It Is Their Flag: roundelay

Almost in spite, some fools seem to keep trying.
They seek a balance where mad chaos reigns;
they fight for life, despite death’s constant sighing,
giving their all for sake of what remains.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

They fight for life despite death’s constant sighing,
giving their all for sake of what remains.
With courage and resolve near mystifying,
in ignorance of weariness or pain,
it is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

With courage and resolve near mystifying,
in ignorance of weariness and pain,
they sacrifice themselves; and in their dying,
release the world from its enslaving chains.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

They sacrifice themselves, and in their dying,
release the world from its enslaving chains,
for future generations, signifying
the truth it is important to retain.
It is their flag that in the dark stays flying,
and puts self-serving cowardice to shame.

12 MAY 2017

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Glory Evermore: dirge

With slow and silent steps it comes
encroaching on the day,
the shadow of the night that grows
to fill the world with gray.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

War on its march to midnight turns
our grays to darkest black
as on a path to nothingness
it leads us ever back.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

Replace all love with mindless fear,
and on that slippery slope
disguise all lies as honesty
and destroy morning’s hope.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

Hear now the muffled sound of drums,
come through the morning mist,
its slow parade of death designed
to fool those who resist:
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

Come, make believe that victory
through violence makes for right,
that wealth creates nobility,
who pay others to fight.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

Believe that those who sign the orders
seek a better way,
that those who hold the rifles
will all see the light of day.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

War does not make a difference,
with its patriotic zeal;
or make the steam that blows the whistle
ever turn the wheel.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.

27 FEB 2017

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Out of Plumb: a caudate sonnet

When will these foolish notions dissipate
and take their place with dreams, safe in the grave?
How long must I be some grand idea’s slave,
locked in an endless struggle with my fate?
How much of life will pass me by, too late,
while I watch on the shore for bigger waves,
and in the name of revolution, save
myself for just the hope of something great?

How many think it better to abstain,
and by some grand denial, grasp the truth;
their conscience scrubbed so clean it glows,
a life spent in denial, lack and pain?
How much they waste of energy and youth;
and was it worth it? None will ever know.

Ideas come and go;
the truths that seem so evident right now,
next spring, too, will be turned beneath the plow.
Come back in from the bough;
the universe requires no martyrdom,
no sacrifice. It is not out of plumb.

04 DEC 2010

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The Libertine

You cannot win. It seems no matter
which way you progress
(to seek self-sacrifice for good,
or your own happiness),
the world will work against you
to undo what you have done.

It will erode your monuments
and interrupt your fun
with either condemnation
for the talents that you waste,
or horror at the way your talent’s used
beyond good taste.

To wit: should you choose sin
and find yourself in deep debauch,
you’ll be proclaimed a wretched soul
by those who only watch;
and virtue? that’s no better lot.

For should you speak your mind,
those holding power by wrong means
will take offense and find
some cause to treat you with contempt;
and with the line you’ve crossed
will spare no opportunity
to prove themselves your boss.

Perhaps the wisest course to pick
would be: stay underground,
refuse to share your wealth,
let your great talent stay unfound.

The world will think you “normal”,
worthy of no great alarm;
and if you’re lucky, your whole life
will do you little harm.

But then, your only enemy
will be the self you hide:
the talent that you must express,
that will not be denied.

So walk your path. It matters not
who praises which you take.

They’ll use tar to annoint you
for both feathers and the stake;
both ridicule and persecute,
should you step out of line
and either let your talent rot,
or cut an edge too fine
that it offends the sense of those
who claim to be your peers
yet think your life, in either case,
the sum of wasted years.

19 AUG 2006

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For Bukowski

Believe it … poetry can heal wounds;
of course, an awkward, ill-set bone
will sometimes need to be re-cracked,
and soft illusions that so gently cradle us
to bind the flesh beneath, must go.

And often, language is so poor
a conduit for what needs said
that poetry, to remain true,
must eschew words and simply ape,
pretending to be civilized.

In drunken rages, curses slurred
and spewed into a sewer’s maw,
a poet finds epiphany;
and if not driven to reveal
that underbelly, often pawns

off lesser dreck to pass as art,
or spends their time in all-night shops,
dissecting life with coffeespoons.
Let he who is well understood
explain such mincing words. Pray tell:

What inner demons exorcised
conduct themselves with grace and charm?
The world needs screaming, now and then,
and herds of pigs snorting, pell-mell,
beyond decency’s cliff.

04 OCT 2005

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What price a pawn

What price paid by a pawn who makes,
if merely by sheer luck or chance,
its way through fields strewn by mistakes
in focused, single step advance
to the far end of what it knows,
where all the trappings of a pawn
must be forgotten, and the clothes
befit a king must be put on?

28 JUL 2005

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