Close Enough

1. Dogwood and Matzah Bread

The Matzah's holes and chars are like our Christ's
Wounds and bruises. It breaks, like Christ's body.
The dogwood's flowers, like a ray of sun
Had told me today, are wilted on its
Four petals, for "Christ was crucified on
Dogwood." Though not true, in either case, twain,
They are beautiful little thoughts which prove
Christ in their own, strange; fascinating ways.
That the Hawkish prudishness which doubts this
And must take every metaphor for a
Holy Writ, getting offended at lore
Which is beautiful, expounds upon man's 
Linear thinking. Not even complex 
Equations solve so prudishly---why does
It have to be literal? Christ was hanged
On an olive tree, yet the dark wrinkles
Of the Dogwood's bloom can remind us of
Those four wounds Christ took in his hands and feet.

Same is the skeptic's who say Christ could not 
Have been crucified, for scripture did not
Mention ropes. That is another kind of 
Prudishness. Everyone knew how men were 
Crucified. Rather, both kinds of rigid
Thinking are epitomes of stupid.
Maybe things of literary merit
Need not be exact, but remind us that
It did, indeed, happen once in history? 

2. Old Atheists

There is nothing so handsome
As the look of confidence on an old Atheist's sneering face,

Just as there is nothing so serene
As the look of satisfaction on an old Christian's. 

Both men have uncovered many truths
Yet the first is bitter while the second breathes a second breath.

3. Modern Music

Modern music is tinged with sadness.
Every breath is big, epic... yet melancholy.

Yet the older music, at its saddest
Was still a celebratory feast.

4. The Perfume of the Wild Flowers

The perfume of the wildflowers
Carries with the scent of the woods.
My lover's musk is like that of this breeze.
The April mowings brim in the warmer
Zephyrs of the sun's bath and periwinkle flood
Of sky; 

My lover, you are more pleasant than these.

5. Major Third

The minute I am vulnerable
In a poem,
I just want to delete the son of a gun.
I feel a tight pull somewhere outside my chest.
It is my spirit breaking...

Don't make me have to do this
To earn my bread.
I am distant---
My prophecy erring
For the same reason Jonah's did.

I want to keep my reader away.
I don't want them attuned to my heart.
I don't want them knowing where I hurt.
I want to talk about lofty things.
I want to speculate on things far away.

I don't want to talk about feelings
If there is nothing good to feel.
I don't want to sing songs like this.

They're popular...
Everyone loves them.
Everyone loves to hear the heartache
Everyone wants to see the vulnerabilities.

Don't you understand I'd rather talk politics
And religion
And philosophy
And art
And science
And math
And sociology
And psychology
And history
And mythology
And nature

And not talk about my feelings?
I'd rather not talk about my feelings.
An autobiography of life
Is not something I want to write.

Everyone wants an autobiography.
My life's too painful to write it.
Save in fables.

6. I–V–vi–IV

I walk with you through the valley
Walk with me one step more.
I saved you once, my daddy,
Don't make living into a dark chore.

Believe in my songs and future
Believe in my fortune and gift.
Don't throw me away with the soothers
Don't hate me or cause a rift.

I want to see my future
I want the good things of this world.
I have always been a straight shooter
And you an ever shining pearl.

I don't want great fame
Or money or vice.
I don't want my name
To be flashing with lights.

But, God gave me a talent
That you said not to burry.
So, don't think I'm a rapscallion 
For not wanting to worry

About my work which I have made.
This work I am called to, see;
Come what will or what may.

7. Karma Doesn't Exist

Karma is just the social opinion
Others have of you.
It is unforgiving,
Unjust, biased
Without mercy toward completely innocent people---
It justifies a serial killer and makes him feel no shame.
It constantly breaks and destroys an innocent man.
Do untouchables do untouchable things?
Did Genghis Kahn suffer anything?
What about the other countless dictators
And Mass Murderers in Asia and Africa?
Did Stalin receive Karma?
Did Mao? People still love him to this day.
He starved, slaughtered and imprisoned almost five-hundred million people.
Yet, his Karma is so good,
For half the world sings his praise.

