The dribbling Head in That Hideous Strength
A man behind a curtain, pulling cords
How many fingers, Winston, six or five?
Mrs. Wilson holding the president’s pen

Doctor Wakefield will see your children now
Sender Gleiwitz is very clear tonight
Reporting North Vietnamese attack boats
Sailing in crop circles to Area 51

A child abused upon The People’s throne

Go to the rostrum

We will tell you what to say

Saint Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4
That’s in the Bible too – don’t be a bore

Time stops. The sweep hand seconds that no-motion
It fluttered in warning for several days
You were warned, and now you are out of time
That thing on your wrist is now but a weight

Oh, what is the nature of time? one asks
Oh, where is there a fresh 370?
The watch-opener reposes patiently
The tiny screwdrivers wait silently

Because without a 370 battery

(Which you can’t find in this town)

A watch is only useless tattery

Mr. Big Businessman...

                       There wiste no wight that he was in dette

                          -Chaucer, General Prologue, line 279

If this were fifty years ago he’d sport
A cheap brown suit and a loud, too-wide tie
But now he wears knee-pants and cartoon tees
And fashion shoes that look like cancerous growths

And speaks like Chaucer’s merchant of his gigs
Contacts and contracts and deals to be made
Important ‘phone calls that must be taken now
In a voice of in-crowd guffawery

But when he clicks off his shiny MePhone
He asks for gas money to get him home

But it’s not a prison; it’s a unit
(Euphemisms make everything all better)
The morning sun rising above the fog
Sparkles merrily on bright razor wire

A barefoot little girl dances and sings
She has already been wanded and searched
Her princess shoes examined for contraband
She’ll put them back on after Mommy’s turn

She gets to see her daddy again this week
And that is why she is dancing in prison




(Please understand that prison staff are not Disney baddies; adults sometimes hide drugs and other contraband in their children’s clothing.)

A waiting room is not a room that waits
A waiting room is not a room who waits
Although in life there are bleak waiting rooms
A life itself is not a waiting room

Except when it is

Now, children, march away 1 through Hamelin town
Obedient to the gauleiter’s wish
You must admire the emperor’s new gown
Shoal mindlessly ashore like grunion fish

And most obey, and upspeak programmed lines
Assembly-line rebels, they look alike
They wear their masters’ thrall-rings ‘round their minds
And call their servitude a climate strike

But who is strong? I really want to know
That one reflective child who just says

                         No.

Gilligan’s Island...

            The discipline of reading at least one poem each day

The meter started getting rough aboard
A scheduled poetic three-minute tour
Across a sonnet or a blue haiku
Broken up by a wave of indolence

The Professor repairs an iamb or two
With a clam shell, seaweed, and coconuts
While Mary Ann recites “The Road Not Taken”
And the Skipper chases poor Gilligan

Who trips and falls, and finds a misplaced rhyme -
Maybe we’ll all get off the island this time!

In Majestic Solemnity...


          Strophe, but not especially tidy:

They said that you said that he said that they
Said that you said that he said that they said
That you said that he said that they said that
You said that he said that they said that you

          Antistrophe, but not especially tidy:

Twitterkrieg toxic talkininity
#poopypants manhood thing witch hunt garbage
Removal battle look into risky
Unanimous point-of-privilege crime

          Epode, tidy in itself but there are human fragments in the
          street:

While unblinking security cameras
Watch the poor beating each other to death

Predatory ads from the N.R.A.
Site-blocking ads from them throughout each day -
O obtuse Google, make them go away

Tension comes from a lack of solitude
When even a thought is interrogated
Examined, suspected, found to be flawed
Through our loving Article 58

What is your religion? Your politics?
Why do you write your words with the wrong hand?
Why do you write at all? Is that about us?
Why don’t you I.M. like normal people?

In nature an artist finds only delight
In his fellow humans only suspicion

Beating the Gums of War

                   “Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant”

           -this phrase, attributed to many, dates back at least to the    
                                        American civil war

Channeling John Wayne, their semi-autos on show
Leather-boy bandoliers draped with lots of ammo

          Hell hath no fury like a deer-stand commando

Old men beating their gums for war; oh, yes, it’s so
Each wearing his made-in-China camouflage chapeau

          Hell hath no fury like a café commando

Idle hookah heroes in Houston, don’cha know
Want their country liberated but our children must go

          Hell hath no fury like a narghile commando

Studs at their ‘puter games, screens all aglow
There’s nothing about George Patton that they don’t know

          Hell hath no fury like a keyboard commando

And corpses for the lamps of China to make the oil flow
They want your child to die for profits – just tell ‘em to blow

          Hell hath no fury like a private-jet commando

None of them made the first day of boot camp, oh, no
Though their thousand-yard stares are perfected guano

           Hell hath no fury like a ‘way-back commando

“Dwarf **** Star Accused of Stabbing Boyfriend”
Maybe he got a little short with her.
                                                                        The End.

