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Red Lips Are Not So Red

8/26/2017

Poetry after Auschwitz? No,
Adorno said, “No way,”
Famously, but—what did he know?
“Well, what about today?”

Today, alas, the Muse is fled.
Civil society,
Its raison d'être, if not dead,
Is near mortality.

Ye English speaking persons of
America, take heed:
When ye forsake that “Greater Love,”
There’s nothing but to bleed.

The hemorrhage as has begun
Had best be stanched tout de suite,
For when the trickle starts to run
You’ll lose both chaff and wheat.

I did my best, as poets do,
But, poetry revoked
Therapy even can’t get through
When all the words are choked.

Unfinished Lyric

8/26/2017

Tinpot dictatorships may rise and fall
And, for the moment, you seem to stand tall,

But time levels the good and bad alike
And you have chosen: now await its strike.

We do not fear the end of times, nor grieve
Departure from this world if you we leave.

I Too Dislike It

8/26/2017

Poetry? I dislike it. Even so,
I dislike its dislikers even mo’.

I mean the kind of persons in ascent,
Who don’t care what’s intended, what is meant,

Who only care about the show of force,
But words from actions suffer a divorce.

The “rule of law” is one thing; but we see
A crowd which disregards civility,

A slanderous mob, that to itself admits
Contests are won by being hypocrites.

It may be that my charges are not new—
You know yourself—and I see what you do.

The strategies that you espouse but lead
To massacres, to satiate your greed,

And so, as yours may be the upper hand,
Defeat will end what you don’t understand.

Grammar of goodness underlies all thought;
Which, if you have forsaken, you are nought—

A cipher and but counterfeit of human,
Hardly unique in type, mundanely common,

So lay your vanities to rest herewith:
Of you poets will weave no lasting myth,

But—lower than the animals—your swarm
Will die forgotten, having but done harm.

The Bystander at Charlottesville

8/26/2017

Them boys marched down in Charlottesville,
A hundred strong, if one,
Determined force—if looks could kill
Then theirs at least would stun.

An onlooker to the parade—
He did not have a gun—
Said, “They want me to be afraid,
But we’ve already won.”

They tried to show, by what they wore,
And by their mien of anger,
That their lot stood superior
And posed clear, present danger.

Indeed, some innocents were harmed,
One killed, when all was done,
But one man—though he felt alarmed—
Said, “We’ve already won.

“They try to style themselves, as per
The color of their skin,
Superior, but murderer
Or many—they can’t win.

“One need not draw on DNA
To trump the faulty logic,
The truth is out, regardless they
Try violence demagogic.

“To mask their insecurities,
They march, but they will run,
For time and truth are after these
And we’ve already won.”

He let escape a weary sigh,
“What’s new beneath the sun?
So some of us have got to die,
But—we’ve already won.”

Explaining Evil (Away)

8/26/2017

The difficulty to conceive
Is that so vast a number
Of my compatriots believe
Good lies in moral slumber:

Is “Blood and soil” good or bad?
Exterminate the Jews?
A parity they will have had
That will exploit those views.

“Good people stand upon both sides
Of the dividing line,”
They say, as though that which divides
Were but a thing benign.

“To slander to achieve our ends
In service of our party
Is justified” —on this depends
The self-deception smartly.

A healthy chunk of citizens
Abhor the rule of law
Provided its own party wins—
That is the truth told raw.

The rule of law, so well disdained
So easily ejected,
By those who want evil explained
And in a way protected.

Golfmeisters in Chief

8/25/2017

It is no mystery indeed
That persons loving golf, now running
The government, would straight proceed
(Displaying no egregious cunning)

To tear down National Monuments
And Parks—a natural heritage
Against which they, by all intents
Cruel savage plunder choose to wage.

Golf shows a callous disregard
For natural wonder, pristine beauty,
Diversity which they have scarred
Pursuing money like a duty.

These golfers—and beef eaters too,
Enjoying their expensive steaks—
Cannot by any just review
But be called altruistic fakes.