Karma is a cur.
Because it has no justice
And no mercy.
It's as much a backward fable as the Koran.

8. God is Going to Bless Me

God is going to bless me
This I know is true.
For when I stand for Jesus
All things I fear will cool;
The fires of hell surround me
But Christ my compass reigns.
In Him I am a man freed
From sin's bondage and its chains.

***

"Let me never turn again..." 
T. S. Eliot in "Ash Wednesday"

***

"Evil is ancient, just like good."
B. K. Neifert

***

9. The Daughter of Zion

I, Christ's bride, wish to know the LORD.
I, rejected by my wife of youth, wish to be married
To the Land of Zion. I wish to call Zion 
"Beulah." I, a son of Zion, wish to be married to her,
I wish to cling, and become a nation.
I, a meek man, wish to become a clan.
I wish to Kiss the Son, so He is not angry with me.
LORD, answer me.

LORD, peer into the lattice for me;
Let thy hands drip with myrrh.
A Thousand Talents are yours, Solomon,
Let leave the LORD and I to lean one upon another, 
While coming up from the wildernesses.

10. Falsely Called

Our modern age
Looks upon every truth
And claims it is a lie.
Then, with the truth cast aside,
It invents a falsehood, saying it is science.

11. So You Want to be a Christian?

Do not be a Christian, and sin.
Do not come to Jesus, if sin
Is the thing you love above all.
Get your short life, and fill it good;
Suffer eternity in hell.

For if you will say you are a Christian
And choose to keep on sinning, you shall heap
Up evil upon yourself, and also 
Those you love. For you shall say, "Come this way!"
But it is a slippery slope, which will
Break you. And it will kill those you do love.
For they shall be led by you, believing
They have good from heaven, yet in their sins
Remain they dead to heavenly abodes.

Rather, heap up for yourselves heavenly 
Treasure, by living righteously and true.
Even if you are an offence to your
Brother, at least you live with blessings true.
You show them the path, and, yes, it is hard.
You wrestle with God like Jacob, to wounds
Yet, you cling even though your hip is touched
And you are wounded, broken, bruised--- you cling.
And those who are undaunted by your life
Will follow in your footsteps, those behind Christ's.

12. Why We Need Jesus

Man had learned what sin is
When he ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
From that point onward, man was cursed
Because not only could he sin,
He knowingly could now justify his sin.
And with that, man would have no way
To save himself, for he would be corrupt
By way of having knowledge of sin.

So, God repented of making man;
He was sorry for having created us.
Therefore, He gave us a way out
Of our miserable state, that on acceptance
We should be empowered to live a life
Worthy of Him. Through choosing the sprout
Of David, we would have redemption through Christ.

For man, having no choice but to sin---
For sin is compulsory in this world---
Need have a way to be forgiven
And therefore not suffer for his knowingly committing it.
Not only for his knowing it, 
But for his justification of it.

For by biting the fruit,
We now could rationalize our sin
And make it right in our own eyes.
That is the knowledge of judgment.
And that is a sin worthy of eternal damnation
To say, "I have done no wrong,
"But rather, whomever I hurt, I am in the right."

13. Joshua's Altar

Kosher bones, ashes, it's a sacrificial altar.
It is built exactly as Joshua said it was.
It has a ramp, therefore, is not a pagan altar.
It has scarab Beetles, explaining the Egyptian
Tie. Ironically, those same beetles are found throughout
All of Israel. T'was dated 1200BC,
Predating Josiah or Persian restoration;
Actually built at the exact time Joshua lived.
It is built exactly where Joshua said it was.
A tablet was found, made of lead, for permanence,
With three letters of the Tetragrammaton written 
In the proto-Hebrew alphabet. True evidence.
The lead tablet has curses written on it, just like
The Bible says. Joshua said, "Choose this day whom you serve."
For, by passing the mount Hubaal, one chooses the LORD
And leaves sin behind them, at the altar, once for all.
There is also evidence of Jeremiah, and 
Hezekiah having lived in Israel, as well.

