Talking Back

 

I thought that

talking to photographs

of dear departed

was the last desperate act

of a senile mind

never realizing that

people locked away in their heads

often have nowhere else to turn.

I always dreamed about a

captive audience to receive

my unprotected thoughts

so wrote this fellow

whose poem had been so

poignant. He responded

saying I'd been the

only one to answer

the silent echo of his need

behind bars of steel.

Letters chatted back and forth

and one stranger whose body

was a prisoner

communed with another

whose head was also

that way. He wrote

wistfully of memory

of birds winging forests

and his incarcerated

birthday celebration.

In the last letter he

asked me to wish him luck

getting ready to put on kneepads

go before his parole board.

Looks like he's no longer

sending letters in search

of captive company. Guess

he doesn't need me anymore.

Wonder now if photographs

ever appear to talk back.

 

 

Arras

 

The waters rush

white-capped and lunatic

over granite boulders

speaking eloquently

of erosion

and infinity.

       The lonely cry

       of a flighting bird

       shatters the air.

Willows stand dank

roots entrenched

in the timeless brew

flinging arms

at the careless sun.

Winds bend long grasses

whiskering the lip

of the waters.

       Creatures dart headlong

       to join the element

       they know best.

This landscape evolves

a rich and humid

syllabary

of forgotten tongues.

 

 

The Last of Her Line

 

Achilles slaying Penthesilea, Athenian black-figure amphora C6th B.C., British Museum

The last of her line of warrior queens

Penthesilea spurred the flagging Trojans

to combat with brave words and Priam had

faith until the oracle showed him her

limp form on a funeral pyre.

But the fleeting glory of the Amazon

inspired the armies of Troy, dispirited

by nine years of encirclement, by Hector's

death and they followed her wild mare to

the battlefields and fought as they never

had before, lancing and axing the Greeks

driving them back to the beached ships

with newfound fury, their wild warcries

crowning the seagulls' wails. Blood

gored the plains of Ilium and heads rolled

like stones on the breach of Achaean

          offence

until Achilles, still mourning Patroclus

joined the battle to confront the warrior

woman. The air thundered with battle

the cries of the dying, the speared, the

gutted. Pacing each other, the half god

the Amazon each scented victory. Ah

Penthesilea's spear glanced off dread

Achilles' shield, his greave and in  his

turn Chiron's pupil pierced the warrior

woman through her breast, penetrating

the horse to stick her body like meat

upon a spit. Plucking the helm from her

head, Achilles looked with rage on the

dead beauty of the woman whose courage

matched his and he lusted helplessly

for those slack limbs to entwine his

that dead mouth to catch  his, that gone

breath to sweeten his life. There is

no victory in conquering

                    there is no glory!

he cried in anguish and tried to die.

 

Apocrypha

 

In the beginning

there was chaos, but then a gregarious atom

encouraged a clubby atmosphere

where they all gathered and there was order.

At first there were hot gasses, but then

cool season prevailed and

minerals and metals crusted the fires.

One lone amoeba suffered incurable hubris

thought she could do better

and founded a dynasty

on her vision.

In time a she-ape clambered down from the trees

pointed at the sea, and declared 'there is my creatrix!'

Named her daughter Eve

and set her the task of naming others. So Eve

chatted up giraffes and elephants

whales and crickets. She called

a brash Adamai snake-in-the-grass

for offering her figs when she

couldn't give a damnation

for his ignorance. Everything

was fine until he learned to 

wield a pen while she

continued to till the earth.

Eve provided crops for their

offspring and Adam pushed

back the night of eternity

offering superiority and his

own rendering of ineffable truth

that of himself as Supreme Creator

half of him up there

the other down here.

 

 

Shoah .... Desolation

 

Theirs was the voice of anguish and fear 

echoing spiritual disbelief and confusion

in the agony of yet another rejection

murmuring softly their trust betrayed yet

their proud existence as equals in humanity

before finally turning for compassion

abroad for hope was not yet lost though 

the soul was gravely wounded. Their

obedience to a succession of rules meant

to disenfranchise and strip their humanity 

a gradual exercise in humiliation finally 

attaining the greater purpose in a precision

clockwork of organized cleansing toward 

the goal of national perfection and conquest 

where expunging the impure and inferior 

was the first order of business to restructure 

a world free of Jews. A voice unheard

calling to a disinterested audience oblivious 

with its deliberation of non-involvement

revealing a vile shared pathology. A lifetime

later the genocidal perpetrators profess

profound regret, their global audience

applauds and the sinister venom of hatred

that fuelled that genocide is once again

abroad in the resurgent world community.

 

 

Child of Nature

 

In the favoured legend of human creation

alongside that of the universe itself

as a monumentally divine act of being

god made man in his image and forbade

humanity from the kind of curiosity that

would reveal the arcane knowledge so

adamantly forbidden them, expressing

his rage at womankind for leading mankind

into sin eating of the fruit of knowing all

things. Adam's intensity in seeking the

unknowable; the original sin however, Eve's.

Hark then to the creatrix of all that exists

and lives -- not a legend for a perplexing

all-powerful presence whose own design

and creative genius brought out of nothing

everything. Nature herself the most fecund

of all that exists whose spirit resides in

all she created, values curiosity as a vivid

example of her own, spurring humankind

to ever greater adventures of discovery to

discern her limitless power and influence

bringing illumination to the dark heavens

of her imagination, endowing humanity

with a certain portion of her vigor through

inspiration to uncover the mysteries of existence.

 

 

Mayday! Mayday!

 

How fortunate the world is to have forged

a noble institution wherein sit national

representatives of all nations on Earth in a 

monumental and ongoing learning experience

the goal of which is to achieve among all 

equality of opportunity and mutual recognition

of disparate methodology in reaching the apex 

of a national aspiration. Within its hallowed

fortress walls are dispatched those best suited

to express the language of diplomatic eloquence

in servitude to the administration of a body 

for which servile yet respectful overtures

toward anointed judges elected to sit on diverse

committees screen applicants' and supplicants' 

adherence to rules and regulations of civil 

behaviour in a universal covenant the better

to consider the status of other nations with 

impeccable human rights records hampered 

by the misfortune of historical suspicion and 

hatred yet awaiting judgement by the hierarchy

whose criminal acts against humanity shield 

them from criticism by the sheer weight of 

their numbers. It is a revelation not quite yet

understood universally that the institute where 

nations are united in common defiance against

decency and common sense that those who 

fall outside the default represent the outliers 

whose conduct though exemplary is despised 

in a world where those assigned to the highest 

echelons of united nations control reward those

whose blights are so reflective of their own.