Best Graft Poems
How do you change a lie into the truth?
Alchemy, dear children ...
this is how it's done, using unverifiable proof
First, you take a sick, dirty lie,
and doctor it up as truth
Whitewash and scrub it clean,
then jet power it with unsubstantiated verbal steam
That should make the lie thoroughly sanitized
Then play a continuous sound byte loop,
uncorroborated and fact-free
Present the fake news with a five-star salute,
then say secrecy is the true path to liberty
This rings eerily like New Age alchemy,
bell-tolling Faustian chemistry
If that ain't a manufactured alternate reality,
then somebody is lying to us obviously
How do you do this, change a lie into the truth?
Alchemy, dear children ...
this is how it's done, using fabricated proof
Next, you take a package,
and deliver it to the people,
with a Trojan horse message inside
But the people don't know it's harmful,
because they labeled it with a lie
See, that's the beauty of deception,
they don't call a lie a lie
Instead they choose another word,
as they place the pirate patch over their eye
Misleading, false claims
Plausible deniability
mis-remembering
Choose whichever words you will,
a lie is a lie is a lie still
Changing a word won't make a falsehood real
Taste the propaganda spoiled sauerkraut;
as alternative facts are trotted out,
and disinformation is bandied about
Know that immoral alchemy is being performed
by high wizards of the dark arts
Frankenstein experiments in need of more body parts
Don't be bewitched by lying craft,
don't get (con)fused by this manipulative graft
into a cancerous body politic
Changing a lie into the truth
is the ultimate alchemist trick
O let us meet again to make it right
Bridge me your love to cross
The river flows a torrent tonight
We must restore what time has lost.
O let me try again to know your ways
Graft me upon your soul as light
Forgotten fruits unpicked decays
And blind bats suckle them with delight.
O let us sit together and share a day
The golden hours fade from sight
Words cannot like sawllows ever play
O let us meet again to make it right.
“Arms Full of Linnet Wings”
In the garden
that afternoon
she planted seeds
in their ripe minds
their eyes looking
up to hers their
irises dazzling
in the late afternoon
sunshine wide open
as if waiting hungrily
for more food
she dropped words into
their mouths which
they swollowed whole
jewels like memories
nebulous little darlings to grow
perhaps too young
but maybe one old enough
for the story to stitch
and in time graft
and re-sow
all her little goslings
in a row, eventually
swans, black or white
she could not tell
would never know
she held tight
to the moment
that Summer all a glimmer
and noon a purple glow
arms full of linnet's wings
she never ever wanted to let go
too soon
she would leave
the nest
long before them
she wondered
ceaselessly
about the three fates
and how they’d
grow
the seeds
she’d planted
in their minds
bloomed an entire
wild garden
undernourished
yet overgrown
(LadyLabyrinth)
for Lynette, with Love
“The linnet and the drush say
I love, I love” (PJ Harvey)
“To see a world in a grain of sand
and a Heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and Eternity in an hour
A Robin Redbreast in a cage
puts all Heaven in a rage
A Dove house filled
with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thr’ all its regions”
(William Blake)
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
(William Butler Yeats)
Ursus Maritimus ...
I entered your world in quietude, slipping through the granular, soft.
Long slats to feet parting the frozen. Cold of a previously unknown
Extreme, nipping, sharp, the epidermis with ardor. A Mid-May akin to
February, homeward, first warning of extrinsic ire, ignored. Hours of
Similar (sobering) revelations ensued, supplanted by days, weeks,
Moons ... reality - icebound and born of abiding trial. The basic
Elements staggering, swallowed by the providence around me. A
Vastness beyond vast, afar ... crushing cold of limitless value, each
Sunrise a new contingency for measure of my insignificance. How I
Adored you for your beauty - such reward for the naked eye, there
Amidst a denuded struggle. Shaped by eons of selection into a
Creation of perfect form and ease, as at home with desolation as
I at a warm hearth and aliment. Moving sprite through your environs,
All senses attuned to the mind's axis ... at once knowing and known,
Master of a savage domain. Every dynamism a fluid dance, every
Steamed puff of exhalation a waif of delicacy, bespoken. Do not the
Gods aspire to such? If there were deities afforded such barren and
Bleak scapes, it would be none other than you - as exquisitely
Magnificent and divine as the forbidding but breathtaking element
Around you, my brother. Yet, I fear I have doomed you, for others
Will now follow ... others who find no such elegance in anything
But graft and greed. By the simple act of watching I may have
Sealed your fate, firm and grim. So, I will not turn to admire you
As I leave ... but rather keep you forever as a phantom in my mind
And heart and longings - to let you devour my spirit and join with
You, ever after straining to hear the echo of your lonely, distant
Growl, the one that so often haunts my thoughts and meanderings,
Dark and cold in the arctic night, dark and cold in the willows ...
