Paradise or Apocalypse?

They said he was insane

That he was evil and wrong
His idealism led him astray
And his audience was gone
But what if he was right
Except at the edges
Or maybe someone
Or everyone
Needed him to be quiet
So we can bomb the spit
Out of everyone
Or anyone
So you can react in silence
Leaving your morals behind
So long as you win the game
And there might be a bomb
Leaving black rain
But let's keep it down
Hush, shhh, let's be happy
Ignore the shame
Just kill everyone
Don't worry again
Bombs are the answer
Truth is the cancer

“It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse."  Ezra Pound

Duplicitous

Our minds carry more than a single thought
More than a single personality or being
Our life's wages have finally wrought
The completed soul, within a dream
More than joy, more than ire
We are more than a single idea
More than a hope, more than a fear
It is the flesh that limits
The reach our spirit desires

Still

Here's my list of utensils to remain alive
My gun, a skull, my book, and my map
I know that danger requires perceiving
As I fall into existence and must survive
I am preparing for the fight, being slapped
As my reality flees in the face of grieving

For Better, For Worse

Try to imagine a different world
One where the Nazis won
Using missiles and atomic weapons
Or a world where slavery never ended
And the Confederacy proved vital
Able to somehow win a war
That they should have lost
Ask yourself this question
What would it have mattered
If certain events never happened
If people never opposed aggression
Or if wars of empire never occurred
Would the facts of the present day shatter
Or does fate somehow have its way?
Does destiny exist
Would all we know that is good
Never enter existence
If the enemies of hope
Were never faced with resistance?
What if?

Damn Twinkies

In the perhaps distant future
At an archaeological dig
A worker will find a Twinkie
Pristine, found in wrapper
Many years beyond the expiration date
The analysis will prove
Twinkies were unhealthy in the past
Bad for diabetes and for the heart
It remains edible, if unpleasant in taste
The workers laugh as they approach
There they will bite into it, upon a lark
Much later
The sugar rush will cause an explosion
Making the workers heads explode
But for a moment
They liked it very much
So delicious
So dangerous

The Final Toll

How will you be remembered
As dying spark in a clay flesh pot
Or a vibrant soul, always seeking
Living in an eternal December
Forced to fit through a conformist slot
While never wanting or needing
Dying in the throes of existence
Or swimming
In the flow of the eternity's river

To be fulfilled

Some people don't care if they leave a legacy
And others think it isn't up to them but to god
While some burn inside waiting to be fulfilled
Acting for others where the hubris runs wild
But some will find a path achieving pregnancy
Wanting to be a perfect parent even if flawed
They posses a desire to fulfill the need within
Pouring out love and energy to raise a child
It is a noble choice, a rarity in this modernity

Scared Crows

The crops waiting for the harvest
The hand of the grower, the farmer
September turned October gone
The earth designed by an artist
The winds are sharp
The days no longer warm
But this is not a human conquest
The skies are empty
The hunger hangs in the air
There is no prize, nor contest
The survival of the wild in question
As all the crows are frightened
Nothing but the dry clouds
And waiting crops
For a people who passed from view

Believe it or Not

History is not a clay we can play with
Create with, or form anything from

We might prefer fables that give us comfort

No matter how well some beat that drum

Many interesting things never existed
However interesting

If only in the minds of the imagination

A well expressed creative voice
So does that make it a lie? Maybe
Does it make it any kind of myth?
Perhaps

Be honest with yourself
Things might entertain
They might be untrue
Be careful with important things
Be honest so that you might know
There are things you must understand

Don't allow yourself to live in a fantasy
Those that you or others create
But if you let your mind be free
Let yourself fly across the sky
Imagination is good
Facts are great
But without one
The other feels like a stone
Weighting down your heart
Some things may never be explained

So hope greatly
Be prepared

There is nothing else you can do

  It is not wrong to wonder
Nor is it wrong to use your brain

It might even allow us to survive disaster
Caused by our own hands
Or caused by things
You've never understood
Nor would you have imagined

To Wear a Mask

We often choose our mask
For the present masquerade
But we do so to hide our pain
To avoid knowing our shame
To exist becomes a grave task
As we are revealed by questions
That the world longs to ask
Will we be able to hide
Will we be able to save our name
From the truth that longs to escape
Through my mouth
Through my sorrow
I cannot hide
Long enough

