Loyalty oafs Would halve you Believe In idol vanity Sowing their wiled oaths AWOL keeping us a part With litmus tests In a whirled of acid And base Brands that burn And scar us In too submission Not with standing Be sides Withal there is An incalculably better weigh Yes is yes No is no Each making us stronger And unafraid Of know boundaries
In a world with multiple, overlapping allegiances, loyalty can seem a highly partisan and intensely tribal battle for alleged hearts and minds. Commingle this with the purported virtue of compromise in the professed art of politics, and such “things” as values, boundaries and even ultimate concerns can easily be lost in the melee.
I am struck by the directness and simplicity of the biblical precept: “Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37) Given the contemporary situation of senators, specifically Republic senators, and more specifically, Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, in the swearing in as jurors in an impeachment trial where you can confess that you aren’t impartial and then take an oath that you will be impartial. The above biblical precept is part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount concerning the law of solemn pledges: “Again you have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago: Don’t make a false solemn pledge, but you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord. But I say to you that you must not pledge at all. You must not pledge by heaven, because it’s God’s throne. You must not pledge by the earth, because it’s God’s footstool. You must not pledge by Jerusalem, because it’s the city of the great king. And you must not pledge by your head, because you can’t turn one hair white or black. Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:33-37) Of course, farcical Christians in a farcical Christian nation are well suited by swearing on a Bible that instructs them to forgo pledges.
May our values, boundaries and ultimate concerns be evidenced by our actions.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
In case you were wondering what the fine print says: it’s the Sermon on the Mount (below). I wanted the primary meaning of this poster to address and challenge the notion that God’s love has a lot of caveats. I first thought to put up some random unreadable text, but quickly realized that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount says it better!
* Matthew 5: Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. 21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. 25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If
anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Chapter 6: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. 16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[m] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Chapter 7: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Donald Trump and the congressional Republicans announced that they have agreed upon a tax scam that will come up for a vote next week. This tax legislation has not had a single public hearing! This tax scam has a worse public approval rating than even Donald Trump. The delusional Don even claimed that Democrats love this bill but can’t say it; bizarrely, he can’t even see the opposition. Congressional Republicans’ response to the public decrying a tax giveaway to the rich was to lower the top tax rate for the richest Americans, which neither the House or Senate even had in their original bills. Prez Donald Trump’s wet dream of tax scam looks to the average American a lot more like being pissed on. So, in honor of congressional Republican tax scammers and their psychotic party leader, The Don, I bring you my latest parody poster: The Abominable Snowjob – DONALD TRUMP My Tax Plan Was Pulled From Heaven. I Have Star Power – TAX CUTS FOR RICH in yellow snow. Please feel free to share this poster with friends and enemies alike.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
I would rather live… In a trailer That proverbial mobile homme Seeing stars when roofs are razed And nothing but realty at my back As awe of creation is present As I am Looked down upon Wading patiently fore that noonday star When every real Job calls it a day …Than exist In a fool length feature That mansion of a handbasket With mirror interior decorating Magnificent all the same In funhouse pleasures Overlooking up In efface of the bottom of men’s soles Knowing not what frees us
Foolishness and wisdom look different and produce different results. Better to have a life well spent than merely saved. Conventional wisdom often mistakes comfort for happiness, a grand foolishness. High success and high status are virtually indistinguishable. As the addled adage goes: winning is everything. Wise souls are far too ardent and awe encompassing to abide only within the rules defined by one culture and one generation, one place and time. Wisdom is necessarily counterculture, precisely because it seeks to move that culture, any culture, to a greater wisdom. Acting within such a greater wisdom, not yet carrying the day, perhaps even amid night, often appears foolish. Acting “as if” something is true is an existential conundrum we all face if we want to be more than what we are now, if we want the world and the rules by which it acts to be more than what they are at any given time. Suspending disbelief is part and parcel for acting to perform its human artistry, and all of the world is a stage. There are great truths in stories that never happened. There are great truths in lives whose stories are bigger than one soul can live. About now, the postmodern brain must choose between serving only that within its reach or venturing to awe that the heart compasses. Fools are conventionally portrayed as having an addled brain, which is infinitely better than having an addled heart. This poem compares wholehearted living with merely existing — whatever the sum of our daze. A willingness to be viewed as a fool by the conventionally wise may very well be the difference between heaven and hell. Fools invite others into a better possible world, however improbable, not a theater of the absurd. Typically, others are busy doing something else, absurdly similar to those around them.
In contemporary times, live theater has largely been replaced by movies [dead theater?]. This poem compares living, in a movie trailer, to merely existing “In a fool length feature.” And as we all know, movie trailers are quite reliably better than the full-length feature.
One of the great dramas on life’s sufferings, unfulfilled longings, and doubt versus suspending disbelief is the story of Job in the Bible. As the ever-hopeful person that I am, I was reminded of Job 11:17 “Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning.” Such poetry! Here is the whole chapter, as the lineup of doubters mock Job’s enduring faith:
Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated? Will your idle talk reduce others to silence? Will no one rebuke you when you mock? You say to God, ‘My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.’ Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin. Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above — what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below — what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. If he comes along and confines you in prison and convenes a court, who can oppose him? Surely he recognizes deceivers; and when he sees evil, does he not take note? But the witless can no more become wise than a wild donkey’s colt can be born tame. Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp.
