Apotheosis - Poetry

It is awful to be homeless
Shut-in elderly miss meals
Send me money
How I grieve for all injustice
Watch, I'll weep for baby seals
Send me money

What could be more vile or putrid
Than a bigot's shameless hatred?
The mere thought of it just makes me gush with tears.
Woe the poor endangered langur.

Woe crass ignorance and anger:
They have horrified my soul for many years.

Think of grocers' crooked scales,

Cruel Norwegians hunting whales,

And harmless innocents in jails,

Then send me money.

If politicos who pander

Raise your hackles and your dander
Send me money, send me money, send me money.

I have empathy
I care
About the evils in the world
I have sympathy
To spare
For priest-molested boys and girls

I am passionate
I swear
'Bout orphaned Africans with AIDS
I'm undauntable
I dare
The cause of lesbians and gays.

I've got lots and lots more issues,
Best get out your box of tissues.
Send me money, send me money, send me money.
Send me money, send me money, send me money.

They're Only Playing Survivor – by Jonathan Marin

I.
Production's missing inventory
Memos turn inflammatory
H - R files derogatory
Someone missed a bet.
It's poker in the corner suite
As VeePees swerve to dodge the heat
And set each other up as errant driver.
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor

II.
Balanced on a narrow ledge
Pressed ever closer to the edge
The firm self-dealt itself a hedge
How desperate they get!
Midst waffling, fibs, and caviling
The company's unraveling.
The Chair in vain tries gaveling:
(Who pawned the company jet?)
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor

BREAK 1
All day they dictate memos
That they study in their limos
Each obliged to read what all the others wrote.
Next morning they're discussed
Each honcho dances as he must

Through a gauntlet of distrust
To escape being saddled as the goat.
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor
They're only playing survivor

III.
Investments chances naked calls
Controllers' starts to climb the walls
The Boss grabs Audit by the balls:
It ain't over yet.
Sales grabs Plant around the neck
But Plant says Finance caused the wreck
While Legal tags the Boss as chief conniver.
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor

IV.
The common stock's not worth a dime
They all could end up doing time
Which friend will turn state's evidence at trial?
The new bond issue failed to float
The bankers move to call their note
There's no way left to right the boat
Its time to fashion plausible denial.
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor

BREAK 2
All day they dictate memos
That they study in their limos
Each pondering what all the others think.
All the filings were illicit

Every one of them's complicit

Criminality's explicit

Now its curtains for the first exec to blink.
Don't fret
Don't be upset
They're only playing survivor
They're only playing survivor

Motel Room Molly – Jonathan Marin

I worried when they called you Motel Room Molly;
Ya know that for a time they really had me psyched.
But now we've it goin', baby, I'm not sorry;
I'll bet you've never met a bed you did not like.

We've taken makin' love up to a new dimension;
Where hormones morph right into electricity.
My limbs and joints are way beyond their full extension;
Defying Newton's Laws and relativity.

CHORUS
Don't come any nearer
I really need the mirror
-- To see.
Positions we are taking
My back is really breaking
-- My knee.

II
I think that we've discovered sev'ral brand new angles;
These twists 'n' turns would stump a team of engineers.
I don't see how were ever gonna get untangled;
By God, we've moved geometry to new frontiers.

We oughta package what you know for high school science;
We'll shoot attendance up to ninety-nine percent.
We'll bolster creativity and self-reliance,
Then publish full reports of kids' experiments.

CHORUS
Don't come any nearer
I really need the mirror
-- To see.
Positions we are taking
My back is really breaking
-- My knee.

III.
You coulda let me know that you were double jointed;
I wish I was a gymnast or an acrobat.
No way without a compass to know where I'm pointed;
Those dents up on the ceiling - say, did we do that?

Imagination's revvin' up with each new tactic;
My spirit's in renewal and my mind is free.
The rest of me is gonna need some chiropractic,
And acupuncture-pins and phys'cal therapy.

