Bridge of Sighs

“Bridge of Sighs” by John Singer Sargent

 

stones suspended in air

final passage for

secular sinners

in quail of departing

from all that is beautiful

sounding their last sobbing

breaths of contrition

their last rueful look at

pained visions of lives

barely dreamed

never lived

too late for a rectitude

leaving vain squander

en route to an airless

and deathless ignominy

bleak are the endings

imagined while crossing

from palace to prison

indifference expressed

by the masonry sentinels

mascaron faces who

watch life and love

pass beneath the despair

upon waters the doge

has commanded to flow

serene lifeblood in

day to day course of

enlightened republic

ingenious canalways

that temper the tides

wash the unsettling sound

of these sighs

out to sea

Black Hand

Symbol of La Mano Nera – The Black Hand Society

 

menace rose in the bloodsmoke of Etna
as it blackened east winds across oceans
reached violently into hard immigrant stories
adding terror to the struggles of innocents
extorting the self-possessed pride of a people
at knifepoint a gang of rogue feudal padrones
who supplanted American look-askance law
with an abject injustice severe in its wounds
to the auspicious cusp of a twentieth century

here do I nonetheless stand upon bonework
of caesars and slaves one of twenty odd million
descendants of browbeaten stoic survivors
unbowed perseverant determined to earn
rights of citizenship a new start a new world
holding off threats by cultural gangsters
they stayed the black hand from its sinister deeds
letting die the sick branch of my strong ancient tree
that it gained a new flourish in American ground

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

This Thing of Ours

Movie Poster from “The Godfather”

deadly affinities

centuries old

social system

the bastard of

feudalist fathers

imposed upon

enclaves of

immigrant yearnings

black hands and

blood oaths enjoy

unholy loyalties

underworld ethics

that undermine

civic integrity

nullify laws as were

given by God and

by governments

small-minded men

little caesars

pretenders to

neighborhood thrones

make their meals of

misplaced admiration

grow fat upon

forfeited virtue

persuasion at point

of a pocket stiletto

they heartlessly

pillage the pride

of evolved

hearts and minds

put to shame

contributions

achievements

the righteous

endeavors of

two-thousand years

upon bones of a

violent empire

building enlightened

new culture

reborn of more

gentle philosophies

given to prizing the

wholesome aesthetics

that elevate sentiment

science and art

free expression of

free-willed humanity

this is the cultural

character handed

on down by my

fathers and mothers

the dominant traits of

respectable bloodlines

resistant to easy

seductions of

illusory romance

immune to the fiction

of seemingly quaint

mustache petes

or their flagrantly

criminal offspring

of capos and dons

who would readily

poison the nectars

of renaissance legacy

Equity

Stained Glass Design by Nancy Bauer

crime doesn’t pay
so they say
nor the criminal
given a minimal
slap of a sentence
empty of penance
beating her scales
into coffin nails
fit for the corpse
of a system that warps
what justice implied
before equity died

(originally posted December 2013)

A Mugging

 

“City Rain” by Gloria Blatt

 

 

on a walk in the weather
I bumped into yesterday
looked just like me
stuck a gun in my ribs
and stole all my youth
as I fell like the rain
pouring out of myself
slipping into the gutter
my wrinkled bones
riding a river of rubbish
right into the yawning
black drain of tomorrow

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

221B

Image From pinterest.com

inelegant illness afflicts him

who bumps about corridors

rattling locks

with the bones in his tail

stalking for deer

with a rosin-swept bow

in the malformed aesthetics

of calabash pipe-smoke

tainted with henbane

that curls around houndstooth

staining the Inverness cape

knowing bliss has no keys

he kicks open doors

of two-cornered rooms

no doctor would bless

finding stairs Piranesi

could have designed

their paths up or down

all land the same place

where a grandfather clock

ticks the tempo of fear

and brocade paranoia

drapes barrister boxes

of leather-bound brains

and mementoes of sins

hiding fine-pestled clues

behind acid-etched glass

in plain sight

yet unseen

in differently hued

hallucinogens

that powder

alchemical bellies

of porcelain mortars

where hundreds of

gripping good crimes

would be solved

(originally posted March 2013)

Shades of Sweeney Todd

Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd by Robert Steen

 

ungainly hands chopping beards
severed heads by mistake
filling baskets with accidents
stumbling on underground markets
with buyers for evident crimes

thus did a new business model
emerge from the wielding of razors
aggressively drawn straight across
ill-placed trust in those ungainly hands
of a new minted ultimate barber

Determinist Morality of Neurophilosophy

“Into the Light” by Theresa Paden

(This was my first attempt at a Villanelle about 5 years ago.)

Right and Wrong simply will not remain still
Judgment is stripped of its power to sway
When we deny we possess a Free Will

Conscience will stiffen in cold Logic chill
Scruples will suffer disuse and decay
Right and Wrong simply will not remain still

Virtue will slip from its perch on the hill
No more will Merit substantiate pay
When we deny we possess a Free Will

Urges want no Moral tempering skill
Choice bears no Consequence, no need to pray
Right and Wrong simply will not remain still

God and Soul artifacts of the mind’s mill
Ethics will no longer stand in our way
When we deny we possess a Free Will

Wages of Sin present no further bill
Crime a dead concept, no Law to obey
Right and Wrong simply will not remain still
When we deny we possess a Free Will

 

Psychotica

“Progress and Psychosis” by J Ethan Hopper

 

let’s dance
on the shoddy parquet
that maddening marquetry
inlaid by angry fingers
resurfacing
prefrontal cortex
for violent release
of uncontrolled impulse
devolving the limbic
paleomammalian
instinctive self

let’s dance
to the devil’s own beat
that maddening metronome
urged on by angry fingers
disarranging
chords of compunction
for vicious release
of unrestrained mayhem
subverting the conscience
morality pissed upon
flushed to the sewers

I don’t care
why we dance
broken brains or sheer badness
who gives a rat’s ass
just so long as they
lock us both up
and then melt down the keys
into molten revenge
or burnt reckoning
either way putting us
where we belong

Bump and Jar

“Indifference” by Jorge Cardenas

 

 

 

commuter runs sing out
their steely speed
clipping through
countryside stretches
that echo their stark
syncopated shrill hum

 

but these passenger trains
decelerate sharply
all the way down to
a bump and jar pace
when encroaching
old cities and towns
where they often
crawl carefully
mindful of vandals
and vandalized track
en route straight up
the backside of life

 

unkempt boarded-up precincts
sad shantytowns
nobody sleeps in by choice
hard places
where scavengers
pick apart carcasses
iron or bone
either way
stolen cars
broken dreams
they both have their markets
where pieces of what
were once noble and whole
are reduced to
illicit commodities

 

wheel rims and hearts
minds and stereo parts
engines and genitals
yanked from their hosts
lost forever
sold or indecently used
by pushers of
powders and pills
by predators
trading in souls
shredding dignity
like so much
valueless
vinyl upholstery

 

and the passengers
never quite seem
to take notice
eyes occupied
somewhere with
columns of newsprint
with briefcases
notebooks or
lidded in naps

 

yet once through and out
each bleak zone of despair
as the train regains speed
bump and jar
smoothed away
more than half
the well-barbered and
trendy coiffed heads
turn to look
out the windows
and watch the benign
untroubling scenery
leading them blithely
on to their own daily dreams