Best Polity Poems
1
The personal is boring
as are my ruminations on the war.
What I need to do I can't try:
wander without shelter in the backcountry.
Or go deeper into the polity,
join a committee or a party.
Minute by minute and season to season
I like my life but what does it add up to, what reason
to go on? No better than a squirrel
or a spider. Spreadsheets, fake books, girls
I want too mildly, modestly or morally to have.
Can the economy and community be called love?
You can be killed and buried in gravel
Your children can be failed at school and marched to war
You can be taxed and sent to gaol for the honor of it
And there's nothing you can do about it.
Will we find the universe not large enough to hold us?
Will planet after planet be too old for us?
If you were president, what would your program be?
What one question is the key
to another's truth. How do you spend your money?
Do you believe in a god who can see
all and understand? Or is he
unable to care, a different species.
2
We take the long view
that as individuals drop
from sight, new enthusiasts
will associate. Legs
give out, lungs collapse,
but we do not let the circle lapse.
For every Aristotle
there are a million toddlers
who will advance no memorable
theories. But the mist
on trees and mountains,
sunrise over desert, are for
every merchant, traveler.
My sons will take on cares,
which toys are theirs,
as their parents grow
older. Slowness brings us
to our goal: do one thing well.
By that what is meant?
Don't be a dilettante.
Not having found the greatness
of a single, clear description,
definition, the greatness comes in
doing everyday what's known.
Straight rows of soft chairs, larval eyes stare blank
Absorbed by glowing colors on the wall
Their jaws slack, fetid whiff, unwashed and dank
Arrested minds the blue screen does enthrall
Their horticulture, growing docile strains
Indulge the twisted whims our lords conceive
The whores to culture, placid in their chains
Reclining prostrate, ready to believe
Our nation’s spirit sinking to expire
Omniscient demigods behind the screen
Transmuting our light to synthetic ire
Red, white, and blue bows to red, blue and green
Unconscious fulcrum, force you can’t deny
Black keys in gray hands of the puppet priest
Subliminal, no chance to wonder why
Clandestine reins pulled taut, they lead the beast
Imbue the symbol with gilt qualities
Admire how they conspire, our life rewired
Such dazzling tricks to blind the polity
In breaded, cheap amusements, we are mired
Our brave new virtual reality
With hidden craft, untruth is overlayed
Eclipsed sun darkens to totality
Beneath benighted noon we walk as day
Predicted, instinct’s base reaction known
To tidal waves of violence and sex
Minds titillated by distraction’s bone
From our Media-Government Complex
Our internecine hatreds stoked, inflamed
Creating and enhancing the divide
True culprits are protected, victims blamed
Incessant war, the great rift yawning wide
Unseemly freedoms have been made taboo
Renouncing power, most don’t even grieve
Relieved to give up guns and money too
Behind red tape and laws lurk skulking thieves
Resounding echoes, our once great New World
Through wavelengths, diodes, context redefined
Cold software guiding social plots unfurled
Far colder people fine-tune the hive mind
Inheritors of might presume the role
Unburdened by the ballast of remorse
Their dark ascent to power and control
Soul-searing wind as you climb to the source
Some zealots hold that this is Satan’s world
Each object of desire imbued with blight
Much clearer when the plan becomes unfurled
So glaring it becomes they have the right
This morbid monolith, our freedom’s bane
Temptation steals your breath, you’d best beware
Choose reason in a world that’s gone insane
Reclaim your only soul and say a prayer
© Thomas W. Quigley
7/17/16
Mostly Iambic Pentameter
As a child and a teenager I used to attend a mission-hall,
Which had an outreach to the homeless of Edinburgh;
And every three weeks until I was about seven,
They would give the last call so that god could your soul deliver.
They said at the end of every sermon,
Every three weeks in the evening,
“This is the last call!” and they meant ever,
‘Cos Jesus could return any time for the believing.
I felt so intimated by it, this unkind presence of mind,
That I could not properly sit on my seat,
But I knew that they were insane with melancholy,
And that it was the real dynamics of life that they could not heat.
I refused to chat with them after services and at the youth club,
About what I believed and about the in and outs of my thoughts,
But poignantly sat down with the Youth Fellowship leader once,
And talked to him about what in me life had very clearly wrought.