What does it prove? That Israel was a people. Long
Before Josiah, long before Cyrus the Great, and
It proves Israel has been a people, forgotten
Once, as Hosea said, but now remembered and found.

14. Falsely Called Science

I

While reading my commentary on Milton
The thought entered into my head---
Creation Science is the thing falsely called.
Which, men professing, have strayed from the faith.

Do we not believe in an omnipotent God?
It was said by one, "Wouldn't God be a liar
"If he created the Earth in six days, but made
"It look like six billion years?" To which, I had no answer.
I still believed in God---yet, I'm not foolish enough
To gamble my life against science. Science seems will win
That bout, unless the Earth is flat, and all science is magic.

God is real because Nietzsche is right;---
By being right, we can plainly observe he is wrong.
Good and Evil are inherent, and easily observed.
Therefore, I say, "God merely died---
"He's as much alive today as any of us living."

II

Yet, now that we have trusted science and not God
Had not science become something of a god?
Need men a deity as cruel and ruthless?
One which gives no justice, save man's faulty laws?
One which confuses man from wo, and causes sodomy
To be praised higher than conception?
Science which calls human life a sin?
Science which says of a baby, "It should die
"If it will suffer long in this life."

There is nothing worse than the dual edged sword.
At first, science claimed, "There is not a god,"
To which, science then ceased to be science.
It claimed, "A man is a woman if he so believes."
Why? If I believe I can fly, and throw myself off a cliff
Will I not fall like any other man? If I walk on water
Will I not sink? To answer this question,
One stops believing in science, and starts believing in magic.
One starts believing in faith. My remark to one who crosses
The bridge from natural to supernatural is,
"Will science then moot itself in the future
"And bring us back to a pitiful dark age?"

Therefore, let the damned fly and walk on water;---
Let the innocent walk on water and fly to prove their faith.
What difference does it make? If we make all things possible
By means of magic, science no longer means anything.
If I walked on water, and a sinner could walk on water,
Then Jesus' miracle is moot. Is it not?
And science with it. Therefore, let me live by what truly is science
So when a healing comes, I can attest that it was not I,
But Jesus living within me. And man can remain amazed
That the physics which he rightly knows to be Law
Was violated in the name of good. Not evil.

15. Something Christians Ought not Say

Do not say, "Satan is the god of this world."
If I had twenty dollars for every time a pastor said this
I'd be well compensated. For, do pastors know what they say?
Paul had said it first, and being who he is
He must have meant to bring shock to his readers.
The same way I will say things to subvert common wisdom.
But, Satan is not the god of this world.
If he is, then he has lordship over you.
Why make him your head? Unless it is to throw you into hell?
Rather, Christ is the God of this world.
Satan is but a prince who suzerains,
And is in rebellion against his dominion.
Do we call the prince a god?
In those states which do, they are worshipping Baalim.
Do you wish to worship a Baalim?
Also, when Paul said, "Satan was the God of this world,"
He also said, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.."
Do we then say, "Paul is a Gnostic!"
Paul was not a gnostic, but subverted the expectation of his reader.
Just as I am not an atheist, but use common atheistic wisdom
To subvert my reader. 
Just as Paul says "Satan is the god of this world,"
He does not mean literally, but that Satan is the god the world worships
And not our Creator. 
Cease saying it, lest you make Satan your god, and incur wrath on yourself.

***

"For if you love your neighboring kingdom as your own, 
"you will have less occasion to do them injustice
"and thereby have less war." ---
--- Mo Tzu from the Mozi

***

"There is no absolute wisdom in this life;
"things that ought not be, often are,
"and things that ought be, often aren't.
"Rather, hold onto your faith and let go of all illusions." ---
--- B. K. Neifert

***

16. Poetry

An engineer is a poet of sorts,
Precisely ordering her concepts
Through strings of operations.

