AVOIDABLE

We are all walking these streets
Under our own abysmal verdict.
Frequently we hear that we’re faced
by avoidable contamination. We’ve heard it before,
that we must breed our skin apart from those others
until our masks are solid and chaste,
irremovable, useless. Force the skin’s hue down,
imprison our colors on the nomadic streets.

We need be single-minded to form our face
into the perfect color of a perverted truth;
this evolution is ugliest now,
storming its infection across the world.

We’re walking the streets, the roads,
the twisting spheres bending away; humanity
begging we refuse this council, this deception. One
stride on this earth, one long, delightful use of man;
animal, dying now, ready to live. Our fuel’s the blood
Under our skin, our reckless mind, the contagion.

Understand this; our progression has long commenced.
We cannot forgo its breathing revolution.
We cannot, from its rise, ourselves remove.
O! It will thrash our sticks and stones,
and turn its heaven away from our brutality,
away from our bigotry, our war, our contempt of evolution,
until we dissolve our masks and flee our unbending dreams!

O we need make our pulse in the unknown.
We are the pollen that dropped from the same flower,
eyeless and frightened.
Our worthless dread,
motionless souls,
splintered hearts,
cagey minds,
thrashed hopes,
derelict empathy,
throttled voices,
parading our death
over scorched noises.

Maybe we’re not walking the streets and roads...
maybe we’re being carried by the wind?

© 2008 mrp/tpm

Rolling along "J"...
Jade Gate
Jakester Express
Jesus Was Not a Republican
Jonestown - Joshing Politics
Journeys with Jood
June Revolution
Just Ain't Right

NEXT TO ONE ANOTHER

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(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

If we lie next to one another
Do you think we’ll forget the world?
If our fingers hunt like tongues
Do you think we’ll stumble upon silence?

The dream begins the same;
I’m older. My mind and body, slower.
The dream ends the same;
You lying next to me, fingers wagging.

If we rest next to one another
Do you think we’ll fail to notice war?
If our tongues search like fingers
Do you think we’ll assemble peace?

Naked, both shining with grief,
We sense the other’s bones like a sniper,
Spin new selves with each innocent,
(Child, dream, mother, hope, father) slain.

Tonight we’ll unwind nightmares,
Our imaginings, dreams, will begin the same;
Mind and body slower, wagging,
Tongues speaking the drama from slumber.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

PREVIOUS POST - Return to the Terrain

RETURN TO THE TERRAIN

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(A Poetic Justice Collage)

As I return to the terrain
Of home and family and poetry…
I call still on power to cease,
To end its grip
On the throat of humanity…
I spit it out as if poison,
Wrenching the taste away…
Like a lopped off limb
Striking a dreary sound
I slice it deeply toward tyranny…
I release it like a victim of rape,
Shaking, fatigued, frantic, enraged
Cutting the air of privilege…
I expel it like a thief
Moving stealthily, no outline,
Save for the throb of unknown loss…
I throw it to the page with imagination,
A sword cutting its way through…
And without prejudice
I spatter.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

PREVIOUS POST - HOSTS OF GRIEF

DULL SPARK

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We only think we have a different story to tell,
but they're all the same;
just old blasted, worn-to-the-nub tales;
(Even a genius can think he's God.)

Our minds needn’t lead us through to our history’s end;
It is our hearts, the bloody, wildly beating, throbbing heart!
Not the brain with its monotonous weak-kneed glimmer.
It is the heart that must lead, take our hand
and guide us out the valley of our own shadow.

The heart, not our intolerantly pricked ear or roving eye
Or arching want against the smack of unholy greed,
and most certainly not our capricious and foul-fickled-soul
Stumbling for deities like some inebriated son-of-a-bitch!

We need our hearts to direct us safely `round this gorge.
The heart knows the outside of its host;
it knows we’re not fit to strike a goddamned match,
That we’re empty outside of it.

The heart knows that war may signal our end
and that collateral damage is a coward’s phrase.

It is our hearts, not our minds;
Our rotted head makes sport of death
and our lean souls tease the dwindling wit,
pokes, jabs at our churning gut
beckoning it come sit heavy upon our will.

Our hands, feet, arms and legs
Are only told to move in rage
when the heart’s gone missing.



Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

FLIGHT OUT

She eyes the richness of faces longing for home,
Rucksacks and rifles tossed over slumped shoulder,
Traces of flags and banners and wood; fruitless.
This flight out will be the last toward survival.
She will not be going,
She still looks for her children,
She is citizen of the killing zone.
Her husband’s fate went uncounted
From the outset of steel-humanity’s broil.
Saddam broken, alive,
Murderer waits,
Tamed in a ruler's land
By would-be king of another.

She smiles upon them as they exit
Breathing sighs of relief danced in mourning.
What will become of the roses and the waters?
The ancient ruins, the culture shattered?
Might it request another day of its soul?
Will this become death’s chart and dark-boiled lure?
(A few of sands ruddy cheeked questions
Birdsong aloft of the broken firmament.)
She smiles and waves goodbye
To friend and foe, liberator and murderer,
Husband and wife, brother and sister,
Uncle and aunt, love and hate.

A distinct, sudden, and brief click
Sensed under the engine's breath
Over a moment of moistness
And the blinding flash.


Copyright © 2006 mrp

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!

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

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