING, BRISTLING MOUTHS

Only a society that has ceased to value that reasonable context of discussion (in other words, only a society that no longer really cares about itself) could enthusiastically make significant room for someone like Coulter, who rakes in profits by making up lies and "entertaining" people by demanding the deaths of those she hates. And American society today makes room not only for her, but also for an entire right-wing movement for which “eliminationist” rhetoric has become the norm. This is a society that no longer trusts itself, that is incapable of seeing its citizens as citizens and therefore as worthy of respect.

O! Mouths that bridle the sneering air,
Minds horrible of this;
Irrational expressions,
Flabbergasted lies,
Damnable discourse!
You are loud as limbs,
Shrill as death,
Evil as murder!

You are eradication’s soldiers
Armed in deceit,
Fortified in hateful corruption,
And wrapped in dogmatic shrapnel!

O! Minds entertained by your thrusts
Have been put to sleep by the noise,
By the incessant rumbles,
Entertaining droll mugs,
Telling us,
“Life’s a gas!”
“All is well!”
“Relax!”

Your mouths bristle the sneering air,
Jaws made despicable by your howling
Toward corruption’s wanton bride,
You're planting your seeds intolerably deep,
Scratching the bowels of hell,
And dipping our roots in death’s slag,
You scoundrel-dogs,
You witches misery!

O! You scraggly saw-toothed snipers
Mustn’t be given America’s credence!
You must be challenged forthrightly
And not given reign of our trust.
Truth must reel your despotic cretin
To the draggled bottom of anguish,
Leaving you to choke on your venomous,
Empty expressions!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

COLOSSAL HEAD

Empire tosses its colossal head on the rooftops of Iraq
And children and mothers and fathers are redeyed of seeking.
They wish to converse of loss, of a gut wrenching pain.
They wish to be free of it, to rend it impotent, joyful.

Near the center of life militant troops beat down doors
Calling out its name, “Terror!” “Terror!” “Terror!”
“We need leave this red hell of our making!
We need pack it up and march ever onward!”

The mammoth head spits down upon them
And wags its bloody tongue toward the east.
It is hungry for more; ravenous for unholy kingdom,
Dried lips smacking its unquenchable thirst.

Kidnapped by its own gluttony it tosses back
And still, redeyed children and mothers and fathers seek it out.
They’ve not had their words yet, they need them.
They wish to be free of it, to rend it lifeless.

Empire tosses its colossal head on the rooftops of Iraq,
(its arms and legs and torso lay dead upon the ground).

FOR MY FATHER

Daddy, years have passed since last you held me
As I lay next to you in bed after having a bad dream.
Years have passed since last I shed tears
Upon your shoulder after skinning my knee.

(I truly miss those days of your steadfast love of child.)

Today, I still might fall, or toss in the night,
But with the gentle memory of your steadiness
And remembering your warm and sturdy shoulders
The tears falling today will be more for longing.

Today, at your party, a grandchild will skin their knee
And go to you, their grandpa, and climb into your lap
Where they will cry and you will easily comfort them
And I will, without a doubt, resent the little brat!

DANSE by Case Wagenvoord

O, children!
Don’t you know growth
is but a dance of death,
a slow march towards
the grave?

The Devil’s Bell Curve
of ascent, apogee
and decline
‘tis but a neon glare
telling us
decline is ascent;
decay, perfume.

O Children,
don’t you recognize
your death?

Poem by Case Wagenvoord

O! SWINGING DOOR OF TERROR!

No one dare walk under a dangerously exhausted sun
For a dark approaching mist is falling over the world.
Instead, the occupied, the purchased, gather in atonement,
And upon bended knee pray for their release, their freedom,
Beseeching their God to close the black mouth of terror
And deliver them from stalking death… no more.
String. Lace. Tighten. Pace. Boom!

Walking in your shoes, Mr. Bush, is an honor among bandits.
Treading across the mosque floor in a lifeless lace-up dance
He strode to the center of the prayer and lifted thirteen to Allah.
He strode to the inside and with your visage upon his face
In your image, in your footprint, this sole bomber did split it,
Clearing the sacrosanct hurdle of your phantom war.
String. Lace. Tighten. Pace. Boom!

Standing now in the swinging door of your terror
A warrior examined the carnage loudly,
And said “terrorist” in a mirrored voice;
Utterance of empire that he could not have recognized
Standing upon the damp carpet of retaliation
And sorrowful prayers for the occupied and dead.
String. Lace. Tighten. Pace. Boom!