A poet is an engineer of words
Laying down an idea,
Using his deductive proof
Of conjunctions and copulas,
Of phrases and clauses,
To describe something true about human existence..

Wise men are the ones who like them---
Common folk don't do math in their free time
So also they don't read poetry.

However, for those who are engineers,
And doctors, and lawyers,
And priests, and poets, and professors,
And students of life...
We take enjoyment from the big concepts.
So, those in the STEM field
Don't say a poem is useless---

Look at it like a riddle which needs solved.
And that riddle will reveal deeper things
About the human cosmos swirling around us.
It fills a mind like a cup as sweet
As milk and honey. It fills a mind with meaning.

I pray to God that it is not a curse
To think deeply, and see wisely.
For, if it were, I would remain saddened
By the loss of my mind.
The only thing sweeter than poetry
Is love--- And Poetry teaches me how to love
For it forces me to listen carefully to what other people are saying
And it teaches me the joy of other people's ideas.

17. Stupid People

It was brought to my attention
That a stupid person was one
Who was misfortunate.
And being unfortunate,
They brought misfortune on others.
I thought long and hard on it---
Only a stupid person would
Create an x/y graph, and link
Fortune with intelligence.

Good Character ought to bring fortune
Whether someone were not intelligent
Or someone were. Yet, it is not always the case.
For some people, with exceptionally bad character,
Bring fortune to themselves and all around them.
There are some with exceptionally good character
Like Jesus, who being gifted with God's intelligence
Are extremely unfortunate.

Is it intelligence which brings fortune?
Not always... men with iqs of 200 are extremely
Unfortunate, and do nothing with their lives
Beside farm---though they are very wise
For what else is there? They are unfortunate
In the sense that they are not household names
They are not great innovators solving problems.
They are unfortunate.

Really, there is no causal link between
Good Character, Fortune and Intelligence.
Each is a positive attribute to have
As desirable as the next.
To have good fortune is highly prized.
Intelligence is highly prized.
Character is highly prized.

In free societies, good character ought to bring good fortune.
This is true. There ought to be that causal link
And where good character cannot bring fortune---
And rather brings misfortune---that society is called corrupt.
Where bad character brings fortune
And not misfortune that society is corrupt.

Really, fortune is as much a lot
As a die cast---and depending on what you do with it
Determines your own prowess.
Yet, even prowess is not the same as fortune.
And prowess is not the same as intelligence.

There are many things and diversities.
Fortune, though, is primarily linked
To willpower or luck, depending on whether
A society were benevolent or corrupt.
In that sense, it is linked---but only with good character
And never with intelligence.

18. Guangwu

Recorded in Chinese History,
On the Seventh Year of Guangwu
In the Fourth Month---which is exactly at Passover---
It is exactly 31AD. And the sun darkened
According to the historical text.
The text prophesied that one man
Would bear the sins of the entire world,
And pardoning on the whole world would be accomplished.
It is in the actual text.
"The sins of all the people are on one man
"And pardon is proclaimed to all who are under heaven."
"Man from heaven died."

The miraculous thing about this is that
The next Solar Eclipse would be in 33ad.
Therefore, Christ was crucified in 31ad
And Chinese Historians had chronicled
The darkening of the sun on that exact day.
A year which did not have a solar eclipse.
It is actual historical evidence of the darkening
Which happened during the crucifixion.

Found in the history of the latter Hans
Record number 18.

19. Reparations

There was a good man, who was poor.
He waited for work every day, for daily hire,
Yet for his appearance and poverty
None would seek his hire.

The LORD walked by him, seeing his poverty
And his good heart, and thought to lay a test,
"This man's people have been sorely treated
"And I shall give him the just recompense
"Of his ancestor's dearth. I shall fairly treat him."

Thus, the man received just compensation
For his ancestor's slavery, and the LORD was pleased.

Yet, he had no lack whatsoever,
He began to oppress his neighbors
He began to steal,---having his heart fattened
By the wealth his ancestors had lost
He began to become wicked, and his good heart
Was turned toward evil and malice.
Until, he had killed a man in cold blood.

