Best Charlatans Poems
We have the left; we have the right.
In the political arena they both fight.
Always claiming to be on our side,
With ferocious rhetoric, opponents they deride.
Vote for us, to be saved from a vicious clan’s
Reckless and dangerous life ending plan.
So now it’s up to you and I
To decide, who is right and who tells lies.
Now I don’t know what works for you.
I judge not what they say; rather what they do.
For talk is cheap and taxes ain’t.
I’m in support of fiscal restraint.
Now this is a fact for all posterity;
A nation can’t spend itself into prosperity.
Both sides know that this is true.
But look at what the charlatans do.
They simply make a language adjustment;
Government spending renamed as investment.
So now it’s up to you and I
To decide, who is right and who tells lies.
The finger of accusation is pointed;
As our nation becomes disjointed.
Now both sides in self-righteousness claim;
The other side is the one to blame.
I’m not sure how you deduce,
But I look at the fruit they produce.
Who supports phony investigations;
The sole evidence of their own making.
Who supports keeping people in places;
Dividing them up into different races.
Who believes they can legislate prosperity;
Ignoring all of human history.
Who believes it a proper choice;
To slay the unborn who have no voice.
So now it’s up to you and I
To decide, who is right and who tells lies.
Media acts in a partisan manner,
Thus, I ignore their constant clamor.
People throwing bombs and firing weapons;
The very definition of insurrection.
When people gather to show disgust.
That is what is defined as a protest.
There are few neutral voices.
Everyone is always spinning choices.
So now it’s up to you and I
To decide, who is right and who tells lies.
Should it be the year three-thousand seventeen,
I shall still write as an 'old' wizard,
forgotten it seems for the charlatans,
and modernists who have forgotten their roots,
and fail to understand that good art is timeless;
like the rappers who have forsaken Jimmy Hendrix ---
and real black music like jazz and blues ---
they have done so because they don't care about art,
but the glitter of gold and plastic-fame;
but fifty years hence,
will someone put their face on the Statue of Liberty?
There is a corruption we all should abhor,
It starts on the left, and corrupts to the core,
Cancer of the soul, if left to go on,
It takes bit by bit, ’till the whole soul is gone.
Makes people think that there are no values,
That everything’s fine if it’s ‘true to you,’
Moral absolutes they loudly disclaim,
Then turn and wonder why the world seems insane,
Why their true feelings don’t bring happy lives,
Only leads to a black rage deep in inside,
‘being true to you’ is a moral perverse,
With no standard to judge, things get much worse.
What’s ‘true to one’s self’ for those fond of rape?
Should the serial killer show his ‘true’ face?
And what of the types who change ‘truth’ every week,
Then act offended if anyone speaks?
The corruption permits them to silence all,
Pushing more and more, until it all falls.
The corruption pushes out all real beauty,
Replaces it with the fecal and ugly,
Throws out the masters who’s work defies time,
Declares that splatter and blank space is ‘sublime.’
Renir, Bougereau, Bierstadt, and Degas,
Masters whose paintings amazed all who saw ,
Now me have charlatans, ‘artist statements,’
An art world that can’t uplift, just dement.
The same trend pus music into a plight,
Ignore Beethoven, ’cause his skin as white,
No longer to Mozart do critics clap,
But ‘es and ’hos,’ that’s where it’s at!
Celebrate decline, claim that it’s ‘sincere,’
As it there’s no ‘real’ behind beauty and cheer...
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
It was sometime during the 1940s George Orwell
wrote the acclaimed novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four,
a book exposing a societal condition of pure hell.
The policy of draconian control has never meant more
than it does now as political doublespeak takes place.
Greedy powermongers are guilty of leading lands to war
and hypocrisy runs rampant in government. It's a disgrace
to the office of Presidency that idiocy has gotten this far.
The nonsense of Tomfoolery is the tragic kind of behavior
by manipulative charlatans, narcissists who are in position
to claim they are uniting the world as peacemakers, saviors
when they should be imprisoned in the annals of Perdition.
Many people fear AI will soon have power to take control
but Trump, Putin and others make AI seem rather docile.
Bullies with followers who think they are gods, these A-holes
create mayhem and chaos, whose assholery is colossal!
Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, about totalitarianism trouble,
a stark warning during a time of global conflict and clashes.
Such turbulence exists inside Trump's disinformation bubble.
He must be stopped before the result is a world left in ashes.