When I said outrightly that I did not believe in the Second Coming,
And that life was for keeps, give or take a few possibilities,
It was as if his world crashed down disarrayed in shambles,
As he was shattered by my philosophical sway and confident amble.
He realised fully that I was damning their last call,
The pressure of it and how it riled, writhed and tormented;
That it was for no good reason, for no universal moral principle,
For no disciplinary cause and for no complimentary angle.
So he arrogantly walked away from me, rudely with passivity,
Not aware of his own need of polity, sense and direction,
But it was a triumph for that mission-hall boy worker,
To react to an objector so firmly and not himself recapture.
They were generally unresponsive and indifferent,
To intelligent objectors who had a righteous way,
Because this left them with their day-to-day lunacy,
With reality dressed for them to face another day.
That mission has changed today into a Christian centre,
Bright and refurbished and selling lunches in a cafe,
And I am proud of its journey, how far it came,
Because the transition was by no means lame.
I understand this
Without lenders there are no borrowers
Without borrowers there are no gain
Of debt multiplying
And without debt
No one can buy nor sell again.
For everyone must want
And makes things
Accessible like products
Spilling, and spilling
Into the endless blackhole
In chase of satisfaction.
For much tax must I sell my vote
Please cut my tax again
I need it for collateral
To edge my loan
My spending keep increasing
It is the drug of the market
The drug of the market
Sellers meeting buyers in my mind
Please cut my tax
And if get broke providing services
And you still need me
To surrender my individuality
To this polity that is the state
Sell some bonds, sell some bonds
Then borrow too from tomorrow
Oops that was slip of the pen
I will not say that plain again
Just print more with power I gave you
But you will not give me back again
Wait, did I do that
What was I thinking in my madness
That has no memory now?
This bond between us is going to be broken
You never cut the tax of the poor
The rich don't hire here any more
The banks are only collecting
Nobody is lending
It is sinister what I feel
Can a man dream for real?
Forecast upon forecast no profit see
Who will tell our fortunes
When crystal ball and goose is dead?
Poor jack, poor jack
His bean stalk etiolated against the sun
Fried like an egg upon the fire.
Sat alone and stark on a brown chair,
Not even knowing what to do with,
Simon and Garfunkel’s I Am A Rock,
Just an isolated island heavy as death.
I didn’t even want to be there cheering,
Adding to the multitude of the church,
But taught that our family had its own,
Morality, polity and principles, I sank.
Not my fault if I have read the Bible,
That literary glory sprawled in canopy;
Ignore me if I understand the gospels,
In a way that’s not at all evangelical.
Less of your begging oh Christian,
Chat about universities for a time;
The ice-age has been, rivers remain,
Shunning stains the life of the free.
Quietly, I feel they used my disability,
Discriminating since I could not walk,
Mingle at the end of the service politely,
Relinquishing my caring spirit known.
I needed met, befriended by someone,
Who’d actively remove or assimilate me,
With a carer from the state or school,
To prevent me from a mental illness.
Just sat by yourself, just as a sore thumb,
Tested afterwards to assert you’d coped,
Because after all, that would be god’s will,
For your essential child development.
5th November 2015
He shocks me. Only a day or so ago
I'm sure I didn't look like that.
I try to part the few thin strands
of hair up top, the patriarchs before me
saw on their own sluggish heads
not long ago--I was not so sure that I
would always wish them peaceful rest;
it wasn't my idea!
But I have joined them now; this role
of wisdom in a geezer doesn't
always fit--and no one falls in love
with old ideas when the new ones
are in vogue. Respect and polity
lacked the concern of youth
that I knew 60 years ago.
'Twas ever thus? Perhaps. I never
long for olden days. I would, however
like to have us all just listen
to each other, stow the fear
and tempest in those heads
that sleepily look back at us each morning,
then forgive them, aged and young,
of all our doubts, for hoary heads alone
are not the arbiters of peace or joy.
It is every mother's son
indeed in saecula and saeculorum, say:
Amen, again Amen.
~
.