CHORUS
Don't come any nearer
I really need the mirror
-- To see.
Positions we are taking
My back is really breaking
-- My knee.

She Knows How – by Jonathan Marin

I
She ain't some glitzy kitten-queen
That runs on coke and vaseline
And turns the innocent obscene
. . . But she knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

II
She don't pick you up then let you down
Or make you out to be a clown
Tell her your troubles -- they don't get around
. . . She knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

BREAK 1
She ain't into the nightlife scene
Or vintage wine or haute cuisine
. . . She just makes you feel human
She don't do drugs or drink to excess
Or do dumb things she just has to confess
. . . She knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

III
She don't turn on to fads and trends
Or pick dumb fights or trash your friends
She'll always let you make amends
. . . She knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

IV
She's game if a quarrel's got to start
She'll hold her ground and play her part
'Cause makin' up's her highest art
. . . Yes, she knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

BREAK 2
She senses when you're under stress
Then a gentle word and a soft caress
And magically you're human.
She's never moody and never mean,
Still fresh as the day she turned eighteen
. . . But she knows how - mmm hmm -
To be a woman

On a United Nations Demographics Report – by Jonathan Marin

The UN's discovered a horrid secret

About how our world

Treats little girls.

The secret's a pustule -- oozing and dirty

A hundred million missing women

Most under thirty.

Most of the missing were killed at birth

But some kept alive

For the den and the dive.

Kept alive to build their worth

Then sold to be whores

Into sewers of AIDS

In numbers exceeding a hundred wars.

Sugar and spice

Clothed in sores.

Sugar and spice

Eaten by lice.

Emptiness – Maria Claudia Faverio

The night exhales its nimbus

like a limerick -

it pokes fun at me.

It unfolds into nothingness,

chaos of black and blue,

dump of clouds,

and solitudes that slink

through the virginal spaces

of the skull.

Words have drained

into these crippled images

like change

into a beggar's hat,

helpless,

indifferent.

I am confused.

I don't remember.

I don't know what to say.

My soul is cramped on vacuity

like a supernova,

ignis fatuus

inebriated with silence.

It empties its solitude

into the black vault of the sky

and stares,

perched on the circumvolutions of anguish

like a sick owl.

Its sunken song

is louder than crash of thunder.

It unlocks the universe.

The defeat of desire – by Maria Claudia Faverio

The epic of desire

has faded to a faint

utterance,

a confusion of syllables

unable to join

into trickery of words.

Speaking their parts

as in a trance of thought,

the personae of life

stand on the stage

and stare,

waiting for the grand finale

that doesn't come.

They are tired.

They are not in search

of an author,

but of a prompter.

They don't remember the words,

they don't know why

they are dressed as Pierrots,

make-up blurred

by real tears

and sweats of life

and fiction

and life again.

But the prompter

doesn't speak the word,

and they ramble on

like drunken sailors,

laughing at themselves

in the tacit hysteria

of despair.

And the grand finale doesn't come.

Not even a shabby finale.

The perfection of the circle

is the consummation

of sufferance,

the consumption of hope.

The prompter is dead

as the personae.

Unanswered questions – by Maria Claudia Faverio

Unanswered questions

fester

in amnesic sky

like dead moths,

barren as misers.

What is the use of questioning,

if questions don't beget answers,

but doubt?

Flatness is less disquieting

than height,

towering, towering, towering

without ever reaching

the apocryphal comfort

of the top.

Beyond the illusory horizon

of planeness

are consummation of peace,

encompassing visions,

pillars of innuendoes

shaping themselves

into noesis.

Beyond the horizon

there are no answers

because there are

no questions.

Night delirium – by Maria Claudia Faverio

Clouds, not the ordinary moon,

manifest and lonely

in the dense scopes of dark,

clouds accompany the polymathic delirium

of this night.

Aggravated by the black vacuum

of the sky,

pallid perceptions of distances

crumble to blindness

like a tired eye,

and madness of colours

effaces itself

in the intricate evasions

of imagination.

