Joie de Mort

French Tricolor Under Duress

 

(Regarding the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack)

 

monsters dance in the shadows
the city of light dimmed by grief
joy of terror disease of an indigent
mind rots the heart from within
deformed chambers where blood
of malevolent creed boils putrid
infusing the cowardly scimitar
brain with its craven sub-human
brutality these are the revelers
hell-bent on murder and mayhem
barbarians too dense to recognize
nothing they do will or can defeat
men born to civilized virtue whose
precepts will ever endure their
preeminence stronger and truer
with every violent spasm of evil

Je Suis Charlie!
Vivre La France!

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Inhumanity

“Inhumanity” by Narayanan Ramachandran

 

surges of dangerous malice
rush into the voids
in a mind come estranged
from emotional traffic
in concepts of kindness

so utterly failed by a nasty
and brutish experience
leaving with ripening age
abject ethical ignorance
risen to moral confusion

in years that for most
bear the custom of certainty
even the innocent sin
of ambivalence caters
insensate indifference

is this then the crucible
pouring forth ignoble
hate into ingots of evil
that damned awful specie
that pays the apocalypse

fear and take guard of
this mind most unkind
for its visions of terror
its cold acquiescence to
the worst parts of man

*      *      *

“Man is capable of as much atrocity as he has imagination.”
                  – William Parcher: an imaginary character in “A Beautiful Mind”

Dégringolade

“Crawling Man” by Buen Calubayan

I need sleep
painless rest
sweet escape
a soft silent
cocoon shut
away from
sick noise of
a world come
to madness

I need some
dull moments
of deafness
to suffering
cries of my
kind caught
and gnashed by
the teeth of
perversion by
godless libidos
of violence
by gunmen
and gangsters
corrupt in
their creed
of rank hatred
irrational
soulless
deliberately
cruel

all the poor
bleeding voices
who scream
in the night
the uncountable
terrified
innocent
victims of
every base
instinct our
deeply flawed
species can
wreak on itself

moral mayhem
whose sounds
haunt my
elderly ears
fighting evil
requires a
stalwart a
younger and
healthier man

I have outlived
my bravery
leaving me
wallowing
achingly tired
and weak
and afraid
where was pride
now lives shame

I am wretched
and ruined
my warrior self
long since come
to his finish
my battleflags
shredded to
ribbons by
father time’s
merciless scythe
I need sleep
painless rest
sweet escape

Again and Again

“Mass Murder” by Kim Sobat

 

that terrified feeling
we have surely gone to hell
again and again
deranged and consumed by hate
we murder with abandon

 

 

(Regarding the New York truck attack and the Texas church shootings)

Massacre

“Massacre of the Innocents” by Reagan Charles Cook

 

(Regarding the Las Vegas massacre)

 

deep runs depravity

seething psychosis

the fertile milieu

for ovarian evil

new hatreds are made

inside madness

a birthing of bloodlust

cold craving for murder

horrendous of scale

uncountable bullets

tear into the peace and

the pith of an innocent

neon lit evening

uncountable wounds

make the music to bleed

and the civilized

sidewalks to scream

of why and of who

turn the dry desert air

moist with terrified tears

and the desperate questions

again and again

and then over again

are repeated repeated

too many times asked

still unanswered

Broken

“Remembering 9/11” by Justin Moore

red and raw
remain wounds
to the psyche

new hate
was invented
in the dust
and debris
of a morning

blue treason
of skies carried
deathliness
fooling the light
of a new risen sun
turning sweet
serene air into
maelstroms of
violent heresy

innocence buried
forever beneath
endless layers of
morbid gray ash
and no morning
no sense of a
civil safe haven
would ever again
be the same

I was broken that day
on the anvil of anguish
I clamor for vengeance
the scream in my soul
undiminished by time

there can be no just
reckoning short of
employing unhesitant
means to obliterate evil

I know I am broken
so spare me the sermons
for broken I’ll be
till I’m laid in my grave

Sturm und Drang

Cemetery Angel by Giulio Monteverde

(Regarding the Boston Marathon bombing)

 

in one terrible tick of the doomsday clock
a manchild vanished
in mists of explosive detestable animus
sending forth agonies
rivers of tears rushing headlong and over
rock ledges of piety
drowning forgiveness
in pounding cascades of venom and vengeance

small pieces of him reappeared in the form
of two hundred bullets
ballistic projectiles delivered of punishment
raw retribution
riddled the vile craven carcass
we knew as assassin number one

more pieces of him found staunch form
in cold steel
links of reckoning chain to manacle
cowardly bomb-laying wrists
and urine stained ankles
of pissant assassin number two

the pieces of him then regathered themselves
into innocent essence
righteous, rejoined
to coddling undying soft memories
of a mother and sister so brutally maimed
and a father with holes in his heart
their little boy
ever and always
their stalwart avenger

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Leaning Tower

 

“Behind the Leaning Tower of Pisa” by Richard Neuman

 

feet set upon faults

of a barren dark age

a Romanesque tower

arising from torpor

leans into an aura

of renaissance light

seven bells seven tiers

in precarious symmetry

lost of their plumb

arches flourished in

circular marble arcades

Galileo employed to

refute and invalidate

Aristotelean gravity

tall sacred portals

affording the

common and curious

prospect and perch

overlooking the cycles

of conquest and failure

by sovereign city-states

sorely afflicted

with habits of war

seven tiers seven bells

octave intervals

tuned to the scales

that awaken devotion

a calling to prayer for

the day and the morrow

a song of the future

a clarified music of hope

ringing high in the air

over desolate valleys

and unhappy hills

across torrents of time

undiminished its echoes

reach down through

the indifferent silence

of secular centuries

drowning the violent din

of fanatical heresies

echoes that live

just as long as the

evident beat of

one virtuous heart

Westminster Bridge

“Westminster Bridge” by Eva Czarniecka

(Regarding the March 2017 terrorist attack)

 

 

under gaze of the lionheart

safe in bicameral shade

cast by lord and by commoner

here struck despicable acts

an irrational violence

consummate murder most foul

in the name of the nameless

a mind-twisted loving of hatred

that terrifies civilized men

broken bodies elicit our sorrow

while courage refortifies spirits

resolved to stand firmly erect

ever watchful on guard

against incomprehensible

new breeds of threat

with a stiff upper Londoner lip

taking oath to keep carrying on

Palmyra

 

“Ruins, Palmyra” by Felix Ziem

 

reconquered again

heaving sands

desert temples

caught in the cruel

teeth of time

a collective insanity

desecrates history

razes warm ruins

tumbledown towers

fragile with secrets

the ancient-most

stories of man

in the dawn of his

own self-discovery

newly conceived of

raw notions of deity

tentative postures

of early society

finding its bearings

without past tradition

no model no lessons

emerging reliant

on nothing but

sun washed ideas

held in undisturbed trust

of much troubled millennia

brought to their end

denied their retelling

erased of all traces

this rampage of

utter destruction

collective insanity