How We Fail

America lost the Vietnam War
Yet, wasn't truly a military defeat
We lost by throwing lives away
Of our youth, of the Vietnamese
50 years later we bear the scars
But we measured victory
By counting bodies
There is no honor this murder
No grace in slaughter
We treated our warriors like meat
Offered up to slaughter and hate
Followed up with shameful retreat
Few realized what was happening
Few then understood the chances bleak
With leaders unaware of consequences
Of wasting the finest vintage of youth
Politicians worry about the balancing
Of looking powerful but being weak
No one foresaw the loss of innocence
All politics died in the light of truth
How can democracy survive
In the crucible of hubris and fire
We fought for ideals not shared
By the Vietnamese North or South

By our hand we gave power to tyrants

And then empowered the political liars

Though we acted as though we cared

All we ever did was create doubt

“Anyone who does not acknowledge the darkness in his nature will succumb to it...the lamp of conviction needs to be shaded by doubt, or it burns with a blinding light.”  Phillip Caputo

Damnation, Castration

Enter life cessation
Voluntary castration
Choose your damnation
And live with the results
My life can be a dark insult
Demanding I become an adult
But I prefer to walk away
Without comment

The Night

If I am honest, and I hope to be
I'm not a fan of the idea that
We can do anything
As long we just try
Or by praying enough
We can move God to act
Trying is good, praying is as well
But neither replace reality
Again, if you want the truth
There is a reason we fail
Sometimes our task is too great
Or our path is too difficult
All of these travails
Are no different for others
We all struggle
We all desire less wrath
And to find hope
And victory
You need hope in victory or defeat
Struggle bears a fruit
That is greater
Than the cost of failing
The seeds of greatness
Do not come from winning
They are born from learning
After the greatest loss
They are born from hope
Born from despair
They are born from the fire
That burned the world
We have to accept one thing
We will not win every fight
For us to appreciate the day
We need to experience the darkness
Of the night

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”  Plato 

Sleeping Behind the Veil

Pristine and cultured
Her figure cloaked
Precise as sculpture
Her eyes closed
She'd seen a world
Being dismembered
And sleeps to recover
As the world burned
By violent uprising
She dreamt a better day
And her majestic grace
Made its way
To the reality of others
She dreamed
And slipped behind the cover
Of a veil made of silk
Her mind created hope
A world made serene
Her throne diminished
Begging the people to now
Bear her crown
And become sovereign
Without a need for queen

The Master, and Emperor

Alone among the masters of war and leadership

Was Napoleon Bonaparte of the French Empire

More than understood the flow and tactics of war

He dreamed in strategy, creatively wove battles

Some nations only respond to armies and warships

His will and accomplished talents set Europe afire

The invasion of the Russian Empire settled no scores

Still, his army hadn't crossed the English Channel

He saw his invasion and grand strategy, as genius

  Due to trials his troops suffered, they trusted him

Napoleon and army arrived to find the city of Moscow

Her defenders set it afire, denied it to the French Eagle

He won most battles but still lost, a revealed hubris

For once he couldn't a guarantee victory by his skills

And while he was shaken, his way was still proud

For in his mind he'd built an empire without equal

He'd been victim of believing of his own greatness
While skills and talents in war are important

But even Napoleon recognized the truth

That our future will be built and bloom 

By cultivating thought, art, and architecture

With war we shall only arrive
In our deep oblivion and doom

“There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the 
mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind”   Napoleon Bonaparte

The Couple

He played violin
As she gazed into the sky
They were interacting
As the sun was rising
She imagined they could fly
Two engaged in dream
A mutual attraction
Desiring one another
Feeding off the energy
Watching a moment in the sky
And falling for one another
The love was not a mystery
Together they'd weave a legacy
One of compassion
Loving and living
Dreaming and being
Creating their own life
Making their story one of care
One of forever love
As husband and wife

When I am Done

It is a new home
Not a prison
Taken to the island
Where Death brings his children
They have no fear
They are in awe
This stone artifice amazes
And captures their vision
As the flesh reality diminishes 
No one from living world visits
Upon the dusk horizon
There is an island hidden
No one knows the path
Where to flee
There is no escape
But here it is silent
It is comfortable
And there is no wrath

Emptied Cities and Lives

With every modern war of mankind, the victims are forced to flee

An efficient, technological culture is performing mutual homicide

Steel bombs know no distinction, between the innocent, or the guilty

Biological terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, lead us to collide

Indiscriminate attacks empty cities that once thrived with activity

The human hive collapsed when missiles attacked and they replied

Leaving barren dead landscapes, emptied homes, and radioactivity

We fancy our world as modern, our civilization as great

But we have failed and threaten to lose everything

Once the last walls of hope fall and crumble

“We can’t go on much longer morally. We can’t go on much longer scientifically. The 

technology that was supposed to save us is ready to destroy us. New weapons are being 

made all the time, including chemical and biological weapons."  Billy Graham

Still They Gather

A gathering in the vale
Ghosts of worshippers
Who met there
In their living days
Their voices still can be heard
Even the trees bow
As the eternal desires vibrate
And the ghosts recite their vows