The untuned reticences

of desire

transfix the ego

like a fake light,

enhancing its delirium,

while palaver of lips

discovers the sacred spaces

of silence.

Cautiously,

like old tune or voice,

the black load of fear

becomes tangible

in the capricious colours

of morning,

in the Phoenician sky

spreading over a reality

uncertain as faith.

There is a sense of panic

in the renewal of life.

The outrage of the years

is a swan song,

a remote surprise.

The Mermaid’s Song – by John Schiano

Sitting in my weathered chair,

sheltered in the warming sun

on my gray, half-shaded porch,

I look into the tideland.

The sea has quieted today,

lifting meekly, sequined by sunlight.

At land’s end seabirds quarrel over coveted vanities.

The wind, keening in the whiskered dunes,

is salted with their cries.

It is, for me, the mermaid’s song

that haunts me almost everywhere,

though I don’t travel anymore.

I live here now, beside this great uncaring

whose boundary is the grasping waves.

The grass is gilded with October

and sea winds have brought a chill

to my shadowed sleeping porch.

My ancient chair creaks softly

as I pull my sweater closer,

though the sun still brings some warmth.

At times, with care, I walk the shore,

aware of the ocean’s mindless treachery.

When I least expect it

the rising sea might touch me with its numbing fingers

becoming wretched company.

The shade has reached my chair again.

I will move my old gray friend

back into the sunlight

and its warmth.

The Wall – by John Schiano

On a recent journey

through a fierce and wolfish wood,

I came upon a stonework wall

that stood high as my heart.

Crossing brutish nature

and its fearful violence,

the wall reached out to either side

to set the wood apart.

Some unknown mason’s hand

had improvised this keep,

had used an ancient strategy,

to interjoin so carefully,

these motley, jagged stones

the ages to withstand.

Had some savage elemental

provoked such sacrifice?

Or had a form more spectral

inspired this device?

Perhaps a simpler answer stood:

a wall made to deny the wood.

"Three Variations on The First Day of My Life" – by John Schiano

The haggard world spins uncontrolled,

First light defines a truth grown old.

Day brings darkness, dusk a veil

Of dreams that leave one weak and pale.

My heart asks, "Why go on this way?"

Life answers with spontaneous day.

The debut was much less than auspicious,

If you see where I’m coming from.

First warm, then cold and naked in the

Daylight for all to see.

Of course I cried.

My humiliation was an undivine revelation:

Life is the road from warm to cold, and

all we have is the occasional comforter.

III

The night, from sunlight, is dying.

First greens of springtime are vying.

Days of longing rise ahead,

Of summer kisses coveted.

My love awaits me in our bed.

Life is self-justifying.

A Bright New Day – by Paul Nachbar
dedicated to M.B. (always)

I would talk and talk and talk at length
All subjects of dismay
I would rant about these miseries
And somehow hope to sway
Your average thinking feeling self
To thoughts of death, despair, disease;

I would probe the heart of darkness
To nadir of despair
I would reach into your trembling guts
And make you clutch your hair
Turn your face towards some mirror held
And show you no one there;

I would bash the bright naive cliche
To shudder in it's room
I would turn your lipsticked silly smile
To rotten cave of gloom
Behind the rows of product stuff
I indicate your tomb;

But I cannot produce such stuff
The sun it is too bright
It shines like gold through window panes
This morning WAS the night
And love warms up my cold, cold heart
Beyond all chill and fright.

Alone in Gas Light Square – by Lee Price

The trumpet
dripped blue tears,
past the pool table
and out into the street,
down the black and wrinkled cheek
of a New Orleans night.

A lonely sorrow,
like beer spilt on cracked pavement
it trickled
and wound and found its way.

Strange how one can touch another.
How wet things seep so deep,
How blue can soak your soul.

It rained that night in Gas Light Square,
And feeling wet and lonely
I lit another smoke
and stepped inside.

