Crestfallen

Scrambling up a mountainside
slippery pebbles slide under foot.

Fingers grasp, clutching emptiness
in the crestfallen starscape
where prayers wander aimlessly.

Who dares suckle the night?

An owl prowls
the moonless land,
a rodent in its talons.

Slithery scavengers
witness eons crumble into dust,
strewn across time’s sandy highway.

A cavern’s frigid bowels
fossilize ancient tales
etched on evolutionary walls.

Even created ignorance leaves
a trail: demented dementia.

Who dares nourish the suckling mother?

Globalization's Demented Domination

lead me to a world without all this... killing

Secret agent cabals fester with dispassionate malice,

devising sinister plots to behead elected officials

and advance conquest's master plan: globalization's

demented domination. Freaking button-down, Johnny

Appleseed wannabes strew iMacs across every rain forest,

converting indigenous farmers into multinational

corporate serfs, while concrete pours and asphalt

paves over forests, forever staining green with gray.

Beady-eyed Clinton clowns left over from coups

of Latin America past gleam with eyes sparkling

and hands rubbing together like the forearms of flies

pondering their pounce on the next pile of shit

that smells like money. Meanwhile, the land of once

golden streets, merely a glittery mirage, dilapidates

into ghetto streets where drive-by shooters fail

to grasp that the gang from the turf next door

ain't their enemy, it's the circus freaks running

things in State Capitols and Washington, D.C.

who pit brother against brother, dividing

to make conquest all the easier: the same old

Conquistador strategy, selling notions of fountains

of youth to the masses while the wealthy stake

claims to the imagined El Dorado under the next

oil well or in the patent office mines once proud

people slave in and still can't make ends meet.

The virulent strains of contagious opulence

already swim in the veins of elitist pigs who snort

in filthy sties spreading a corpulent pestilence

of narcissism and desire. Who among you will pick

and share flowers from a new garden, fertilized

by the rotting remains of withered capitalism?

the firestorm of raging opulence

faded denim streaking through the night air
caresses the warm fingertips of somnolent
violins' mourning phrases for ancient cultures
caught in the firestorm of raging opulence

native bows drawn no more, their quivers
emptied by gunpowder tea leaves rolled
into balls and stuffed into peace pipes
with purple Scottish thistle a smokey poultice

father sky cradles brother sun and sister moon,
illuminating mother earth through a succulent
expanse as the four winds carry the seeds
of tomorrow across a vast forest silence

as the repetition of seasoned cycles cavort
between the hewn blades of merriment
trampled by the heavy steps of leather boots;
marching concoctions cover happenstance

This piece is inspired by the bloodshed in Peru, by the 40,000 brave indigenous Peruvian natives standing up to their government's corruption and desire to land lucrative contracts with US businesses for oil rights and commercial farms. The government seeks to force these people off their land, destroy their way of life, and put an end to a whole culture. The people are trying to keep their sacred lands and preserve their heritage.

"The indigenous community says at least forty people, including three children, were killed by the police this weekend. On Friday morning, some 600 Peruvian riot police and helicopters attacked a peaceful indigenous blockade outside of Bagua, killing twenty-five and injuring more than 150. Eyewitness accounts indicate the police fired live ammunition and tear gas into the crowd. Over the weekend, Peruvian President Alan Garcia said 40,000 natives did not have the right to tell 28 million Peruvians not to come to their lands. Since April, indigenous groups have opposed new laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest by blocking roads, waterways and oil pipelines. President Garcia’s government passed these laws under “fast track” authority he had received from the Peruvian congress to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement."

"Alberto Pizango, the leader of the national indigenous organization, the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, or AIDESEP, said, "They’ve said that we indigenous peoples are against the system, but, no, we want development, but from our perspective, development that adheres to legal conventions, such as the United Nations International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, that says we, the indigenous peoples, have to be consulted. The government has not consulted us. Not only am I being persecuted, but I feel that my life is in danger, because I am defending the rights of the peoples, the legitimate rights that the indigenous people have. I feel I am being persecuted, and the situation can get much worse with my criminal prosecution."

stripping away

cascading reveries scramble irreverent synapses
with sudden glimpses of star bursts from the corner
of my eye while water faucets drip their last drops
into the gutter of despair surrounded by market
analysts who can't count to ten but echo tripe
back and forth in the corn rows of ears marching
down main street to the tune of "A Spoonful
of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down" and gullets
constrict at the starvation raining across scorched
specters acid etched by tongue-tied infants gurgled
bile until atomic bombs dance in the sky at night
when the stars fail to shine carousing inhibition
as infiltrating double agents succumb to the curious
delight full of consternation's coronation collecting
titanium from sublunary mines extracting
cavities with the precision of root canal drilled
epicenter shockwave defined gravity-quake
flute trilled nether regions feather flicked
with honey dust across memory's spine shorn
of the intoxicating calamity brought to you by
tonight's sponsor for our show - the platinum
whore mongering, war fondling, planetary
eyesore stripping away the color of dawn
as trapeze artists mourn their slipped grips
without a net falling in tumbled motion
beyond the event horizon of a black hole

Barely Vivified Clay

A seated lump
of unforged clay
lies featureless -
an unspoken gainsay
dulled, unpolished
steel-eyed gray;
trace a thoughtless,
recondite array
spanning tables'
flattering soiree
for thronging guests
who willingly betray
raised, cajoling voices
who rantingly inveigh
passing fancy's
flatulent gourmet.

Diabolical hands
caressingly display
whimsical tides
lapping at the fray -
a signal to circuitries,
forced to obey
unrehearsed lines
appended to the play;
a submitted, torturously
shrouded chambray
of luxurious genitals,
calmed in a public bidet,
entreat officials'
sacrificial bouquet
to unlock their vaulted,
uncorrupted forte.

Unconditioned hands
thumb through a dossier,
while nearby decanted,
long-stemmed glasses of tokay
permit a sweet-flavored,
wafting, aromatic nosegay
entry beyond a portal's
hermetically sealed doorway;
surrepticious eyes steal
glancing peeks at risque,
private auctions, offering
a subliminal, opulent sachet
containing reservations
anyone might parlay
into pre-modeled vessels:
insatiable, barely vivified clay.