Walking in your shoes, Mr. Bush, is an honor among bandits.
Treading across the occupations lifeless, drumming dance,
Your feet have kicked down the door to sovereignty!
In your reflection, in your path, this sole bomber did split it,
Your infection moved with smooth perfection across the room,
Ambled toward the center of grace and blasted his voice skyward!
String. Lace. Tighten. Pace. Boom!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

ANOTHER MEASURE OF SWAY

$65.8 billion will be rushed to the Pentagon so it can continue fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

Give this a grace beyond man
With the striding panther pacing in our night
Amid the screeching rodents in our dreams
With the sordid and clanging thirst in our day
Amid the weeping mothers and fathers
With the purity of softly deserving fresh jaws
Amid the calamity wrought upon innocence

Give this purity that it holds sway
With one man’s failure of another man’s country
With the shrieking shell of penniless promises
The dismal hoot of youthful warriors
And the disintegrated fingers of tiny hands

Give this fund a purpose set askew
With less for death
With less for anguish
Less for tortured reasoning
Let us have less of contempt

Use our riches to breathe hope into life
We are the victor for this
We are the better for this
Give us the words that sway the minds
Of our powers and their fluid riches
For these are the times upon the back of poetry
That will bring joy… or detonate in rage.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

When Two Dictators Meet

Greenwald

Thoughts From a Flyover State

The Truth Will Set You Free

MANIACAL MELODY

O! Love at first sight in bleak day.
You’ve life’s gallant sun.
The arid tempest swoons;
Love. Hope. Joy. Doubt. Lust. Slaughter.
Blood’s staining authority.
The silver gorge croons to her,
Breathing deep, conjuring worship;
The grubby toothed grin of casualty.

“My love, may I have this dance?”
“Tis my honor most valiant knight!”
“Take my hand, my dear, and we shall.”
“Yes, my love.”

O! Life’s embittered perfection,
Love’s wish filled stain,
Let go this; your dreadful date
And curl your arms `round eternity
Heeding the smothered breath of thy god;
Hatred. Contempt. Red. White. Blue.
Blood’s staining authority;
The solvent spirit’s bloody weight!

Far Left

ROVE'S BOTTOM UP DANCE

Breathe a sigh of relief
You crooked misanthropes!
Let it out, your holding,
You insignificant imps!
Raise your stumps in fleshy hope,
Stamp your bottom in pride's stink,
Sidle up to the torture bar
And have yourself a drink!
Swill it down
And
Swig it `round
To your black-hell teeth,
Your rusted razor’s frame!
Then prepare the crow
Boiled in the blood of children,
Hand `round to devil’s kin
And sluice your just desserts,
For your demise will now begin.

THREE

Three drops of Muslim blood
Oozed from out the sun
With fallow abandon.

We are the unbending witness;
The joy and sorrow dancing together.
Any mockery of this leaves us cold
And forsaken of sacrament.

It is the easy path to expiation
But it is not atonement, it is fear;
Dread; The rue of participation,
The dangling blade of our souls
Cowering from significance.

What power has the sun
If it but only gives?
What power have we
If we but only take?

We build this great wall inside ourselves
So the sun will matter not,
So the blood that flows
Will not touch our skin.
We have the wall to protect us from the sun,
The distance too great to face..

The drops will not splatter their truth
Tarnishing our slapdash limbs.
The three liquids will have to find
Another pocket to wash,
Another hand to sully,
Another soul to haunt,
For the wall will shelter us.
The wall will keep it from us,
From our witness,
From our shared humanity.

Three drops of Muslim blood
Oozed from out the sun
With fallow abandon
And we felt nothing…

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

SQUALLING STILLNESS

At the weekend, one top state department official called them a good PR move to draw attention", while the camp commander said it was an "act of asymmetric warfare waged against us". "I wouldn't characterise this as a good PR move," Cully Stimson, US deputy assistance secretary of defence, told the BBC's Today programme, on Monday. "What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life, because as Americans we value life even if it is the life of a violent terrorist captured waging war against our country."

(With the minuscule world’s squalling stillness
Erupting solidly through the callous smoothness
Are we to downright believe the upright deceit,
To misunderstand its audacious correctness?

This finite universe lashes kindly against its void.
Words are meaningless in the silent pertinence,
Our smiling and dismal days writhe still of wishes
And turn back goodness upon their deviant constancy…)

How could words have lost their meaning that day?
Why is nothing to be believed after the plane’s shadows?
Have they so ruthlessly shattered our principles
That even our language holds no meaning?

How can we conceive serenity lying in the fatal position?
How can we erect peace with all of our words bent in war?
If we fight for other’s freedoms while our own fall away
The shrieking birds toppled more than just our towers…

Big Stick and a Carrot (The Anomoly)

LEAVE THE BOX CUTTER, CARRY THE LIE

For this flight
Have we enough food
To nourish our dark and horrid famine?
Have we plenty water
To ease across the razor’s barren edge?
Have we sufficient breath
To coax this; our collusion deep within?
Have we ample shelter
From this; our own deceitful tomb?

(Truth. Have we none?)