"A horse... My kingdom for a horse," shouted Richard the Third.
He was a Lionhearted king, but Trump and Putin have no soul.
History will regard their transgressions as being cruelly absurd
for nothing good they've done will be worthy to praise or extol.
By invitation from a trusted friend,
a medium intervention took place and I went.
The building set in the thick forest by a shimmering lake,
some broken sheds looking sad and strange to take.
Weeded and worn the manor house thatch,
a frail welcome and the oil lamp in my face, opens the latch.
Guided into a stony room, a roaring fire giving light to others,
all wearing coats to darkness trance of matter.
Musky sandalwood and smoke heavy on the eye,
cold winds slapping windows nearby.
Tattered curtains reveal a stone cast from the wall,
a female priestess turns into a fragile light, while some stones just fall.
The purple silver dress enriching her timeless gestation,
taken centre stage and a bow of appreciation.
‘Weary dreary, the lot of You’,
the soft velvet voice seeking attention, of what to do.
“I roaming with a hungry heart,
and I invite you to my noble sphere”.
‘And all I see are empty cloaks everywhere’.
You charlatans and prosperous healer,
you happy clapper and commercial dealer.
‘When will you lot start to provide genuine visions,
which are not based on commissions’.
‘This labor by slow prudence not to fail,
needs the wind of compassion to sail.’
‘Some work of noble note is still to be done’,
Deep moans round with many voices,
some shriek from there own detected choices.
‘We need to be one equal temper with heroic hearts,
to strive, to seek, to find the virtue of healing art’.
The doctrine is simple, ancient and true,
Life’s trial that you only love what is worth your love,
has little consequence by the miracle above.
The fire crashes to a flicker and darkness takes the hand,
The faint voice of the priestess so clear, “Wake and understand”.
Feeling lost in the solemn and strange,
wondering about the elements it takes to change.
Reality, wow what a concept
lifes provable facts
those incontrovertible truths
things that stick out and not fall in the cracks
Its subject to interpretation you see
describing the elephant for the blind
this part the leg,
that a tail, this part a trunk!! Divine!
For reality takes an observer
to set itself in the track
if that tree fell in the woods with no one to hear
did it make a sound of a crack?
Without perception it's all contention
if it ever existed at all
and we are all running around with vivid imaginations on ground
till incontrovertible evidence is found
See it, touch it, document away
till the item in question is in decay
or maybe even obliterated away
the observation itself causing the obliteration to stay
And so that was how faith was born
for people to believe in others known truths
we didn't have to experience it first hand
we just had to trust like a youth
And from that comes charlatans
who mangle that truth for cash
and make the world a caricature
and history rewritten despite past
With no firm understanding of what is
or firm understanding of what was
people lose their compass
and look to god above
Reality, wow what a concept. - Artimus (C) 10/11/2023 Susan Manley
there is a sentiment amongst the most public of believers &
even those nonbelievers who still hold some sick
compassion for them…
these
“privately religious,”
who do not parade around with the charlatans
who gather on sundays or get down on their little rug & face mecca,
and they are given some kind of
special treatment,
as being more “spiritual” &
possibly even leaning more towards the agnostic than being
true believers at all,
still, they hold the little books so tightly in their arms
when they go out in the woods behind their house to
be one with nature or
meditate to try & get to be
one with everything---
they step outside themselves in such a way
as to escape what is right in front of them &
say to all who ask what they believe:
“i believe in something…i mean, i have my own idea…i don’t go to church or anything”
as if the humans who do go to the worship extravaganzas
think any different?
as if the personal god that is supposed to answer their prayers is any more in tune with you
just because you don’t call it by the same name or
worship it in the same place.
each member of the privately religious
make themselves more ridiculous than those who get together,
because they sit alone like ****ing joseph smith & his plates,
still believing that there is a unique revelation coming down the pike
for them & only them.
With a load of worries on your shoulders
You dolefully trudge on your path of life
Evading any ditches or impeding boulders
craving for a life free of stress and strife.
But then someone cuts right in front of you
Shoves his faith in your face and his views
And wouldn't let you be even on cue,
Sadly but the pestering just continues.
And for the fact, since the beginning of time
Priests and politicians have come and gone,
Yet mankind has kept on with his crime
So why not leave politics and religion alone?
That’s when I go crazy with a machete,
Hold me tight for I can’t stand steady,
Like to shred those goons like spaghetti...
