Hic. On the grey sand beside the shallow stream
Under your old wind-beaten tower, where still
A lamp burns on beside the open book
That Michael Robartes left, you walk in the moon,
And, though you have passed the best of life, still trace,
Enthralled by the unconquerable delusion,
Magical shapes.
Ille. By the help of an image
I call to my own opposite, summon all
That I have handled least, least looked upon.
Hic. And I would find myself and not an image.
Ille. That is our modern hope, and by its light
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind
And lost the old nonchalance of the hand;
Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush,
We are but critics, or but half create,
Timid, entangled, empty and abashed,
Lacking the countenance of our friends.
Hic. And yet
The chief imagination of Christendom,
Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself
That he has made that hollow face of his
More plain to the mind's eye than any face
But that of Christ.
Ille. And did he find himself
Or was the hunger that had made it hollow
A hunger for the apple on the bough
Most out of reach? and is that spectral image
The man that Lapo and that ***** knew?
I think he fashioned from his opposite
An image that might have been a stony face
Staring upon a Bedouin's horse-hair roof
From doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned
Among the coarse grass and the camel-dung.
He set his chisel to the hardest stone.
Being mocked by ***** for his lecherous life,
Derided and deriding, driven out
To climb that stair and eat that bitter bread,
He found the unpersuadable justice, he found
The most exalted lady loved by a man.
Hic. Yet surely there are men who have made their art
Out of no tragic war, lovers of life,
Impulsive men that look for happiness
And sing when t"hey have found it.
Ille. No, not sing,
For those that love the world serve it in action,
Grow rich, popular and full of influence,
And should they paint or write, still it is action:
The struggle of the fly in marmalade.
The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours,
The sentimentalist himself; while art
Is but a vision of reality.
What portion in the world can the artist have
Who has awakened from the common dream
But dissipation and despair?
Hic. And yet
No one denies to Keats love of the world;
Remember his deliberate happiness.
Ille. His art is happy, but who knows his mind?
I see a schoolboy when I think of him,
With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window,
For certainly he sank into his grave
His senses and his heart unsatisfied,
And made -- being poor, ailing and ignorant,
Shut out from all the luxury of the world,
The coarse-bred son of a livery-stable keeper --
Luxuriant song.
Hic. Why should you leave the lamp
Burning alone beside an open book,
And trace these characters upon the sands?
A style is found by sedentary toil
And by the imitation of great masters.
Zlle. Because I seek an image, n-ot a book.
Those men that in their writings are most wise,
Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.
I call to the mysterious one who yet
Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove of all imaginable things
The most unlike, being my anti-self,
And, standing by these characters, disclose
All that I seek; and whisper it as though
He were afraid the birds, who cry aloud
Their momentary cries before it is dawn,
Would carry it away to blasphemous men.

we have been deceived.
corralled like tepid sheep,
fattened beef
waiting beyond
the doors of the slaughterhouse.

as pigs lick their lips,
a daemon’s death dirge drifts
listless across the
Atlantic, an erratic dichotomy
corroding rationality—
this executive edict
barring refugees.

caught without a compass,
a flotilla of ships weathering
the elements.
for forty days
and forty nights,
we’ve been lead
two-by-two
by elephants
and donkeys.

demagogues commandeered
the lighthouse, directing
our ark across
scattered rocks.
an armada
of shattered splinters,
remnants of water-logged vessels
we’d hoped to sail to utopia.

caught in the webs
we wove, droves
of drones spewing
bombs across Aleppo.

as spittle collects
on spluttering orange lips,
will we
pause
for but a moment?

collect
our thoughts.
reflect.
history is a shattered
mirror and we’ve pricked
our fingers trying
to piece the image
back together.

there’s a hunger
for blood
refracting in our eyes.
a misanthropy
that smarts and stings.

a recalcitrant population
coerced by a television
rhetorician’s clever
devices, devised
to separate and segregate
during this crisis
caused by our missiles.

there is no moral arc
to the universe. hope,
Hedges wrote, is mania
if it remains vapid
and refuses to address
the depravity of our
physical reality.

we’ve already lost.
just ask the children
barely clinging to life,
covered in the debris
of their former homes.

all that’s left for us
is to bash the fascists.
smash every illusory border
in our heads and hearts.
burn down the walls
they try to build
around us.

overturn the tables
of the oligarchs,
stuff Molotov cocktails
down their bloated throats.
open revolt is our only hope.
we’ll build a sanctuary
in this City Beautiful.

The root of all evil, set to victimize the people
Keep us separate but equal, justification is lethal
But the system isn’t see through, it’s affecting you and me too
And now we  must redo everything that made us feeble.

Now we must all give in to this suppressive prison
This world in which we live in has been filled with premonition
Oppose our own volition, our morals and our cognition
Listen to the vision of new accepted fiscal rhetorician

You claim to be a Christian with no moral intuition
But I don’t envision a Christian to think with his commission
But I may be incorrect and I may need to reflect
Nevertheless, it’s a greedy world what can you expect?