Who needs the goddamned truth?
Lies, for us, are more valuable,
Made to easily pass through
The takeoff's devising eyes.
It’s the clever packing of truth and lies
Into a single carry-on that is the trick.

(Lies?)

Yes!
It won’t turn the plane’s shadow into flame.

(Flame?)

Yes!
It won’t cut the neck of our slipshod freedom.

(Freedom?)

Yes!
It won’t bring massive terror to our shores.

(Terror? Freedom? Flame?)

Yes! Lies! You goddamned traitor!
Lies; packed together as one
They more easily sound round
Edging near enough to truth.

Copyright © 2006 mrp

THE SENSE OF WHITE BIRDS

Bush said he was thrilled that al Qaeda's leader in Iraq had been "brought to justice" and insisted he would like to see American troops leave as soon as possible. But two days after Zarqawi's death in a U.S. bombing raid, Bush reiterated Washington's resolve to stay until Iraqis can secure their own country. "Removing Zarqawi is a major blow to al Qaeda," Bush said at a news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. "It's not going to end the war, it's certainly not going to end the violence, but it's going to help a lot." (More.)

(Thrilled? You’re thrilled that it took all those lives to kill a thug?
You’re elated with the prospect of the relief in yet another life gone?
What were the women who died along with him, collateral damage?
Then suddenly and erroneously you proffered a little gem, “pull out”,
Then the next day you’re back on message? You’re an ignorant clown!)

THE SENSE OF THE WHITE BIRDS

O! White birds fly down the raging river line
And white hot are the sun’s rays bathing the shore,
And I think of this war and of my own borrowed complicity
That will be my shrieking, loathsome marrow felt forevermore!

You cast it masterfully, dangling your lure
Of every feeble people’s swindler in your damn book.
You’d rather not have “pull out” swim the raging water,
But it’s out there! The nibblers bleed from your despotic hook!

I think of all the Iraqi people, and I weep.
And of their homes and shame at having believed in us;
Freedom, democracy, clean water, safe streets, living;
I think of your lies and at once am asphyxiated by our oily lust!

O! The white birds flying the river can see it,
They can see the shoreline and they can see the nectar,
They glimpse a fabrication in America’s half-truths,
For they see the ancient beauty of Iraq swilling in fumes of war!

The bird senses our pandering, illicit ambition,
The looming and buckling hell of shorelines stony crust
As the warring winds change course for eastern shores
And would hold you from humanity if given reign over the quaking dust!

AN OFFICER REFUSES HIS COMMAND

I think that we are all given freedoms and liberties by the Constitution but I think the one God-given freedom and right that we really have is freedom of choice. The moment we tell ourselves that we no longer have that choice is the moment we take that one freedom away. The only freedom we have. (More...)

Beneath the fast day,
Behind you... a shadow walks in step
Following you toward your end…

Under the creamy night,
Within you... a silhouette mimics your dance
On the heels of your soul…

(If you think this man's a coward,
Your shadow’s gone astray.
If you think of him as a traitor,
Your silhouette has lost its way.)

Does courage have the face
Of shattered children?
Does honor still have meaning
When it becomes just a word?

Our beast always crouches
In temptation’s bloody run;
Follow the demon away from truth,
Or turn and stride beneath the sun.

Copyright © 2006 mrp

Man refuses Iraq
Truth-out- Officer refuses deployment

AND WE REJOICE!

“…even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also…”

A killer of man has himself been killed,
And we rejoice!
He knew it was coming and so did we…
And we rejoice!
No more car bombs.
No more shrapnel-shelled bodies.
No more death!
We rejoice!
The killer’s been killed!
Yes! Praise God!
We rejoice!
The killing is over!
The killer is killed!
And we rejoice in his killing!
We rejoice!
We rejoice for we knew it was coming
And he knew it, too!
The killing is over
Now bring home the troops!

Bring our children home.
The killer’s been killed…
It’s time for ticker-tape parades,
Proud flag waving,
National anthems,
Time to re-release
the movie Top Gun,
And dance in the wet streets!
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
BOOM!

Copyright © 2006 mrp

WIDOWED

The sun had its sky, the sky had its blue,
The blue had its clouds, all held to an ensuing loss.

The world had its nectar to offer; stunning mountain ranges,
Plentiful fields of grain, sustaining waters…

The sky did then forsake them on this day;
Widowed of a pristine love bathing them in joy,
The weight of it unhappily tumbled down,
Congregating with one another, mourning…

The sun had its sky, the sky had its blue,
The blue had its clouds, all gripped in looming collapse.

After the shock of death’s swift alliance with anger
They held their heads high and marched onward,
All the while in grief’s search they strode past denial
And posed the earth's hovering question;
Why? Why did the sky abandon our trust?
“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.”
Screeched the hollow voice of the rigor-mortis-bitch-of-rant;
The miscreant’s language spilled from an empty breach
Splintering, once again, the solemn day’s widowed sky.

