Red Star, Black Cross

Enemies at birth
Bolshevism
Fascism
A titanic struggle
To be witnessed with awe
Steel versus steel
Titan versus titan
Leviathans in battle
Only one could win

A Patriot lays there

The Nazi machine of war
Drove steadily to the fields
Where they could strangle their enemies
Millions died
Unburied corpses turning black
Some surrendered, some collaborated
But some resisted, Partisans attacked
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya burned a stable
Where the Nazis kept their cavalry's horses
She was caught, she was hung
But before they killed her she said
"You'll hang me now, but I am not alone.
There are two hundred million of us.
You can't hang us all."
She died
Left hanging in the winter air
Frozen
And some of the soldiers cut her body down
Cut off one of her breasts
And otherwise mutilated her corpse
But she still lived
For her words stirred her people
And they refused to go
To their deaths quietly

I dream, but it will never be

There are dreams to have
That bring you comfort
That bring the long dead
Back to life
Some dream of riches
Gold, silks and perfumes
Caviar, fur coats and servants
Luxury and pleasure
Such treasures
Are not for me
I dream of her
But it will never be
For the words from my lips
Cannot be heard
She dances in the past
To music I cannot hear
Seductive and longing
She is perfect
But beyond my grasp
So I dream of her
But
Dreams are capricious
With whims of their own
And in the absence of her
I am left alone

There are beasts in the night

Whether covered in fog
Or the cloak of darkness
The night is crowded
With predatory beasts
Those that hunt
Are not in nature
Nor wild
But rather
They hunt society's least
Perhaps innocent
Perhaps unlucky
But vulnerable
The children
The elderly
The women who sell their body
The beast within men
Causes them to prey
And the monsters
Of the night
Are the human stain

shrouds cover the white

soft and gentle
lost without a care
the mist has fallen over the field
where the long since dead sleep
covered in snow, from winter
the scene looks more like a dream
than a nightmare

I Rise

Baptized in unholy waters
Bathed in the sins of the past
None looking down upon me
Show me any grace
Leaving me to drown
But I rise
Swimming in the cesspool
My lungs are flooded
I lift my hand for help
I am pushed down instead
I am left for dead
But I rise
Just one thing that matters
And I still believe
At the bottom of the sea
Lungs filled with sewage
And salt water
I cannot breathe
But I rise
Because I believe
And will not be denied

Loss

(Photo credit Kessiye at http://flickr.com/photos/30823810@N00/170894085 )

Lost generations
Tortured souls
Bones piled high
Slaughtered like beasts
But they were human
Lands and dignity stolen
By greedy hands
By dirty hands
That killed without remorse
Hiding their deeds without shame
Genocide
Hate filled core
Victims became the blame
And responsibility for the crimes
Were ignored
And it continues
And will continue
Until mankind is restored
Either by fire
Or renewal
Inside

Remembering the lost
Native Americans
Armenians
Jews
Rwandans
Cambodians
Bosnians
Ukrainians

In death, In life

Some things are temporal
Others transcend
Beauty exists eternal
Flesh meets end
Death consumes Life
The serpent swallows the tail
And the circle is complete
Joy and strife
Victory and defeat
To triumph and to fail
All is a moment
In the eye of the eternal's gaze
For the truth is greater
The reality goes far beyond
All we perceive
Whether we trust or distrust
Whether we believe it
Or think it will deceive us
Reality exists
Beauty is eternal
And the cycle is perfect
Life is glorious
Death is triumphant
And birth renews us
And death takes us
Back to the cycle
That exists

Don't be broken, Take my hand

Staring at the scene
Catastrophe
He left in such a mess
Nobody wins
Your heart was broken by him
Your soul is in distress
He didn't love you
Like you loved him
And now he has taken away
What you gave, again
So take my hand
Let me help
I can't take away the pain
But I can tell you something
If it is up to me
You'll never feel it again
I can't watch it any more
While your soul is crushed
Your heart is shattered
Take my hand
I will remain
I love you to the core
As a friend
As a man
As a lover
Whatever you wish
I am here
And I will stand
Next to you
Forever

Crush me, make it hurt

Slap me
Steal me
You are lovely
Soft and white
Lovely curves
Captured in leather
Chained in eros
To my heart
Enslave me
Crush me
Take control
Make it hurt
Eros dark
Tattoo your name
Across my soul

No Peace

There will be no peace
The rewards of war guarantee
The future will be scarred
With hunger, fear and bleeding
Our own children will inherit
A dying planet
Killed by humanity
By our lust and greed

I'm Hungry

The buffet is a lesson for the American people
Lavish in the bounty of the earth
All we can eat
While others are cursed.

