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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POEM: Chaste Tree

I can’t help but chuckle and shake my head on many a daze as I observe folks chasing sparkly objects with such apparent vigor. I can’t help but peer as a fool myself, where my attention is rapt, as you can’t chase a tree — it simply stands firm and gently waves.

Chaste Tree

He knew what
He wanted
How could he
No that
Awe things that glitter
Are not goaled
That dogged attention
SQUIRREL!
Chase
Tree
Bark
Is worse
Then bite
To off then
All that jitters
Is not goad
Eternal objects
Passing subjects
STICK!

Plus, I prefer carrots, not sticks.

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POEM: As Humanity Reseeds

Here is an apocalyptic valentine, a final kiss planted.

As Humanity Reseeds

That final mourning
We greet
With a kiss
A poetic rejoinder
Transcendent graffiti
Write on the apocalypse
In a whirled that had
Drunk
The Kool-Aid®
Even at that last punch line
We smile and laugh
Not with a whimper
Or a bash
We plant ourselves
With everything
Awe
That is hours on this planet
A tree
Tree at last
Tree at last
Thank God
We are tree at last

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POEM: Courting Pro Bait

I am a sojourner in this world — just, passing through, paying it forward. I’d rather give everything I got than sell anything. Those with heirs can sort that shit out…

Courting Pro Bait

I have no will
Of my own
Awe that I
Was given
Just passing
Through

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POEM: The Means

As commander-in-chief Biden provides unconditional support indispensable to Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, he offers inconsequential advice, even “warnings,” to limit mass civilian killings. If stopping genocide, the worst crime known to man, is somehow a close call, then his moral cowardice reigns. Thus, this poem:

The Means

There may be daze
Trafficking in perseveration
Of multifarious means wear
Red means stop
Green means go
And yellow
Yeah
At times
Yellow
Simply means
Yellow
Doo you
Have the means

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POEM: Dogged Reasoning

This a poem highlighting the barren view of life that rugged reasoning can impose on the awesome experience of consciousness. Life is much more than sterile propagation of the specious.

Dogged Reasoning

He wood
Knot know
Consciousness
If he
Saw it
In have
Sum magic trick
Where the john doesn’t know jack
His nerves
Firing him
From some inescapable Job
A backward god
Making life
A bitch
And then sum

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POEM: Heir to a Thousand Generations

This poem is about recognizing and appreciating that we rest on the shoulders of a thousand generations and that each moment can take inspiration from this long arc of our existence, powering us forward in ways worthy of our ancestors.

Heir to a Thousand Generations

Have you ever
Found yourself
Heir
To a thousand generations
Wholly inspired
Taken
In
Invisible premises
Buy some
Breathing is
As life
To others
As water is
To those who live under see

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POEM: The Weigh Forward

This poem is about moving forward into the future, looking up, not looking down, living holistically, not partial to tribalism.

The Weigh Forward

Awe ways ahead
Sum times behind
Never beneath
As earth is before me
I may know
What is behind me
Never the less
I cannot no
What is ahead of me
And may I have
Nothing
Too due
With that beneath me
As heavens above
May I sojourn
More than just
A part from the whole
And for all one knows
Find oneself
Way way forward

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