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?

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."

A Pointy-Fingered Firth

strip and rape your mother earth
carve her into a pointy-fingered firth
steal all her hidden, unmined treasures

utter aloud her unspoken, secret name
nurture wildlife within a crosshaired aim
drown her with watered-down tinctures

gaze upon her with gauze covered eyes
pour concrete into every crevace of the skies
with tar and asphalt pave over grainless pastures

a feast behind an ivy covered wall
just down the bend from a free-for-all
graffiti etched, black-sheep sloganed scrawl
that silent corpse with a dead man's gall

an angel takes the assassin's hand -
while a black limousine devouring funerary retinue
smashes a Kennedy legacy into glass slivers on the floor

an untouched maiden drowns in luxuriant opulence

cathartic spew
vitriolic voodoo
embryonic guru
sadistic, tortuous thumbscrew

mothers marching in the avenues
while sons lie dying in foreign streets

networks crashing in the dry desert air
pointing chimpanzees scream their "There!"

a rabbit scurries through the brush
as lightning crackles through cloud anvils
raising the hairs on the back of my neck -
dancers writhe, cavorting in brothels

burning desire paints black walls
with red licks of flaming envy

we're all running at top speed
legs churning, feet slapping the ground
the only non-nuclear option;
dig the fathomless gravy of experience

the rotting entrails of corruption rusts corrosively
eating away and decomposing the philosopher's stone

uncomforted suffering

children wailing through the dead night air

"Hold me!"

shiver into the cold dawn

huddle together as the moon whispers
shadows across the dusty ground

burrow into the earth, carving out dens

ancient choruses sing sacred earth chants
sacred earth chants sing ancient choruses
chants sing ancient choruses, sacred earth
ancient earth chants sing sacred choruses

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

Fanciful Dreams

The scent oozing from lilac petals pools up
into large, liquid pearls which drip down glass
panes, stained with the fanatical cries erupting
from the newborn - their spirits caged, barred
behind walls erected by unimaginative
generations; a flavorless fountain facade
rests on a crumbling foundation of recondite
esoterica formulated by the melting minds
of pornographic deity adorers devouring
masses of the thoughtless consequential.

Shepherds cull gullible babes in the woods
with mirages of un-kept promises still
echoing within caverns of despair as glowing
embers inflame hearts with a passion
tears cannot douse; a vastly strewn archipelago
in the broad ocean of souls drowns amid rising
sea levels as briny barnacles cling to platform
planks never intended to be more than fanciful
dreams - gleaming cubic zirconium set in pyrite -
the luring cheese orators lay in the mousetrap.

Your Reign of Love

The sun beats down, boiling the landscape
into a thick stew of fertile potential, while sandy
pathways wind through mesquite bushes as
saguaros and chollas scrape at the hiker's bare
legs. He dares to trudge along a ridge separating
a sere, summer, waterless gully from the lush
hillside vegetation marking off islands, pockets
of rich habitats where hares and quail scurry,
carefree. But in the gully's dry streambed, lizards flit,
here and there, slurping up insects, ants and flies
while rattlesnakes curl and shake, poised to strike
at any warm-blooded creature passing nearby.

Overhead a lonely Red-tailed hawk eagle-eyes
a ground squirrel and rapidly dives, claws clutching,
talons piercing, squeezing the life out of its prey.
The rays of the sun sap the hiker's lifeforce,
sweating it right out of his pores as he seeks
a middle ground between predatory strategies
of elitist succubae and the quicksand foundation
of the gully's waterless, streambed floor. The hiker
hears echoes of formative suppositions taught
by society's professors of conventional wisdom
in the cries of the hawk carried on the hot, dry
winds over the gully, "Predation is the natural
order of the world." But the hiker dreams
of a spineless cactus, harmless and medicinal,
spiritual and psychoactive, to calm the savage
inclinations of capitalist, territorial barking dogs
expressing their infantile demand, "Mine!" All
they want is to eat everything in sight alive!
Fear induces all living beings into stonelike
catatonia. The searing heat stains the hiker's
skin blood red, cooking his flesh, unseasoned,
for some coyote pack's dinner, sans place setting.

The hiker reaches the summit and looks down,
all around him. Only the hot blue sky blankets
him. The hiker takes off his boots and dons
a pair of mid-calf-high moccasins. He lights
a pipe which exudes a perfumy, peyote scent.
The hiker dons the head of an eagle, and claws
at the sky with sharp, white talons. Then, he spins
in circles, arms extended outward, weaving
about like an eagle on the air, soaring, chanting.
"Oh Father Sky, Brother Sun, Mother Earth and
Sister Moon, I weave the dance of rain before
your eyes, I claw at your skin that you might rain
your watery blood, the liquid of sustenance
on the world before me, and rein in the strife
of brother against brother, allow us all to revel
in the sweet nectar of Your Reign of Love."