Still-Point – by Thom Hadley

Imagine Light
So white, so intensely bright
When you look away
You see spots
Like stars exploding

This light’s not only in Space-Time’s cosmic fabric;
It is temporarily encapsulated
In this four dimensional Body
Whose fingers nimbly weave
Or are hopelessly entangled
Whose minds eye can clearly see
Or is cocooned in dreams, deception
This mind that can conceive of Eden
Then plot its very annihilation

This corporeal Light caught in your
Parents’ eyes and put in a jar of clay
Shall also be broken some day
When that light escapes to shine again
In Night’s sky or dance upon a sparkling bay
To glance upon the apple’s red or glow a cherry blossom
Shall we honour that one day
It shone from your eyes to another
That it shone from sister to brother
That it was Life, a wife, a father?
Shall we see that it still does shin
In a child’s laughter, or a storm of temper?

Perhaps ‘tis better yet if we recall
As we metamorphosize from one form to another
That, yes, our light did shine
Our love was received by at least
One another.

Homecoming – by Thom Hadley

My Home is wherever
You are
Your Heart is my refuge
Your eyes my solace, my inspiration

When we travel far
Roaming to explore
I am wholly Present
By compliment of your spirit’s
Field of Energy

As mine empowers Yours…
Now, I understand better
That this has always been so
Between us/within Us
As though, indeed,
‘twas meant to Be:
We are Blessed
We are Home

Capsule Political Autobiography of "A Jew" – by Paul Nachbar

Boredom and the Will to Power
Are Things no one denies
Yet Nothing Human can refuse
These beautiful green Eyes.

Sonnet ( 2 minutes 15 seconds) – by Paul Nachbar

My poor guitar- a string has snapped
And now have five instead of six;
I cannot play a decent tune
Without some fancy set of tricks.
My poor guitar- it is deformed
By virtue of this missing part
I play it now this crippled thing
And seek to make a greater art;
I run my fingers on its strings
And think of sad and drastic stuff
Of souls which fell into despair
Angelic minds with shattered wings:
I aim my malformed formed art
An arrow through the human heart.

In A Profoundly Tainted World – by Paul Nachbar

It is alas a world profoundly tainted
Let us blame it on the Catholics
Let us blame it on the Protestants
Let us blame it on the Muslims
Let us blame it on the Hindus
Let us blame it on atheists
Let us blame it on Jews.

It is alas a profoundly tainted world
Let us blame it on the Americans
Let us blame it on the Europeans
Let us blame it on the Asians
Let us blame it on the South Americans
Let us blame it on the Africans.
Let us too blame for what it's worth
Australians and Antarticans.

It is for long a foul and tainted world
Let us blame it on the businessmen
Let us blame it on the laborers
Let us blame it on the immigrants
Let us blame it on inheritors
Let us blame it on the indigent.

It is you know a dark and tainted world
Let us blame it on the democrats
Let us blame it on the monarchists
Let us blame it on republicans
Let us blame it on the communists
Let us blame it on the socialists
Let us blame it on the anarchists
Let us blame it on the nihilists.

It is so long a greatly tainted world
Alas, shall we, so innocent
Go mad and blame it on ourselves?
Alas, shall we, so competent
Go mad and blame it on ourselves?

Us and Them – by Paul Nachbar

Are you really one of us?
Or are you really one of them?
If one of us, then you are good
There is no need to make a fuss
If one of them then let us test
If you are good for us or not
We'll put you through some misery
If you're like us that's good if not
Your whole existence is forgot.

Are you really one of us?
It seems you favor different rules
Perhaps you are just one of them:
We'll check your background and your schools.
If you're like us you must conform
To some unstated social norm
Well, not that we this norm obey
But who is left to cry dismay?
The rules are meant for folks like us.

Are you really one of us?
Or maybe just a charming fraud?
We've known folks who evade the rules
Then cry out to their different Lord.
Well, we're all good- now must discuss
The merits of your private case
Be careful with your every word
And even if you lose your face
It's best to muffle your own cries:
Who cares if all of this is lies?

