A great quarrel arose among the Peasants:

Was the man truly a prophet?

Did he write divine writ?

Did he counsel kings?

 

The man, at his lattice, said,

“Fellow countrymen,

“An opinion can be prophetic

“A hope for better days divine writ

“And an act of desperation a counsel to kings.

“Did I write holy scripture?

“No… so please do not place my words with the prophets.”

 

The war stricken land mourned under the battle scarred

And disease laden sloughs, where thousands of men fell

In gunfire and steel. The peasants, having been uplifted by his words

Though they did not all come true

Said, “But, you had known what was to come.”

The man said, in a simple explanation…

“I had read my Bible.

“And I would advise you to read yours.

“Any man has the ability to interpret it

“But my words are chaff.

“If they brought you hope,

“Then like many other writers let them bring hope.

“But, if they brought you to worship a man as false as me

“Then throw it away from yourselves like a bloody cloth.

“I had written what politics I felt best.”

 

The peasants thought for a second,

Knowing now that he was not a prophet.

But, they realized he had wisdom.

So, they did not throw the books from them

But read them soberly.

How love burgeons in every wind…

Great are the mysteries

The fantasies,

The wars, the pestilences,

The romances, the great deeds of heroes

Or the great failures of our average men.

 

Soon, the political ideologue

Puts me at offense

Therefore I must rebut him.

So much of my writing was against one particular ideologue.

The one who says, “You can’t.”

I can’t… because I can’t.

 

I tremor… a thousand sex fantasies

Become the object d’art

Becomes chefs d’oeuvre,

Become a Magnum Opus.

Where is my greatest work?

I don’t know…

What frightens me

Greatly,

Isn’t simply not being listened to.

It’s being great…

A great man when I never was.

 

Throw the money to the wind…

I still need this to be my pedigree,

My PhD,

To get the job I want

At the food bank or salvation army.

Great is my degree, my thesis

My studies. My mastery.

All stemming from a girl

In High School and a TV show

With a certain red head.

How many times have I made love to them

In my daydreams.

Those daydreams now in my sleeping dreams

Where I make love every night

And wake up feeling filthy and disgraced.

 

Wanton glory, only fame

Great is the vice of that idol.

I do not want saved.

I want… for lack of a better term—

Since I am already saved—

I want to cure Hecate’s Luck

In an acquaintance.

That is why I write this poetry My Soul…

Perhaps the demons I have seen exorcised from myself

Perhaps those demons can be exorcised

If my heroes beat them in those complicated verse.

 

What I write is not a love poem…

Rather, acquaintanceship,

And a sincere respect.

How many gospel messages have I spoken to you?

How many homilies?

 

Yet, you listen. Thankful I am that you do…

For, I am frustrating I know.

I won’t leave this time…

Why did I get frustrated?

Everyone in my life hated this art…

Told me it was worthless.

Priceless, it was like calling my soul worthless.

My soul, you’d understand.

Better than any,

How the beginning was just a place

To relieve the frustration of never having been in love…

At least for me.

Later, the soliloquies became homilies,

Homilies became prophecies,

Prophecies became urgent diatribes

Against a country that never did me any harm.

 

Fearful… I have dreams.

Fretful, I scream to my nation not to let those dreams come true.

I walk in the state park.

The embankment is reminiscent of a long fought war

Eons ago. I think my feet had been on the mountain…

Now how do I perform my solemn vows?

I do not know… My soul…

A listener… I make counsel with you

As is said in David’s psalms.

 

Rather, I don’t write you a love poem;—

How can I love myself?

An extension of who I am

Under the luck of Hecate’s

Spell… the Felix Felicis

Which gives me luck.

Drunken wine, meed,

I know what the drunkenness is.

Never feeling touch…

Being afraid…

Seeing what you want so nigh

Yet it seems impossible to grab.

When it’s successfully grabbed

O my soul,

What would you do with it?

Drink of the luck potion?

The potion that saps all unkind thoughts away?

Rather, I’m drunk on my not being a success.

Not that I don’t want success, O my soul.

To burgeon into greatness

When I am not great…

It is not my song.

Understand I sabotage myself

For good reasons.

 

What is the man who gained the whole world

But lost his very soul?

O my soul…

I shan’t lose you?

Shall I?

The hopes and dreams?

I preserve my soul, and the hopes and dreams

Rather than the melancholy reality

Of Felix Felicis;

That by luck I falter

Into a great tailspin.

By succeeding,

I lose my very soul.

 

Modesty… understand

O my soul?

I do not wish to suffocate

But rather let you breath.

What am I with success?

Especially when I am unable to wield it?

Like Prometheus, I grab the lightning

And wield it wrong…

Save me a cup of water

And we’ll drink from the same cup.

For, I do not wish to wield lightning

With luck, and therefore strike

Down the goodness of my soul.

 

I rather want to wield a leaf

And have it turn, and bring comfort to Zion.

 

My soul…

The Witchen Queen whom Beowulf beat

Is any foul brew, any enslavement. Say the silent prayer

For every silent hour of doubt.

Soon, you will awaken a little earlier

Because soon the willpower comes.

A woman makes a kerosene lamp

And pops popcorn in a Pepsi can.

Two women replicate the task,

And don’t understand kerosene is dangerous.

Unfortunately, it claims a life.

 

In my back yard, fifty caliber rifles

Semi Automatic rifles, pistols

All echo down the valleys

From the local gun ranges.

I feel perfectly safe, though I hear them.

 

In fifty percent of the nation’s back yard

The same thing happens

But bodies end up being wheeled out

Of the local urban blocks.

They feel threatened because they hear them.

 

My friend makes napalm

Rides with one fist wrapped around a tractor

And a foot loosely straddled to the only sliver

Wide enough to get a foothold.

He blows up groundhog nests with the napalm.

 

A city dweller thinks a groundhog looks

Like a bunny rabbit,

Grows attached to it

And then hears this story and is disgusted.

 

I sit for ten hours scraping meat off of a butchered cow.

Hours earlier, the owner was chest deep in its guts.

We sit, and pleasantly discuss life plans

And enjoy the day; it’s a pleasant afternoon.

 

Another person has never seen something die…

Except maybe a roach or ant…

And then gets offended at the mere thought.

Nor can he imagine the fat littered around the grass

Looks a lot like white rubber.

 

A baby Inuit plays with a knife at three months old.

A conservative farm boy shoots a .22 caliber rifle

At seven. He also goes four wheeling and dirt biking

And swings on a rope that hangs over his dad’s wood shed.

 

Civilized society can’t even hold a sharp knife until they are ten;

Are strapped in a car seat until they are about a grown adult

Don’t understand that fire can burn;

And don’t understand that knives are sharp.

 

These two worlds are clashing right now.

They are our Republican and Democrat respectively.

And like an Ulcer, the pain gets worse

Right before it heals.

What will heal it

Is to know that when you see more trees than people

It’s different than when you see more people than trees.

 

I think J.D. taught me this.

 

 

 

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