May we awe find, life during whatever daze might be present.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Reality can be a mother Halving given Cynicism wide berth Big brother Too hope A mist Crying incessantly And the crapping of won’s pants Entrapped Flanked by sterility and fertility Fenced buy utility and futility Until something Something all inspiring Ever knew But barely seed Shh It happens As springing from dis illusion And groan together From that exasperating brood In awe That kin be done And what might be A parent Or knot
This poem arose this day from the comment of a friend who did not see hope where I saw some, and yet he still hopes. As a poet, I often see humanity in an epic struggle between cynicism and hope. Hell is where hope is abandoned, to allude to Dante. Heaven is where hope flourishes. As John Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher and author, wrote famously in his play, No Exit, “Hell is other people.” Know argument here. Of course, I wholed to the other half of truth, as well: Heaven is other people. Solidarity trumps alienation. Hope is the better portion of reality, that mother that teaches us sow much. Those caught in the mine of this earth may argue quite rationally that hope is the leanest in the efface of the meanest. Still, hope strikes me as both the lightest and most profound portion in the efface of darkness. Life and death. Heaven and Hell. Hope and cynicism. Who dares dance in their mist? Many people at most times choose to fight over merely what they halve — that is given. Fortunately, we don’t have to live in most times. We only have to live in the present. Let hope be the present.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Gordian knot was an extremely complicated knot tied by Gordius, the king of Phrygia in Asia Minor. Located in the city of Gordium, the knot came to symbolize a difficult problem that was almost impossible to solve.
According to legend, Gordius was a peasant who married the fertility goddess Cybele. When Gordius became king of Phrygia, he dedicated his chariot to Zeus and fastened it to a pole with the Gordian knot. Although the knot was supposedly impossible to unravel, an oracle predicted that it would be untied by the future king of Asia.
Many individuals came to Gordium to try to undo the knot, but they all failed. Then, according to tradition, the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great visited the city in 333 B . C . After searching unsuccessfully for the hidden ends of the Gordian knot, Alexander became impatient. In an unexpected move, he took out his sword and cut through the knot. Alexander then went on to conquer Asia, thus fulfilling the oracle’s prophecy. Alexander’s solution to the problem led to the saying, “cutting the Gordian knot,” which means solving a complicated problem through bold action.
May you live in the won reality where everything is knot as it seams.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Oh God Awe might he Creator of heaven unearth Your sun trying to peer through What is mirrorly mist Between every human face Won and the same Unending cycles Set up for yielding What is seeing bye many As a lode of crop
This short poem plays with that deep mystery and sublimely thin veil between humans, and between humans and what many would call God. Talking about God is almost as dangerous as not talking about God. Speaking with humans is much the same. Humans are endowed with unfathomable faculties. And religion is full of it. Life presents humans with awesome and baffling experiences weather we pay close attention or knot. I am inescapably intrigued by diving into the deep end of life — even a mist warnings of shallow waters, or quiet impossibly, that there is know pool.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
She had Enough Of half-baked politicians She kneaded democracy Here and now As the yeast she could do Sounding off To those who might Listen Wee choir not A grand stand To lift every voice and sing Wringing well The harmonies of liberty However aloud the rolling sees Our ayes will have it
This poem is a tribute to the enduring importance of movement politics as the truest driving force for social and political change, working for justice for all. This poem is a tribute to political activists who do most of their work outside formal electoral politics. Such action is centered out of the direct lived experiences of broken hearts and broken lives as opposed to white papers and think tanks.
Most people of privilege and power will roll their eyes when hope dares rise from despairing circumstances to demand justice, aka “too much.” “They just don’t get it” the condescension goes, as if people on the short end of power don’t know how the world works. “Not getting it” may be true inasmuch as the powers that be have “it” and don’t give anything but a shit. Mainstream politics is almost by definition reactionary. The fear of losing “it” at best and organized greed at worst, short-circuits justice in our so-called democracy for countless minorities (disenfranchised folks of every stripe), which deeply ironically comprise a majority of our nation. If the 1% are masters of anything, they are masters of dividing an overwhelming majority of the populace against each other to assure that none of their many legitimate grievances are fully redressed. Fear of losing whatever one has sides with frightening regularity with the increasingly routinely vain hope of “upward” mobility, aligning itself with organized greed, all to avoid earnestly casting one’s lot with the poor and disenfranchised.
All of this breaks my heart — not my will or hope. This poem alludes to the rousing song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is often referred to as the “Black American National Anthem.” This song beautifully embodies and honors in music and lyric the undying hope and ultimate commitments arising like a phoenix out of countless inhumanities and death itself to keep our eyes unwaveringly on the prize: justice for all. This song was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) in 1899 and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900, the lyrics of which are:
Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise, High as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest, our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest, our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee, Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand, True to our God, true to our native land.
May our native land, and every native land, be blessed with the spirit of this song.
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
If you want to make sense of the failure of neoliberalism, as typified by Hillary Clinton, and its vomiting up of proto-fascist leaders like Donald Trump, then author and journalist Chris Hedges nails it again, in this piece, Donald Trump: The Dress Rehearsal for Fascism:
Americans are not offered major-party candidates who have opposing political ideologies or ideas. We are presented only with manufactured political personalities. We vote for the candidate who makes us “feel” good about him or her. Campaigns are entertainment and commercial vehicles to raise billions in advertising revenue for corporations. The candidate who can provide the best show gets the most coverage. The personal brand is paramount. It takes precedence over ideas, truth, integrity and the common good. This cult of the self, which defines our politics and our culture, contains the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity, self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation, and incapacity for remorse or guilt. Donald Trump has these characteristics. So does Hillary Clinton.
