Pandemonium

Potus, a defeated devil of Pandemonium,
Is lonely tonight for want of a loyal friend:
Anyone, sick or foul, human or fiend,
Even a specter enriched with plutonium.
The lights glare like angry souls at the palace,
And the burning rivers between here and there
Drown out the sweet, anguished tintamarre
Of endless victims of others' so-called malice.
Cold comfort for Potus, who once boasted
The brightest shield and the longest spear,
Who stalked the palace halls without fear,
Now to stand out here, alone and untoasted.
"Curse you all!" he cries, "I don't deserve this!"
But knows there's no leaving Satan's service.

The Rhinoceros

The rhino, armored like a knight,

With two weapons — his sheer tonnage

And the horn sticking from his snout —

Will never hesitate to fight.

The least intrusion sparks his rage.

He’s a bully, a brute, a lout. 

He stalks my back yard foraging

For greens he pulls with toothless gums.

The songbirds, opportunist bums —

Chickadees, titmice, and waxwings —

Blanket his back all day for free,

Though he’s kept bug-less by the bee-

Eaters. I’ve learned to swallow fears.

Each day someone boxes his ears.

Unless, Sonnet #633

Is the word a tautology?

It seems to mean “if less, less.”

Or is it, as in theology,

Tinged, like faith is, with a guess?

What will happen is contingent

On (an unless) what might not be,

Should the past or future invent

Some unclear possibility.

We use the word every day.

Are we afraid to speak the truth,

To even believe what we say

(Old, we say it — less in our youth),

Nor mean to understand unless

We think unknowing to express?

The Error of Innocence

It’s impossible, a contradiction

Of being, a false manipulation.

The mistake is in not knowing,

Like a child mimicking a curse,

Without any idea what it means.

At four I once told my brother,

“I wish you would go to hell,”

Then added, “no, don’t go to hell.”

Hell being no more than a word —

Yet I was vigorously punished

With a dozen stripes of a strap.

Some think we’re not born innocent,

Like the lion, the viper, or the lamb,

But by some withheld benediction

That can only be lost in the learning,

Which in itself taints the newly-wise.

The veins in a sick hand, febrile

And limp, are not guilty till lifted.

“The only truly innocent are dead,”

Some say. No greater lie ever said,

Because even they are burdened

By all that has come before. Not sin,

Not ignorance, but the spoken word,

The lie given breath willingly,

For no other purpose than to know.

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 Spy (Cold War Mini-sub), Sonnet #632

 

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.