A Harvey Refugee Reports:

When she with cats, papers, a change of clothes
And her old college bag to hold them all
Was one refugee among others in a dump truck
A Houston Airport Authority dump truck

Dieseling through rain and water and fear
With muck and mud sloshing across their feet
A woman next to her then laughed and said,
“Now we’re the people they take pictures of”

But there was no Capa to frame the scenes
Only oh-my-Godders with MePhone screens

A Saint Jude Prayer Card


I thought to pray for a serious need, you see

But

Saint Jude seems a little annoyed with me

“The sun looks down on nothing half so good as…
                two friends talking over a pint of beer...”

                        ― C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

They may keep their dark Ministry of Fear -
We joy in our bright Ministry of Beer

As Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet did not say with his dying breath:

     No, 'tis not so deep as a Harvey, nor so wide as a
     Rita; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

In ‘Nam they jammed with jinx and jump and ****
But now against children the d*mned things work

I don’t want to take the pulse of the American people

                                                 Only yours

You had one job. I mean, really, one job
Just one job, and you didn’t do that job
Right? Right? Just that one job. And you didn’t
You didn’t do that one job, just that one job

All you had was that one job, that was all
Just that one job. What’s the matter with you?
One job. Just one job. One job, am I right?
And you couldn’t be bothered to do that one job

And what was that one job you didn’t do?
TO STOP SAYING, “YOU HAD ONE JOB!”
                                                                ­                  STOP IT!

Okay, I’m scared. Seventy-one years old
And scared. What if the teachers don’t like me?
What if those old principals don’t like me?
And what if the children don’t like me, huh?

I’m apprehensive about my first day
The librarian likes me, though. She’s nice
She asked me to be there. I’ll shine my shoes
And wear a clean shirt and tie – still, I’m scared

Oh, yes, there’s tension in the atmosphere
For this library reading volunteer!

Lunch at Denny’s

With a Side Disorder of Screaming Child and Bellowing Mother


Pajama Child, running and screaming: “Bye-bye. Bye-Bye! BYE-BYE! HEY!!! BYE-BYE!!!!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Don’t run, honey. No. Don’t run! I SAID, ‘DON’T RUN!!!”

Pajama Child, standing in her seat and chewing her food over diners’ backs: “Wlb. Glb. Blrt! Uerk! Blye-blye!

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone:: “One…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!”

Pajama Child: “NO! CAN’T MAKE ME! NO, YOU! NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Twoooooooooooooooooooooooooo…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Pajama Child, throwing food: (SHRIEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!”)

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “NO! I MEAN IT THIS TIME! One………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Pajama Child, running and screaming around the restaurant: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Twooooooooooooooo…!!!! I mean it this time!!!! Twooooooooooooooooooo…!!!!!!”

Pajama Child: “NO, YOU! CAN’T MAKE ME! BYE-BYE! BYE-BYE-BYE!”

Momma, not looking up from her MePhone: “Do you need a spanking? I mean it this time!”



I blame the teachers and Donald Trump. I mean it. No, really.  I mean it this time.

He sat on the old board fence, his chair of state
All spiffy in his Sunday-pressed khakis
Though he wasn't much for going to church
And his Other Hat, still a farmer’s hat

With his teeth and his workworn, sunburnt hand
(The other hand somehow mislaid in France)
He played the paper and ‘baccy and tag
Into a censer of sacred sweet smoke

And all us little boys watched him in awe
And hoped for the bag with its little string draw

“...Uncertain Circumstances”

                  In re John Cornford, 1936

One of the many bad things about being
A fervent Communist organizer is
That pretty soon some other Communists
Organize you

Crew Quarters...

        (When I was a-serving of their majesties Brown and Root)

Rows of racks under aquarium lights
And scattered paperbacks: Louis L’Amour
Bravo Company battlefield yarns, (love)-books
About blonde hot rod babes with really big (pretties)

The crew, all older than I, were better books:
Mechanics, enginemen, crane operators
Welders, riggers, radiomen, divers
Draftsmen for the “as built” modifications

The cook was a nervous man from New Jersey
He looked over his shoulder and dropped things

When you sigh, tucked cozily beneath my arm
Are you thinking of a lover in the past
That worthy youth who was the first to sail
With you out into that wider, wilder sea?