Our system of inverted totalitarianism has within it the seeds of an overt or classical fascism. The more that political discourse becomes exclusively bombastic and a form of spectacle, the more that emotional euphoria is substituted for political thought and the more that violence is the primary form of social control, the more we move toward a Christianized fascism.
Last week’s presidential debate in St. Louis was only a few degrees removed from the Jerry Springer TV show—the angry row of women sexually abused or assaulted by Bill Clinton, the fuming Trump pacing the stage with a threatening posture, the sheeplike and carefully selected audience that provided the thin veneer of a democratic debate while four multimillionaires—Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper, Clinton and Trump—squabbled like spoiled schoolchildren.
The Clinton campaign, aware that the policy differences between her and a candidate such as Jeb Bush were minuscule, plotted during the primaries to elevate the fringe Republican candidates—especially Trump. To the Democratic strategists, a match between Clinton and Trump seemed made in heaven. Trump, with his “brain trust” of Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, would make Clinton look like a savior.
A memo addressed to the Democratic National Committee under the heading “Our Goals & Strategy” was part of the trove of John Podesta emails released this month by WikiLeaks.
“Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to the majority of the electorate. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal …,” it reads.
The memo names Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson as candidates, or what the memo calls “Pied Piper” candidates who could push mainstream candidates closer to the positions embraced by the lunatic right. “We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”
The elites of the two ruling parties, who have united behind Clinton, are playing a very dangerous game. The intellectual and political vacuum caused by the United States’ species of anti-politics, or what the writer Benjamin DeMott called “junk politics,” leaves candidates, all of whom serve the interests of the corporate state, seeking to exaggerate what Sigmund Freud termed “the narcissism of small differences.”
However, this battle between small differences, largely defined by the culture wars, no longer works with large segments of the population. The insurgencies of Trump and Bernie Sanders are evidence of a breakdown of these forms of social control. There is a vague realization among Americans that we have undergone a corporate coup. People are angry about being lied to and fleeced by the elites. They are tired of being impotent. Trump, to many of his most fervent supporters, is a huge middle finger to a corporate establishment that has ruined their lives and the lives of their children. And if Trump, or some other bombastic idiot, is the only vehicle they have to defy the system, they will use him.
The elites, including many in the corporate press, must increasingly give political legitimacy to goons and imbeciles in a desperate battle to salvage their own legitimacy. But the more these elites pillage and loot, and the more they cast citizens aside as human refuse, the more the goons and imbeciles become actual alternatives. The corporate capitalists would prefer the civilized mask of a Hillary Clinton. But they also know that police states and fascist states will not impede their profits; indeed in such a state the capitalists will be more robust in breaking the attempts of the working class to organize for decent wages and working conditions. Citibank, Raytheon and Goldman Sachs will adapt. Capitalism functions very well without democracy.
In the 1990s I watched an impotent, nominally democratic liberal elite in the former Yugoslavia fail to understand and act against the population’s profound economic distress. The fringe demagogues whom the political and educated elites dismissed as buffoons—Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudman—rode an anti-liberal tide to power.
The political elites in Yugoslavia at first thought the nationalist cranks and lunatics, who amassed enough support to be given secondary positions of power, could be contained. This mistake was as misguided as Franz von Papen’s assurances that when the uncouth Austrian Adolf Hitler was appointed the German chancellor in January 1933 the Nazi leader would be easily manipulated. Any system of prolonged political paralysis and failed liberalism vomits up monsters. And the longer we remain in a state of political paralysis—especially as we stumble toward another financial collapse—the more certain it becomes that these monsters will take power.
Fascism, at its core, is an amorphous and incoherent ideology that perpetuates itself by celebrating a grotesque hypermasculinity, elements of which are captured in Trump’s misogyny. It allows disenfranchised people to feel a sense of power and to have their rage sanctified. It takes a politically marginalized and depoliticized population and mobilizes it around a utopian vision of moral renewal and vengeance and an anointed political savior. It is always militaristic, anti-intellectual and contemptuous of democracy and replaces culture with nationalist and patriotic kitsch. It sees those outside the closed circle of the nation-state or the ethnic or religious group as diseased enemies that must be physically purged to restore the health of nation.
Many of these ideological elements are already part of our system of inverted totalitarianism. But inverted totalitarianism, as Sheldon Wolin wrote, disclaims its identity to pay homage to a democracy that in reality has ceased to function. It is characterized by the anonymity of the corporate centers of power. It seeks to keep the population passive and demobilized. I asked Wolin shortly before he died in 2015 that if the two major forms of social control he cited—access to easy and cheap credit and inexpensive, mass-produced consumer products—were no longer available would we see the rise of a more classical form of fascism. He said this would indeed become a possibility.
Bill Clinton transformed the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. He pushed the Republican Party so far to the right it became insane. Hillary Clinton is Mitt Romney in drag. She and the Democratic Party embrace policies—endless war, the security and surveillance state, neoliberalism, austerity, deregulation, new trade agreements and deindustrialization—that are embraced by the Republican elites. Clinton in office will continue the neoliberal assault on the poor and the working poor, and increasingly the middle class, that has defined the corporate state since the Reagan administration. She will do so while speaking in the cloying and hypocritical rhetoric of compassion that masks the cruelty of corporate capitalism.
