Majority Rule?

There once was a city,

With several sage men.

The city would elect

Them to office

Based on their wisdom and

Their craft.

One day,

However,

The people wanted to

Govern themselves,

So they cast out those sage men,

And began governing by majorities.

Soon, a majority called

The Whitemen

Found that there was a minority called

The Blackmen,

And the Whitemen

Didn’t like them.

So, having the majority,

They elected that all

The Blackmen

Be enslaved,

Or otherwise killed.

The Blackmen

Tried to fight back,

But there was general silence

About their extermination

Because

The Whitemen

Had the majority, and

Other men

Didn’t want to be

Who was exterminated next.

With regard,

Majority rule doesn’t make something true.

Salt is Good…; A Nursery Rhyme

Salt is good…

So is cream,

Slow cook a recipe instead.

Use some butter,

Margarine another,

Vegetable spreads are good for breads.

Olive Oil makes good dressings…

And Lemon juice makes a tang…

Try new things, if not bad

But remember!

Don’t let it go to your head!

For I tinker, and I experiment

But it’s only to find a fine art…

Art is not what’s new and bold

But what’s been the best from the start.

There are things we have eaten

Since we were little girls and lads

Which our grandparents and theirs have eaten

So put in its place a fad.

Yes, a candy of a different sort

Will taste good at a One Night Stand.

But every night to eat that thing

A chocolate bar looks pretty grand.

For food is good,

And so is to make

A new thing never been done…

But consider if it were really good

It would already be tried by someone!

Life is not what’s new and creative

But finding the truth for you.

For what is truth can be creative

But it’s found because it’s called truth!

We can paint a dot and polka-dot

Those look good on a fashionable dress…

But on a canvas, heavens bless

I could have done that with a press.

No… not to say a white painted board

Cannot be worth a lot.

It’s just… someone who’s worked as hard as us

To earn from our living, we ought.

Taco

I say,

“Put the cheese on first,”

To a white employee.

Then she’s too hesitant to know how to make a Taco;

So her manager proceeds to say,

“Only the good ones know that.”

Affirming that the cheese goes on first.

Mine fell apart at Taco Bell

For precisely that reason,

And at the Moes, they threw lettuce on it first.

At the restaurant in Baltimore they didn’t have cumin

Or really any Taco seasoning.

As the great chef Aarón Sánchez would say,

“This is not a Taco.”

Trust me, I understand that sentiment completely.

I suppose if anything were truly wrong with us…

It’s that we don’t do our jobs right

Nor understand simple traditions.

Nobody tells the little black boy behind the counter

That the cheese goes on first.

The little white boy grins and says with contempt,

“You hadn’t told me you wanted cheese on it first.”

The restaurant is a mess, with pieces of lettuce and napkins everywhere.

Understand the actual reality would be considered racist,

Though I don’t intend it to be so

I cannot tell the truth in this instance

Of who really threw the lettuce on first.

It’s a principle as old as time.

Something needs done.

Learn the process of doing it right;

And let the truth be told

So people can have more fulfilling lives

Black or white.

Because on a Taco, the cheese goes on first

And only the good ones know that.

Cheekily, I can imagine that boy reading this

And saying, “Aha, I did put the cheese on first!”

But then he put the lettuce on,

Which is the most backward taco of them all.

It goes cheese, meat, and then everything else

So not to confuse, because the Cheese,

As the manager puts it,

“Makes a seal.”

I think like slow cooking a roast beef

It just makes the tastiest results.

And I think most people would agree

After trying it.

Mother Mary

In times of trouble

Said a man,

Mother Mary whispered, “Let it be.”

I was told nobody worships her.

I believe it.

But still, the priest says the alter is not clean

As if they have to order a new one.

It’s not the alter that is sanctified,

Nor the gift on the alter.

Rather, the heart of the repentant.

With that, it is Mary worship

To say the Alter is unclean

And to not cast out the laymen’s sin.

Throw it into the Sea, Judah;—

You know the whole world suffers from it.

We need cleansed;—

Men walk about with their hearts uncircumcised.

What does that mean?

We walk around with our hearts not purified

With that writhing animal within us.