Are you really one of us?
Or are you really one of them?
We all believe in what we see
We all believe in what we know
Though if we like your charming ways
We'll say in private 'that's not so'
We'll say in private 'oh boohoo'
'We're just as lost as poor old you.'
But what is one to really do?
Don't rock the boat and you'll be fine:
What's yours is yours, what's mine is mine.

Tender Foxes – by Paul Nachbar

note: a Skinner box was or is a tool of American behavioristic psychology, a way of adapting so called "behaviors" via stimulus and response. Am of course applying this in a larger sense, though might change it as a perhaps too obscure reference.

In and out the Skinner Boxes
Leap the sly but tender foxes
From one nation to another
Will this boring world recover?
Societal and business status
Bow before their fine afflatus;
Daring in their quick decision
Unbelief , perhaps religion;
Leaping through the hoops of gender-
Return all nonsense to its sender;
In and out each box of theory
Running quick and never dreary:
In and out the Skinner Boxes
Leap the sly and lovely foxes.

The Enemy – by Paul Nachbar

Let us reduce our enemy
See him not as a creature of two arms, two legs,
A head and facial features, organs, blood, sweat, tears
But as a monster unlike ourselves
Who sinks below our commonality or rises above it
And endangers us by cruel, unfair superiority.

Let us reduce our enemy
See him not as a being with a family, friends, fantasies
And fallabilities
Let us see him through a microscope, upon a slide
Let us see him through the viewers of our rifles
As something not quite human
Something which has no justification
Who deserves no shelter.

Let us reduce our enemy
And emphasize our own warm, good and just humanity
Which of course we cannot quite believe in
Without the 'enemy' who is not part of us.
Let us imagine some happy future for us
Brothers and sisters warring all
Possible only with the elimination of this enemy:
Let us raise a toast to our own happy, healthy lie..

Let us reduce our enemy
As we imagine he would reduce us
Let us attribute to each human description of him
The malignant influence which he secretly obtained
Let us not imagine him in his working day, his loving day
But as the Satan, the conspirer
Against our own natural goodness.

Let us reduce our enemy
Let us not defend him when he is ill or fallen
Let us turn our backs upon him in gentlemanly politeness
Let us teach the ladies to still their human sentiments:
He is not of us, he is alien, he is a threat.
So easy to do, is it not? Oh so easy?
And who could not say here
That this is not the way of the world?

Let us reduce our enemy
And then alas only the wise do know
That we will find another enemy
That we need to find such an enemy
That we will be "creative" with the facts
That we will be "creative" with the silences.
And then alas only the wise will know
How much of this is simply repetition.
Alas, they know, we have met the enemy...
Time and time again .. and that he is us...
And has always been.

Shadow Lives – by Paul Nachbar

Don't rock the boat
You must conform
Must ever heed
The social norm;

Don't cause distress
In folks who judge
Clean up your mess
Life is a drudge.

Don't speak your mind
You must obey
Just still your tongue
Life is that way.

Best to be wise
Fools do jump in
Caution is normal
Rashness is sin.

Best to believe
Best to be good
Clean up your act
Clean up the hood.

Best to obey
Best to play safe
Doom is the fate
Of the angry naif.

Best to think small
Best to blend in
Difference is always
The start of a sin.

Best to be meek
Best to be good
Best not to seek
In the outside world.

Best to be tame
Best not be wild
Best not to speak
Unlike a child.

Algorithm – by Paul Nachbar

Contained herein you'll find
My life, my loves, my works
My war, my peace, my arguments
With all that is termed common sense
And finally my dream, my sleep.

Production Line – by Paul Nachbar

A pohem udderly davoid of what we might reefer to as Shyle and Forum, but does this matter in the perticulars of such a case? In any event, the idealism of the peace, undowdedly offensive in some other context, here does not dispulease, despite the doggerel" - J. Richard Ferretsnoop, Literary Critic-at-Large

You did not want
You could not think
You did not know
You did not choose
You could not feel
You can't refuse.