The Democratic and Republican parties may be able to disappear Trump, but they won’t disappear the phenomena that gave rise to Trump. And unless the downward spiral is reversed—unless the half of the country now living in poverty is lifted out of poverty—the cynical game the elites are playing will backfire. Out of the morass will appear a genuine “Christian” fascist endowed with political skill, intelligence, self-discipline, ruthlessness and charisma. The monster the elites will again unwittingly elevate, as a foil to keep themselves in power, will consume them. There would be some justice in this if we did not all have to pay.
The parent conundrum here is how to create a way out of neoliberalism while dodging the rise of fascism. Both require a much more politically conscious and politically courageous populace, who on occasion may also be an electorate.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
In the crucible Of the well-heeled And the, well, heeled He surrounded himself With corporate persons Naught for prophet organizations Possessed buy a cutting edge currency paper thin The filing and folding kind Their foundational hope Nay only hope To raze money Life too be spent Saving the whirled From that witch Is free From the guilty floating As the innocent sunk Of sum cache Their soul barometer
This poem is my tribute to the nonprofit industrial complex. A fare characterization of non-prophet organizations is their never having enough, money that is — just, like the rest of our culture. I have found both the focus and distraction of money in nonprofit ventures as a poor substitute for their supposed liberation from the stock aid of profit. The noble missions of most nonprofit organizations have become largely moat points collared by the circular nature of rivers of money. I am a huge fan of Jesus culling out our culture with surgical simplicity: “You can’t serve both God and money.” The notion that money is the root to our salvation is anathema to every high ideal aspired to in faith traditions across time and cultures. This world has bred, many kneads, in the grand inquisition of the yeast of these. The wretched view of chasing money from mourning to knight gives rise to few. The many have material needs, indubitably. Yet as Mother Teresa so aptly noted, “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than bread.” The poor will awe weighs be with us. As we pour ourselves, in too the world, may we be measured buy such worth sow much more than money.
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
She was wading For something in particular Her role in the hay Like searching for a needle Attentive to pricks and pitchforks Grasping at straws Wandering what might catch Frayed of what could be Inconceivable A mystical roam to grow That sacred womb Between pricks And unguarded of pitchforks And at that point Only too fine herself No longer scarred of the unmovable Assumes that miraculous happen stance Of awe in the present
Life can be traumatic. Life can be miraculous. Life encompasses both. Life can be scary. Life has long-standing scary realities that won’t go away by just changing our thinking or attitude. Unfortunately, traumatic experiences can forge us into reactionary ways of being in the whirled. Reacting quickly and/or diligently to dangerous or potentially dangerous situations can serve us well in coping with threatening situations. However, coping mechanisms, when reflexively applied to situations not particularly threatening, can become self-defeating and interfere with healthy adaptation to life larger than a threatened existence. I consider coping mechanisms as a normal adaptation to an abnormal (unhealthy) situation. There are aspects of reality that are deeply persistent. There are aspects of reality that are profoundly fluid. The deep persistence of reality serves as a reliable and predictable foundation for our being and acting in the world, and, inasmuch as reality is dangerous, this may induce large-scale helplessness, discouragement, or even despair. The profound fluidity of life offers a perpetual freshness which can be exciting and enthralling, and, inasmuch as reality is threatening, may be overwhelming and disorienting. I find the best aspects of reality as both deeply persistent and profoundly fluid. I find the mystery of constant change profoundly gripping. In the dusk of life, we are like fireflies rising on a summer eve, like stardust miraculously animated wafting toward heaven, one’s true home, only to be jarred by some still maturing beings of undetermined curiosity or cruelty, bugging us to know end, each preying for unending inquisitions, soully to be unjarred of what we once were, freed by more than, ever anew. Go ahead, assume the position: that miraculous happen stance. It’s awe you have too due.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
In the deep Of the knight Watch man Finding one self prone Where singular stars obscure As perpetual high noon Where time stops Straight up Where the sun don’t shine Like a broken time peace With patients in undated Wear dreams forgotten In their wisdom nocturnal Giving weigh Too dark truths For like a sentry Only look out For what is best For all won no’s Awe that it seams A mist their act In side There elementary Recesses Of their mine Uniformly capped With unforeseen foil As dread to them all ready With tin pan reflections Too mirror dusky shadows Pre-pared Too skill or be skilled With shattered arts Leaving won stiff A post to the last man A testing to peerless mail bravado In A remote job So only after ours In defense ably doing one’s doody Incriminating nature’s coarse All the wile Without looking up Just as speculative figure Bad Whether who starred it Hoodwinked by grope think Having Out groan Constellation prizes Fumbling about On which even you Depends® Pooh-poohing it As a conjury of their peers And mutual convictions Of that right before you A void seeing Sow proudly dedicated And right fully committed To full hardy belief Going where no won has gone before And highly ill logic All Klingon too Their frayed comforters And sheer sheet Amor gauzy shield As bull work Oh posing Things that go Bump in the night Or worse yet The not so light of daze That everlusting grind A cannonized weigh of life No’ing the least of all Surrender Taking up arms Accept as a lust resort As dissembling mime A forged silence In farcing What might Be