FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

all my life
I’ve heard diverse preachers preach
that every man’s born wanting
to reach out and touch
some piece of truth or other –
that we all have this need to believe
.
well, if’s that is so, I think
y’all should know that that
makes humanity in its entirety
pretty damn vulnerable
to exploitation concerning
diverse brandsof horsefeathers
.
we are a race of easy marks
for the charlatans and the sharks
.
There’s a sucker born every minute?
P.T.Barnum’s brain was reptillian
so his calculation mighta been off
by as much as a billion
.
.

Lysistrata’s Lament (update from the front)

Time’s twisted shank
eternally out-of-joint –
rank, the stench leaking through
russet blood-stained sands
spilled out a cracked glass…
and rape a globalized sport
.
Hopeless women
helpless shadows –
mere smudges
but for sighing complaint
.
But I will not sham decree
man’s consort any better
’cause they ain’t!
So soon do they offer
their loins for future rounds
of the Flanders Field game
I feel they put the mindlessness
of masculinity to shame.
.
What a piece of work is Man ?
a fervent butcher, bone-cracker
meat-packer to the jeering crowd
turning every Eden to stockyard
nailing a victim to a barn door
like some hapless owl. . .
and women are no less foul.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: it grows daily more difficult
to believe in my own species!

The Pentateuch meets Mary Shelley

No no, that’s not what I meant he said, as he looked and saw…
saw that it was Not-Good-At-Tall. Hadn’t been what he’d intended for quite awhile, in fact, and now here were all these dreadful dumb creatures just ripping the shit out of each other… and where it stood now, the biggest was uprooting everything green just to feed his fat belly! So The Inventor grabbed the nearest stone [a pebble the size of jupiter] and hurled it down, down and that was the end of that version!

[These things just come to me, guys, no more believeable than any other freaky revelation – but no less either, I’d say. And at least I haven’t got epilepsy…far as I know]

And so it came to pass that The Inventor left to give his chosen planet time to cook up some new species. By way of natural selection, of course. I mean, he didn’t have time to dream up all the kinds it would take to make a world! Too busy working on those black holes the wannabe inventors move around in. Lissen: the oldest covenant was with the deathicists. A Virgin-Covenant-type thingy. The next covenant would  be more a more realistic  Eternal Life concept.

The first man to even half understand that last covenant was a semi-literate tradesman from a hamlet near a body of water rather pretentiously called a sea …but then the lame always do outstrip the blind, don’t they. He was the first born into this virgin turf. He tried to tell everyone about things but they got nearly all of it wrong and dozens of people falsified and anyone with any real power could see the advantage of latching on to this idea – and you know those Flavians, eh: never pass up a chance at a scam.

The original ideas, of course, were scrapped in favour of a heavy reliance on unverifiable promisses: more unverifiable than this is, like, housing lots in Florida. [What? You’re dead and nothing happened? So sue me!] Anyway, the Virgin idea became a virgin girl because…they all forgot that the so-called unclean girl was just another ribdame and everything gets mixed up with coded names and earthly covenants and deathicist demons. [Please. Don’t ask me to explain further or we’ll be here all day.] In that covenant – The Inventor’s virgin covenant – it all had to do with an uninterruped survival of virtual identities. of people. dogs. anything slick enough to even have an identiy. dolphins. elephants. but mostly monkeys…

Ya know this stuff just gets played out in slight variations over and over.[and over and over] One day. Maybe. They [He? She? What do I know.] will get it right.

|I would have pity]

I would have pity
for the ignorant
.
who mistake their
ancient candle
for a sun
.
who hold their spiritual
harvest to be the only one
.
who take
their personal lake
for an ocean
.
who misread subserviance
as heartfelt devotion
.
I would have pity
if their chosen creeds
.
were not source
of endless suffering,
distortion of human needs.
.
dogme pierces like a knofe
and the innocent heart bleeds.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: I would not even try to do aay
with spirituality/mysticism as such. It appears to be a human needBUT I remain emphatcally anti-clerical, opposed to
dogmatism of every stripe.

The Odd Couple In the Park

with calves like tree trunks
she occupies half the bench –
not so much fat or overweight
as well-upholstered – an impression
reinforced by the loud print of her
polished chintz dress – a type
you would have sworn
no longer existed.
.
on a string around her neck
her sun glasses dangle, open,
just above the head of her tiny dog –
who is so immobile he looks like
a photo – a blowup of a prototype toy
made of toothpicks and pocket lint.
.
They have but one love between them
and that is to watch the pigeons
in the warm light of late afternoon.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: I write out of love for what I see. Writing seals things in my memory.

The Real Lowdoown

what if this system
of joints and reservoirs,
this assailable, machine –
jackbuilt construction
of pinions and bladders –
were merely the means
to supply the energy
for the corps de ballet
that performs every day
en pointe, as they say
in the synapses
.
what if the aboriginal
dream time were,
let’s say, more accurate
than the AMA.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: We truly ARE the stuff that dreams are made on, Prospero

(I saw th typo in the title…but decided I liked it.)

Ole Faithful

once upon a time
cans didn’t just open
.
you didn’t just
slip your finger in a ring
and give a tug
.
there were keys that were
a cross between
a bishops hat and
a screwdriver
(think about it)
that were mostly used
on cans of sardines
.
and then there were
two-handed jobs
that looked like
a pair of pliers
wedded to a skatekey
.
and then things got fancy
and went electric…
.
all have pretty much
vanished – BUT
stiil hanging in my kitchen
the original bottle-cum-can
thingamajig made of
stainless steel that looks
a bit like a pair of
3D-movie glasses
with mismatched claws.
on either side.
.
It has NEVER failed me.
I will NEVER part with it.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: that’s me in the title

CREDO

lotta people say
ya can’t go around believin’ in nothin’ –
.
but I don’t believe
in nothin’. I believe in Light.
Light is my religion.
.
sunny
mornings
Light breaks in
from the kitchen
to put a whole new slant
on things in the living room –
told me today that I forgot to dust
the front of grandma’s rosewood buffet
.
we why-asking apes
can pretty well
parse the water
no, the real slippery
critter – the one that escapes –
mystery absolutely intact –
the one without which
no life could ever
have existed is
Light
.
and just between you and me
Light was there
before any raggedy tribe
invented anylike language
which alot of them did
just sose they could
call themselves smart
and say they knew personally
the dude who invented
Light
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: I also believe in doubt

THE KITE MAN

(for Refaat Alareer)

These are not metaphoric tears
emoticans of praying hands
emoji –
no, salty tears
sting my cheeks
blur my vision
and only in my mind
is his soul clearly defined
as a sweet white kite
against a cloudless sky –
smiling young teacher
whiteboard marker in hand
not ready to become
a savage to save his land
his Palestine.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: Rachel Corrie, Aaron Bushnell and now Refaat. Names and faces that have become indemible in my museum of the Gaza Holocaust.
.

Always hope that one

That one –
that single, signal line –
will find its way
under the radar
into the day after
tomorrow…
steal across the border
without you.
.
That one that will say
I was here, dammit…
Remember me?
.
I mean, wouldn’t we all
like to be
the one to bring
this wretched creature –
this vain, subhuman
truly awful race we belong to –
to its senses?
.
Half the problem is
nobody deeply wants
to save the planet.
Everybody wants to be
THE ONE
who did.
.
Save the peacocks and the owls
Save the elk, the wolf that howls
Save the gibbons and baboons
Save the herons and the loons
Save canaries, family cats…
Dear gods, please save us –
although we’re vain
and blind as bats!
.
§
/
Noted in the margins: I have next to zero hope, but I keep scribbling all the same!