A Fire - inside me

I am alone outside
Walking upon the beach
Alone, since you've gone
And I am thinking
About you
My love for you will never die
It is unable to be quenched
Nothing quells its reach
A forest fire of desire
Within my heart inside
I long for you
Want to be with no one but you
And will wait forever
For you to decide
For no one moves me
Like you move me
I was born to be with you
Together
When I look into the sky
I see you there
You never leave
You remain here by my side
Forever
Near
In my heart

Beauty

I am a being
Organic and bound
By the cage of self
I confess that I am unworthy
That I am unable to be more
Than flesh and lust
Meat and dust
I make unholy the most sacred ground
Simply by standing
But when I see her from a distance
I do not know her name
Her movements are a dance
Wild and unadorned
Free and unashamed
Beauty exists in every form
But in her it is abundant
In her it exalts
She is unmoved by wealth
Her spirit is untamed
She exists to love
Naive to obsessions
Naive to possession
She exists in perfection
And all that is a beautiful
Bows before her
She is queen
And high above the rest

Paradise was lost

Paradise was a place lost to the world
With exquisite beauty and peaceful scenes
With glorious mountains and streams
Poseidon established it
And built the city of concentric circles
To make it great
A place of legends, it was
Atlantis
A place of dreams



But it was not just for the gods to linger in
Humans shared this place
For the gods longed for company
Their generous gifts were uncounted
The beauty came directly from grace
There were few rules but those were iron clad
No slaves were held, no wars fought
But not long since their arrival
The humans became bored
For perfection and morals
Did not excite them



And soon they overthrew the gods
Cast off the rules
Gathered gold and went to war
For they meant to be gods themselves
And other humans, in a lesser state
Were but fools
Atlantean galleys and triremes cut through the seas
Their soldiers took slaves
Made them cook, clean, and serve
Unlike their own freedom
The rest of humans were not meant to be free



But as high as they placed themselves
Atlantis would soon come down
Eventually the angry gods returned
And cast down those who had rebelled
Covered the land with waves
And all of the glory was drowned
Only to be seen in memory
Legends and history
Today only the ravens watch
Where this land used to be

Asylum for the Madness

Sent away for my difference
Alone in this crowd of fools
Left to soak in the misery
Because I refused their decadence
So many imbeciles to watch
He eats his own feces
She mumbles and laughs at ghosts
None watch the clock
Ticking away our days
We are studied by a doctor
Writing his grand thesis
He is our great host
Watching us grow worse
Watching our madness grow
Without treatment
We are without reason
Our minds are out of time
Ruled by the demons inside
The voices come out
The misery seeps
Time to take my nap
Time to sleep forever
My dreams seem normal to me
But they would
Untouched as they are
By insanity's reach

Thunder

I still feel his thunder
I still cringe for the following strike of the bolt
I heard the anger in his voice
And made quick inventory and wonder
If I made a mistake
Or just randomly struck a nerve
But the mercurial nature
Of unrequited anger
Or rage
Is hard to fathom
Especially as a child wondering
What he might deserve

Our Greek World

The tides of the sea
Brought Persians to Marathon
Where the shores
Were defended by Athenians
Outnumbered in this war
10 to 1
But numbers and odds
Though boding ill
Did not matter
Athenians fought upon that beach
For one thing
The future of the Greek nations
And the cost of such
Is beyond calculation
Let the future commend the past
For its survival

The Titans, Children of Gaia and Uranus

They were hated by their father
The titans were born
To mother earth Gaia
Immediately to be scorned by Uranus
He set himself to fix upon his children
Anger and disgust
Enmity and rage
Cursed them with indifference
And Uranus was brought low
By Chronos
Aided by Gaia
And castrated him
Throwing his seed to the oceans
Creating a cycle
For Uranus was set down by Chronos
And Chronos set down by his child
Zeus
And Zeus will be set down
By mankind
Never tamed
Still wild

