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About This Poem

By Now You Have Forgot' - To Whom It May Concern - Part 1

…an extended version of an earlier poem

Remember all the Wise Men on their knees upon your yacht?
With orphans on their backs they crawled (and others that they brought)
Through rubble on the highway sands and residues of Lot.
They came from severed cities selling postcards of your thoughts,
Though offered for a penny piece, not even worth a jot.

They asked 
How are you feeling? What it is you want, you’ve got. You’ve scrawled behind your calling cards ‘I AM, but you are not’, Though carved beneath the seven seas ‘Salvation can’t be bought. Your fathers tried before you and your fathers came to naught.’ You started out by gelding goats and then by casting lots Of bodies to the battlefields, contorted, tight and taut, Then wallowed in the wake of trails the dervish devil trots. With marching bands of fatherlands, and drums of Hottentots, You lure your legions in harm’s way like giant juggernauts. Like Tweedle Dum your minions come, the sober and the sots, The troglodytes, barbarians, and mislead patriots, The Vandals, Huns and Hannibals and seaport Cypriots, The Japanese, the Congolese, the Indians and Scots, To vanquish bows and arrows, spears and catapulted shots Of those who build their bamboo huts for families now distraught, With withered wives with dried up breasts, and swollen babes in cots, Who swoon, engulfed in poison darts and vats of acid hot, Consumed by magic mushroom clouds, atomic megawatts. In churches of your deities, your Holy Huguenots, Your Imams, Rabbis, Voodoo Dolls and Mitered Lancelots Lit wicked kindled candled walls in temples (while we fought) In mosques, cathedrals, synagogues to bless each new onslaught (Used pins and needles, magic spells on makeshift mock whatnots, With prayers for pipers, puppets, pawns and rigid armed robots).
Continued in Part 2…

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  1. Date: 9/7/2012 6:58:00 PM

    Have you gotten a book out yet?

  1. Date: 9/5/2012 6:46:00 AM

    A feast for the tongue and jewels for the mind. Terry, this is tremendous poetic energy and an enjoyable contribution to the art. Well done.

  1. Date: 9/4/2012 7:23:00 AM

    Number one: oxox love Anne-Lise :)

  1. Date: 9/3/2012 5:31:00 PM

    Mr. O'Leary, what is there to say? a man knocks out two pages with great lines and we're supposed to ignore that?...i think not...and this man has the unmitigated nerve to appreciate my poetry...do me a favor please, find a pen that guarantees to never run out of ink..your brother in non-improvised bombs--PHREEPOETREE ~free cee!~

  1. Date: 9/1/2012 5:30:00 PM

    Excellent piece, makes me want to read part 2

  1. Date: 9/1/2012 1:25:00 PM

    great write - will read part 2...

  1. Date: 8/31/2012 7:54:00 AM

    this is awesome Terry, going to part 2

  1. Date: 8/30/2012 10:15:00 PM

    Wow!.....

  1. Date: 8/30/2012 8:57:00 PM

    Fast and rigorous write, Terry...now for the second part!

  1. Date: 8/30/2012 6:14:00 PM

    what excellent iamgery you display!!! onto part 2~ Cindy