I am not a Gnostic,

Because I say clearly it needs to come out.

How, though? If the priests forget their mysticism?

A thousand homilies cannot take that out;—

It must be done with power, and the knife

Of grace.

Protestants believe it not so;—

Catholics complain about the alter.

I have even heard it, but the knife needs

To be wielded, the surgeon needs to cut.

And should the cancer come up again,

I say, “We walk in the world, every one of us.”

Deliver us! Don’t leave us here, for God’s Sake

And His elect! It should be a treatment,

Like a drip bag, with a scalpel to take out the tumor.

Don’t let us suffer, with that ingrate inside of us

The one you hide, Judah.

Take it out with the knife,

And don’t say, “The alter.”

The alter has no power.

Only Christ has the power to save…

If the man’s heart were unclean

But truly repentant…

I’d say even the most unclean of alters

Would be sufficient.

The dirtiest table.

Throw the alcohol on it

And disinfect it,

Because the old testament laws are no longer aportioned.

Therefore, o Judah, because you understand it is so

Take the scalpel and cut from Elijah, from Judah, from Eleazar

That wife of his, the one who made them suffer all night

That strange wife,

And remove it from him with the scalpel God has given you

The Sword of The Spirit of the Elect.

Or… is it that you have lost faith in Christ?

Has Sardis made you soil your garments, as well?

To see unwieldy surgeons?

So it is, that Jesus is my LORD.

That is sufficient, now perform the cleansing ritual.

We Need Forgiveness

What we need

Is a little bit of forgiveness.

We need to not get so hot

Over everything done to us.

The wicked, with their Vengeance

Seek out the letter of the law

To execute blind justice.

Little do they know their own sins.

We as a civilization will,

Instead of cover up,

Expose one another,

Try to throw one another to the dogs.

They lurk, to uncover all men’s skirts.

Up the skirt, the kiln, they look

To see the beauty, the filth

The crust of dirty deeds.

All men want their justice…

They want to feel entitled to

Their enemies’ reward.

So when justice is executed

They cannot see it.

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The Empress Wears No Clothes; My Retelling

The Empress Shi Wu was extraordinarily beautiful.

Her bosom was supple,

Her face like a well sculpted diamond,

Her stomach like a sack of wheat

With four precious stones,

Her legs were thighs of strength

And her feet were like sparrows.

Her hair was that of a frame

Which framed beauty incarnate.

At the beginning of her reign

She saw the people were poor.

So, she began by making the people richer

By adding tin to their silver coin.

This, by reason,

Made the coin much more plenteous.

The people became poor.

Then, she began to build the merchant guilds.

These guilds she would cause to make merchandise for the poor.

The merchants built and made much merchandise,

So Shi Wu put more coin into the land to buy merchandise.

But, the merchants ended up with all the coin,

And would melt them to make pure silver,

Buying the poor’s merchandise with the dross.

Shi Wu then began to become rich by the merchants

Who supplied her treasury with great merchandise,

Even from greater Persia all the way from the other china.

Shi Wu became exceedingly rich.

The people became poor.

The people had traditions,

The people had great science.

Their science said the world was round

That God created the world through nature

And that men were made up of smaller parts.

Shi Wu then saw this.

She said, “Tell the people there is no God

“And that their traditions are worthless.

“That their God says the earth is flat

“And that God did not use nature to make the earth.

“This way, they must buy more.

“Make enriching me their religion.”

So, she did.

The people had tin

And not silver,

And a shekel of tin was worth a grain of wheat.

The people became poor.

But Shi Wu, they heard,

Said that their traditions were stupid.

So, the people began to believe that the earth was flat

Rather than believe Shi Wu.

Obviously, if the earth were flat,

It would explain the lie of Shi Wu.

The people also believed that people

Were not made of smaller parts…

Rather, the people were just one whole

Flesh of writhing sinew.

Their traditions, they thought,

Were correct, so when Shi Wu said

The traditions of the ancestors were that men were sinew

And that the world were flat,

The people began to believe their traditions

Instead of Shi Wu.

This angered Shi Wu,

So she began to tax the people.

For, their traditions held that the earth was flat

And now the people believed the Earth was flat

Because of their traditions

Which Shi Wu said were not good.

