The Fool
A man isn’t a man without being a fool,
He began a money-infatuated ghoul
Chomping on the corpse of another greedy mule.
He soon grew morbidly obese on such fuel,
Then capered on to Fame’s self-deluding gruel
(Which turned half his tiny brains to stiffened stool).
All that power, women, and riches made him cruel
And he began to see all of life as a duel.
“Never lose, say ‘sorry,’ tell the truth, and you’ll rule,”
He said, “Remember, your country is my private jewel.”
Then wealthy men of stratagems made him their tool
And wiped his chin when he’d rather frequently drool.
Their hots for him haven't even begun to cool.
The Spy
Like a sty in the nation’s eye,
He’s a hiding-in-plain-sight guy,
A cataract of the blind lie —
People still believe him, though why
Is as mysterious as Pi.
A carnival barker, though sly,
And a connoisseur of the small fry
He munches either moist or dry.
He beckons the bucks from on high.
They all trot up to him and sigh.
He has a mantra: I am I.
There’s no disputing that, just try.
There are some who think he's a spy.
We know he’s set the world awry.
Note: The number Pi is considered
mysterious due to its irrational and
transcendental nature.
War II, Terzata #46
What remains is one man’s lust
Mating with his own cold will,
Giving birth to blood and rust.
Each bullet or bomb’s a pill
That plugs a hole in his brain,
Which is cold and still,
As is Ukraine,
Where a young child fell
And didn’t get up again —
Her killer dares her now to tell.
The Last Days
“Some chose to run, many to hide
Inside their temples and rooms,
Where every one of them died
In incendiary tombs.
I walk in a mourning fog
Outside and inside my mind,
Hand in hand with Gog in Magog
And all the rest of my kind.”
“What are these floods and fires
And stupidity admirers
(Viruses in a cracked petri jar)?
How can I fight the coming war
We’re already losing day by day
As we run, slower and slower, away?”
Parade
The invention of the assembly line,
The conveyor belt, the repetition
Of a single simple task by one man,
Produces all that is useful and fine.
Let me push the button of ignition
On armor as heavy as a tin can.
No bullet can penetrate my new skin,
Sleek and silver and exquisitely thin.
I'm so perfect now a parade of me
Runs past the smokestacks of the factory.
I'm joined by a smart, lock-loaded army;
As we march, everyone behind his hood,
Goose stepping, bright phalanx of right for good,
We stare down the decadent and swarthy.
The conveyor belt, the repetition
Of a single simple task by one man,
Produces all that is useful and fine.
Let me push the button of ignition
On armor as heavy as a tin can.
No bullet can penetrate my new skin,
Sleek and silver and exquisitely thin.
I'm so perfect now a parade of me
Runs past the smokestacks of the factory.
I'm joined by a smart, lock-loaded army;
As we march, everyone behind his hood,
Goose stepping, bright phalanx of right for good,
We stare down the decadent and swarthy.
The New Inquisition
Galileo is gone and forgotten.
The earth is again as flat as a coin
Around which the sun is slowly going,
A feather falls faster than a lead ball.
Beelzebub will find you if you call.
The bald liar is our new scientist;
There is no proven fact he cannot twist.
Poor Galileo was forced to recant:
Today we have the canting sycophant.
Hence it’s obvious that the earth must cool;
To think differently makes me a fool.
I’ve seen a bald eagle flying backwards.
A plague of fat rats invades our front yards.
A paean for Putin.
A Nation of One, Terzata #37
His own minion in that nation,
All of his words are defecation.
His actions insipidly cruel,
He pounds his fist on the able,
Whips his army like a mule.
Hacksaw and hammer and Babel
Bang on the running heads
Of corpses on the embalming table.
He dreams of flowing Red,
Of flags and blood, this revelation:
The elimination of the dead
And his exalted exultation.
The Eighth Circle of Hell
This, the eighth circle of Hell, where liars and frauds
Turn thwarted ambition to violent attacks,
Is the last refuge of all political hacks,
Where righteousness shrieks in the name of the gods.
