POEM: Let Them Eat Bullets

Flour power, not bombs. Are we fed-up with forced mass starvation yet?

Let Them Eat Bullets

From ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
Famine sweeps Gaza
And the prison guards feel threatened
By the unherd
Starving fore a tension
Not living by bread alone
But without bread together
Staring into what could be
Their last supper
As well-fed politicians
And pimply-faced soldiers
Unleash the dogs of war
Tanks a lot
Open fire
Drones without souls
Due the devil’s work
No fight in the dog
Only slaughter
No food on the table
As some kind
Of kosher butchery
And the head waiter
The president of US
Cries
“Billions for military aid to Israel”
His money where his mouth is
Let them eat bullets

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POEM: Genocide Joe

Monday mourning. Last week President Joe Biden spoke of being hopeful about a ceasefire deal in Gaza. I must confess, I scheduled posting this last week, expecting the likely outcome of genocide unabated and genocide Joe abidin’ his time. I wish my skepticism was unfounded.

Genocide Joe

Our U.S. support
Makes genocide passable
Israel’s raising Cain
Resurrecting those unmention Abels
Under where Gazans
Have no human rights
Or bettor still
Due not exist
Their greatest hits
A broken record
Civilians killed
Children killed
Health care workers killed
Humanitarian workers killed
Journalists killed
Know worries
Covered up
Gazans grazing on grass
Like the scapegoats they are
A soul starving for political power
Humanity bombing
As uncorrupted as a Netanyahu
Kindler and gentler
Genociden’ Biden
Abiden
A long weak end
And a Monday mourning
Where hope is helled
Out
Totally trying
Agin
Ceasefire

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POEM: Following A Higher Doody

Unfortunately, Christianity is too oft weaponized against our very own siblings of God.

Following A Higher Doody

Their those Christians
Who go to church
They’re those Christians
Who go
Too church

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POEM: Winning’s Everything

We live in an era where everything is divided . . . into winning and losing, souled to the highest bitter. The “losers” of this world will rise up, the great unwatched — the revolution will not be televised.

Winning’s Everything

There is a whirled
Wear winning
Is awe that
Madders
Zealot to the highest bidder
The most stylish expediency
Ever
Fashioning
Rank and rankling
In a world made up
Of winners and losers
Caught in an order
Broke in
The fix is in
Dictating
Number one and number two
Fecund gold and silver
And plenty of coppers for everyone ails
Some beat
There swords
Others into plowshares
And somewhere in the mettle
There are masses who will see
No deference
And it will be time
For the great unwatched

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POEM: I Am Not the Dictater

I often write about difficult madders. This poem makes a simple plea: don’t kill the messenger.

I Am Not the Dictater

Good knews
Bad news
I just
Due what
I am
Told
In shorthand
Write from wrong
And weather you like it or not
Please kindly
Refrain from rejoining
That utter most of killer idioms
An overly simple resolution
To complex madders
Signing off
Quill, the messenger

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POEM: Get Over It

We are a far cry from Patrick Henry’s infamous cry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” which highlights one’s ultimate willingness to put all of your skin in the game. Today’s cry is more of a whine, “Give me liberty and kill anyone who gets in the way of my conception of liberty.” This is a cowardly cry of putting another’s life and liberty, their skin, into one’s own lethal game. America has long been comfortable with using war and violence as an extension of politics, or even as the original sin or “necessary evil” at the foundation of politics. This grand bargain for our own hides, taken out of others’ hides, is the cowardice of raw power, not the courage of one’s convictions. True democracy cannot come from the barrel of a gun.

Of course, today’s moral dilemma “for the soul of America” is the U.S. sponsored genocide by Israel in Gaza, which appears easier than creating potential electoral risk to allegedly saving our democracy; or is that saving our alleged democracy…

Get Over It

Her democracy was over
A barrel
Of guns
That hollowed weigh
Of plenty
Of American patriots
And if you listen close
You could here
Patrick Henry roll over
In his grave saying
“Give me liberty
And give them death”

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POEM: On Fire and Ice — Owed to Aaron Bushnell

Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty U.S. air force senior airman, committed self-immolation by fire to protest the U.S. sponsored Israeli genocide of Gaza. His final cry was “Free Palestine.”