Revolving door

You said that you had a secret
And you'd saved it just for me
Don't you see
That that is a game of pretend
I didn't want a thing
No secret love, no secret hope
You were my greatest regret and now
I didn't plan to give you a ring
You said you wanted freedom
And nothing I might bring
To the table or altar
Could change your thoughts
You worked me up
You worked me down
You wanted more
I was haunted
By the door as you used me
Revolving in and out
And all around
I needed stability
Not this crazy life
Saying yes, saying no
Or even saying I don't know

 

The truth is...

You said that you wished I'd love you
But it is worth saying
You're romantically involved with someone else
And it is true that they probably love you
The truth is that you want a safety net
Sprawled wide below
So you might jump or by accident fall
Whichever way you might go
I don't find it appealing that you love me
Or would want to do so
If I were too, too
Nor that you'd leave one relationship
To enter one with myself
I don't find in me the desire to cheat
I know that I am loved
But even if I did not
I'd simply leave before I betray
Because she is someone I love
Rather than make plans in the darkness
That I might forever be with a partner
No matter how unethical I am
Or as immoral as it might seem
I don't leave one, to have another
No matter how easy that might be
In your eyes

 

When Death Visits

Mothers bring life
Carry it in their womb
But until recent years
In modernity
Pregnancy could be a tomb
And who knows if the this child
Will now become the last
How many children were never born
Because the mothers were stopped
From giving life ever again
Dying in the process
No one to nurture us
Nothing remaining to lead us
The sorrow of loss
Driving the society to utter collapse

Cold White Flesh

If humans were without material possessions
How many would find a way to enjoy life
Or would our desire to have things to own
Make us miserable, leave us empty
Or would our emptiness then drive us
To somehow find a way
To know the blessings
To know the beauty
Of living without extras
To exist without needless things?

Drunk and Sober Thoughts

On occasion a drunk mind is better, by far
Than the sober brain of a man with only
The thoughts of power and knowledge
Dreaming of grandeur and prowess
That he'll never possess
A drunk man tells a truth as he knows it
Even if he laughs at the absurdity
He knows the truth and it pours out
Meanwhile
For those who overcame doubt
Those scientist and generals
Politicians and professors
They can't make a decision
That is both righteous
And made with the soft heart
That a happy drunk can't help but have

Break it again, damn you! Just try

He cried, remembering and said
Before I knew what hit my heart
You said you "fucking loved me"
And we'd barely met
But I was barely alive
I was nearly dead
Living a different life
Than anything like you lived
Here you were
Daring me to live
I had a heart full of scars
I was blinded by the haze
Of the hate of one
Who decided I was unworthy
I had run out of everything
All I had to give
Life was hard, but you gave
And I didn't know to take
You wanted to be together
I didn't understand
The kind of love
You wanted to make
What is worth doing
How can I love
I'm just a man
Burned inside and covered totally
With tons of sad memories
Time I spent in life trying
So look me in the eye
Tell me you mean what you said
Because until this moment
I thought I was dead
And I don't know why
We should be together
Whatever you've said
I never say never
But forever doesn't exist
An idea I resist or so I try
When I see you
Your beautiful eyes
Full of life
Full of willing to try
I wonder
Why can't you just kill me
And let me die or let me fly
I'm ready, either way
I'm ready so ready
Ready to fly away

Modern Beast

Just stare there, calmly, slowly, passionately
At the stairs rising into the clouds of the city
The glass and steel monstrosities, absurdities
Who ever breathed a breath, knows the story
First walking on fours, covered in fur, beasts
Then upon twos, and learning, began to read
But somewhere between savage and noble
We lost the narrative, addicted to knowledge
Flush with power found in steam and steel
We can fly, we can travel from our planet
And still we kill one another without seeing
We are still beasts, still alive to our hunger
To kill our ancient being or enter modernity
Shall we rise to our heights, ignore our past
Or shall we abandon our greatest dreams
Return to our primal urge, to kill, at last
Or move forward, freely, to reach the heights
And realize our greatest destiny

When you die

I can't decide
Oh dead man, dead man
You've listened too long
To the messages left behind
Of those who confess
That they lost their mind
When so long ago
They betrayed with suicide
All those still trying
An answer leaves blame
Used to spread shame
Over your decision
When you had to decide
However one dies
Is it all the same?
Nothing matters to you
You don't get to choose
We all enter final decay
Or when I die, I mean
I can't speak for you
Or your ways

