Go Forth this Fourth

Chester (1778)

Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav’ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England’s God forever reigns.

Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and Cornwallis join’d,
Together plot our Overthrow,
In one Infernal league combin’d.

When God inspir’d us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc’d,
Their ships were Shatter’d in our sight,
Or swiftly driven from our Coast.

The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet’rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen’rals yield to beardless Boys.

What grateful Off’ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev’ry Chord.

A Quart of Julius

Jul3

Shine, Perishing Republic

Robinson Jeffers (1887 – 1962)

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught–they say– God, when he walked on earth.

IMAGE CREDIT: voltronsplace.blogspot.com/2008

You May First Enjoy

May1

… my poems posted for April,
National Poetry Writing Month 2017

1. Ode to the Nine
2. Global Fail
3. Party of One
4. Sandalistas
5. #smugsecular
6. Objective: No Objectives
7. Lawyerspeak
8. Aping Our Apologist
9. Broadway’s Strait Gate
10. Pardon My French (limericks)
11. Scot-Free (Great Scot!)
12. Mirage: My Rage
13. God of Oprah
14. Armed and Dubious
15. Eggstravagonzo
16. Seamless & Dreamless
17. Tibetan Limerick
18. Teetotaling Totalitarian
19. Vehicular Futility
20. Reset to Eden
21. Our Lady of Poetry
22. Latina en la tina
23. La Kumbia Kalvinista
24. Confessions of a Failed Anarchist
25. Best Bets are Off
26. Earth Control Methods
27. Burning Limericks: Psalm 97
28. Verse on the Rocks
29. Lost Prophets Regained
30. Lo-Def Digital Delay

Low Definition Digital Delay

May1

Globally dense, our ailing nation
makes one weep for sheer frustration
thoughts and dreams grow numb.
Tech-addled students scroll on phones,
‘midst scent of android pheromones,
wafting digital dumb.

Pop-culture, narcissist unkind
dispenses with the human mind
which, failing further, falls behind
the grimly global curve.

We read, in writing on the wall
arithmetic’s impending fall
while numbers loiter in the hall
to get what they deserve.

ENQUIRY, tagged as D.O.A,
a sheeted stiff, is wheeled away
her mourners left to grieve.
entitled maiden, full of sass,
LIBERTY begs a bathroom pass
her bladder to relieve.

When zit-faced rebels run the show
the dismal ratings plummet low;
a vulgarized cartoon.
Descending to unfathomed levels,
Ignorance applauds her devils
calling out their tune.

PATRIOTISM, tarred and feathered
headless, claws its cage untethered
foul, unloved, unfree:
Another casualty of time
which fell for want of noble rhyme;
to water FREEDOM’s tree.

CURIOSITY, half asleep,
now stirs and murmurs from the deep
uninterested, untaught.
She grows yet duller in her ways
returning to her ocean daze,
(her schools of fish uncaught).

HISTORY, dormant, lies in dust
a narrative no man can trust
a book no scholar reads.
Events unstudied as designed
wherein the heart of humankind
for want of context, bleeds.

DEMOCRACY degenerates
until God wills and activates
a nation’s drive to learn.
Curricula will be made void;
disheartened teachers unemployed,
their wisdom fit to burn.

You think the past was less obtuse?
Less prone to youthful thought-abuse?
Perhaps . . . back in the day.
And though it may have been the same.
this poet opts to place the blame
on digital delay.