pro-pounding As juster Buy a majority A con-script for the wrest Safeguarding their camp Helter-skelter Sounding all arm Pitting laughable fauxs As our enema’s enema In fashioning new fiends Intimating familiarity With won’s dark side In is culpable evil Only knot see The twinkle in the I’s Of every won a mother Slumbering a bout So far aweigh To be Raptured In that stare way to heaven Untold stories a way Of what might raze The dead of knight And shrouded rays Pre-veil over such pricks In mortal pitch And feather light That mother flicker Projecting the torch erratum Flying that beacon In witch Our enemies Cannot consume What hell’s at stake Ill luminated by fires bellow However super intending Divine assent read The wholly smother Jilted by pin holes of darkness And heads as dead wringers What’s under the desert More gripping Than hearts bared And glistening from above Calling out Too arms And a pare of feat Swearing evolution As erect brothers Punctuate posterity In memorial Just ahead stone As others lie In truth As plane to sea What would work To out fit Such titanic under-takings Of what still Remains To be Seeing Putting on the crowning touché To a juggernaut of nods Assure as the cock crows Mourning will come Graveyard shifts end At the brake of daze To the relief of fodders and mothers And in the wake of the moment We will score the skinny That rarefied crack In lightening this orchestral ball Dawning upon him A most well come vocation Know more job As the reel work begins As fissures of men Bring us to reguard Catching ourselves As part of each wholly lessen A mist every calumny nation As in deep The knight made a parent Calls it A day
This epic poem, in both length and theme, plays within the abyss of skepticism and bids a certain openness prerequisite to fully experiencing mystery often hidden in the shadowy places of the heart. Spiritual discernment can peer as but a pin prick in a dark and distant heaven, or it can peer as a guiding star, even blazing sun. In your life as a spiritual being, may you find guiding stars in the deepest, darkest nights, and blazing suns purifying you with fire during your high noons.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
She snapped Too a tension As shot Wrung out And as her life left her Realizing Won does not die By bled alone As neither does One live Buy bred A loan For giving Awe that is Unbroken
I have awe ways been a fan of epic themes of life and death, heaven and hell unearth. This poem is yet another meditation on the reality that most of us most of the time simply do what is most urgent, not what is most important. What is urgent is often not really that important in the long haul, and what is really important often doesn’t present itself in the clothes of urgency. This poem employs that apocryphal moment at our death where we are delivered in a flash our whole life. The much denied inevitability of the end of our life on earth is rife with potential epiphanies adept at properly ordering our seemingly shorted lives. When the grim reaper harvests us, will our death reflect a life well urned? Will our life be better characterized as meticulously saved or gloriously well spent? This poem plays with the daring metaphysical math than one good death may be infinitely more valuable than innumerable small deaths threw out life. This poem confronts the moribund multiplication of lives either simply buying bread and just getting by or vainly seeking to multiply a life irreproducibly created. Buy what calculation can we justly trade the breathtaking awesomeness of life for a little, less, death? In the end, facing death alone and a loan in life, whatever may truly matter is inseparably bound to whatever we’ve for giving awe that is unbroken. May you live a wholly life. Even sow, if you cannot find such a weigh, and it be hooves you, may death be dammed, just the same.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
The man Who rant for President Commandeering in chief Playing his big invisible hand Dealt by his Daddy Warbucks Showing himself off As a selfie made man A Monopoly™ man Blowing his stack Of get out Of jail free Cards Of a reel sort Knews to none Trumped up phallus reasoning As a fraud of nothing Too Marvel™ Upon his titanic deck Firming he’ll make it Lady Liberty this time Subsumed as Trump towers And country men sow desperate Miss leader Willing to inure The rank And file For moral bankruptcy Wile the emperor reigns immunity Heiling from the empire state And big heir poses As the bust wee might due In a second Rather forth coming Such blustery daze Like taking out A worthless assurance policy A verbal contract Worth neither the ink nor paper its printed on
In news from the presidential raze, the presumptuous nominee for the Republican party, Donald Trump, having blown his stack, has tissued another lode of verbal contracts fitting his hand size. Mean wile, Republican party elephantine sycophants pick their collective knows about how to undo their freakish creation. They efface the inconceivable, as know won wants to take responsibility for fathering this disavowed bastard. The truth exposed! Butt the show must go on!! Hillary Clinton will have to add “joining the circus” to her resume — perhaps her only way to know a veil of her own freakish candidacy.
As Donald Trump inks to hi heaven, even the rigged binary of immanent electrons indulges the truth of this poem published exclusively online: Donald Trump ink, like his sundry verbal contracts, are not worth the paper they are printed on.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Sum people say Show me the money Only taking That folding Money Maid of paper Illegal to ink for won self You’re money or you’re life Weather helled up Or razing heaven Our soles speak As bodies of evidence And life stiles of the rich and famous Calling out Be the change Beholden to common cents More than just A tinkle in the pants Pissing off the powers that be
In my book, any poem that can incorporate wetting won’s pants and pissing off the powers that be can’t be all bad. This poem taps perhaps the most fundamental divide in moral life: do we serve God or mammon, the worldly powers, the powers that be. In this poem, I don’t mention God per se, but instead referred to “you’re life.” I’ll give a tip of the hat to those uncomfortable with any notion of God. “Life” or “love” is a synonym-spiced confection more palatable to some.