Thus, Shi Wu in one last act of defiance

Disrobed, and called in every male within the borders of her country

To come and view her.

Lusty she was,

She did obscene things before their very eyes

Just to humiliate the traditions of their ancestors.

She said, “See! Is not my beauty sufficient?

“You all can have Shi Wu who wants her!”

But, there began a rumor saying,

“The Emperor wears no clothes.”

This angered Shi Wu,

So she said, “Anyone who says, ‘The Emperor wears no clothes,’

“This man, woman or child shall be put to death.”

But, the people, all having seen her shame

Did not believe her, though many were put to death.

For the traditions of the ancestors were stronger

Than the tradition of Shi Wu.

O’ Pilidod Grass, Spread ‘pon the Breadth of the Mountain Valleys

O’ pilidod grass, spread ‘pon the breadth of the mountain valleys

Where my lover waits for me in robes of silken thread,

Garbed, spread across her shoulder of creme, to ivory neck.

There she dances ‘pon the fields where the foals give their turns

And the calves give hearty suck upon their mother’s teats.

The shepherds gaze upon the herds, where my lover in

Bonny feeds the lilies with nectar of nearby streams.

The singing of the mountain songs, in Hoar English fill

The caverns with their echoes of love songs for we two

Who by the roads and the valleys search all day and night.

Suitors come and go, as she hopes on me, and I her.

The most beautiful among the maidens comes nigh me

Yet my dove, darling of my valleys and hopes do sing

I reject promises of women who do love me not.

The mountains sing their songs to bring us nigh one another,

As the gulls in piridod coasts sing their hymns to us

Where the shepherds nigh the fields do tend their woolen sheep.

Establish her waiting, oh LORD, LORD of Sabbaoth.

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The Beetles’ Influence in My Poetry

I’d be lying if I said this song didn’t inspire some of my best poetry. Lol. What comes to mind is the “Mind in a Vat” philosophy, and then it moved on from there to Leviathan—a creature I kind of half made up for a storybook I wrote—which then became of course Death, and then the Yellow Submarine became Leviathan; so the song kind of inspired me to make the Yellow Submarine the belly of She’ol or the Grave. Very archetypal song with a lot of subconscious ruminations that kind of just happen for some reason. I find it one of the Beetle’s best.

That and Hey Jude—which may or may not be what influenced me to take on the persona of Judas Son of James in my writing. If so, that one would be unintentional. But, Elora is Brittos’ wife, which he has to win from Medea. Of course, Brittos is being offered the World by Medea, but he wants to win his wife and get his modest life instead. And of course, the song is about Jude—in the Beetle’s Poem—wanting to start a movement to gain the world, instead of settling for his wife. As in to say, that’s an archetypal struggle of a Christian to either A: Take the modest blessing, or B: Try and start a movement to “Change the World.” Which my poetry is very conscious about not wanting to “Change the World”, but rather wanting to “Change the Heart.” And the song is about finding love so the heart doesn’t get bad. Which, in the Ode of Brittos and Medea, the Protagonist has to accept the fact that he’s saved by Grace, otherwise he’ll succumb to Medea and her offering of the world.

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What is Truly Wrong With Our Generation

So, some who read me,

You know I wrote a poem on being plagiarized.

I’m probably not being plagiarized, unless you see these works

In famous books… perhaps then I’m being plagiarized.

But… in all of that,

People of our generation think…

Truthfully… in their hearts they actually think this….

That I’m encouraging the reader to plagiarize my book.

Just some notion in me is to think that that’s what some readers

Would think I really mean.

And rightly, that’s not what I mean.

I mean the exact opposite.

As if being called a Sow is not bad enough

I say that person is going to hell,

And then I call them idiot,

And then, to top it all off… I say they piss on their gold.

To have the humility of speech

To honestly mourn in my complaint—

True or false I don’t know—

That I felt cheated… I don’t think the moral was to cheat me out of more.

Piss is in the Bible, let me use the word here.

I don’t cuss… it’s evil, but in a poem…

Let it be so forgiven if that’s what the LORD gave me.

How can anyone misinterpret that poem?

Yet… numerous people do.