Men of faith bite the throats of men of reason.
They tear at each other with once-ink-stained fingers
And vow to prove vast conspiracies of treason,
Calling to chambers testimonial singers.
Virgil and Dante cringe, impotent witnesses,
Appalled by acts born of conviction, yet witless.
The less guilty, forgers and fibbers, writhe like snakes
To flee the melee, though they voted for these fakes.
Above, a winged Lucifer grins his approval,
And schemes for our virtuous poets' recusal.
Turn thwarted ambition to violent attacks,
Is the last refuge of all political hacks,
Where righteousness shrieks in the name of the gods.
Men of faith bite the throats of men of reason.
They tear at each other with once-ink-stained fingers
And vow to prove vast conspiracies of treason,
Calling to chambers testimonial singers.
Virgil and Dante cringe, impotent witnesses,
Appalled by acts born of conviction, yet witless.
The less guilty, forgers and fibbers, writhe like snakes
To flee the melee, though they voted for these fakes.
Above, a winged Lucifer grins his approval,
And schemes for our virtuous poets' recusal.
This seems timely. Some angels are monsters, and the fireside
recalls the chats. Oh, how far we’ve come down from Roosevelt!
The Fireside Angel (Max Ernst), Sonnet #631
If you dare to tell him he can’t
The noise blasts an half-empty House
Where nothing stirs, not even a louse.
His legs lift just so high and pound
And pound the ground like myriad rounds
Aimed to shell the foundations
Of once allied loyal nations.
(He makes of enemies his friends
For obvious and evil ends.)
His confused shrieking grows louder,
Anger eloquent as gun powder.
When dance and rant become one
The work of dictatorship’s done.
Eagles
The feathers only frame the human eye,
Who sees the flea struggling in the sand,
Who has forgotten to forget the I,
Who sees the present in all that's fleeting,
Who wields a heavy and powerless wand.
I suspect enlightenment, when men "see,"
Is nothing much, a mere epiphany,
A moment of insight, most certainly,
But not quite a glimpse of eternity.
A piercing human eye, an eagle's soul?
The teachings of Jesus, Buddha, et al,
All come down to this. You're free. It's your call.
Do good, love all men, don't be an asshole.
Lies
If I said the moon is blue
Should I believe myself or you,
You who once knew the truth?
A ticket bought at a liar’s booth
Is worth a hundred billion dollars,
The blind, deaf, dumb man hollers,
As the crowd stampedes to buy its
Own, so quickly torn to little bits
And ticker-taped into the streets,
Soon grown to enormous sheets
Of gray that once was black and white.
It is a petty insane sight.
There is the found and what one seeks —
Both become an idee fixe,
One name and one alone
That morphs, like the game telephone,
The moon into a blaring tone.
His Majesty Receives
Of frothing, striking, biting, and killing.
His followers, all mice, rats and rabbits,
Beg his mercy upon them, his willing
And most abject obedient subjects.
“What?” he soothes them. “I’m only kidding.
Act as you believe, not at my bidding.”
His cringing rodents think he suspects
Some treachery. Their leader, a wild hare,
Steps forward, bowing low, and says, “Please, sire.
We pledge ourselves to your every desire.
For you we would run with our asses bare!”
“Do so! As I am all you’ve ever feared!”
They ate each other when he disappeared.
The Age of Aggravation
I can handle anxiety today
With a pill and a sip of water.
It comes from nowhere
Yea, I worry about this and that,
The bomb and global warming,
Without thinking, concentrating,
Like a deer in summer hiding
Its does though hunting season
Is an unrealizable future.
I like to think that all is well —
I mean the essential things,
From family to home and work —
I could explain why I’m right.
Then why is everyone so angry?
I refuse to recite the reasons.
They are invisible chimeras
Of fear, corpses of inconsequence.
A few mad apples, rolling, legless,
Without sense or innocence,
Which won’t die before they rot.
What we used to call ideas
Are now ravenous ouroboros.