How vain of me to wish that I had been
that sailor, how foolish, for here you are -
I think you’re laughing at me, and well you should
Are you as happy to be here as I am?

Growing old was not part of my master plan
The sea and I are both old now, but you –

                                 You are forever young

Is there a man of such steely self-control
Of such virtue, character, fortitude
Strength and pride in his manly role
Confidence and heart and stern attitude

Valor, endurance, resolution, will
Courage, patience, defiance, intellect
Manliness, ruggedness, rock-like, chill
Decision, quality, all cool and collect

That he doesn’t have to go and upchuck
Whenever he hears that “Desiderata” muck?

A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back
For they are friends, you see, both peek-a-boo
Behind and through the leaves of their favorite oak
In an ancient world that is forever young

Adults are children who have forgotten how
To see, and who have lost their bearings, their course
Their pirate-maps for sailing to the stars
And their lunar love-letters to be read in dreams

Among the fireflies, on the cooling-dusk field
A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back

An American weather boy reports the storm
And all its tracks upon a glowing map
A hurricane by shape and scale and form
Roaring northeast through a low-pressure gap

There is nothing beyond holy New York City
Some unexplored land masses, it may be
Lost in the Atlantic (which is blue and pretty)
Where the hurricane will be harmless, you see

With a flip of his hand, they are dismissed:
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not exist

In the back of a county pickup truck
Odd jobs in lifting this and shifting that
And clearing the other – work gloves, chain saws
A rake, some shovels, water in the cooler

He wipes hot sweat with his zebra-stripe shirt:
“Better than the cells, Mr. H, much better
Sun and fresh air; it ain’t so bad, you know
A little hard work never hurt nobody

It was that old devil dope; I couldn’t say no…”

“Enough of that now, boys; we got to go.”

You wake up in the morning and you know
You’ll only be all wrong again today
A prisoner of constant condemnation
And even your silence is suspicious

Your soul dissected for any dissent
Examined with sneering disapproval
And any hope is hissed with decent scorn
Your silence is especially suspicious

But maybe…

Maybe today – maybe it will be different…

You foolish boy; how wrong you always are

Since 1922

When roaches sense the coming winter
Into your palace, house, or flat they enter

Remember this, as each critter encroaches:
If you have a clean house you’ll have clean roaches

But…

They’ll eat your books, your food, your shoes, your clothes
Give them a chance and they’ll bite off your nose!

They’ll eat your cat, your hat, your baby brother -
They are even pleased to eat each other!

Unless you give them a taste of the Harris
Roaches – oh, ick! - might devour all of Paris

So serve them with Harris, and watch them die
With their quivering feet straight up to the sky

It’s up to you…

No queen, no king, no president, no pope
Need ever think about some cockroach dope

But you do



(I have no connection with the fine folks of Harris Famous Roach Tablets; however, my short-lived household roaches do.)

September Twilight

The gasping summer heat withdraws at dusk
The hot winds still themselves, and now defer
To autumn’s promise and an easy truce
Sol slips behind the trees; the empty sky

Takes little note and fades among the stars
The summer grass is tired, but, bravely green,
Hosts cricket games for pouncing cats and dogs
Points cheered by choirs of cicadas and frogs

This is the thinking time.  The book’s at rest
Unread, face down upon a lichened bench
While votive fire glows in its copper bowl
And dryads whisper in the gathering dusk

Ancestors seem to gather round, to mark
The changing seasons on their holy earth
And tho’ their tread no longer makes a sound
Their merry tales more remembered than heard

Their happy presence in the first-star-hour
Reminds us that whatever-was remains
And will remain until the calling of time

We Have No King...

                      …he doth bestride the narrow world
                      Like a Colossus, and we petty men
                      Walk under his huge legs and peep about
                      To find ourselves dishonorable graves

                                 -Julius Caesar I.ii.135-138

Our Caesar telephones, and missiles rain
Kalashnikov now rules our streets and schools
Warrantless searches on the Amtrak train
Cabinetlings squatting on specimen stools

And we are urged to clench our fists and shout
In ordered, servile choreography
To bring his family coup d’etat about
Through well-surveillanced demagoguery

Our master baits the poor Constitution
Groaning while grasping his moral pollution

King Henry V...

                                  Henry V II.i.47ff

For supper Lord Cambridge was given a chop
The very meal Lord Masham was dreading
Northumberland was carved in that very same shop -
What Norman doesn’t enjoy a lovely beheading?

Rarely do they ****** us
Mostly they just ignore us

Okay, yeah, sure, a little domestic strife
A resume written with a big ol’ knife
But if you want to get ahead in life
Even a king should listen to his wife

She gently takes the proffered nibbly bite
Between her toothful jaws, my little ally
This is our bedtime custom every night
That’s why my dog is fat - and so am I!

