Category: poetry

Firs

A
tree
of life,
adorned
with fruit,
was denied
us when Adam
and Eve disobeyed
God.

A
man
named
Boniface
cut down a
tree to stop the
pagans worshiping
them.

A
tree
is put,
adorned
with lights,
in every home
to celebrate that
birth of the second
Adam.

A
fir is
felled,
for every
home, to put
cash in pockets,
not for the baby’s
sake.

A
fir may
point up to
heaven, but not
if it’s cut down. The
triangle has no Trinity if
hewn.

A
Xmas
tree has no
meaning in a
home where folks
just spend money and
not time with their loved
ones.

A
fir cut
down won’t
end pagan ways
or bring back Eden.
Xmas shopping for its
own sake just moves cash
from poor pockets to richer
ones.

Bulbs

White
light
bulbs
glow in my
great apartment
of thought, but there
are far too few people
to share their brightness
in this lonely room of
iconoclastic ideas
that burn so.

Not
one
soul
wants
a warning
of war from a
great apartment
of flashing, blinding
light bulbs, hurting their
sensitive, unseeing eyes,
all squinted to keep
out the truth.

Such
souls
wish
to have a
black apartment
of ignorance, without
any insight into the ills
of the world. The comfort
of darkness makes it easier
to sleep, unburdened by
knowledge and need
that rouses us.

Yet
one
day,
without
the light, we
might find ourselves
in eternal darkness, a black
from broken light bulbs we’d
ever
have
off,
to
see
no

glow
that
gives
hope or
comfort. We
would surely open
our useless eyes and
rue
the
day
we

did
not
want
shining,
stinging light to
warn us not to close
our
eyes
and
ears.

Pyramids

At
the
top is
the one
who gains
the most, in
death & in life.

At
the
base
aren’t
slaves,
but they
who’d hold
up the entire
edifice below.

A
lot
of the
low ones
come on up
to have their
hearts cut out,
their bodies tossed
down those stone steps.

An
idea:
because
pyramids
are houses
of dead rulers
and the mangled…

At
the
least,
we could
bury these
anachronistic
triangles, along
with their monarchs
& their lifeless victims.

Such pointless pointy things to make.

Birds

What’s
supposed
left wing is, seen more closely,
in the centre, which in turn
moves to the right.

A
bird
in flight, whose flapping wings are
left here, over there on the right,
is only so depending on your
point of view.

If
it’s
flying forwards, you will see
the left wing where it ought
to be, and where the right
should be.

If
it’s
flying backwards, right at you,
the left, centre and right
may seem a confused
monstrosity,

as
has
been the case, increasingly,
for the past forty years.
As it nears,

the
bird,
which is an eagle, quite the hawk,
shows no signs of slowing down
as it reaches us,
its prey.

Not
knowing
the left wing from the right,
we will be snatched up
in its claws, fed
to its chicks.

Daggers

This
dagger
which
hovers
before
me will be used to kill a king.
Is he a kind and gentle king,
or has
this
king
worked
hard
to get
each
stab
in

his
back
and
guts?
Good kings should not be
invited to eat, then betrayed.
Bad
ones
are
not
fed
and
bled
to

bring
about
reigns
which
renew
past tyrannies. To resurrect
him who was pierced is no
different
than
let-
-ting
his
son
sit
on
a

gold
seat
that’s
good
as new.
Kill the Duncan-killer,
let Malcolm mend our wounds,
and
all
our
red
can
be
a

poured
liquid
in
a
cup,
not spilled.

‘The Friendzone Oasis,’ a Poem by a Friend

My friend, Gerda Hovius, who has a YouTube channel you should check out, on which she posts videos of herself strumming a guitar and singing covers of various pop songs, recently showed me her new poem, which I’d like to show you here and do a brief analysis of. Here’s the poem, in italics to distinguish her words from mine:

We were in a spontaneous situationship,
I am still lingering in an imaginationship,
But these ships don’t really sail,
Any further than on my mental curtain rail.

Although you specifically told me,
you see me more as a friend,
I have not released my projection on you because i was not ready to blend,

Reality in my fantasies i spun around us in my mind,
That is why i need space so i can unwind,
The mental tunnel longing for a lover that i made you out to be,
Instead of just accepting what is and allow us both to explore it freely.

The friendzone Oasis,
In which lies the basis,
Of exploring ourselves together in time and space…
And being in touch with a reality that is right in my face.

And now, for my analysis.

She invents two words in the first verse, “situationship” and “imaginationship,” whose falsity as words express the falsity of the relationship she found herself in, not the romantic relationship she’d been hoping for. After all, “these ships don’t really sail.” One’s “mental curtain rail” doesn’t go very far, either.

What words are more painful to hear from someone you have romantic, sexual feelings for than that “you see me more as a friend”? She “was not ready to blend,” that is, reconcile herself with such a rejecting feeling.

So often, reality is confused with one’s fantasies that are “spun around.” First she felt as a ship lost at sea, not going farther than a “mental curtain rail,” and now she’s lost in a “mental tunnel longing for a lover” that she can’t have in the man who has friendzoned her, which brings me to my next point.

Normally, we think of women friendzoning men, who in their heartbreak often react angrily, or even violently; one thinks of those disturbed incels. In her case, however, she in her heartbreak only “need[s] space so [she] can unwind.” This “friendzone Oasis” that he has put her in is one inside a dry, hot desert of disappointment and loneliness. This loneliness and heartbreak are a “reality that is right in [her] face,” that is, abruptly shoved in her space, imposed on her against her will.

As unhappy as she is, though, and however diminished she feels from losing the guy (note how she refers to herself as “i” in lower case), at least she isn’t violent or hateful about it, which is something those incels should learn from. Back in the 1990s, I went through an angry phase in my life similar to the incels, but however my dark thoughts may have been, I never acted on them, just as I’m sure she has had her dark thoughts (don’t we all?).

And that not acting on dark thoughts makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Stages

When
kids
make
their
entrances on the world that’s all a stage, they may lose
themselves within the roles they play to please Mom and Dad.

They
strut
and
fret,
but if they protest too much, their drama-critic parents
will pan their poor performances, and they’ll be heard no more.

Yet,
when
they
play
too well, the line between actor and character is unseen,
and they exit the stage at death, never knowing who they are.

Beaks

Some, like Don Fanucci, want
to wet their beaks.
They peck at us,
expecting cash, and
quack and chirp until we pay.

Sometimes, their beaks let out
a song to charm our ears,
to make us all agree
to what they’d have us do,
so beaks can get at all the worms.

But worms don’t want beaks
snatching them, and
birdsong
may be pretty, but it
often isn’t honest tunes.

If we all had the strength
to stand together,
we’d scare away
those cheating tweets
and have a musical rest.

Slopes

When
we slide
down a hill
on a sled, we
don’t think of
the speed of the
slipping, the danger.

The
thrill of
the feeling
of freedom will
blind us to how we
will crash at the foot
of the hill of our pride.

A
few
decades
ago, we all
thought of the
West as invincible;
we saw no cracks in the ice.

The
liberal
Sisyphus
must roll a rock
up a hill, just to go
back and roll it again.
We always go down, not up.

All
of this
time, we
keep rolling
lower and lower,
no hope of ascent,
or of even staying put.

The
crash
at the
bottom is
coming, and
it’s going to hurt.
Will we be ready for it?