The Grace of Cowardice

Finally
I sent it off, and knew

you could ignore it,
set the piece aside, and just forget.
You could skim it, dutifully,
perhaps become enraged,
or only choose to be amused.

But no, we chose to stand together,
you and I, among the others,
in our silent tribute
to the shivering emperor

and to the noble walrus,
to the end, discreet.
~

Author! Author!

Ideas gleaned from poetry and books
should be for sale in little boxes, that
were optional at extra cost--and I
would find inside, the little people there
that I could set upon my desk, and shake
my finger at them, questionning without
offence their origin, or their descent.
And as a gentle Gulliver, perhaps,
remember to remark upon their zeal.

Of course if I found feedback from the air
that bears my voice, or from my friends who care,
I would. But yes, it is too much to ask,
and much too little to depend upon.
No wonder that the wee ones live for us!

Beware, my tiny leprechaun, for we
are scavengers who would invade the night
to capture you, for you are rare indeed.
Within your packs, the wonder drug, insight
to know, to understand, embrace, believe!
~

Look to your right for a moment

You will see that the Iraq war has now cost us over Two Hundred Billion. Do you think we have our money's worth?

Last full measure

There was Mike's famous creeping smile
and then the punch line
spoken slowly, in his style...
we laughed, and felt the pressure
in our chests, saw his hands thrown up,
and in an instant, saw him die
and that was it, no interim,
not a single second of respect
to get us ready.

Then when we came home
we couldn't say to anyone
that he was more a hero
than the rest of us; you know
it doesn't seem to be
quite fair.
~

August 16

Ignition...on
and in an hour, it was over.
One slash of time made ridicule
of caution, for the silence that he chose
was not enough; he hated it,
chose death instead,
and that without regret.

I wonder just how long it was
the engine poured its fumes
into his ambience,
and he beyond a care...
how many passed just yards away,
how many chronicles raced
past the brute unconsciousness
of the undead, as they sped by.

It was a double silence that prevailed
upon the darkening day--
a double irony as that frail candle
smoldered when its destiny
was light.
~

Please... no selling on my site!

This is a blog for poetry, opinion, and discussion of current issues. It is not for the promotion of someone's commercial blog. All, of course, are welcome and very much encouraged to leave their comments here, and visitors make it better, and more interesting. However, of late, some have left commercial "hints" publicising their own money-making activities. That is not what this site is for, and I hope this shameless activity will be ignored whenever you come across it.

His last concert

I wasn't there to hear the choir
though once I sang with them,
but I still think of Holliday
at closing--cadence coming up
and his conducting stern, impassive
just as always
with the same authority,
demanding and receiving
absolute attention,
pulling them along .

What were his thoughts, I wonder,
'mid those final measures of polyphony
when glory filled the room?

When as the homophonic chords
resolved in the "amen"
his gaze still far away, aside,
just before the cutoff,
then he turned, perhaps,
to look directly at the singers
--that faintest hint of smile appearing,

wrists in last release,
the frame of stillness introduced...
his hands suspended...
four seconds of eternity
and he stepped down
to face the last applause,
what then?

Through all the years thereafter, I am told...
they offered him the podium as guest
and he, as always
quietly declined.
~

My Higher Self

I sense him watching with amusement
at my foolishness,
though I have need of him
else I would run amok.

Yet sometimes I resent him for his caution.
Let him play within his spirit world;
for mine, though just a fantasy
outranks his in its solidity.

I must admit it is the best
illusion I could ask;
for though I know that time
may only trickle out at my life's close--
the world is on a suicidal binge,
whiIe I may stay the game

if I remain within the present, cling
to it tenaciously; mine is not
the gloomy prophet's role. I am
the celebrant, the last remaining lover
quite as much adored and unrepenting,
thank you, as your bleeding Lord.

No,
I do not mock him as do those
with ears which will not hear
or hearts that will not bleed.
I mock your truth...and as I speak my own,
that too is just a hollow creed.

May I instead look up,
enabled (not at all enlightened
by pure truth) rather by desire
to sense its fire within,
where words may never
win the day.
~

Eccles...2005

Still there, amid the change,
the girl was speaking.