Today I'd like you to raise your glass
For I've someone I'd like to toast.

Her hair curls like a corkscrew
And I've always been envious.
Exotic beauty shapes her eyes
And ears and lips and nose,
And I always wished I looked like her.
It isn't merely her looks I covet,
For she has a brain with intellect
That rivals the best rhetorician
From Plato to Hobbes to Sartre.
Pick any topic and she'll begin to debate
With practiced ease
Until the other's hand is thrown up
In plain defeat.
But it isn't just her forensic skills
That I wish to possess.
There is yet more to this curl topped girl.
Her heart is bigger than the world.
She loves with compassion
And sympathy
Like I've never witnessed before.
This is what I envy and covet the most,
For where her heart of gold lies,
Mirrored in me is just stone.

She may be younger in years
But she's always been a hero of mine.
And I hope I will continue to be in awe
As she shows the world
Who we all can strive to become.

To my sister.
Sláinte

Greetings reader from a cross between an aging seventy inch long (ringing ding ****) haired pencil necked geek and a Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe; meaning yours truly actually a virtually married Pennsylvania man, who crossed his sixty fifth year young threshold on January thirteenth 2024, nevertheless despite rancor from the missus who frowns on me favoring female for acquaintanceship/friendship ideally while taking a ride On The Good Ship Lollipop.

if nothing else germinated
adult language affections
inexplicable tummy why
(approximately three quarters
of my lxiv roy hull orbits ago),
I can still vividly recall
names of girls from mud
trickle hull hating as a Methacton
High School graduate,
plus the two semesters completed
at Montgomery County Community College,
which diploma worth less than
the paper certifying completion
of requisite credits.

Unbeknownst tummy if
(Susan Bishop, Cheryl Hahn,
Judy Jacobs, Donna Keckley,
Fay Landis, Sandra Ray,
Julia Ward, and a handful of others)
gleaned any hint that an intense desire
shutter flying within thy solar plexus
to blurt (in a bumbling fashion)
even a feeble hello
dogged each day of classes.

Nothing about this then
awkward, blimey clammy, dorky,
edgy, friggin gawky, *****, ipsy,
jumpy, kooky, loony, moody, nerdy,
okay, plenti quirky, ratty, sulky,
timidly undersized very withdrawn,
xpn yankee Zeusian.

If familiar during my prime numbered days,
with either powder milk biscuits
(which according to Garrison Keillor -
gives shy people the courage
to get up and do ***** deeds
done dirt cheap (in honor
of the late Malcolm Young,
the pulse of AC/DC),
or raw bits, and additionally
adroit crafting, expostulating
gross iniquities keeping maidens
overly questing regarding taming
uber vibrant ***** wonka
your all time cerebrally enlightened,
guy initially kindling manifold
oppressed quaking ****** undulations
wracking yawping aspiring
corpus dictionary epicurean.

Yes, that tis quite a mouthful,
but then this ardent devotee, gamboling
jousting literary nonsensical
philosophical reader, tenderly tinder
verizon wormy yakking arboreal
cloven earmarked, graciously intelligent
kibitzer, modest opportunistic
questioning statecraft,
unpretentiously warbling bupkis.

Though verb boss this poet manque
doth strive tubby re: noun,
or at the least beak comb knighted
among his majesty (HMS) –
cutting (thru the figurative iceberg) crew,
which pronoun smint foments
hostile interjections, whereby
grievance addressed by my
reciting constituent articles comprising
English Language.

As a result of assiduous, copious, exodus,
grammar grappling, inchoate knowledge,
mastery of quirky syntax
underscored unpretentious
versatility with words.

Adverb beal concupiscence endowment
grows ineluctable kickstarting
my obvious quest shunned unfairly
without your adjective choice
entirely granted.

Infinitives key mordant obscures
quasi rhetorician traversing ultimate
vernacular wordsmith zeroing
at becoming catapulted
**** eminently fructified.

Caterwauling causes
champion colleague Collins collision,
collusion, conjunction conspiracy,
demanding expulsion, forthwith
groupie Harris insinuating, juxtaposing,
keeping lowest mediocrity necessitating
one principle question.

Reddit slated tenure unified vicars,
wherein xfinity yielded zing along.

He stomps around
In funny shoes
Maniacal tumults
Bemuse
Presuming his
Illusion’s
Charming
Alter-egos
Not self-harming
Nor alarming
His appearance
Law and order
No adherence
To the standard
Hold your tongue
The venom rhetorician’s
Gun
And still he wields the blade
At play
And shields his pain
So far away
From any castles
Long relinquished
Flames of war
Now long extinguished
Over all extinction
Reigns
Yet microcosmically
Campaigns
To win the favor
Of the haves,
The have-nots
And thee
Anti-class
And still makes time
To show the people
Rags to riches’
Glitchin’ eagle
Free to automate his nation’s
Technological contagion
Watch it promulgate the spaces
Thought once safe  
From other races
Then lay waste
To opposition
Let them live
On one condition
Kingdoms, queens
Must be the means
To mass produce
The God machines