A sinking feeling
In the City of Djinns
...Pollution is down by 20 % this year
One reason given is economic slowdown
Happy souls- worlds second most populous
A free liberal atmosphere diversity of cultures
Ancient history worlds largest democracy bit by
Growth demon
Expectations
Governance
Infiltrations
Migrations
Right wing
exceptions
Promissory
New polity
Brought in
A New Law
is suspected
anti minority
discriminatory
protest provocations taking turns
clash of ideologies
Capital Burns
OH! Delhi
In a
Tail-
Spin
In the war of Left-Right. Forgotten is Head -Spine
Flying beauties. in Balance & poise
Ever squabbling. Political animals
Still your mind. and take note
Bird flies on 3 wings
Minus rudder
is
cause for
tailspin
_/\_
Voice Of Unfortunate
-Azad Babu
Today our want is
Some food to live;
We want no so ease,
Only need relief.
Our dream is naif,
We do ever combat
With lack of life,
Hap is our regret!
We dark by polity;-
Be poor by canker,
King isn’t hearty,
So, we hate any war.
Now we are cipher,
So, none us honour!
The Founders' fear of tyranny
informed their choice of polity.
They chose a form of government,
founded on the people’s power.
They acknowledged the hand of God,
in battles fought and victories won.
And knew the nation’s future state,
depended on His potentate.
Political parties soon evolved,
with platforms bold and grand.
The people hoped that they would be,
the pathway to prosperity.
Progressives felt no need for God
and thought the government was flawed.
So, they installed bureaucracy,
in place of our democracy.
They thought a forceful president,
would help to forge their vision grand.
A society without poverty,
and with complete equality.
The tyranny of bureaucrats
led by the squad of autocrats,
has stoked resentment similar,
to that which sparked our nation’s birth.
When Virtue's ship has long left shore
and integrity valued no more,
then lies parade as gospel truth,
and crooks, ruffled consciences smooth.
The parties are not relevant,
identities are dominant.
Sharp divisions have laid bare,
a nation caught in chaos’ glare.
Our nation flirts with Hitler’s ghost
as we are with one man engrossed,
who promises to right what’s wrong,
and is supported by a vast throng.
The threat to our democracy
comes from the right and from the left.
Beware friends, of cult-like figures,
they'll one day treat you like a pig.
True, a Myth-and-a-half ever since dim Antiquity
“Breathes there the Man with Soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my Native Land”
True, a myth-and-a-half ever since dim antiquity
Who breeds and holds the brood in binding sanctity
Isn’t s/he who sows and let grow blood ties in family
Don’t leaders all use the ruse of saluting country
La Patrie is never the suffering Peoples’ victory
They lay their lives down for their leaders’ greater glory
The plot of land’s where the Soul ignites anonymity
In the au-delà is not country mere pure vanity
Leaders lay wreathes at monuments for tv publicity
Upstarts win lone battle or two through freakish strategy
And let expanding borders be besieged by many enemy
Yet end-up somehow by losing the Imperial Army
Shouldn’t he who seeks to foist himself on a polity
Be required to pass the test of Ego-immunity
No vaccination nor re-inoculation would be free
From an overdose of megalomaniac frenzy
© T. Wignesan –Paris, April 9, 2021
We live a life of ambiguity.
We sat, "Value for life", yet death abounds.
Our leaders visit lands of polity
painful to all, yet make most benign sounds
of friendship and we shuck and jive a bit,
but convince ourselves that profitable
mutual ends can lead to a lamp lit
once to freedom, but now hardly able
to be seen in the smog of industry
and sweat of workers without any choice.
Men and women that are taken away
to lonely deaths if they hazard a voice
in the mildest kinds of criticism.
Our guilt lost in late show witticism.