-headline

What’s important?



Young lovers soaring through a Neverland night
Savouring each other in sweet delight

"The Queen Stands..."

                                               -Psalm 45

The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold
The Queen is not ornamented in gold
The Queen is not decorated in gold
The Queen is not merely costumed in gold

The Queen is royally arrayed in gold
For She alone is the Theotokos
In Whose honor the sun is given to shine
Through Her, the Passage between worlds

The Light of the world is the Saviour indeed:
The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold

Cf:
Psalm 45
St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 38

“Ransomware Cripples Cities”

                            -a common headline

Ransomware never crippled an Olivetti
But a broken spring did so once or twice
So I carried the old machine to old Bill
Whose magic always made it fly again

Ransomware never crippled a cardboard file
Nor yet the flyleaf of the book in which
She wrote the kindest sentiment of love
In the sweet optimism of our youth

Ransomware never crippled who we were -
I did that to us when I walked away

A fuzzy structure there beside the road -
It proves to be the rib cage of the dead
Which nights before enclosed the heart and lungs
Of a creature on its errands dutiful

Gone now to buzzards and bacterial decay
On this, neither the Road to Damascus
Nor to Emmaus, and the Good Samaritan
Could have done nothing had he come along

It sinks into the dust, and so will we
Beneath the tire-treads of mortality

Says...

                               -The King of Israel,
                        the Second Coming of God,
              and Member of the Order of the Purple Heart
                                  21 August 2019

No
No, no
Oh, no
Now please
Just go

Inbox:
Messages and pictures suddenly appear

Sent:
And others then are made to go away

Spam:
And here - oh, my! - delete (goodbye, my dear!)

Trash:
And is all this how we should pass each day?

...of The People

           “He’s an individual, and they’re always trying.”

                      -The Colonel in Many Happy Returns,
                                  episode 7 of The Prisoner

I do not want to be one of The People
With nose rings and tattoos, tee-shirts, knee pants
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the radio
Foul fungal feet and toes shoved into flops

I do not want to be one of The People
A howling face in an anonymous mob
With a Kalashnikov and ammo drum
A made-in-China heel-spurred baseball cap  

I do not want to be one of The People
And so…

It appears, not every century, no
But every four years in the season of snow
When presidential candidates are hard-pressed
For votes, and in new lumberjack shirts are dressed

The Brigadoon Diner appears in the mist
Whenever there are babies to be kissed
By politicians flown first-class from the city
In designer boots that have never been s**tty

Pancakes and coffee, and an incessant buzz
In a down-home America that never was

Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?
CarryBOO herds in ballcaps, tees, and tats
Outlaw-scary-masks and gas-station shades
Parachute-pantsies and designer sneaks

          You write no books, you sing no songs – you shriek
          You do no work, you make no art          – you shriek
          You do no good, you help no one           - you shriek
          You make no thoughtful arguments      – you shriek

And all of you dressed like corpses-in-law:
Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?

A plastic fabric forest of oak leaves
Some blue, some white, almost abstract in shape
An anonymous professional hand
Through unheard signals draws them open, then closed

My friend will be okay: “just a precaution
Overnight for observation, then home
A little heartbeat irregularity
We’ll get you to a room, something to eat…”

Beyond the fabric forest of oak leaves
Other voices, always soft, always kind
Softer and kinder still: “if you will sign this
End-of-life care, DNR, who can we call…”

A moment alone: “Oh, Momma…Momma…”
Whispered out into Creation

                                                       ­        and heard

German refugee husband: “Liebchen – sweetness – what watch?”

German refugee wife: “Ten watch.”

Husband: “Such watch?”

Carl the Bartender: “You will get along beautifully in America.”

                                      -Casablanca

I­ check the time on my retirement watch
(A Seiko; they did not think much of me)
And consider that there is no time at all
Unless Creation is some sort of clock

Childhood is watchless, timeless, careless, free
But adults must be catalogued and timed:
Bulova, Timex, Rolex, and Longines
And even a railway Regulator

I check the time on my retirement watch -
And hustle off to my chapter two job

Chorus:

“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Good
Morning! GOOD MORNING! Good morning! Good mor
Ning! Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!!!!!!!!!”

Narrator:

CRASH! (‘cause someone dropped a good-morning dish)

Narrator continues:

At the Waffle House on the interstate
Where dawn and comforting cholesterol
A plastic menu card and that first cuppa
Promise us adventures on this new day

And strengthen the night-shift cops, a welding crew
A day-shift-nurse or two, and me and you!