The LORD looked upon the Earth, and said,
"Even if I give these people what they deserve,
"They shall destroy themselves with it.
"Therefore, I cannot give it to them,
"For they have hearts prone to doing evil
"And must first learn to stop oppressing their neighbors.
"For, there are ample opportunities for them to be rich
"But lo, their oppression of their brethren
"Causes them to have wayward hearts
"And causes them to shed blood, which I have not commanded them."

***

"Cram them full of noncombustible data, 
"chock them so damned full of 'facts' 
"they feel stuffed, but absolutely 
"brilliant' with information."
"Beatty to Guy Montag
--- In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

***

"Where I have to fear
"for an unpopular or incorrect opinion,
"or am spied on for having such,
"it is no longer a free society."
--- B. K. Neifert

***

20. A Final Thought

Written words are so bare---
Let some thoughts exist
Which will be unrecorded.
Speak them, in oral poetry
Which cannot be censored.
Learn to hone your life
In listening, and short phrases.
Learn to be interested in others.

Poetry is my voice, and I am tired of it.
Rather, I like to listen to a thousand voices
All speaking their minds---I miss it.
Other people's wisdom.
Let me be silent now,
And peer into my silent lips
With wisdom spoken by others.
Attune to the oral poetry
Of life, and stop writing every thought
Every detail---the robin was beautiful
Upon the deck, its fat belly filled with eggs.
Yet, speak a word of poetry or two
Which can be for only one or two ears.
Do not, always, be recording your thoughts.
Do not always be throwing your thoughts
To the wind. Who is it for?
Listen, why don't you?
Listen to the wind, the voices of the ones you love.
Listen, and you will feel the swelling within your ileum. 
If I be a poet, I must learn to listen.
For only by listening, have I anything worthwhile to say.
And say some things once, and don't write it.
Say things once, for one ear, for one time
Let it evaporate, and return later as a planted
Seed. Then, be silent, as the rain comes
With the lightning's fertilization
And it comes with a mellow silence;
A tattoo of pitter patter tapping against the roof.
Listen to it, and the voices of those around you.
Stay silent.
For speech destroys the pleasant reverie;
It disturbs our peace.

21. Fallen by the Way

I prayed for you to meet me...
In prophetic verse you did greet me.
Yet, tangled with Jezebel you did your dance.
My heart hurts, and looks on with soldier's eyes...

You were a friend, instantly, yet she
Sought to fire her devices upon my brow---
She did not seek my life, but the barbarians
Whom she kept company with would hate my soul.

And you, taken with dry loves had forsaken our friendship.
I wish to comfort you; I wish to give you the bread of peace.
But, danger lurks on every corner, and the gnarly trap
Lays deep within your flesh---I cannot save you.

With knowledge you sinned, and severed from us
Divine friendship. I would hasten to help you
To bring you into fields of freshly grown moss
And pleasant water brooks. Yet, you sinned.

It was not you but the choices you made
And the danger you placed me in.
I must have hidden my soul from destruction
For you did your dance with Jezebel, 
And would not entreat my company in the woods
Where we could have fled the troubles of this world.

Yet, you also dashed my hopes to pieces...
You knew my dreams, and my divine purpose
And took to taunting me before my face
With all. You took my kindness and entreated it lightly.
You mocked me before my face---for that I could forgive you.
Yet, the company you kept, it is dangerous
And ready to fail---wishing to end the cycle of reincarnation
That immoral politics; for death was her highest hope
And not life. And you chose her instead of me.

22. American Sonnet

I found Christ the day I believed, and loved Him fervently, my beloved.
I found His name as both Priest and King, in the book of Zechariah.
I saw him foretold, in Isaiah Fifty-Three, Who bore our gross sin.
I saw Him in Psalm Twenty-Two that soldiers would divide His Garments.
In Jeremiah, I saw was there a new covenant prophesied.
To be established in Abraham's seed, I saw that covenant nigh.
The serpent bit Christ's ankle, the Seed of Eve, I saw once in a poem.
Guangwu, a Chinese King saw darkness on Passover, and made Christ known.
Good and evil are both self-evident, yet Who but Jesus can judge?
Job cried out for a mediator between man and God, when sores rubbed.
Science and math's tautology need be established in God's wisdom.
Miracles exist in great numbers, which break man's laws and his theorems.
The stars are patterned to tell God's story, like a Child Christ had drawn.
In order for there to be real love, God must be believed and His Son.