All just the production line
All just the production line
Stay in step and you'll be fine
All just the production line.

They claim the world
You will not change
They all adhere
Don't you feel strange?
From factory to office clerk
They keep you busy with this work.
From manager to CEO
There is no other place to go.

You could not dream
You could not grasp
You could not be
You merely gasp
I have no time
No time for this
I have no time
No time for that.
You sought control
You could not have
Oh brother
You have dug your grave.

Production line, production
Is it all just production line?
You do your part
You pay your dues
Goods and services
You can't refuse
Just do your part
You can't refuse.

Oh what to do?
Did you go mad?
Or marry mom
Or murder dad?
Or marry dad
Or murder mom?
Just keep in line
Behind the Bomb.

Production line, production line
Be kind to me for I am blind
Production line, production line
You go so fast I lose my mind
Production line, production line
I haven't haven't any time.

I work; you work;
He works; she works;
We work; they work;
It's all just the production line.
Just stay in step and you'll be fine
So fine, so fine, production line.

All The World's A Cage – by Paul Nachbar

All the world's a cage
Though it has many levels
The ones above are seldom fine
The ones below oft devils;

All the world's a cage
We wait in vain for angels
Alas we cling to 'little things'
Amid the many strangers;

All the world's a cage
We're born, then live , then leave it
And you might dream you found The Good
Though no one will believe it;

All the world's a cage
And most are guards or felons
The judge most times to justice blind
Enmeshed with worldly dealings;

All the world's a cage
So don't complain of such
For wisdom is to simply know
Too little from too much;

All the world's a cage
Though skies seem noble visions
On earth the strange parade of man
Below the grave quite common

Capsule Political Autobiography of "A Jew" - Paul Nachbar

Boredom and the Will to Power
Are Things no one denies
Yet Nothing Human can refuse
These beautiful green Eyes.

I Shall Prevail - Paul Nachbar

I did not ever claim to you
That I could do it all alone
I did not ever say to you
That I would fight and never fail
But here I say one true and simple thing:
In all herein that can be done
In all hereof which can be won
I shall one day prevail.

Artists – by Quinn Tyler Jackson

Some end their careers lost in bhang,
Others write until they drop from their years,
Still others retire from it with a bang,
While some make pretty gifts of hacked off ears.

Some you would not know just to see them,
Others you can tell by the hole-pocked pants,
Some you can find in the city's museum,
Though most were never given glory's chance.

And though artists all, they are quite unique,
No two of worth are quite the same, you see,
So to know when you find one, here's the trick:
Look at what they've done for the artistry.

Questions – by John Russell Sweeney

From whence come love; morals; emotions; law

if atom; molecule; proton; quark

is all that ultimately, is of us?

Do electrons think? - a nucleon laugh?

Anaximander once declared:'We came from fish'-

Well, those with surname 'McGill' are blessed -

they need not trouble with ancestral mystery!

They say a promethian bolt, from noble Thor

once came to stir the primal soup -

then, hubble and bubble, toil and trouble:

forth came microbes; trilobites; crustaceans;

ichthyians; amphibians; birds; rodents; monkeys and -

fanfare please - MAN!!

Come, now -

To think that bickering gods of random chaos

could produce delightsome treats as these!

After all,'tis true that broth

is spoilt by too many cooks?

Ah, but just as city,designed by architect, one-

displays consistent, ordered pattern

than a city built by many;

then surely it takes less faith to believe

that from one Divine Womb, Mother Nature was born.

Palace of majestic baroque; a gothic cathedral;

Mona Lisa's soft, enigmatic face;

a Mandelbrot, replicating nature's internal fabric;

- arising from blind, haphazard chance?

Are governments; Law; Economic systems;

the sense of Justice and equity, ultimately spawned

from internal, roiling cauldrons of the quantum world?

Quest yourself as to the Ultimate Reality -

for the answer that one decides upon,

will shape and determine the individual,

then family; community; society; the world; our future!