A sort of suicide

I heard your voice on the phone
I cried, but
Not why you might think
I realized I was all alone
Forever trapped in the four walls
Of this home
I miss you
But not enough to destroy my life
I love you
But you demand things I can't do
Or won't
You send me letters
Calling me
Sending texts
You want more than my love
You want more than sex
And I can't
Do something like that
Casually
I miss you
But I can't do that
Won't do that
Again
Goodbye, I love you
But not enough
To kill me

 

Modern Disaster

After a certain point of civilization
Humans reached a place of knowing
To go forward would be to abandon
The world that we took for our own
Killing the wild, we killed ourselves
Selling our soul, it is we who sell
Not the devil, no one to be blamed
This we earned, a world was tamed

They Listen at his Feet

When the Last king speaks
His people listen to his voice
But he has been dead
For millennia
Hidden from viewing
Living in the castle
Hiding in a deep reflective sleep
He is ready to return
If only his people ask
But by now few remember
And fewer still long for him to be back

Encore, encore, but there is nothing more

Sands through my fingers, tears caught in my hands
Time erases every victory, magnifies every defeat
Hateful attacks from strangers, each make demands
What is there to do, when the failure is complete
A perfect end found, with the place and time chosen
I have nothing, and truly, I have no want for more
If I had wanted to end this, I'd use the proper door
I wanted it finished, to hear the last words spoken
I want to hear the crowd scream encore, encore

Perfect and Pristine

The beauty, the danger, the world fades away
The earth, the weather, the sun reveals the enormity
Of the last pristine place, on earth's final day

Screaming why!!!!

Lingering in the darkest days
The darkness stays
It lasts and lasts
Never passing
Destroying me
Even in the midst
I know you are gone
Never returning
Alienated from your kiss
For so long, screaming
It has killed my dreams
I can't sleep
Where can I go
Until I know
What I did
To send you away again
I can't think, I can't speak
Until I find out
What caused your doubt?
What made you leave?
Why can't you believe in me?

 

The Tomb Is Empty

Human existence came with a cost
A god visited and his flesh broken
He was there by his agreement
He was never thought lost
He was a message to the chosen
But they subjected him to a beating
And breaking of his body
For the pleasure
Of Rome

Treachery Earned

I'm still looking for answers to the questions
But too many lies have lead to confusion
What if you asked if life had no meaning
I wonder would we linger in a dying world
Echoes of lies we've told lead to confession
We lived this existence in a land of illusions
We demand escapism, long to be dreaming
Existence and reality seems treachery
If so, it is a treachery we've earned

Wild Carnage

In the fields watered by the blood of Europeans
American soldiers boldly step forward to fight
The Belleau Wood a haunted place forever now
Now some live in ghost form fighting demons
Entangled, battling desperate Germans at night
While others passed from view as holy shadows

AVG China

Honorable men and rogues
Mercenaries and volunteers
Gathered to defend the village
For the raiders approached
To steal, kill and rape
Diving from on high
With a tiger shark's maw
Upon the front cowl
They defended those who could not
As they made the raider pay
For the advances made
Against the innocents
China would live
China would live

Baptized in Blood

We disregard the sanctity of life

As the fields are baptized in blood

The grounds have become holy

Not because of sacred acts

But because of the sacrifice

The field, now empty, is quiet

For the violence became a flood

Fighting cowardly or boldly
Soldiers act

Taking a life is a painful task

As sorrows becomes rife

This human nature is violent

When peacemakers are silent

We've long ignored the truth

Brother Cain killed brother Abel

His actions forever after a stain

And sadly often reproduced

The Fighting Girlfriend

Some who have lost all they possess
Surrender, give in, give up forever
Her choice was to fight
To buy a tank
And make the enemy pay
If she can't go on with her lover
The future didn't include being together
Forever here after
She'd take the enemy
Slaughter them in action
And make a future
For her people
By a sacrifice
Of her life
A Hero of the Soviet Union
Slayer of the Nazi killers
She was a heroine
And worthy of being remembered

A true story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya

Making no sense of the Matrix

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by 
billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children 
being taught mathematical concepts..." William Gibson

Tightening the focus upon the matrix
Revealing the data streams of the day
How do we make sense of the statistics
We're called by number and not by name
Do these facts give some form to the net
Giving meaning to life, depth to thought
Or do we attempt to exist without regret
A system desperation born, fully wrought