Betrayal
Another clattering army
Crawls the desert
Under towering plumes of dust;
Another round of artillery fire
Shakes the earth,
Pounding mud houses
Back into the salted earth they sprouted from
Smudging a sickly shimmering sky
From one uncertain horizon to the other.
These ragged families fleeing down the road,
Same as all those other desperate refugees
Of every other desperate dying place on earth,
I grieve for them.
But I am furious
For the fighters left behind
To hold the line,
Defend that blood-soaked barren sand,
For them I am incensed
That they must eat the dirt
Of empty resignation,
Must choke it down and
Chew the choice of exodus or death
They must suffer the shocking stab of treachery,
Shake their fists with all the rage of this
Betrayal.
Cosmic Blueprint
To hell with this emptiness formless and dark.
Let there be skyfire bright above stone –
Yes, that’s better,
That’s good.
Let the blue water rush, let it pour from the void,
And let sunshadow cool against rock solid shores, yes
I like it.
So Day versus Night,
Hardlands assailed by clamorous waves
With the vault of the heavens
Containing it all,
Gilded with sunshine
Polished all silvery, starry and moonish.
Excellent, excellent!
Let it be green
And teeming with life.
Let the creepers and crawlers and swimmers
Go wild!
With these beasts of the field and
Birds on the wing
It’s a beautiful thing
If I say so my Self.
I could check the plan over once more,
But it’s perfect.
Perhaps such a delicate
Balance requires
Some maintenance,
Some supervision:
Someone to tend it,
Defend it and
Keep it all working
The way that it should:
Optimum temperature,
Perfect proportions of solids and gases,
Predator, prey,
Seasons and tides.
So the sheep have their shepherds
The seas have their song,
Mankind has the Knowledge.
What could go wrong?
Whistling Man
This fresh-air bright-eyed morning
A whistling lilt drifts over to me
On the road as I walk the dogs.
My neighbor, barely seen through a screen
Of native honeysuckle,
Strolls his sprawling lawn out back
Collecting trash and maple twigs,
And trills a breezy melody,
A song I can’t quite name,
A Celtic air or
Maybe an old-time movie tune.
I think of my father
Who could summon a song
Whistle all day long
While trimming a room
Shingling a roof or
Fishing along the shore.
With childhood memories
Carried off on the wind
I’m a little surprised to hear that man
Or anyone
So relaxed and easy with his warbling.
Was there ever a time I’d chirp like that?
I’m afraid now I’m incapable,
Dry-mouthed, bitter, drawn,
Too tense to even purse my lips,
Too tight to trill light-hearted tune,
Too angry to whistle a happy song.
1984 – On Reality of Past and Future
Let’s talk about reality:
How many fingers do you see?
Two plus two is always four,
Unless we say it must be three.
Who controls the past controls the future;
Control the future, you make the past.
Where is that place, that time, that year?
Where is that Sunday, where Saturday last?
It exists inside the skull, perhaps
But has no substance you can feel.
It’s not external, outside your self.
It isn’t concrete — it isn’t real.
It exists in the mind and nowhere else.
Is memory hidden beyond the reach
Of foes and those who seek control,
Seek to lead, to train, to teach?
No, your memories are not secure
In the mortal mind so fallible, weak,
Decaying matter that we can mold,
Matter we change however we speak.
Nothing exists but consciousness.
And that you see is what we control.
And we decree your reality.
No need for things that serve the soul.
No use for art, for literature,
No fantasies of self-reliance,
The earth’s no older than we, believe it.
Omnipotent, we need no science.
The so-called laws of nature? Nonsense!
The law of gravity? Nonsense too!
We make the laws, decide the lies
But anything we say is true.
How many fingers do you see?
Look hard, if you want to stay alive.
Two plus two is always four,
But then, perhaps we say it’s five.
Dumpster Fire Press 