In this crazy postmodern milieu that we live in, the revered field of of science, with its deep commitment to smoking out causality, has mysteriously led to widespread convictions of randomness. This perhaps began its accelerative phase with the genius of Darwin pinning his monumental theory of evolution to the notion of randomness. Concrete evidence has proven the theory of evolution as a powerful scientific tool for accounting for the origin of species. Of course, explaining things backwards is much easier than predicting the nature of future evolution, other than predicting that we will evolve in some random (sic) way. Randomness is a notion at least as resistant to a coherent cosmology and worldview as the notion of God. More troubling, randomness, that which has neither antecedent or predictability/causality is exactly the mythology that science is designed to debunk. While inserting a “miracle” that cannot be measured by science by either observation or in principle may be irresistible if you can convince others to go along with it, but it is not science. Randomness is no more a scientific principle than God. Randomness is not a scientific principle — as God is not. This facet of the philosophy of science can only be ignored at our own peril. Quite telling, the field of mathematics has failed to identify any form of mathematics that gives adequate support for the unproven assertion of randomness. Randomness can rightly be pursued as a hypothesis within metaphysics, the realm in which God is explored. Still, randomness strikes me as antimatter in the matter of coherency. We do know that any complete coherence MUST contain more true statements than ANY possible logical system can contain within itself. This is a space that is in principle incompletely accessible by science and mathematics. This is a space big enough and unknown enough for God and free will to reside or originate. Is such a neighborhood the zip code for randomness? At best, it can not be proven by science or mathematics.
“In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn’t be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms… of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules and axioms, but by doing so you’ll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.
Moving to a cultural level, the affection for randomness has brought us to an infection with randomness in everyday life, reflecting both some nihilistic sense of life and sense of humor: “That was so random.” Our sense of life and humor has been moving from being centered in an elegantly interconnected system to a severed existence plagued by events “coming out of nowhere” — the antithesis of both scientific and religious worldviews. Is it any wonder that we are possessed by notions of a zombie apocalypse, a world populated by those who are both dead and alive — or is that neither dead nor alive?
I think that Bob Dylan may have stated it about as bluntly and poetically as anyone, in his song, Gotta Serve Somebody (full lyrics below). “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Of course, the popularity of the devil or the Lord seems to be in decline. So, for many, the love triangle between self, neighbor, and the mystery of mysteries is reduced to self and neighbor — and perhaps nature (creation).
Well enough, such truth is still great enough to fill many lifetimes. Wee fight for one another to a void being reduced to a mirror monetizable entity. Most have a palpable sense of what money is, what worldly power looks like, and the rules into which it invites us into its service. And still, what is the opposite of serving money? Is serving money just a vain vocation for the terminally unimaginative? Perhaps the opposite of serving money involves living a life free of attachments to material security or cultural status. Whatever there is in life that money cannot buy, I see as that which is truly valuable — able to bring a present with authentic integrity and a future that cannot be bought, only given to one another.
To me, money seems to be one of the least interesting things in life. Personally, I am in wonder at both the abundant curiosities present in scientific discoveries to date and beyond any imagined horizon AND the mysteries of the heart, my own and others, which inspire countless souls to risk life for more life, and to go where no mere scientist dares. Can we serve awe and give that which can only be proven to exist by giving it. Life and love awe weighs fine a way. Serve it up!
Gotta Serve Somebody (by Bob Dylan)
You may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble, you might like to dance You may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You might be a rock ‘n’ roll addict prancing on the stage You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage You may be a business man or some high-degree thief They may call you doctor or they may call you chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk You may be the head of some big TV network You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame You may be living in another country under another name
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a construction worker working on a home You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome You might own guns and you might even own tanks You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray You may call me anything but no matter what you say
Still, you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
I was mistaken All those years Those sweetest ours Thinking I was making love When in truth Love was making me
This love poem, as most of my poems, can be read several ways. Of course, the simplest reading is a testament to the transformative power of romantic relationship love. Love is more than something that we, as individuals, “make.” Love is something larger than ourselves that we participate in. Love makes us better humans, much more so than could be designed by our minds however clever, or imagined by our hearts however large and open. Certainly, love makes us better than we could ever be outside of human relationships, on our own.
When thinking of poetry, I suspect that thinking of love poems is the most common and iconic. Love, the mystery of mysteries, is at the heart of poetry, trying to put into words that which can’t quite be put into words. I have described writing poetry as the heart and mind making love. The melding of the workings of the heart and mind is a struggle for balance and wholeness that pervades every human endeavor.
