Backbone

 

This Norman Rockwell painting appeared in Look magazine in 1968.
                                    It is titled “The Right to Know.”  Here is the caption:                                                                                   
We are the governed, but we govern too.  Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love.  Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it.
And because we are strong, there are others who have hope.  But watch closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power.
And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us.
Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it.
We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us.  Trust us, for we have given you our trust.  We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.

 

 

 

where’s the parade
for the regular Joes
the everyday Janes
solid citizens
leading their lives
without drama
pursuing the dream
not illusions
seeking modestly
quiet contentment
respecting the rules
stoically struggling
to hurdle the obstacles
wantonly thrown
with ruling class glee
in their paths by a
government grown
to an insular bloat
disconnected from
people who bear
all the weight
of a civilized upright
exceptional nation
for they are the
spine of republic

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

First Modern Man

 

Niccolo Machiavelli by Antonio Maria Crespi

 

 

trapped in temporal interstice

of Florentine upheaval

between via antiqua and via moderna

between cold tradition and warm innovation

he sought which effectual truths

underpinned acquisition of power

he taught of the cruel morality

animating statecraft of monarchy

but his pamphleteered

overweening assertions

in Il Principe, which everyone reads,

attracted erroneous prominence

in subsequent cultural history

entirely missing his irony

left ignored is his seminal tome

the Discorsi, which no one has read,

revealing his erudite prescience

in sketching firm framework

for future-built, perfect-built

ideal perpetual

constitutional republics

including our own

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

D.C.

 

“Washington DC Skyline” by Michael Tompsett

 

 

grand structures
of limestone and granite
civic citadels
splendid and squalid
with privilege

grand structures
shield sinister motives
and unsanctioned power
preserving illusions
of republic

grand structures
presenting distress
cracked façades
mourned by masons
of liberty

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Bull in a China Shop

“Cracked Matador” by Chris Dunn

brash arrogant animal

clumsy and crude

shatters shibboleths

crashes through protocol

kills sacred cows

paying nary a nickel of tithe

to self-serving traditions

repulsed by cheap prurient

statues of partisan caesars

he sets to their smashing

he makes of his parchmented

oath a rude dustpan to

sweep up debris for recycling

and reconstitution of

government structures

reformed and regained of

rejected svelte recondite form

as responsive republican

organs restored to original

purpose as rightly conceived

by their fathers enlightened

with virile philosophy

authors of secular scripture

proclaiming a federal trinity

thin with authority

fit for the civil self-rule by

good men in their intercourse

citizens moved to

occasional congress

with flesh and blood ethics

not opportune principles

cast by cold fingers in

mutable clay and petuntse

ideally empowered

as nature endowed

better served by

the risk of reward

from an impudent bull

than a doctrinaire jackass

or dogmatic elephant

 

 

(This is my first time responding to a WordPress Daily Post word prompt – in this case, the word prompt being “Controversy“)

Paper Tiger

“Tiger Study” by JPH

crumpled roars

threaten jungles

of civilized laws

flat-eyed vertical

slits admit light

into night-sight

of predative urge

for prestige

colored leads

stripe the haunches

with hashmarks

of calculant rage

white graffiti bond

linen-wove surfaces

covered with

growled perorations

ferocious acute

cardboard cutouts

of carnivore teeth

sketched with

swaggers of

garish red chalk

scaring no one

are snarling

dogmatically

folded linguistic

grotesqueries

living cartoon

whose clawed paws

scratch rhetorical

lines in oblivious

blow-away sands

huffing puffing

effete ultimatums

inducing no more

than a deadly disdain

two-dimensional

pulp-hearted hubris

unsuitably stalks

three-dimensional

menace at large

in a flesh and blood

dangerous world

full of flames

that put paper

to utterly

meaningless ash

 

 

Animus

 

“Rainstorm Over the Sea” by John Constable

 

inside the storm

caught in grip of

a gray seething

unguarded anger

a churlish

precipitate

organized system

of weather

cut off from

kind sunlight

skin shivered

by winds of

an icy civility

open hostility

augurates grim

days ahead

a long season

of government

straining at

draining the

soul-sucking

swamp while

enduring this

downpour of

insolent rain

Organic Colors

 

“Watermelon” by Lutz Baar

 

 

the melons are finally in bloom

laden with slaking refreshment

in this overhot season of conflict

parching forbearance of citizens

green and red in sublime coalition

yield sweet fruit all thirsts can enjoy

while the blue and red give forth

with nothing but dry barren vines

 

(originally posted June 2013)

Not If, But When

“US House of Representatives – Old Chamber” by Samuel Morse

(Originally posted June 2013)

 

 

cisterns of rage

burst their tallowed seams

flooding congressional chambers

and parliament pits

with swift cleansing currents

that carry off gas-bloated

demagogues tongue-tied

to miscreant minions

unable to swim in pure waters

thus leaving the white marble

halls of democracy sanitized

ready for once again doing

as founders designed them

the people’s own business

Rodomontade

Painting by Charles Warren Mundy

 

 

(Originally posted February 2014)

 

political speech stains the majesty
gracing our parchments
of self-charted destiny
its narcissist pitch creates cracks
in the marbled and columned
rotunda surmounting
preserved revolution
where statues of founders
quake unto their crumbling
at witnessing man’s
most enlightened creation
despoiled and reduced to
a circus of unbridled hubris
a whorehouse where
mad rutting egos can inbreed
like vermin who scavenge
the carcass of state

Second Sight 2

“Coliseum” by Gill Bustamante

 

I want terrorists dead
would dispatch them myself
but you scare me, too
snorting rarefied capital air
like the pigs that you are
feckless partisan whores
taking more and more
blood from my stones
wicking more and more
ink from my parchments
confiscating my liberty
breaching my privacy
what price security
if once you have it in sight
you turn round to find
the republic is gone