Why? Why when being called a sow wallowing in pig crap

Which they urinated on, mixed with gold

Do they think it’s okay to steal?

Frankly, it’s never okay to steal.

That is wrong… not if you’re a prince

Not if you’re a poor man looking at a merchant man with the world in his cupboard

Not even if you’re a beggar looking to get a scrap of food.

We have pity on a thief who steals because he is hungry.

But we do not pity a man who, after seeing a cauldron of gold

Goes to it and takes it away, knowing that was the place it was safely buried.

Which, if the first part of the poem didn’t make that clear.—

What reason does anyone have to steal from me?

That I am well fed? That I am rich?

Frankly… those are not good reasons because I can very easily

Not be well fed. And I am certainly not rich… not in my country.

In your country, you pay what is the equivalent of a hey penny

For some food. And you do, don’t even lie about it.

In my country, we don’t even have hey pennies

But are trying to outlaw pennies altogether and replace them with nickles.

So, equivalently, I’m about as wealthy as any of you

Reading this poem… which if you want to call me rich

Then you have the same access to internet and the same benefits as me.

I might even have a little less.

And if you want me to be a beggar

Then by all means steal from me.

Like a hypocrite, or a sociopath,

I know what demographic I speak to, and I don’t care if I offend your laws.

Because I’m here to enrich the borders of Israel

And to bring it so that a man, yes all of you, can eat from your labor.

If it is stolen, like the Seagull who snatched up the french fry

From the pigeon, maybe it was because the fry was too big.

Yet… perhaps, also, we’re not wild animals

And we have built civilization and laws and customs

So that we can live with one another

And be at rest that what is ours, others won’t have the right to take away.

And frankly, that is why I’m not a Hindu.

I love my readers from India—

And I know you haven’t plagiarized me—

But I do understand your religion, and have chosen the one that didn’t make you slaves.

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The Rarity of Our Society

The rarity of our society
That we can live off of what we’ve made
Is a thing fleeting the grasp of our rich men
That it can be lost.

The hoary head, wisely
Knows he made his thirty cents
When he was a young man.
And by work he became rich.

There have been other societies
Other Chinas, as the Chinese would call Rome
In its peak, where men lived and ate
And were not slaves.

Reading a “Communist Newspaper”
Casually, I thought he meant it was really communist.
Happily, I entertained he was misguided
But was happy that the paper was published.

He meant the common Newspaper was Communist.
Unfortunately, Capitalism can have those same problems;
We used to call it Feudalism, Mercantilism,
Guilds that controlled all trade.

He mentioned going to college.
One hundred thousand dollars of debt
I’d probably never pay off.

He mentioned painting.
I’m a writer… my soft hands testify
To the fact, and my inherent lack of any other ability.

Yet, there is a guide below giving a writer tips.
Tips I will never follow…
It is not the pretty words that make a poem.

But what it means.
And the fact that there are tips
Shows why the Earth is slowly becoming poor.

Seven people read this poem, not one liked it.
It was suggested, “Do what you love, though.”
What I love? I can write whatever I want…
But harsh truths nobody wants.

Do you understand what that suggestion means?
It means none of you will eat.
Impossible standards that preclude Shakespeare
From ever making money.

Hypocrites. You self censor, making this profession
Unable to support those who need it.
What if I can… hypothetically,
Write well? Does an artifice of pretty lies
Create your love for poetry?
That isn’t artificial?

Need I write in pentameter?
Need I write in tetrameter?
Need I write at all?
Hypocrites.

So you don’t like reading this…
Well… you pay your twelve dollars to enter a contest
That gives you points.
A racket… I’ll “Write what I love,”
Because what I love is the truth.

The truth is… I need to eat.
And this poem is about eating…
It is about truth…
Truth doesn’t need a cozy little “Active Language,”
Nor criticize my helper verbs.
I can take them out, and still write just fine.
I’ve done it all.

The truth… I don’t eat for the same reason you don’t.
Standards that impose harsh taxes on talent
But none on simony.

III

Grammar snobs jeer at a misspelled word.
How it got there, maybe a typo?
In all actuality—a pet phrase, give me that—
You can understand I meant “He”
And not “Me.” Can’t you?