The Standing One
Hidden away
But still at bay
Just as the clouds hide the Sun
He is the one chosen to rise
Fight with no compromise
Set fire to the city of evil
And set free the masses, the people
The Standing One, the king of all
As the messiahs of the earth
Get on their knees and fall
In Prayer
Behind the Leader
For now he is hidden
As his family before him was ridden
By the cruel tyrants
Who usurp the throne as aspirants
A throne that is beginning to reject them as authority
And heavily deceived by the majority
But like the Sun behind clouds
His disappearance is only a shroud
As the Standing One and his effect still remains
Just as the Sun warms the earth freely and not detained
The Standing One warms our conscience
And brings us to conscious
Of the heartless world, so monstrous
And the tyrants words', so pompous
In their cold, oligarchical caucus
Full of self-interest, profit, and darkness
And soon the Standing One will appear
To rise as humanity's last amir
Catching the tyrants and oppressive by surprise
And returning balance and justice through his uprise
He will crash the markets
He will destroy their profits
He will eliminate division
And will free the imprisoned
Race will be eradicated
To make room for unity
And corrupt systems will be annihilated
To set the stage for polity
The Standing One will fight fire with fire
And establish the just utopia we so desire
Uniting the world under one flag
And turning the world into something other than a body bag
So let us all Stand together
For we are all Standing with him
Waiting and watching
Let the world know that we are ready
To rise at his call, from the heavens above
To establish the just world we all dream of
To put an end to this nightmarish ride
And establish the perfect Kingdom worldwide
Guided by the very hand of God you right
The wrongs in perfect dramatic prologue
Written carefully no emotional sight
Do you want it, yes, no? Frowning frog
Kiss your imaginary prince
Imaginary your life's sense.
I dread the dark in your tensed up smile dear;
Kills the essence awhile and angrily sit
A spell till it passes and stills quiet here
Like a windless plain so deemed unfit
Dark widow, unbalanced life
Take my hand take this knife
Bleed for another, to stop within
Hell you feel your undying sin!
But you are not harmed, it is written!
Ever so clearly if you would have just listened!
Lo' the angels tears ask for clarity
Here it is, another chance for it;
Mental polity begs a polar opposite
So politely I beg your pardon's light
I kiss your cheek and send you off
To pull hell further down, chide its scoff;
Heaven kisses angels
What natural
Is, tell!
The hawk in tabloid swoop did boast –
Whose sweetened-toil doth but
Stink, becometh it
A merry-menu nutriment.
The floods and the woods
Of their own stead in silent-words
– As a sentry –
Sendeth but a sober plea of a loyal peasantry
O, Nature! Creator! – all alludeth in an apogee
To Thy apanage and earnestly giveth plaudit unto Thee.
The swallow withal doth cheerfully
Gather and spin the straw ready to build wholly
Her empire of great tutelage;
And with her brethren bridally liveth in that age
Of diligent generation, in Thee fully hid
And given to lead like a kid.
What is more natured
Than a frog or toad in water plodded and nurtured?
His severe and heedless howl showeth his joy
To tell that: silent in a grave he shalt be a toy!
And the squirrel the jungle quire bustleth from
Tree to tree defiant of mortal wisdom.
A colossal splendour standeth
Thine sun, whose domain the day standeth;
Withal the moon’s comity: Thou, to her appal,
Bestoweth Thine night colonel –
Both but enlisteth in Thine countless soldiers of stars
Thine extol they effuseth like showers.
No less for praise, joineth the beasts –
In the homes so in the forests!
At peace in war as an influenza, Thine honours –
Man, Thine effigy, intellect and genius, in his hours
Extendeth through the gross of polity
Concurring with each command of Thine policy.
O, the fish speaketh of Thine glory, ingenious!
This inferred from a noisy-silence of her fins;
For she scorneth the indigent effort
Of the fisher whose labour won doth him hurt;
Yet, both creatures in many a varied way
Inditeth for posterity great praises that for Thee doth stay.
Yes, the clouds and the firmaments
Oceans, rivers, seas: all waters in constant movements
Doth in harmony with man and beasts
Arrayed in silent-noisy feasts
Shower in mysterious mirth
Thine glory from endless history and myth.
Yet, I behold the ineffable work bestowed on me;
My limbs, they moveth to second Thine decree!
My eyes, no exception indeed
To the law of my being, so splendid
Are those commands for me safely to live
Tho’ many infamous beings abound to strive!
In 1963, Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
What he asked for should not have been a far reach.
Dr. King was rather unique
And boy did he like to speak
He spoke on equality and racism
And spread his message through activism
He was one of the most prominent activists during the Civil Rights Movement.
He was hoping for enlightenment
He led nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
Based on his years of experience
Dr. King was against discrimination and Jim Crow laws
They didn’t align with his cause
For this, the FBI deemed him a radical
That just wasn’t practical
He won a Nobel Peace Prize for combatting racial inequality
A major step for civil rights in American polity
In 1968, Martin Luther King met his demise
His assassination led some to theorize
Would he be surprised to how little we have come
Or would he be thankful for improving equality some