23. Treasure Common Things

Treasure common things.
Cherish the dandelion flower
Over the hibiscus or rose.
Cherish the dogwood and Red Buds
Every spring, and cherish the mulberry's fruit;
Cherish the fruit in season
But have a taste for some fruits out of season,
Those commonly sold at market.
Splendor over the amethyst and not the diamond;
Dig your hand into the stone bucket
And cherish the variegated colors of those common rocks;
Don't seek after the Ruby or Sapphire or Peridot or Emerald.
Cherish the Zebra Coral, Unakite and Blue Quartz and Pink Howlite.

When the bluebells appear in the forest, cherish them.
When the helicopter leaves fall, cherish them.
Cherish the dandelion fuzz and the Queen Anne's Lace.
Find chestnuts, and walnuts, and hedge apples,
And wild violets and wild strawberries and Veronica flowers;
When they are in bunches, the common blue violets are a most beautiful sight.
In the fall, cherish the golden and blazen leaves.
In the winter cherish the snow.
In the summer cherish the summer storms.

Love chess boards, and old pictures of family and friends,
Love the curtains that hang in your home,
Love the common items you always see
Those which you have possessed all your years.
These I must say treasure, before you lose them.

Be exhilarated over  
Susan B. Anthonys and Golden Sacajaweas;
And Bicentennials which make change from the vending machines. 
Love the variegated state quarters
And the different nickels,

And the common pieces of art that hang in your home,
The ones that family had made.
Love those people around you,
Who you commonly associate with.
Love your coworkers and classmates
And bosses and neighbors,
And yes, even your job.

Be satisfied with your TV
And Computer with the key missing
And broken keyboard that doesn't type.

Love what is common and readily available to you
Over rare and priceless things.
For, if you seek out rare and priceless things
You shall always be impoverished by their lack.

24. The Men From York

Two men from York stand nigh a woman
Whom in great offense had slain free speech.
They, in their indignation, sought to bury
The bones of Elijah underneath the Broom Tree;
There, they sought their war, and exiled
The good and the bad and the ugly
From off the Earth. Jude and Thomas
Sat aghast, asking, "Why did the world
"Not accept you?" "LORD, they have seen like I!"
Yet, faith departed from the Earth as the two men from York
Sung their hymns, with Mary in great offense betwixt.
"Speak no more, and lie dead---For men are no longer
"Free to pursue truth, but must accept all words
"Canon to the world they have become yoked to."

Jude, Judas and Thomas slept
Sharing one another's dreams;
Jude, Judas and Thomas
All wrote their poetry;
Yet, Judas decried, "The stars are a lie!"
And he, in the dead of night
Walked the streets
And turned Thomas to try his tormented tyrannies.
He did it once to Jude, who in confusion
Bought the book most beloved of Benjamin
To see the stars were accorded to their clockwork
And the hands moved in their precious courses;
All was on time.

Thus, Jude and Thomas said,
"Let me never turn again.
"Let us never go back to our former sin---
"Let us not see Judas' treachery any longer!"

As it was, that thing we abhor is nailed to Christ.
Yet, Mary said, "I am offended at thee!"
Thus, the exile was fierce.

Jude and Thomas both believed
And like Daniel, were unharmed by the Lion.

Jude having once stepped on a serpent's brood
And though it bit, it was like naught.
Thomas, seeing the treachery of Judas Iscariot
Awoke, and like a dream, it was like naught.

The two men from York succored Mary
In great offense at Jude and Thomas---
Beleaguered, with Judas Iscariot
Their Captain.