Deep and frozen and dreaming, of your gleaming and breathless
Beauty. If but mine to touch ... to know. Forgive me and farewell ...
Brother Bear.
Democracy now that is a laugh
When the voting is all stacked with graft
And I will give you a plug
If you punch out that lug
If you believe me you’re really daft!
You say you’re poor and you’re not real able
To put food and some bucks on the table
Just right say the rich
Starve and don’t *itch
Or drop by and muck out my stable!
Grad’s from Vassar and Yale all abhor
Those in Appalachia with dirt floors
But they own the coal mines
And their wealth is refined
They won’t mess up their minds keeping score.
You can’t get a real education
In this righteous American nation
Well go read a book
Or go shoot a crook
Rise to your appropriate station!
The Long Drought
A raging drought is running, causing pain
Beneath the scorching sun, the barren plain
The river’s gone, she’s ceased her mighty flow
And bushland trees no longer thrive nor grow
The dams are low and dry, it pains my heart
Our town will slowly die and friends depart
No bales of straw or hay for starving stock
As more succumb each day, my dying flock
From hills of broom and land of dark”ning strife
He came to find a better way of life
The call of peaceful bush like magnet drew
In this sweet place my father’s dream came true
Beside a spread of bright and golden grain
A link was forged anew in our strong chain
Where ‘roos abound among the fields of corn
On this fair land, it’s here that I was born.
Work started for me at only fourteen
Became a sheep drover, still wiry lean
The days long an’ hard, the burden was light
The soil rich and dark, the future so bright
The farm became mine when my father died
Then came the dry clime, lost all of my pride
Long years of hard graft while still holding trust
Til lack of good rain turned soil into dust
The bank took our farm, I wished I were dead
Dark thoughts of self harm flood into my head
But senses prevail, I see them so clear
My darling wife, my young son very dear
I give you my hand, long time cobber mine
Take care of this land, it’s your dreaming time
Adieu my friends, for my time here is done
I'll pray for you all as the drought rages on.
I made a firm commitment long ago
to read great novels frequently, not just
when I had time to kill or took a class
in college, for then reading was a must.
I love suspense involving clients, laws,
and litigators. I have come to see
the ones that hold, for me, the most
are found in the library, Section G.
I've a confession. I first read a book
by this great writer twenty years ago
when an associate whom I esteemed
convinced me his is work that all should know.
I learned of what inspired him early on:
his decade as a lawyer, Harper Lee,
and hearing a young girl speak of her rape.
His passion for the truth would be the key.
When I read Grisham's novels, I'm enthralled
with every plot and subplot, those details
that loop and wind, connecting when the time
is right. Each ending's smooth. He never fails.
His characters could walk right off the page--
the saints and devils, all those in-between.
The themes are realistic, relevant;
the settings, sometimes places I have seen.
His novels often make me laugh out loud.
That's right--these books on graft and other crimes!
The funny parts just underscore the theme.
His sense of humor shines so many times.
Best sellers have long been his claim to fame,
but he has other interests as well.
He campaigns to set free the innocent
who languish in the jails and prison cells.
This Christian former Legislator's love
extends to baseball, home, and family.
Our state is proud to claim him as our own;
and his success, we're truly glad to see.
I included some of his novel titles.
March 9, 2019, entered in Kai Michael Neumann's Book Worm Contest
We all need it
Some feed on it
people are not what they seem
I do not fit well in the social scene
At least that’s what I think
Social standing is in the sink
In reality all is fine
Yet for greater acceptance I pine
Are the socialites so cruel
Is it by humility that they rule
Is there something wrong with me
What is it they can they see
I am blind to the futility of my path
The pointless endless graft
Its just for acceptance that I search
Don’t leave me in the lurch
Say what?
Almost my pen refuses to speak of it
It knows it exists, but not how
A woman with a good taste of jewellery
Gold never grows old
I could sing of this one the whole night
A woman supervisor who never smiles at SOME of her employees
And I thought highschool days were over
Surely she can cook some termination schemes to get rid of those that are not of her taste
Doesn't she not have the power?
A woman that dances to lighten my sad face
Her silky playful moves
Smilling from one ear to another
This one, saved my last smile
Now my pen will go to sleep,
Petitioning for a happy graft
That wide open plan,
The desktop area so spacious,
A vast canvas so beautiful;
Why do you sit there,
Open to all for their curiosity?
When you to me call.
Oh cupboard, that hard disk brimming with identity,
Memory no problem, even lacking files;
Proficiently organised with raging delight,
Amorous filing system which you employ.