On Fire and Ice: Owed to Aaron Bushnell

Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Aaron on the side of mercy
Incarnates the cruelty to the flesh
Which pales in comparison
To the savagery to our soul
In our uniform response to Gazans
Genocide
Sow demanding
A hard inferno
He unhawks his wears
Crying
Over and out
“Free Palestine”
Now a site be helled
Buy standers
Entertaining his offering
Of ultimate rewards
What kind
Of purchase
Might be required
To get it
This “Free Palestine”
Drinking in the possibilities
Perhaps with a grande beverage
Though if so
Surly it comes with ice
As American as base ball
That spectator sport
Never game
Pain for the whole cost
And what a bout
The service
That national our son
For heir men
Not just
A band of brothers
Rather humanity as a hole
Their hows on fire
Wading for just US
Un-Abel too
Bare the weight
Bye many
Scene as an emergency
Of some mental state
In patience
Out of
It’s mine
Amoral victory
Offed attributed to stallin’
The death of won is suicide
The death of thousands is foreign policy
Carry on
From the hospitable to the morgue
As natural as forced fire
On those
That plan it
On fire
Soully expecting
Ice

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POEM: Dis Quieting Genocide

Talking about US complicit in genocide may be uncomfortable, even a bit traumatic. Still, such discussions have miniscule chances of approximating the horrors of genocide itself.

Dis Quieting Genocide

It was a bad day for propriety
A revolting day for impropriety
And what is questionable
In such alleged riotousness
At the OK quarrel
Perhaps a little
A loud
As a privilege to a void
And what to call the question
What is peace?!
Sored
Torn as under
A neighbor’s thumb
On the scale
Of just US
And what is
Far off
Far beyond
Who’s left
Who’s right
What remains
What upright
As if the dead dare speak
Of helled harmless
As the wrest of US
Perhaps never quiet knowing
What is it that
Still ’em bodies
Good trouble?
Necessary evil?
Culling out
Cries of “Ceasefire!”
A grieving
Such death and deconstruction
Perhaps the soul thing we no
The most grave
Silence
Wear no means
No
Hour greatest faux
Neutrality

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Stick, A Fork in It

This poem is about the tendency toward escalation and overkilling built into lethal conflicts such as war or genocide. When we feel threatened and have the capacity to inflict massive death, we come to a fork in the road, which may be a knife fight, but is often met with a gun fight or far worse. Grievance, grief, and anger too often feel at home on a trigger. As for me, my grief and anger is not a cry for violence. My grievance is with violence itself, regardless of the partisans involved. Restraint is an essential space defining ethical and unethical behavior. Discretion is the better part of valor. It IS actually harder to recover from the hells we create than avoid them in the first place, though both my be extremely difficult. Using sticks, and pulling triggers, is deceptively easy.

Stick, A Fork in It

They could knot
Distinguish
Between
Skin in the game
And skinning the game
That soul scalping
Coming to a fork in the road
And bringing a gun to a knife fight
Halving made
Awe the deference

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POEM: God’s Preferential Option

I have learned that an open heart is a broken heart. A common reaction to pain, stress, or trauma is to close down as a defense mechanism. While the world has plenty of pain, stress, and trauma, a healthy response eventually requires opening up and taking risks, despite our vulnerabilities. The title of this poem is an allusion to the “preferential option for the poor,” a tenet of Latin American liberation theology, specifically that the poor and disenfranchised have special access or connection to humanity (and God) through experiences of vulnerability. This is the flip-side of a well-establish sociological fact, that the power of the rich and privileged insulates them from humanity, even their own humanity.

God’s Preferential Option

When we feel under
Attack
Our hearts contract
Until the beating stops
Pain no mind
To that open question
God’s preferential option
For the pour
Out into the whirled
A bloody mess

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POEM: Reckon Knot

This world is a mournful place. I hope I bring to this life more laughing than crying.

Reckon Knot

I laugh
I cry
I laugh
To keep from crying
Still
I cry
As I am
Awe ready
Moved to laugh
And if sum weigh
Should this sadden
Somehow reckon me
Have that last laugh
On me

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POEM: Straddling Two Realms

I am an infinitely bigger fan of possibilities than probabilities. Possibilities change the trajectory of what is; all else is mere calculation.

Straddling Two Realms

He ate possibilities for breakfast
Awe ways
Kneading more room
And inevitable movements
He straddled two realms
Shitting yesterday’s possibilities
This
Mourning’s probabilities
A steady die: it
For calculating mines
Who want nothing more

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POEM: Can You Ever Halve Enough?