There was something
in her voice as she explained--
something
blanketing her fears
and yet revealing them
for those who wished to know
...something stealing softness
from between the words
and leaving gentle crusts of doubt
within her hand, seeds not of hope,
but resignation.

It was time to celebrate the wave
that crushed the innocent, the lost,
the weak that could not stand aside.
The truth she spoke, could never be denied.

It was time, assuming power at day's end--
a time that crushed remembering.
No seamless victory, perhaps, but still enough
to make the dead capitulate.
It was time to hate.
~

Evensong

Each day at five o'clock
the shepherd leads his flock
across the bridge,
the waiting traffic in suspended time,
serene, yet unaware
that they are gifted by
uncommon grace.
~

At the Gate

He walked beside a wall that day
and knew its silent stones
held something back,
no thing that might compel him,
yet he was compelled.
It was the opposite
of everything he knew,
a state of nothingness
that even God obeyed.
Someday he would press through,
engaging it with echoed stillness
of his own.

He walked the edge
of his own consciousness
with that suspended,
ever pristine void of the unknown
beyond--another blessed question
waiting in its paradise,
the answer in its hell.
~

Earthbound

It is the night that brings the spirits forth
in some ironic twist of the mystique
for they know only of eternal day,
and play upon the dark side of the moon
as readily as frolicing at noon
on some outrageous court we cannot see
with stuffy eyes in stuffy bodies bound
in time to contrast their eternity
.
It is no wonder we compare them with
the stuff that hallucinogens promote--
that nether world of dreams that science dares
to waken from a state of fantasy,
forgetting yesterday is but today.

Some say that life is just illusion; may
I then convey my deathless gratitude
to every soul who may come by to see
this new reality I made?
~

All the reasons

why the wrong president is in office. Anyone who does not agree should be prepared to explain why the reasons are not true:

(after clicking on the link below--scroll down a bit for the actual article)

www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

Pernicious Insight

"Oh, the kitty, the kitty, the kitty!"
my litle sister cried,
as the screendoor closed behind me
on the kitten's neck.

Regrettable, I thought.
For what at ten I knew of death,
was like penumbra
on a cloudy day,
and little more of her,
at three.

Her state of shock and grief, however,
threw the flashing sun at me
and I, amazed,
could see how poignantly
I loved her.
~

In my Studio

I know that I must not exist

in synchronicity with you

nor may my soul create

within this lumbering

and evanescent form,

an odyssey of light,

no, not alone--

it takes a higher self

that I do not remember very well,

to make it swell

within a breathless chest--

that this is art!

That search within goes on,

for what is there that speaks?

What tiny cell is fired,

freeing up the stuff to change

a universe?

Or is there mystic sperm and egg uniting

there within a spirit womb,

there in a microscopic cosmos?

Might there be a spirit bishop

or a phantom God

to launch the swarm of particles

in Botticelli's mind?

There go my children,

fending for themselves

and never looking back

upon their hollow birthplace.

You and I are equally

without a clue to where we came from,

how or why, or what the process means.

And when I graduate to death,

quite willing to forsake my breath,

not wonder, (for a heaven of answers

surely is my hell) I'll not neglect

as my last opus, to create

a gracious God who may

receive my gratitude.

~

Connection challenged

I just remembered.
It nearly got away from me...
the day you died, nine years ago.
Even then, you let 800 miles come between us;
you are closer now
than you were then--

you simply died at your own hand,
and that was it. That passageway
is now as filled with rock.
I heard you call just once
although you typed hellos,
i love yous, notes like that,
and then the probe comes through
once in awhile.,
getting just a little better.

I will wait
and further store my love
like bricks of gold
stacked in the vault
somewhere near that damn tunnel,
800 spirit miles
of instant flight for you,
solid mystery for me.

I have time.
I'll wait.

From a better poet than I:

"Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people's plight.
Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.
Help me take responsiblity for my own life;
So that I can feel free at last.
Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.
Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with other workers.
Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.
Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world."
~Cesar Chavez

Read what Cindy Sheehan has to say

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sheehan/sheehan10.html

The Inner Circle

(Thanks to Barbara Mades for the inspiration)

I've learned to deal with funerals.
They celebrate a history both far and fresh,
cementing it with closure just as earth
would close a grave.