What I really mean to say
Is that the market demand
For “Active Language,”
No, “Mary Sues”
No, “Exposition,”
No, “Creativity,”

Nobody understands the reference to China
I know… So I spell it out rather than leave it as an Easter egg…
Pretentious? Maybe. But I have written the Odes of Brittos.
So… spare me to not write pretty
And to give heed to a whim.

No… nothing is so exceptional about Frost
Yet he’s read like a god.
I don’t want to be a god.
I want to eat, and pave the way so all can eat
With what they work hard to produce.

Do you recognize those suggestions are just to frustrate you?
To tell you, “You will never be good enough
“Because you weren’t born with a silver spoon
“And you weren’t born into society.”

So you wrote like Robert Frost.
Nobody will purchase it
Because one man presides over another
And time and chance forsakes all things
When a writer doesn’t come from the right background.

Yet, work hard he says…
I work hard. The hardest working Bartleby
And will you recognize that’s a reference to Melville?
I’ve scribed in ink several dozen notebooks.
Obviously I’m a Scribner.
I don’t mind hand writing,
Though I’ve been told,
My whole life
That I have a writing disability
AND I CANNOT WRITE!
Hand write.
But, two brief cases worth of handwritten notebooks

I am a hard working Bartleby—
And none of you know the reference, do you?
I don’t insult your intelligence
But that if I wrote Plato’s Republic
With a Heroine out to destroy the society
And perhaps had a few children die
I’d be a millionaire right now.
That’s what you want.

But it’s not what you’re going to get.

IV.

Life is a harsh vicissitude of bitter medicine.
I love my society because I can
As I assumed
Write a communist newspaper
And live.
As stupid as it might seem
To be a communist
And make money on a Newspaper,
As unthankful,
As ungrateful,
It is their right if that’s all that can feed them.

Sitting next to the old man
I thought he was a communist
But he was a die hard capitalist.
Rightly, I can’t tell the difference right now
Between Communism and Capitalism.
We like things neatly defined
But what I told him
Is exactly what I’ll tell you.

You can have any economy under the sun
If you have a just and right people.
Equity cannot be legislated
It must be practiced by every one of us.

But, when I see someone exploiting the hopes
And the dreams, of people who, if given the amount of work
Still cannot earn a living… I tend to question my economy.
Not only because I’ve made a small amount
On what is objectively good poetry…
But the fact that I see this website prescribing me
A style, when I’ve worked 10 years, with over 20,000 hours
Producing my style.

As if a style were all it took to get published
And everyone works hard on perfecting their style
But says the same cliche poems over
And over,
And over,
And over,
And over again.

Rather, I’d take no style
With something meaty to say.
Do you understand?
I hope you do.
A style isn’t worth a damn
If you have nothing to say with it.
And to have the audacity
To tell me a thing about my style
Leads me to believe that it is a corruption
In the market that doesn’t allow
Me, but does allow poets who know nothing
About punctuation
Earn from their work.

Please, indulge me in this…
Like I said it’s simony
And I use it to connote
That rather than sell our work
We buy our work, as Authors
Which means that people don’t read our work
But us.

To which I would reply,
Then if nobody looks at a painting
Nobody reads a book
Nobody listens to a song
Nobody watches a chess game
Nobody buys a wooden duck
Nobody appreciates a little crystal swan
Nobody appreciates a hand carved folk art piece
Nobody desires to look at Venus or David…
Then really, there can only be poverty.
Those things are what make us human,
And to realize that we add salt to this life
Of humdrum, and not only that
But teach and hand down traditions…

It’s difficult for me to communicate what I mean fully

Finally, an Ode

Jane… my beloved Jane…
You’d never get published today.
Love, I love you more than all the rest.

Leo, my good father, Leo…
Nobody would read you.
You are the man who conceived me.

William, oh you wordsmith
Nobody would love you like me.
Nobody… nobody.

Frank… Paul’s a Mary Sue.
Jules… nobody wants to hear about your submarine.
Wells… who cares that you could predict nuclear war.

Beloved’s a weak word…
I love you is a cliche…
Do understand, Amarisa,
That’s what the poem is about.

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