Pride of Man

Lyrics as poetry and prophecy: they reference two verses from Isaiah:

There will be on every high mountain
      And on every high hill
      Rivers and streams of waters,
      In the day of the great slaughter,
      When the towers fall.   [30:25 ]

Your heart will meditate on terror:
      “ Where is the scribe?
      Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?” [33:18]

Pride of Man  by Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968)

Turn around, go back down / back the way you came,
Can’t you see that flash of fire
ten times brighter than the day?

And behold a mighty city broken in the dust again,

Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again…

Turn around, go back down / back the way you came,
Babylon is laid to waste / Egypt’s buried in her shame,
The mighty men are all beaten down / their kings are fallen in the ways,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again…

Turn around, go back down
back the way you came,

Terror is on every side,  lo, our leaders are dismayed.
For those who place their faith in fire
in fire their faith shall be  repaid,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again…

Turn around / go back down / back the way you came,
And shout a warning unto the nation that the sword of God is raised.
Yes, Babylon, that mighty city / rich in treasure, wide in fame,

Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again…

The meek shall cause your tower to fall,
make of you a pyre of flame,
Oh, you who dwell on many waters,
rich in treasure, wide in fame—
you bow unto your God of gold,
your pride of might shall be your shame,
For only God can lead His people back unto the Earth again.

Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

Thy Holy mountain be restored, have mercy on thy people,
thy people, Lord!

Subjected

 

Zhey is to Them as Zhee is to It...
The argument: God got it wrong.
Your singular identikit:
A plural and psychotic song
The selfish language of the young:
Confusion. That’s your mother tongue:

The pronoun wars have lost the day
We shall not call you what you wish,
Nor let you serve yourself this way
From your strange cracked and leaking dish.
Freshmen claim to be dysphoric
Acting merely sophomoric.

We get it. You’re a special kid;
You came, confused, from mama’s womb
With daddy’s chromosomes outbid
By better buyers, we assume.
Have your tantrum—we won’t take it.
Girls are girls and boys can’t fake it.

Regardless how you cut and paste
Or wax autistic at your foes . . .
Reality can’t be defaced
And sin’s rebellion ever shows.
Your gender was confirmed at birth
When you arrived on God’s green earth.

Proud warrior of the gender war:
Change Romance languages, and sex.
Then count your chromosomes once more…
Till Y no longer follows X,
The Lord is God. That does not change
His truth has power to derange.

 


DYSPHORIC:
adjective; pertaining to dysphoria,
or of being in a state of dysphoria

Risible Haiku / Selvas de Santana


The shooter enters:
Deadly earnest in resolve.
Laugh heartily, friends.

 


PROMPT #5

write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment –
or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.
O.K. I did the prompt.  Now here is one I had in my drafts:

Selvas de Santana

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
Baudelaire
 . . . Be ye therefore wise as serpents,
       and harmless as doves.
  Matthew 10:16

Eternal in divine recurrence,
Wisdom summons to her feast.
Harmless dove as wise as serpents;
Meets the singing crying beast.

Rhythmic vision’s dark assurance
Made symbolically complete.
Borne upon upon nocturnal currents:
Comes the undulating beat:

Fabulous jungles of her love
Are glimpsed—as apes, excited, howl.
Dazzling plumage from above:
Cloudbursts startle tropical fowl.

I wait, that white Abraxas dove,
Poised in delight before her gate
And ready to partake thereof,
Entranced in wild hypnotic state.

Now metaphor’s dark humid heat
Is loosed with her cascade of hair.
Black magic beckons:  Take and eat.
That all taboo may tremble there.

Red chiles drying in the sun
Distill the thatched-roof village fire.
Rhythm’s laughing children run
Then plunge in pools of pure desire.

IMAGE CREDIT: Annunciation 
http://www.matiklarweinart.com

Burning of the Midnight Lamp

Jimi Hendrix 1967  BMG Rights Management

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you:
but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came;
and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
Matthew 25:5-13