There's not much room for victory,
despite the words of triumph in the rite.
But all the faithful ones
who could and would be there,
looking at the moment of departure
saw transcendence
at the bedside or the battlement
and drew upon resources
that they never knew they had--

not I, apart, spared from
the crisis, glory-drenched,
that turns good-bye
into transforming art.
Not I, the chosen one
to see the flight
to timelessness.

It is this tiny brittle stone
in shattering
that marks the apex of a pathway
that humanity or other
walks no more.
The confraternity of those
who walked with them until the end,
alone will understand.
~

Some words we need to hear

"A Feast of Death "
By William Rivers Pitt /T r u t h o u t Perspective

Now thou art come unto a feast of death. - William Shakespeare, Henry VI

On Tuesday, some took solemn note of the fact that the total number of "Coalition" fatalities from the invasion and occupation of Iraq had reached 2,000. On Wednesday afternoon, that number blurred upwards again to 2,015 dead soldiers. 1,821 of those served under the American flag. Fourteen US Marines died on Wednesday when their vehicle was shattered by a large bomb. Six other Marines were killed together on Monday, and a seventh is reportedly being held hostage. Two more Marines also died Monday, both from car bombings in separate locations. We are only three days into the month of August, and 22 US soldiers are dead. 54 died in July, 78 died in June, and 80 died in May. The occupation has lasted 868 days. More than two thousand soldiers, almost all of them young American boys and girls, have had the life blasted out of them because they were sent by their commander in chief to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Those soldiers who remain, those soldiers who have been redeployed into the war zone two or three times already, wait with grim resolve to be brought home to their families whole and sane and safe.

Acclaimed novelist E.L. Doctorow has penned some words about George W. Bush and his understanding of death and this war. "This president," wrote Doctorow, "does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country." "But you study him," continued Doctorow, "you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life. They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq. How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing."

The occupation of Iraq is almost a thousand days old now, and as the self-serving justifications for invasion wither in the desert sun, as the neo-conservative "Bush Doctrine" collapses in a swelling flood of blood and total failure, as more and more people see impeachment as a moral necessity, as those who stand in opposition wonder what they can do to thwart a corrupt and crazed administration that exists entirely without checks and balances, there remains one act of defiance and strength and solidarity that cannot be ignored. On Saturday, September 24th, there will be a protest in Washington DC. This gathering could possibly dwarf all previous demonstrations against this administration. That weekend will see far more than a protest. On the 25th, Progressive Democrats of America will host a wide-ranging strategy session at the David A. Clarke School of Law on Connecticut Avenue. The purpose of this gathering will be to prepare progressive legislative and electoral strategies for the 2006 midterm elections. That Monday the 26th, activists will be walking up and down the halls of the House of Representatives to lobby congresspeople to demand a withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

That is for September. This very weekend will see another gathering in Dallas, Texas. The Veterans for Peace are holding their national convention from the 4th through the 7th, and will be celebrating their 20th year as an organization of military veterans committed to ending war, and specifically to ending the occupation of Iraq. Among those who will be speaking in Dallas will be Dahr Jamail, the courageous journalist who spent months in the most dangerous places in Iraq so he could tell the world what is really happening there. Michael Hoffman, a lance corporal in the Marines who participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and returned to form Iraq Veterans Against the War, will also be speaking. Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, will be speaking as a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. Those who would defend Mr. Bush and his deranged war policies are fond of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic, un-American cowards. In Dallas this weekend, there will be a journalist who risked his life over and over to report the truth of Iraq from within. There will be a Marine who fought in Iraq and returned to organize against the war. There will be a mother whose sacrifice and sorrow is beyond description. There will be hundreds of veterans who have served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and elsewhere, who stand now for peace and the end of the occupation.

It has been a hot summer so far, and this feast of death continues in Iraq with no end in sight. The Veterans for Peace, the Gold Star mothers, the Iraq veterans, the journalists who have seen the reality of Iraq, and the hundreds of thousands coming to Washington in September appear to have every intention of making this summer hotter still.
~