As cultured, kind, considerate
They cannot be supposed: a nation
Electing them may bluster “Great”
But they mean only degradation.

When Businessmen Take the Moral High Ground

8/24/2017

Of all the oddities today
That I have seen, the oddest
Is businessmen hold moral sway,
Authority immodest,

Usurpt the role of churchmen who
Preach on about high morals,
But with such deeds their allies do
Disdain from picking quarrels.

If he but kowtows to their base
A man may lie or slander,
Commit theft, skirts or britches chase,
Assault, abuse, philander,

And do it with impunity
Of that you can be sure,
Conferred the sly immunity
Of their imprimatur.

These churchmen abdicated well
Beneath the school of Graham
True Christian correspondence—hell,
Each preached his own “I AM.”

So, out there grabbing sexual parts
While judging and condemning,
Leading their followers off the charts,
Each greedy, faithful lemming,

There was no recourse but for men
(Traditionally despised),
The business sort, to stand up when
The chance materialized.

Vacuum of the “Religious Right”
Could not be more pronounced,
Stampeding greedily, whose tight
Formation Jesus trounced.

Inhuman Fiend

8/24/2017

If you, so as to vilify,
Declare me or my kind
“Race traitor,” I will put it by,
And tell you I don’t mind.

One “race” has my acknowledgement,
The “human race,” and that
But tentative: let you relent,
I will not wear your hat.

If I should let your words define
Then I should be like you,
Yet my perceptions stand as mine
To which I keep me true.

Because I say, “Let icons fall
As represent untruth,”
Me a “race traitor” you will call
In words meant to unsoothe.

Yet I the mantle will take up
And spew words back at you,
“Inhuman fiend,” words hard to pulp
Insofar they stand true.

How Did They Let This Happen?

8/24/2017

“History does not sleep. Future generations will look back and ask, ‘How did they let this happen?’ It is past the time for the American people to start preparing their answers.” (Chauncey DeVega, Salon)

“How did they let this happen” is
A question hard to answer;
A lot of ground prepared for this
Conditioning of cancer.

For many years they did not heed
Their poets nor their prophets,
Let toys routine upkeep impede
Pooh-poohed the leaky soffits,

As water damage over time
Seeped into the foundations,
As their neglect became a crime,
Subversion all a nation’s.

First little lies allowed to pass
Nobody cared to mention,
At first a small chip in the glass
No matter for contention—

But self-deceit and willful fraud
Caught up, anarchy loosed,
Or (Malcolm said it, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd)
Chickens came home to roost:

The early sin of slavery
Concealed ten thousand ways
Induced in men a knavery
Too active for malaise.

At last the rotting damage done
The structure stood awhile,
Then suddenly, in unison,
The parts collapsed freestyle.

American Subtext, or, The Fear that Underlies Birtherism

8/23/2017

Barack Obama foreign born?
Those who affirm that lie
Do more than factual reason scorn,
And here is what and why:

Deep-seated insecurity
Reveals itself therein,
That fraudulent hegemony
Is founded on their skin.

The citizens and families
Of longer pedigree,
In the US — no short-term lease —
Were born of slavery,

While immigrant-descendents, they
Hold not so deep a claim
To title in the USA,
Latecomers to the game.

Each time these so-called “birthers” talk
Remember what’s their stake,
And why at reasonable fact they balk,
Who’d have and eat one cake.

Anon the borders must come down
And sovereignty realign
Upon a global movement grown
Without a color line.

“All men created equal,” this
Just thinking must affirm
(But some subvert analysis
Because it makes them squirm).

<<Previous

Forward>>

Red Lips Are Not So Red

Unfinished Lyric

I Too Dislike It

The Bystander at Charlottesville

Explaining Evil (Away)

Golfmeisters in Chief

When Businessmen Take the Moral High Ground

Inhuman Fiend

How Did They Let This Happen?

American Subtext, or, The Fear that Underlies Birtherism

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