Ha, I am shuddering with rage already!
~11/08/17
~Judgmental People and Haters
contest by Brenda Chiri
Dr. George Gey from Johns Hopkins Hospital
Was looking for cells that would be reproducible
Of their own accord for the benefit of medicine
And lo and behold one day found the perfect specimen
And how he acquired it didn't rattle his conscience
Because there weren't any rules then that governed the science
So he made them immortal or maybe God did that
Then he gave them to others who sold them for profit
And the cells multiplied and aided discovery
And they probably will help cure cancer one day
But where did they come from, the specimen's human?
Those cells were extracted from a mother, wife, woman
Poor Henrietta or maybe Loretta
Was a work-a-day lady who hailed from Virginia
She married her cousin and bore him five children
Then after the war steel work took them to Maryland
One winter's day Hennie felt her womb knotted
"Hennie," said Day, "we should go to Johns Hopkins"
"Henrietta, you're pregnant but there's something else growing
And what's in your system for sure we're not knowing"
So commencing the testing and treatment for cancers
But for all of the prodding came not any answers
At age thirty-one Henrietta died painful
And to her baby Deborah she'd be a guiding angel
So imagine her shock when she learned about HeLa
The cell line immortal that came from her mama
As reporters and charlatans flocked to their family
Some of them claimed they could gather owed money
But more than the money was the need to acknowledge
What their mother had given and pay her due homage
So bear with me now as I offer this paraphrase
Of the beautiful refrain that her headstone articulates:
In loving memory of phenomenal Hennie
A woman wife mother who touched the lives of many
Here lies HeLa her cells helping mankind eternally
As the Love forever to you from your family
Centuries of lies, a hollow myth
Perpetuated by charlatans with great ceremony
The Greatest Show, the living bread
The crowd sustained and animated by necromancy
The will is fused, the body dismembered and reassembled
Eager dehumanization, they tread the path
An ancient instinct, hereditary chains
Lift the chalice, a cannibal rite
Commit the body to the fires
They burn all sin to purest white
Like bones they glisten in the sun
The heart is woman, a harlot's course
Chaos bound to ritual law
A book to strangle, the human vine
Withered fruit, none shall eat
A brittle parody of True God's design
The Word of sufferance, spread like plague
Prostrated before your False God
An empty gesture before his impassive gaze
Power channels, below the surface
Christian mind cannot detect
Stabbing empty, fever pitch
Turn the blade, release is now.
Born a lover, man of valor and strength
Admiration of women, eyes in length
Head of the valiant
Power acquired from assailant
Might relinquished at hand
Born to conquer by hand
From the sword lives the strong
Bold and louder than a gong
Name etched on stones to lead
Fame carved on skins to bleed
Highlander is the warrior
Half-man and half-sorcerer
Skilled to live and conquer
Fated to last like a meteor
Hundreds of years he has lived
Real or myth, not short-lived
To kill is to survive with dolor
To die is to live with honor
Villains of various characters
Attempted to deceive as praters
Enemies wearing tatters
Bearing signs and symbols of partners
Charlatans in images of beasts
Or allies of antagonist that feasts
No one has yet silenced
Voice of protagonist in valence
The name remains the same
Under a curse he lived without shame
Redemption for every kill on his list
Contrition and pains in his whist
Gorged with uncontrollable dreams
Scourge of endless reams
Hands of stone that's blown
Heart of own that groan
Immortality is the prize of existence
Mortality as the wager of penitence
Sword is a sign of the Cross
A token of torments embossed
Balance of justice he lived for
Weights of toils he'll die for
Hero or heel, he asked
Brewed or screwed, he basked
A King in his right to live
A slave in his sight to give
Blood in his own vein that whines
Soul in a body that grinds
Highlander is the title coined
Man of justice in his cry conjoined
Love in his heart will stand tall
Over heroism or barbarism of the fall
Love will prevail in the heart of the Highlander
Destined to outlast, not falter
There can only be one...
Bernadette prayed,
wore straw knee pads
and
built a cathedral incarnate.
Remains of the glorified were
sun baked shingles upon her roof.
Beaded mercy chips
and
pieces of blessed palms
sewn by dainty hands;
her mausoleum.
Visionary lass -
the divine enchantress
taught you to devour
a million agonies
and
digest the callous sins
of modern day charlatans -
who foolishly attributed
your pious actions
to
telltale symptoms of
manic depression.