The Long Lines of Tradition

An elderly woman awakens like clockwork
every Sunday morning, keeping her thoughts
attenuated to religious piety and God. A shawl
cowls her trimmed gray locks with a black
aura, matching the ankle length dress
loosely adorning her fragile frame. She grasps
her black, patent leather purse which matches
the 3-inch heeled, open toed shoes carrying
her frame over to the nightstand where
a Catholic missal sits on the white, adorning,
macramé doily with a simple, black beaded,
rosary beside the night, reading lamp.
Shriveling, furrowing, wrinkled fingers
with arthritis-knotted knuckles grasp
the missal and rosary, check the purse
for car keys and her two crisp, new dollar
bills for the collection plate. Her short,
angular legs churn over the carpet,
whisking her out the door and into
the already idling car, the engine warmed.

Motoring down her sleepy, elm-lined,
residential lane, she ignores the man
walking along the sidewalk, shuffling
feet that have grown tired of trudging
the same path, twice daily. He sleeps
in a ravine just beyond the asphalt's
dead end, hidden among tall grasses,
his camouflage colored tarp preventing
the morning dew from painting his
broken body's form wetly before dawn.
The man sloughs down the sidewalk,
the weight of youthful expectations
and prime time accomplishments
humps his shoulders with the laconic
portrait of late-middle-aged
accusations hurled like darts
in the insinuating stares pointedly
stabbing him on nearly every street
corner. Nonetheless, the final odor
of his rotting, fecal pride arises
from the stench of the last threads
of clothing he owns - stylish and neat
to the end, cleanly shaven, hands
and face washed, but the unkempt,
few strands of hair flying haphazardly
in the cold morning wind betray
the impression he seeks to portray.

She sees him every Sunday morning
on her way to church, but her mind
is full of her devotional prayers, so
she never stops, never offers the man
a ride, never shares a kind word,
never offers a meager few pennies.

Every street corner the lady passes,
it seems, lays claim to another
social misfit, cast away by society,
crumpled up and thrown, like waded-up
litter, strewn into the curbs of American
streets, glimmering only for the youthful,
upwardly mobile, success stories of today,
soon to be tomorrow's sacrificial casualties.
She scantly casts her eyes on any
of the throng pleading for alms. No,
instead, she parks her car on the asphalt,
the church parking lot, spaces reserved
for only the chosen few parishioners.

Inside, she joins the others of the flock
standing, sitting, kneeling, responding
vocally, dropping money into the offering
plate, each at the appointed instant
during the service, following the long lines
of tradition, souls forming an eternal
queue, paying for their God's indulgence
and permission to enter heaven. The
priest takes his few moments to preach
a sermon on the meaning of charity; his
meaning requires little of the parishioners,
no daily acts of kindness, no offering
of alms to the poor, no occasions
of feeding the hungry. No, the priest
preaches the counsel of donations
to the church, who will do all the good
deeds for the parishioners on their behalf.

After the service, the flock file out
in formation from the edifice, a building
made from the same materials as any
other, stone and brick and wood and
steel, and the sweat of honest, working
class laborers. The woman's sight fixes
with such intense focus, and so burning
of a determined will to live piously
and follow the priest's commandments,
that she cannot see the face
of her long lost brother shines
from behind the eyes of the man who walks
down her street and who, even at that
moment, holds out an empty hat as she
drifts right by him, walking in perfect step
with the dispersing congregation
after the service - the man's hat
as empty as ever, his heart growing
just a little more broken each week.

After Eons of Slumber

Seductively urgent dawn
Drips from sunrise ewers
Into leaf-filled eave gutters
On moonless, October nights
When the divining hag reappears.
Fragrant melodies from oracles’
Lips part foggy veils
As pointed tridents whirl,
Staining glacial tors,
Until rug rats initial steps
Intercept furtive glances issued
From furrowed brows. Snickered
Under the breath are the ocean’s
Whispered asides – beneath
Boardwalks and piers – “A carnival
Or a feast?” She wondered
Down roving-laned byways
To bridge an abysmal chasm:
White-bread-blues imitating
Intuitive, sulfuric, tea leaves
Tuned to a Delphic frequency
On Apollo’s alarm clock
Awaken him from reveries
After eons of slumber!