The Way

It isn't about the rules although they exist
It isn't about how strong you are
Or how many men you've defeated
You are responsible for yourself
In the final tally of worth
And the Way of how you follow
The Way of how you resist the world
Are all the proof
The path is in fact narrow
But there are many paths
We bring through diversity
A myriad of ways
Finding that one you create
Is worthy
No matter who much others deny it
Your life, your way is how you define it

It could be anything

Why assume it could be anything Unless there is reason and evidence Coincidences happen Chance and random events Are far more likely the answer They make more sense Than to assume something Could be there And we could hear it But then again then again

Colored and Caged

My views are encased in my experiences
Caged and colored by my limited visions
I can only know by my senses
And by learning from a distance
My mind is not infinite
My imagination is not limitless
I am flawed by the flesh that makes me
But am perfect within by the spirit

Fires

Your friendship warmed my soul
In deepest winter
You knew my heart and mind
To the point of my being whole
Fulfilled by your presence
Your place in my life
Is without peer
And I love you

Closing it tight

Stop having emotions
Stop believing in anything
Be silent in the face of questions
Silence your thoughts
And once you've begun
You are on your way to bliss
Paradise exists
Solely in the ability
To be accepted
Without resisting
By having your own views
Or speaking them

Chiron, A teacher of heroes

Born of a tryst between Chronos and a nymph
Chiron was unlike any other centaur
Noble, wise, kind, and skilled
A resource for human warriors
And an example for his kin
His archery was perfect
His teaching sublime
Time after time he proved
He was different than men
Being more humane
Despite retaining
The form
That marked him as wild
Perhaps cruel or capricious
Moved by whims
He taught the finest of the heroes
Of the golden age
Time and tides went by
None surpassed his ways



When he died and left for the stars
His form was seen
As the archer

I Am

Faith is more than reading
More than living
More than wisdom
More than knowledge
More than belief something exists
It is the grounding of a being
And all actions flow from within
So I believe but more
I trust that there is a point to the fight
My resistance to vice
To sin
Has validity
I have a reason to be

Mystery of Earth

We are told there is an answer for every question
If we think hard enough, if we look deep enough
They say that upon Easter Island the statues
Were made for prestige, to achieve status
While deforesting the island
And thereby killing society's self
But if true
And I don't know that
There are far more questions left
Such as who were they trying to please
What were they hoping to do
Once their status was secured
I don't know enough to say
But I know it was far more than
The scientists will be able to discern

Agartha

Some worship there
Far from the surface
Where legends reveal
Only distant truths



Within the center of the earth
Lays a city built before time
When everything was new
When our ancestors were the first
To know the divine
Who ever saw the glories
Of Eden
Beyond the reach of our mind



And now it sits there
Forgotten
Ignored by those unaware
Until it returns to glory
Mankind sees
The ancient past
Was neither a brutal existence
Nor something that can be understood
From bones, ruins and shells
But rather
By our DNA
By our proclivities
By our instincts
And faith

By Liston Knife he worked

Dear Mary

You were once good looking, and young.
I stole your beauty with my knife.
But you get to live forever, in the memories
Of the people who celebrate my work.
It is a fair exchange, I include you in my legacy.


Yours
Jack

Alone I Burn

When you came to me
My soul came back
But when you left
It was painted black
When you called my name
I healed again
When you stopped calling
I became
Broken by the pain
I love you like no other
Because they don't exist
My soul has just one lover
All I remember
Is the warmth of your kiss
Farewell my love
Please return
Farewell my heart
Alone I burn

Nightmare

The mists of my mind are heavy
With sorrow and fear
Deep in the recesses
The miseries of the dreaming
There rides a horse
A nightmare
Unbridled
Terror
The fear unrelenting
It pursued me
Without pause
To the morning
Of my mourning
For there is no where to run
My sleep is cursed
The waking
No relief
I fear sleep
Where the horse rides
It will chase me down
Taking me from this place
Stealing me
To the realm of death
Where Hades reigns
And wears a hellish crown

Pull It

Pull it or not pull it
That is the question
If you do, it smells forever
If you do not, he explodes
In a nuclear fire
Never never never pull it
The country might implode
Under the failed farts
Of the plutocracy