Thomas said, "They see!"
And Jude said, "Why doth the world reject you?"  

***

"But if at first God is said to have made formless, 
"and through void He makes form, 
"He does not contradict Himself; 
"He is able to determine what precedes eternity, 
"whether in time, by His volition,--- 
"and where it originates in Eternity, God precedes it all..."
--- St. Augustine, from his Confessions

"God is omnipotent; trying to understand Genesis
"through our linear way of thinking
"is like trying to make unequal lines literally
"equal, in intersecting chords."
--- B. K. Neifert

***

25. Guangwu

They changed Guangwu before my very eyes.
I have documented proof, if only for myself.
Christ was crucified in 31AD, and the darkening was 
Not a solar eclipse. Someone is literally changing
The facts as we speak. Google literally said
According to yesterday's date, 5/4/22
"A solar eclipse on Passover Would have been impossible." 
End quote. Do we now change astronomy to sate the world's delusions?

26. Monseigneur

A Tale of Two Cities,
The dystopian nightmare...
Monseigneur kills while he drives
His carriage, and doesn't flinch.
Men in lower social class
Were considered expendable
By those in higher social class.
Lawless, unaccountable...
A little baby was his victim.

It took me a while to understand
The story. I didn't like Dickens at first.
Now, I see a tapestry of the time before times.
Poor flooding the street to drink a filthy flagon of wine,
Prisons where men sit in solitary confinement,
Marquises murdering maliciously like mountebanks.

There is no great past---
And there is no great future---
There is only now.
Let us not spoil it with our greed...

Poem dedicated to my best friend Jonathan

27. A Connecticut Yankee

Mark Twain was no fool---
He looked at the records of the past
The Dark Ages---
Even without the amenities
Of iPhones, computers and tvs.
It had indoor plumbing,
Was gaslit, a comfortable place.

There, in King Arthur's dystopian courts---
For the work is a dystopian
Science fiction about time travel---
Men were held in dungeons,
Queens killed with impunity,
Knights rode around aimlessly
And killed one another for profit.
The Church censored, and ruled
With an iron fist.

I read it, and am chilled by it.
I read two works of Feudalism;
Giving me an idea what it was really like.
The cruelty, inhumanity,
The callousness, the lawlessness,
The gross things people did to one another.
Believing in magic and mysticism
Which fully believed by the nobility
Strewn its luck throughout the kingdom
In disastrous chains of misfortune.

I've seen all I want to see of Feudalism.
Let kings be antiquated,
Capitalism flourish
And let the poor be fed by their own work.

As socialism in practice
Is just Feudalism disguised.

28. A True Poet

To be a true poet
You must command a meaning
With every word. Not
Word associations
Or random vocab lessons.

29. Blushed Facts

Weak faith had I, when every truth
Brought the blush of cherry tomatoes
To my peachskin face. I looked
And every good fact doubted.

I held to faith...
Would cut truth,
And in faithless backbiting
Tear down every bastion of knowledge.

A fire, burning the chaff
Of miracles, truth and beautiful exegesis.

30. Feud of the Avatars

The painful stroke of marginalized
Artists, making 50,000 florins,
Taking up the apprenticeship of sire;
Walking the path his father gave...

When the two great masters met
They hated one another, competing
To best an adversary. Bitter and spiteful,
Like Southey and Byron,
Wordsworth and Shelley,
Leonardo and Michelangelo...

I watch like Raphael,
Wondering at their chafe.
Their unbridled hate.

For all genius is welcome to me...
I will applaud it.

Yet, the modern sage says Michelangelo's unfinished
Pieta is better than the one set in St. Peter's Basilica;
Better than Moses and David
For that, there can be no Raphael now...
For the sophist says
That exegesis is deferred to the reader
And their capricious whims.

I told him, I'd "burn my entire library
"And everything I'd ever wrote
"If you are right."

Yet, his musings were divine...
It was not jealousy, just the disrespect
To communicated thought.

