Zenith (2013)

Summer solstice now is done – 
sun won’t stay to play with me 
in teeter-totter tumbling fun,  
somersaults along the sea. 

Nature’s law – intransigent refrain 
insists what rises soon must fall;
it’s not a rule one can explain 
still, one day a year I burp it all!

Daily I thank that unnamed force 
for all I have, then bite my lip –
avoid complaints and shrug off loss –
bumble my way to give greed the slip,

but sun-bloated ego just took hold of me –
enthralled as I was by Pinnacle Light –
so I’d not give a toss for Great Mystery 
preferring two wings to escape it in flight! 

In spite of the pain of [fill in the blank]
I would if I could hover right here and never 
grow tired watching the sun as it sank 
on the sea – on the brink of forever and ever 

Sommer Solstice you’re an irksome fellow, 
to remind me (damn) of what must follow.  

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…I think this started out as a sonnet
but got knocked up along the way (hmmm) 

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ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE

a postage stamp of skinny metal
[with name and address there embossed]
to slip between a toddler’s teeth
so tiny corpses don’t get lost:
my country loves to scare her own
near witless – keep ’em docile, coast
to coast  [so no one dare to pick a bone]
as mute as if they’d seen a ghost;
there was a time [pre-Syngman Rhee]
we didn’t need Poseidon’s clan –
we pledged allegiance, you and me,
sans  Allah, Abba, Peter Pan;
inserting “god” in fact defied
our constitution to the letter –
Hitlerean** the claim god’s on our side…
I frankly liked the old pledge better;
        patriot I am – although I choose
        a rugless life beyond the pews

In February of 1952 NYC bought 2.5 million dog tags. By April, just about every kid in the city from kindergarten to fourth grade had one.

** Nazi military emblem: Gott mit uns – god with us

1892 “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Minor changes in 1922 and 1923, and then from 1924 to 1954

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

since 1954 “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

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Ad Fontes

Passions are known to produce more than Valentines
But that’s not to say a cool mind’s not a threat –
The crimes of the heart are indeed bloody crimes
No, the hard part is simply to never forget
That a heart and a mind are part of a whole
each has its weakness, its limit, its flaw
And mutual indenture is not a bad goal
So clemency’s sweetness must temper the law
To vote for just feelings, to vote for pure reason
Affronts man’s integrity when brave hearts are sinking
A mind that is open to laughter’s not treason
and no better bouy than a wink in one’s thinking
It’s balance brings beauty, or so it would seem:
Laws must have pardons – sane men, a sweet dream

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Be Not Fooled

Who sings me songs of candied afterlives
demands I now lie low in expectation –
bow down, await rewards, endure the gyves
shut up, mark time, be meek for the duration –
feel sin and guilt, fear God And All His Might –
some super spook who no one’s seen at all
unless quite daft or higher than a kite
or steeped in myths of Eve and Adam’s Fall.
A Book that offers just itself for proof
is like a dog that chases his own tail.
Religion from religion stands aloof,
leaves little room for justice to prevail.
Those Fathers Up Above are worse than crooks
No Source of All is bound in any books

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If the sentiment expressed here appeals to you,
you might enjoy another of my poetry/prozetry sites
https://countercatechism.wordpress.com/

Envious

I envy the eagle the gull and the cormorant
condors high above the andes
crows who scud the crown of every tree in town
sparrows lighting on my sill –
I envy these and always will

I envy the temple birds in the blinding blue of Java
finches that people southern trees
the thrush and the lark – even pigeons in the park !
but some turkey in a gilded hall ?
I’ll never envy him at all

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alle menschen

I am not a strip of stripes
a strip of land, a strip of flesh,
fodder for a hungry cannon,
fool some banker might enmesh;
I am woman born to nourish
one man – and the planet’s young
so that species here might flourish
on this globe where life first sprung;
this my anthem, then  –  no others
will I sing in any tongue
’til all men claim all as brothers
’til the knell of war is rung.

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alle menscen werden brüder – all men will be brothers
line of schiller sung in Beethoven’s 9th
(I may be no schiller, but these lines actually fit the Ode to Joy  )

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The Basics

Hardly a soul (not asleep) could have doubts that it’s true –
they don’t make commercials for one single thing that you need
or that gives you real pleasure (and anyway, such things are few)
no, the system that’s ruining the planet’s based solely on greed.
I’m a lover of dining and hardly the teetotaler type
but I try – as with most things – to live on a steadier keel
for the rest, I think fashion is mindless – a matter of hype –
I don’t care what you wear, but I do care about what you feel!
A wise man has one pair of shoes, having only two feet –
and no, I’m not tauting some gigantic wild overhaul –
I’m saying that some things are true and some even sweet
suggesting you make your own list – that you call your own call.
For starters, the absolute cream of this life has a name –
it’s loving a person whose feelings for you are the same.

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