Psalm 85:10 describes this as peace and justice kissing. My intent in writing this poem was also to allude to such a wide theme, that of loving the world in a way that makes the world a better place for all. Peace and justice kissing is the way this becomes a reality in the world. Practicing that discipline of love makes us better humans, even if the reciprocity of that love is not immediately evident. Describing such ventures as love of God — love of Love — is a common spiritual discipline to carry us through the dry patches of of unrequited love on earth. Such love lives in the hope that the way of love (God’s will) will be “on earth as it is in heaven” (from the Lord’s prayer). Of course, the demands of justice are trans-generational, perhaps perpetual, requiring a patience and perspective beyond our own life. We don’t work simply for ourselves, that is if we are working in love and for justice. It strikes me, sometimes in the face, that love of enemy is the gold standard spiritual practice for melding peace and justice, holding fast to perfecting love, in creating a world where one side fits all. Every loving act brings us closer to peace and justice, no matter how far off they seem. Every loving act engenders hope and courage for both the gentle patience and bold courage needed for peace and justice to kiss. May you find love in every personal relationship, within your community, and in every conception of God you may have.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Awe That knocks Me too My knees Shaking Hands Earth below Heaven above In articulate silence And still Hear I am
Awesomeness is often met through silence and with silence. There is a power greater than words dare speak. Experiencing the power of such awesomeness is a bulwark for my highest hopes and that which incarnates most deeply my daily peace and joys. Awe flows from this. May such awesomeness visit you and enliven awe that you are.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
The profit tiers Some how a peer To set the captives free Going won after the other Like mammon and famine As to somehow heel the ravenous As fiend and faux As sow appetite for the pauper reproach With such lack luster assurance As hungering for Corporate solutions Like KoolAid™ For the poor As food desserts Like a cock tale Wagging the dog For mirrorly fucking bitches The same owe same owe As prophets of ode Rapiers by daze Templars buy eve The paltry of knights With chicken shit Offering A hundred and fifty bucks Posing as dear As if Doing its doody In sum fecund foundation For just us As financiers of poetic justice And diets high in irony For its undeserving marks And omnipresent logos As going in kitsch in sync With awe that cannot be stomached Paving roads with good attentions In know name Butt there own Sitting a top the whirled Of hell care Reigning Pennies from heaven As coppers too familiar To the indignant And indigent Of that speaking with spoken sword Offering crumbs Leading know where Their droppings As little balms As met a sin Requiring heart surgery And prescribing Take two aspirin And call me in the mourning And if that is not enough Tact on Take care Your own Busyness Such self-determination Only too be food agin As so much on won’s plate For what is whored As up rightness Only to be drug By profits of owed Living on exorbitant feeds As the CEO my God And the staff buy his side Dis cuss policy As their weighter Serves there well fare Wile others Dine in the streets
Here is my decidedly unofficial entry in the ProMedica sponsored poetry competition so unintentionally named, “Revealing Hunger: Spoken (S)word.” While it is the Big S poetry competition they are currently sponsoring, I’ll pass — though I’m quite sure it will be a gas. ProMedica was sure to eventually reap the madness of my poetry, sow here it is. ProMedica is always in the running for trying to coroner the market in buying good will to which it might be able to attach its moribund name. Though the pathetic $150 price for a singular winning poem betrays how little they truly value good will and poetry. If my words don’t speak well enough for me, then I invite ProMedica to eat me, should their hunger for justice suffer in digestion.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
The shepherd pays dear Attention to his sheep As the sheep due Not follow suits But accompany prophets In ways safe from a peril That compound interest in the whirled As you have herd It said You shall not murder But now this is tolled Do not bill bloodsheds To finance your palatial manner Or liquidate nations In the name of kicking assets Do not except life And its costly knock offs Anyone who pro claims Your life is feudal Or you fuel Will end up burning oneself And anyone bastardizing my word Is an executer of my state Do not purchase good will Wile others out lay Make it rite personally Without gaudy talk Before just us Decent upon you Rather forced to pain Fore every debt sentence Sow all can make cents You have herd It said You shall not commit adultery But now this is tolled Any man dishonoring the source Of human life on earth Wood be better off Had he never been borne Any man divorcing himself From what is a parent Is not fit for a womb of his owin’ You have herd It said Long a go Do not brake your promise But now this is tolled Do not sow your wiled oaths At awe Your promise on heaven unearth From here on ahead This simply know And yes Any more sow Is from the evil won You have herd It said An eye for an eye And a tooth for a tooth But now this is tolled As eye tooth sow telling Bring to light every bone picked Sow not striking in efface As a retainer of humanity And if won from beyond What is fare comes Barren suits Down on you Make just us naked XXX-posing Shame on them Farcing won too walk a mile Sow trying To catch up with your smiles Only wanting them To borrow Awe that you have And if knot Make no’ing to all You have herd It said Love your neighbor And hate your enemy But now this is tolled Love awe Before you De-spite those who prey Wile publicly prosecuting You as their enema Knowing full well Sons rise And reigns fall As surly as won nose Effacing such loathsome fishiness Too tax a verse Getting more than you put in As children of ungaudiness Seeking abettor Sow much better Than that which they are used To have Being Holy one’s own Reflecting awe Given freely
This poem is a punny paraphrase of Matthew 5:21-48, the middle portion of The Sermon on The Mount. The Sermon on The Mount is considered the core of Jesus’ teachings, his stump speech. The title alludes to one of my stock concepts in my poems, the notion of humans being reduced to math, mere calculations in an oppressive algorithm, and its lowest common dominator, conventional wisdom. This central litany of Jesus’ “You have heard it said, but I tell you” razes the bar and builds a whole, new worldview. Jesus’ message transcends the traditional message of religionists and secular conventional wisdom. This culminates in the proclamation that God rains on the just and the unjust. This indiscriminate love is the unending ideology that Jesus is found rooting, nurtured by such reign as is God’s. Jesus incarnated the reality that we are at our best when we are fully our self and fully God’s. Accepting and giving freely is the deepest nature of God that we can reflect in our lives. Jesus was such the juggernaut of grace whose designs were to overthrow the weighs of the whirled. Jesus did not desire to be some historical pinnacle set up on an untouchable pedestal and worshiped. Jesus lived to tear down the very notion of untouchable, the bedrock of dominating class. Anyone accessing the indiscriminate love that Jesus accessed, that is, asking for anything in Jesus’ name/character will surpass even Jesus’ accomplishments during his life: “Anyone who believes in me, will do the same works I do, and even greater works.” (John 14:12) Of course, indiscriminate love is a lousy foundation to rule over others, totally in sync with the instruction by Jesus to be servant leaders, not masters. Religion, committed to such a precept, will find itself at the heart of human needs, as the oppressed and dispossessed will be attracted like a magnet to non-judgment and working solidarity and service — awe without a needs assessment! Of course, you will find an enemy in the powers that be which depend of dividing and conquering for their dehumanizing weigh of life. I find great joy and solace in the summary (variously attributed) that Jesus only promised us three things: to be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble. May it be so!