I, who now sit alone by this barren shore
Looking vainly out to sea as if
I thought I could espy distant Crete,
Have become a source of ridicule
Among these lesser men,
Who strut and title themselves architects
And brag of the hovels they erect and call palaces,
Built for the king of a land that knows no better,
But, ignorant of Geometry and of Number,
Are merely charlatans and young fools,
While I (an old fool) sit here unused and rusting.
I, who built the dread Labyrinth by command of Minos,
Where he imprisoned the monstrous Minotaur
And every ninth year sent seven girls and seven boys,
Tribute from a defeated Athens,
To their deaths in its dark depths
To be devoured by that mindless thing.
But when Ariadne asked for my help
To save her lover Theseus from that fate,
Foolishly I gave it,
And Minos turned his rage on me,
Imprisoning me and my son inside that very prison.
In my arrogance, I devised a plan
To escape from that which was inescapable.
And this I did, but still was trapped by the sea
And by Minos’ black ships that roamed it.
From wax and the feathers of seabirds
And by my knowledge and craft I devised wings,
And we soared into the cloud-flected sky,
Away from that island prison and free.
For hours we flew on our wings over the dark sea.
I took care not to fly too low,
Else the sea spray dampen the wings and make them heavy,
Nor to fly too close to Phoebus
In his daily journey across the sky,
Less the wax melt.
But my son forgot my warnings,
(Or perhaps I forgot to warn him; I can’t remember now),
And he flew too high and the wax melted
And he fell and the sea swallowed him.
I flew on then, alone,
Until I reached this primitive land
Far from Minos’ reach.
I burnt the wings,
And kept my name and my knowledge
Hidden from the people of this land.
And so I sit here idle,
While above me the birds fly
Where, once, I flew,
And gaze out to the sea
Where Icarus lies.
To the North, South, East, and West...
Geniuses are lost in the jaunty jewels of rakish cads,
The hazard morsel palaver allot odium on idioms...
Rankle virulent mishmash wheeze addle chagrin jives,
Loosing a volley of expletives ordure waft charmed oafs,
Self-iniquity gull maven heresy when blighted wizardry jinxes,
Ticklish cynic infidel swindle dupe cozen duress...
Squall patois and whammy sham schemas wriggle hoaxes,
Charlatans and hoodlums melange to dunce vows,
A shyster unquiet quivers with jester gestures now...
Semi-sacrilege vitiate and endemic jargon raze imps,
This collides as a white energy as dolt hooligan knaves beget...
Colloquial bilge putrefy, the rascals soon flatter us,
Bollix of potpourri lingo wanes to tutelary tongues,
Harlequin coercion argot musical novellas in history,
Pray our shifting shrapnel of karma, varnish boor minds,
Erstwhile, live grenades made of better lives are unvanquished as they are
thrown by unsung heroes into the North, South, East, and West,...amen...
“The Wolf’s Pockets”
Virginia knows
what’s written
in the mass of a rock
the heaviness of words
not soluble
anchored to life
that does not float
A Wolf swallows Woolf whole
Hungry for something -
“other than” ;
Submerged,
what is not seen
is swimming below
a sharp clean surface
her dissolving shadow
found through slender fingers
wide spread and ink stained
running through shallow waters and
swaying reeds, something forgotten
like touching her child’s hair
combed with a soft brush;
free diving deeper
baptised, she touches Heaven
baby’s breath and
almond scented
Erin lilies like milk,
the sweetest let-down,
she drinks it all in
ignored by charlatans all bored
with their own faux wisdom
apathy flexes fits and moulds
around a body of work
sinks in deep and dry
a sunken treasure
to be found
some time much later
bound to tell a story
that travels down stream
The Wolf’s pockets
weighted with black treasure
open wide and beckoning
arms cast wanton alms
for plenty dreams and
sweet reckoning
infancy embraced again
the sleep of sleeps
and candour
like opium is taken in,
read, edited,
then,
silently missed
a
Final Draft is written
Read again
Read again
;
(LadyLabyrinth/2019)
for my daughter
Georgia
https://youtu.be/BpyR9VxRRUo
Freefall/Robin Guthrie
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Virginia Woolf
1. Virginia Woolf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf
2. The Let-down Reflex.
3. https://projectsemicolon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/projectsemicolon/
https://twitter.com/projsemicolon?lang=en
4. Beyond Blue
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/