All disks are obvious, seen by me,
Begging to be viewed, added to or changed,
Offering usage stats and permissions,
That are not just the programmer’s privilege,
But any users' decree.
No LOGO, no dos,
No text-based system to beat,
No floppies to be distorted,
By the drives' magnetic wheels.
Encrypted files are offered,
But that requires some introspection,
About whether or not your loved one,
Would really infiltrate your disk,
And read your documents.
My computer is a reflection of me,
My order or my mayhem;
No longer my prowess and endeavour,
‘Cos my articulations are my graft,
Not the machine’s mechanisations.
HARMONY 69
The night of twelfth December `69
knotted together an icy storm wind
that whipped False bay`s waves
to white -frilled blankets.
Thunderclaps against primal rocks
resonated through a ghettoe of glowing tents
on a dark, rough ,bushy patch .
Rising plaintively above the din
of drums and flapping canvas,
creole strains solicited the capricious gods
for a clement Cape .
Love songs , sweet like wine
would even tittilated mermaid`s melons,
stranding them breathless, with tails scaled.
In my sixteenth tempestuous year,
I was sickened and sullied, spoiling for a fight
with that ever- prying, ever-lying police-state
denying us
dividing us
deriding us
ripping us
whipping us
in an all-pervasive racist propaganda storm
Harmony,was forced ethnic relocation right there
in a stamp-size sea-resort next to a stinking dump.
Our yearly anticipated salty baptism,
fouled for a full ten years,
dunked in fascist soil
of a false bay with a real bite….
rubbing coarse salt in our opened wounds
Rubbing it in the flayed
William, my sire, of the black turf belly
Rubbing it in the lashed
Maxie , my ma , of white-on-black graft
Rubbing it in the spurred
Dot Adams, my oracle , of the pearled-truth tongue
imprisoned to a silent ninety-day solitary confinement. .
Yes, a full two hundred scar-studded waxes
avidly saluting the wretched who rose in revolution
drowning exploiters in the oppressed`s precious blood
Algeria whilst raped,unveiling herself,
firing fear into bared French fascism
exploding the myth of a benevolent colonialism.
“Lumumba will guide the Kongo to freedom”
grandpa agitated hopefully as revolutionary Patrice,
our dark prince of peace
died on the bloodied butts
of neo-colonial carbines.
My seven-year heart burst
in anger and pain.
A companiable heart`s balance
tilted with unease at justice , unhinged.
the periodic uprisings of people in far-flung regions
against the arrogance of anglo-saxon imperialism
salted my youth with the tears of broken children,
their blood ever spattering my angry brow.
This evil world we live in,
is a wild rat race,
a people of global sin,
an earthly disgrace,
Killing here, stealing there,
Bloodshed and thievery everywhere,
global hatred, beyond repair,
Governmental graft, so unfair,
The chance of peace,
not in the air,
The causes of disease,
burns like a flare,
Never to appease,
only make aware,
all of these....
a global scare.
Me slob clob be a dirty grey
me school an open alleyway
no sissy pens; we wield 'em guns
me canna count but me's no dunce
Clompers bare; me sneakers hocked
jiggle barefoot roll and rock
breathe in deep me dead-rat whiff
and suck me wacky backy spliff
Workavoidic be me graft
pleasure be a tankard draught
a willing gape to lard me wand
in Pete or Rex or busty blonde
Me rolled the slapper in the buff
caught the clap; she's up the duff
me downs no drink not alcoholic
comfy in me world shambolic
*******************************
Today is Constitution Day
By Franklin Price
9/17/2016
Today is Constitution day
Accepted many years ago
Our government defined therein
Explains how things should go
Politicians of today
Honor it when they see fit
If it doesn't follow what they want
They deviate more than a bit
Works fairly well, most of the time
Though none have read it much
Claim ignorance of the law that's there
Don't have to stay in touch
The longer they're in office
Seems the more that they ignore
It's time now to replace them
And vote them out the door
When replacements know the reason
The Constitution they may read
And follow what is written there
Which is not graft and greed
I know I am an optimist
And I will be 'til I die
To find an honest politician
Is like grabbing pie out of the sky
Natures gift in the shape of her vine
Planted with care, line after line
By the grace of our sun
Their growth has begun
In ripeness below her sunshine
We harvest her grapes, turned to wine
Growers experiences, know her signs
From her graft to their trade
In the grape is it's grade
Maturity is it's moment in time
To the table her results are defined
We indulge in our culinary dine
Us hosts in satisfy
Wanting palets in comply
As our tastes are in joint combine
For Francine's - Bottle of Wine contest - ( fruit of the vine, when........)