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
As a friend of Dorothy Day I wood ax More than won quest in A bout Her call As a tenet in passable saint hood As if a priest to nun Or mirror lay person Aborting gaiety As an infallible sign of God’s presents Kneaded, sow kneaded As abandon plays on The Catholic work her Inn to their starting lyin’ up With little roam for others As prize winning dogmas For sake others Worshiping sons of bitches Of average Joes and Mary not Engendering grace Threw con genital souls Full of wholes As if litter Miss carrion Never coming to term Without a hitch Only finding one self One to an other Side by side Fitting awe For lives filled with scant do An offering more than Sum well Published comic marvel As if conceivable in a man’s world A loan To the wrest of us She could never look down to prey And yet sow much Heaven unearth Her whole life sew true And in those untolled smiles spanning eternity She most lovingly waives It just Saint so What Ever you due Don’t save Awe of the gory Fore God As will only In yore wildest dreams Hand it Back to you With teeming interest As got yours And every body ails
This poem was inspired by the occasion of Pope Franky coming to America and highlighting the possibility of Dorothy Day becoming a saint. This is deeply ironic, since Dorothy Day explicitly did not want to be written off as a saint, but cast her lot with the poor and dispossessed of the world. As a former atheist who lost the earthly love of her life by converting to Catholicism, which he rejected holy, she was familiar with heartache. As a women who had an abortion, I find her consideration for sainthood more intriguing. Her founding role in the Catholic Worker movement challenged and vexed religious folks — and people of faith as well. Her living with the poor and downtrodden is a model of solidarity. This poem posits questions of elite status, which she resoundingly rejected, as holy separate from her understanding of Jesus, the spirit of God incarnate. The title of the poem — Are You A Friend of Dorothy? — is both a question and a reference to the cultural necessity of gay folks needing code words and phrases to navigate in a culture where they are rejected. Dorothy Day, about as keenly aware of class as possible sought to transcend it. She was an itinerant peace-monger, ever-seeking creating those sacred spaces where one side fits all. She knew that salvation was not far off, but right in front of us, in awe its gory details. She knew what second-class citizenship was, not simply by being a woman in a man’s world or a man’s church, but by daring to embrace the poverty of more than one class and bring a bout wealth, and the privilege to serve. Her rightness with God is dishonored by trying to capture that spirit in the form of graven images, mere token substitutes for her authentically beautiful and unique, but totally accessible life. I don’t suspect that Dorothy would approve of a title of sainthood. I do suspect that she would want us to walk with her. And in this case, that would be walking among the dead and the living, and everywhere in between.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
To the skies lifted The lairs of heaven unfold In speechless beauty That would deify description My eyes and hands Razed freely Embracing awe That heaven was packing In mirror seconds To be Thanking That God Of the quick And the dead Thou sparest cell And crampiest image As vision screened Buy a second hand whirled Apple in hand Head hung Feat dangling Amid heir Too emotion picture Only taken Still Buy ahead in the cloud Captured in eternity Likely never experienced As real eyes That in which a head Re-mining me That eye Made only slightly Less than angels Of what missing Ahhhh Gimps of heaven
I wrote this poem riding the Megabus to Chicago. I was staring into the heavens, struck by the majesty of the clouds and the ethereal feel that they emanated. Likely nobody else on the bus was available for such an experience, because most were busy on their assorted and sundry electronic devices, interfacing with a different sort of cloud. I pondered the notion that the heavens could open up and a tsunami of angelic forces could grace us with their presents and nobody else would notice, not at least until possibly published online with a few seconds delay and displayed on a less-than-majestically-sized screen. I view our obsession with electronic paraphernalia as disabling our souls, a sort of anti-prosthesis that instead of making us more whole robs us of ever-present presents. Being a “gimp” of heaven is not some defect wrought upon us by some cruel and enigmatic God. There is a better life beyond our reliance on coping with life through electronic prostheses. Even with all the pain and befuddlement in life, I strongly suspect that simply experiencing such realities directly is better than obsessively tuning into some post-game show after the fact for some crowd-sourced analysis. On that bus, my lonely gratitude pined for a world where there was more face-to-face presence in the now — which, of course is present now, and quiet certainly lacking luster in beeping re-runs. So, may you stand up and walk without your prostheses, and if you find this awkward or even painful, it’s OK people to walk with glimpse.
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