Oh, such satiety in aggravation!
Parallel
Parallel lives will never meet.
They walk on a different street
Perhaps at the vanishing point
They will end, a dovetail joint,
That nothing can pull apart,
Not a hawk, nor a work of art,
For there’s no change of mind
Can allow thoughts to unbind.
All, futile conjecture.
(Is the math of parallels pure?)
Lives do cross, were meant to,
But in sum they are so few.
So many hearts do not reach,
Not even trying, each to each.
Rolling, rolling like train wheels,
None knowing what others feel,
Each of us made of flesh and steel.
The High Council, Sonnet #335
The high council deliberates in me,
Thirty-one wise morons who can't agree
Without a nod from their presiding lord,
Who's typically obliviously bored.
The peasantry shout in at the windows,
The scholars and lawyers from the cheap seats.
The aides are soft and unprincipled cheats,
And women left the chambers long ago.
I think never has indecision been
So richly rewarded, as conscious sin
Is rationalized in the name of change.
A vote is taken, the benches arranged
Again to reflect the switch of leaders,
Which elevates sixteen bottom-feeders.
Thirty-one wise morons who can't agree
Without a nod from their presiding lord,
Who's typically obliviously bored.
The peasantry shout in at the windows,
The scholars and lawyers from the cheap seats.
The aides are soft and unprincipled cheats,
And women left the chambers long ago.
I think never has indecision been
So richly rewarded, as conscious sin
Is rationalized in the name of change.
A vote is taken, the benches arranged
Again to reflect the switch of leaders,
Which elevates sixteen bottom-feeders.
The Red Jester
“Now, my dears, keep watching the ace.
My favorite card — it has no face
And just one itty bitty heart.
Hee, hee! It can’t squeak out a fart
The way the queen of spades
Will call to her some dainty maids
To please her king of diamonds
With one who has a showbiz mons.
Now, see? Your lazy eyes don’t peel
On the ace! It has disappeared!
Where’d it go? It’s as I feared,
Some joker has stolen the deal.
Why, that’s me! I rule the whole deck.
Every card’s at my call and beck!”
King Hobgoblin Sleeping
I found a hobgoblin in my back yard,
With a possum pillow under his head,
Asleep, surrounded by a thousand kin
Standing in ranks, his imperial guard.
A cricket on a string droned by his bed
Of crepe tucked under his majesty's chin.
His crown (a fool's cap) and truncheon scepter
Were all he owned that made him emperor.
They cast his grandeur and his power spells.
His minions, one by one, exhausted, fell,
Near death, and groaning hauled each other up.
I shouted, "Wake thee! Or you'll interrupt
Your sire's sleep!" Then they all disappeared,
Leaving possum to chew the old hob's beard.
With a possum pillow under his head,
Asleep, surrounded by a thousand kin
Standing in ranks, his imperial guard.
A cricket on a string droned by his bed
Of crepe tucked under his majesty's chin.
His crown (a fool's cap) and truncheon scepter
Were all he owned that made him emperor.
They cast his grandeur and his power spells.
His minions, one by one, exhausted, fell,
Near death, and groaning hauled each other up.
I shouted, "Wake thee! Or you'll interrupt
Your sire's sleep!" Then they all disappeared,
Leaving possum to chew the old hob's beard.
The Trojan Horse (Tiepolo)
The painter doesn’t clearly show a single face
In the starving, struggling, victory-mad crowd.
The men inside the horse could be laughing out loud
Without fear of being heard above the fracas.
The Trickster proclaimed that the genius of his scheme
Was revealed to him in a post-debauchery dream
By a god who refused to say its name or sex,
But who had addressed the Trickster as Regent Rex.
(An error in speaking T never repeated.)
“Do this,” said the god, “and All will be defeated.”
In later years, faced with sirens and a cyclops,
He’d beg that faceless god for more brilliant guidance,
Since his own soldiers, as fighters, proved hopeless flops.
He returned to his wife with a bow and split pants.
No comments:
Post a Comment