Can we ever afford to kill one another? It certainly seems sow. Unfortunately, when an awareness arises of the steep cost of killing, it is often too late. Sadly, we may halve our life and eat it too.

Can You Ever Halve Enough?

It
Crossed their mine
They could not afford
To kill
Each other
Such a dubious won
As fate would halve it
They had
Saved
Just enough
To finally afford
Sow painfully a ware
Of it
Real lies
Too late

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POEM: Re-Nouned

I am not one for titles and hierarchical living. Of coarse, labels serve some function in relating to one another. Still, I yearn for human relations where titles of status and power do not confound our basic humanity. Thus, this poem:

Re-Nouned

Guru
Master
Reverend or priest
Doctor
Professor
President and CEO
Your Honor
Whatever
In titled
Labels urned
Persons of such
Re-noun
I rather fancy
As simply friend
Or neighbor

NOTE: in the second-to-last line, you could capitalize “Friend,” referencing Quakers, also called the “Society of Friends.” I deeply respect their non-hierarchical approach to spirituality. Still, and perhaps disquieting sow, my anti-capitalist leanings win out…

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POEM: Calling Awe Taxidermists

I suspect each of us has encountered fakes, stiffs, who too routinely fail to treat others humanely, seemingly deadened by their own, lifeless stuff. Thus, this poem:

Calling Awe Taxidermists

He was his own
Worst faux
And stiff
Was his weigh of life
His bag
Stuffed
With the lowest common denominations
You can take it to the blank
An empty suit
Of amor
In firm hide
An executive
In the company of others
Running lapse
Round the competition
A certifiable square
His art
Beating
His humdrum
Whatever
He wood do
He couldn’t help
Lumbering
Without imagining
Un-forest
His lonely companion
A cat, a tonic
There is no quest in
What’s he, fur
And on his better daze
A mirror knock off
And mock up
Worshipping his altar ego
His hollowed charm
On the hi way to hull
And if should
Happen upon awkwardly
Feeling
Phone-y
He squeezes in
That fateful calling
To the taxidermist
Uber creepy

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POEM: The Weigh of Our Great Grandchildren

This poem employs the metaphor of using irresponsible and unsustainable credit that must be paid by future generations. Externalizing the true costs from the present sticker price of our way of life by ignoring environmental costs incurred by fossil fuels and resource extraction all but assures a cruel form of debt slavery upon ensuing generations. This is perhaps the truest measure of our valuing of money over people, even our own children. Will this be strike three for “family values?”

The Weigh of Our Great Grandchildren

Parently wee
Must be
Putting on
Heirs
To such taking
Credit
As much as we want
A greed
Pre-proving
Our savvy genus
Taking out
A thousand year mortgage
As sentries of death
In curred
So due
An industrial 360
That loaded spin
In a rapacious whirled
When awe it was
A drunken frat party
Fossil fool juiced
Too bind to sea
And just deserts
A dying plan it
Your money ore your life
All kidding aside

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POEM: Doxxed

My religion is unorthodox, and those orthodox varieties of all sorts find me heretical.

Doxxed

He was doxxed
From the right
From the left
Catching hell
And heaven
From both sides
Paradoxxed
Inscrutably sow
In a dyslexic manor
E pluribus unum
Out of one, many
Soully
Too fine
In elegant solution
Living
Having bin
Un-orthodoxxed
Won dox
To rue them
Awe

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POEM: A Perfect 11

This poem channels my inner 11 year old. I am happy to embrace my inner 11 year old as part of who I am.

A Perfect 11

It was an emotional age
Living in that boy hood
And now
Just
The same
Embracing
Awe that I am
Beyond my years
A perfect 11

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POEM: Heart Confetti

My heart breaks, particularly when US cannot brake genocide.

Heart Confetti

My heart
Shatters
A billion peaces
Shuttered
Once helled
To gather
Now veinly hoping
Fore a body politic
And singular victory
A party to genocide
And ticker tape prayed

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POEM: Taking a Bite Out of War Crime

I am far more worried about Joe Biden’s moral feebleness than I am about any alleged physical or mental feebleness. End the genocide in Gaza!

Taking a Bite Out of War Crime

Get that man some dentures
Grandpa Joe needs some teeth
To his rumblings and ramblings
Of moderating civilian slaughters
Mass starvation
Of bringing a bout
A kinder, gentler genocide
And wile you are taking
That slow walk
To your cane due attitude
Perhaps you can share
A piece of your mind
Or even some moral fiber
Your applesauce
With the babies starving

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