Copyright © 2006 mrp

9/11 Widows
Rush Attacks Widows
Widows for Kerry
He Can Make us Safe
9/11 Widows "Why?"
From Tragedy to Hope

RECIPE FOR DISASTER

Let's make a lethal dose,
For me and for you...
A recipe, of sorts,
For "DISASTER STEW"

ADD 1 part FEAR of terrorism
(Terrorism itself it be)...
ADD 1 part FEAR of gayness,
Or homosexuality-

Add 2 parts ignorance
(Bleached white ignorance
On a scale not seen before,
Until ignorance wore a cowboy hat
Cleared brush,
And left the constitution
Soiled upon the floor.)

Stir (spin) for twenty seconds.

Add a chicken-hawk liver
Soaked in brandy,
Toss in a dash of grated intolerance,
Three cups of chopped lies,
One teaspoon of half truth,
Add a can of yellowbelly peas,
A pinch of pepper for taste (affirmative action),
And bring to a boil in an armored Humvee
On a Middle Eastern range
For an unspecified amount of time
Or until it boils over.

(Caution: The architect of this recipe,
Nor his perception,
Is responsible for your
Assured death at ingestion.)

DRIPPING MOUTH

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
-Samuel P. Huntington

O heal thy heart,
Thou white steely souls
Whose bleeding desire is to rule the world.
American knights, heal this offense.
Heal thy spirit of this dreadful lust.
Do away with it…
There is much hunger for peace,
For love.
There is much yet to be spoken,
Much to heal of thy sickly onslaught,
Much to be gleaned of this world
And its hunger for salvation.
O! the breath of man
Need be sweetened!
Softness need envelop her,
And the wanton paws of this;
Thy dominant voyage need come to an end,
For it serves only to shackle and bloody
The supple lips of hope
Upon divinity’s dripping mouth.

QUAKING EARTH

Scattered from ocean floor to gutter
It floats its sludge inside our lives,
Immersing within the food and air,
Strangling, twisting, buckling wombs.
Unconscionable and complicit are we
Staring in disbelief of the quaking earth.
Stumbling through a watery backset,
Turning toward from an ebbing night
Of deny, deny, deny… speckled doom.

Copyright © 2006 mrp

Global Warming

HUSH LITTLE BABY DON'T YOU CRY

Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Allah’s come to carry you from here.
And, Nabiha, your mother's breath, shall sing.
Allah’s going to give her his golden wings.
How piteous is her slumber.
How horrific her end.
She and her inner breath now silent.
Nothing else shall this night descend…
The earth quakes of this loss
The guilty guns weep of this misfortune,
They cry out to divinity, “Forgive us!”
As their souls quake of shame.
Allah frowns down upon the leader,
Our commander, the American apostate,
And with his mighty hand
He takes up the carnage.
Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Allah’s come to carry you from here.
And, Nabiha, your mother's breath, shall sing.
Allah’s going to give her his golden wings.
How wretched is her sleep.
How dreadful her end.
She and her joyful life… aborted.
Nothing else shall this night descend…

Copyright © 2006 mrp
The Truth Will Set You Free
The Lady Speaks
Terrorsim News
Stinky Luvin'

HONORABLE THIRST

"Of the nearly 150,000 Coalition Forces presently in Iraq, 99.9 percent of them perform their jobs magnificently every day," Chiarelli said. Of those troops, about 130,000 are from the United States. "They do their duty with honor under difficult circumstances. They exhibit sound judgment, honesty and integrity. They display patience, professionalism and restraint in the face of a treacherous enemy. And they do the right thing even when no one is watching," Chiarelli said. He added, however, that "unfortunately, there are a few individuals who sometimes choose the wrong path."

O! Bring your beautiful shores and thy hope’s beacon,
Shine light down on them equally, a white hotness!
You are thirsty; laden with the soul’s strained lumber
And filled with dread and death soaked in the ache of living.

O! Cry out rain of fortune! Cry out from thy staggered torrent
And pitiable veil of bereavement! I am thy mourning cradle!
I am thy tongueless teacher pacing the cave of thy day
And wrestling thy fragile soul in your hours of darkness!

O! Bring thy beautiful shores and thy hope’s guiding light
Douse them with the flame of thy shelled out yearning!
Be thy hungry? Feast upon the bomb-wrapped soul of thy enemy
Nurture thy pangs with the blood of fellow man in a gentle manner.

Soak your tears upon the moist cloth of mankind.
Wrap thy arms around her and carry her to your bed
Where thou can dream of perfection and stained expectation
Only to be shaken wide-eyed by thy dreams of slaughter
And finally see that, indeed, both cravings, both aspirations
Might so effortlessly stroke one another in madness.

The Ravings of a Semi-sane Madwoman