Distant memories

Near millenia ago it was built
When the elder races were dominant
Young kingdoms of man rose up
And the elder races were defeated
So many of their kind killed
Leaving behind the bones of societies
Where honor and courage were the norm
Where war and hunger were a rarity
And kindness was the bowl filled
The young kingdoms were burgeoning
Led by warriors and scoundrels
The walls of the elder race lands
Fell
They escaped by the boatload
To distant shores beyond
Where they could be alone with their elder race
Then the kingdoms of man feuded
Over the lands left behind
And all of the glory
All of the magnificent grace
Of the elder beings
Fled
And all that remained
Were the bones of the walls
And distant memories

Burnt Ashes

Your beauty moved men
Falling in love with you
Was very simple to do
You forged an identity
Out of the wreckage
And refused to be used
I will never forget looking
In your beautiful eyes
I will never forget thinking
I could be yours
But loving you was suicide
No one was allowed inside
Where you lived
That illusion of courage
That image of grace
You don't let anyone in
Or they might find
You've been burnt
Your insides are ashes
There is nothing left
But the ghosts
Of someone who used to hope
But now has nothing
But her outside beauty
And memories of a past life
Before the fire
That consumed you

One Knight, Riding

(artwork by Jeffrey Catherine Jones)

His shield decked in the symbol
Of the Black Rose
Wearing the colors of the kingdom
Encased in steel
Bearing glorious banners
A knight rides to war
His steed a champion
Sturdy and ready
Having already fought battles together
By the score
The land waiting
Trembling in some ways
For the invasion is not yet begun
The kingdom ill prepared
The king had scorned those
Who warned him
Of the days to come
The knight rides to the horizon line
With his mind set
Of battles to be won
Of comrades needing his sword arm
Of armies needing his voice
And of his home, and kingdom
Needing his bravery in battle
His bones, his flesh and blood
Few could bear the price of honor
But the knight would

Isola dei Morti

Metamorphosis begun
The cocoon broken
The shell lost
They lived now they do not
None who visit ever depart
But they do not seek to return
Their journey is complete
The silent epitaph is mourning
Solitude amongst the passed
The journey's end
The quiet peaceful path
The dead sleep without dream
Forgetting the sorrows of their day
All those who enter escape the wrath
Found in the hellish fires of existence

Eternal Winter

Snow flakes flutter in the swirling wind
The cold snatches my breath from within
But I am colder to begin with
Than Jack Frost can imagine
For I am alone on this winter eve
And will be until eternity
An eternal winter
Inside of me
Since she left, went away
Leaving me to wither
In my frozen season
Of sorrow
The pain of her absence
Worse than I can accept
Worse than frost bite or cold
I shiver, so depressed
Nothing can warm me
Nothing could warn me
That winter
Could last forever

Whence The Fall

If it ends
It is not the end
Despite a world that is dead
An outlook that is silent
And lonely
When the end comes
It is not complete
It is our end only
What we see is not the whole
The truth is greater
The local truth is very small
One cannot see the world
From a hill over there
Nor even from the top of Everest
The world escapes totality's view
As one world dies
Another births anew
Another child's life ends
Another one screams
Another pregnancy lost
Another expectant mother due
One world is glorious
Another forsaken
The cycle goes on
In life, and death
In dreams and waking

"Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful . . . . We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. Since that part which conceptually we know fully turns out to be so beautiful, the real world of which we know so little should also be beautiful. Life may be miserable for seventy years and happy for a million years: the short period of misery may even be necessary for the whole." Kurt Friedrich Gödel

My Love, my love

Je t'adore, mon petit cher
Tu beauté est exquise
You brush my face
And say you love me
I am in ecstasy with your kiss
Your love opens my soul's door
And you come right in
My love, my love
My beautiful love
You've delved my core
With soft, tender kisses
I want more

The Final Act

The play itself wasn't great
It made me cry, and laugh a little
But mostly it was all about time
How it is fleeting
And how catastrophes and miracles
Are rare
The final act is exciting
Because there is finality
No cures for fatal diseases
No amazing rescues
Just stalks of grain being culled
For a final harvest
And everyone running
Without legs
To flee