Were Leonardo and Michelangelo
Different? Were they not the same,
Dissecting corpses, and both experts?
Yet, Leonardo was jealous of the craft
Of Sculpture, and Michelangelo 
Defiant in his defense.

Why do I write?
I tenderly ask this question when I see the sophist
Has reign over the modern age.
While I do not wish a scientist to determine the language---
While I do not want an algorithm to determine my meaning---
He says, "Language is not an algorithm, it expands, contracts..."
I say to him, there is one thing I disagree with.
One thing. I said that words can be understood.
And for that, he ignored me.

For we are not engines, but human beings;
We can indeed understand.

Like Leonardo's disrespect for Michelangelo's
Sculpture, the terrific thing is that I am not
Simply caked with dust like a baker.
I form with words the sculpture of my architecture...
And I wish them to mean something.
Not just be a kaleidoscope of feeling. 

31. Otherness

My love, I had forgotten Smerdis was that Death, 
And Death my Doppelganger throughout my odes.

My poem decries the cycle of civilization. 
How there is always a vacuum left where power begins to fail.

In the Histories, Cambyses campaigned in Egypt, 
After his sire Cyrus had freed all his subjects;
Cambyses sought to reconquer them. 
Thus, Smerdis arose to usurp power from his brother Cambyses---
Yet Smerdis was killed by Darius,
So was justified because Smerdis was a changeling
As the story goes---drawing a comparison with Smerdis 
To the Androgynous mobs of Death.

Yet, I felt the presence of the poem,
That its meaning defied even me...
It was born from this author
But---as the Archer told me in his village---
It had a sense of strange otherness.
What I had made was beyond even my own interpretation.
How I could forget something so key,
There it was, beyond me, something I made and could now rediscover---
A poem I wrote had intrinsic meaning... 
Even its author need rediscover it.

It was, then, its own being,
Like I had given birth
And the child grew.
There the child was,
Born of my seed, 
But something else.

***

"Wrong does not cease to be wrong 
"because the majority share it."
--- Leo Tolstoy

***

"Look at a good poem like a proof,
"and the single sentence summating its thought
"the solution."
--- B. K. Neifert

***

32. My Audience

You are my poetry.
I listen... what do those thoughts inspire?
I know not anymore what they mean---
Only what you say about them.

Do not come to me, and ask,
"Does your poem mean, thus..."
I do not know.
I want to hear your words
And interpret them like I do Eliot or Wordsworth.

I want to listen.
Do you not understand?
I wrote so much to listen to you
Tell me what they mean.
I know what I meant by them...
What do you see by them?

I can listen, and understand you.
You listen, and understand me.
I wish to listen to you...
Just tell me your honest thoughts.

Know only one thing about me.
I believe in Christ.
But, tell me what you see in my poems
And reveal to me mysteries I had not even fathomed.
Reveal to me the hidden parcels of wisdom
I did not see, nor conceive.
Show me what they mean---
For do you not understand,
Words have meaning?
I say this over and over again---
Thoughts have meaning.
Precise meanings.
Do not shy away from telling me your thoughts.
I will think over them,
Mull over them...
For that is what I want.
I want you to think
And speak important words.
Not sit idly and talk about nonsense.
Talk about something deep,
And if poetry draws that out of you,
I wish to listen and see the chrysalis of your thoughts.

See, those reading my poems,
You are my poetry.
To have never had an audience
To listen to,
To never hear you tell me what they mean---
I am tired of my own thoughts...
Do not make me blue.

I wish to place wisdom
Onto your lips, and make it rain forth.

33. To Understand a Poet

The primary thing to understand
About poets, is that "Love is not All"
By Edna St. Vincent, I understand
That when she wrote, "I do not
"Think I would", it meant she wouldn't.
There is no might about it.

Also see it hopefully,
That though love is not everything,
It is still as necessary as all the rest.


“The first principle of value 
that we need to rediscover is this: 
that all reality hinges on moral foundations. 

"In other words, that this is a moral universe, 
and that there are moral laws of the universe 
just as abiding as the physical laws." Rev. Dr. M. L. King Jr.