You come to me, again
in the midnight hours feigned
where only darkness and control reigns,
and life seems soured resignations
to unfulfilled expectations
that fill the nation with dissension and conflagrations,
some seek truth alone on which to rely,
others readily accept the lie
what conspiracies lay in disguise?
Clear your mind, open wide your heart
this was not the plan at the very start
of a free republic to be set apart
from acceptance and stagnant dependent rule
recalling historic lessons from school
now changed and reconstructed to fool
actions quite the mystery
as the past becomes rewritten history
extinguishes the dream that only becomes trickery.
Categories:
conflagrations, angst,
Form: Rhyme
There ought to be a law
If CEOs ignore firestorm conflagrations
expanding in strength
and endurance
And ignore wet windstorms
wiping out resident populations,
humane and Republican
and otherwise,
If CEOs meanwhile invest all their twitter toilet time
and anti-green revolutionary rallies
expanding hate conflagrations
of disinformation
against their patriotic healthy opposition,
and not one unmediated word,
much less "praying with feet" investment
in ecological and theological economic therapy,
multicultural healing sins of Great White Fathers,
Then we get to choose
a healthier,
more sane,
more loyal,
more invested,
more committed to health and happiness,
less treasonous
CEO.
And he gets to choose
a healthier,
more sane,
less fractured
therapeutic habitat.
Categories:
conflagrations, fire, health, mental illness,
Form: Political Verse
Looking back on those tumultuous summers
from nineteen sixty-five through sixty-eight:
Recalling
Harlem and Newark
Detroit and Chicago
Watts and even LA--
Young folks have asked me, Could JFK have saved the day?
Here is my answer
Don't know if it's right
After all I'm an outsider, I'm white
Yet it seems to me...
LBJ's civil rights legislation
somehow, one way or another
failed miserably in its implementation
~ igniting 'uncivil riots' conflagrations.
Categories:
conflagrations, chicago, conflict, new york,
Form: Rhyme
Gunfire and grave sites pepper the hillsides,
trucks with ammo taking position.
We have visas, fake I.D.s besides,
men in disguise infiltrate battle lines.
Heard about Houston, heard about Detroit?
fierce conflagrations abroad on the air,
eyes blinded 'til we can barely see,
taking shots, swallowing pills.
Will we ever see the end,
have we gone beyond the limit,
can we ever return to a peaceful trend
must we continue to murder and maim?
The world's gone haywire,
mistrusting our brother,
lusting after one another,
we're tapping phone lines
running road blocks, this ain't no party,
manipulating computers, a sign of the times.
Categories:
conflagrations, war,
Form: Verse
...an homage to Talking Heads
and their song with the same title.
********
Gunfire and grave sites pepper the hillsides,
trucks with ammo taking position.
We have visas, fake I.D.s besides,
men in disguise infiltrate battle lines.
Heard about Houston, heard about Detroit,
heard about Pittsburgh PA?
fierce conflagrations abroad on the air,
eyes blinded 'til we can barely see,
the sky is thick with startled sparrows.
Will we ever see the end,
so much more of the same,can we no longer see around the bend,
must we continue to murder and maim?
The world's gone haywire,
mistrusting our brother,
lusting after one another,
we're tapping phone lines
running road blocks, this ain't no party,
manipulating computers, a sign of the times.
Categories:
conflagrations, war,
Form: Verse
...an homage to Talking Heads
and their song with the same title.
********
Gunfire and grave sites pepper the hillsides,
trucks with ammo taking position.
We have visas, fake I.D.s besides,
men in disguise infiltrate battle lines.
Heard about Houston, heard about Detroit,
heard about Pittsburgh PA?
fierce conflagrations abroad on the air,
eyes blinded 'til we can barely see,
the sky is thick with startled sparrows.
Will we ever see the end,
so much more of the same,
can we no longer see around the bend,
must we continue to murder and maim?
The world's gone haywire,
mistrusting our brother,
lusting after one another,
we're tapping phone lines
running road blocks, this ain't no party,
manipulating computers, a sign of the times.
Categories:
conflagrations, war,
Form: Verse
...an homage to Talking Heads
and their song with the same title.
********
Gunfire and grave sites pepper the hillsides,
trucks with ammo taking position.
We have visas, fake I.D.s besides,
men in disguise infiltrate battle lines.
Heard about Houston, heard about Detroit,
heard about Pittsburgh PA?
fierce conflagrations abroad on the air,
eyes blinded 'til we can barely see,
the sky is thick with startled sparrows.
Will we ever see the end,
so much more of the same,
can we no longer see around the bend,
must we continue to murder and maim?
The world's gone haywire,
mistrusting our brother,
lusting after one another,
we're tapping phone lines
running road blocks, this ain't no party,
manipulating computers, a sign of the times.
Categories:
conflagrations, war,
Form: Verse
I have the shape of the institution.
Each email address is a human.
They are known by their words and actions.
The whole wide world is just a fraction
of all I do not know. Expansion
and contraction, breathe in, out, meditation
on existence, non-existence, creation
and duration. I have no explanation
for fusion, fission, taxonomic relations
or artificial classification.
More I do not know: locomotion
by combustion, electron separation
and transportation via superconduction
which supports the idea of the unified nation.
What girls are like behind their eyes. Masturbation
a useful restraint on overpopulation.
The story of a life, my life, any life, cohesion
must be rationed, conjured, a fiction
about a vexed, tenacious town, its rail station
truck stop, high school, night spots, recreations
the temporary citizens enact visions
dream-like orations, ballets, conflagrations
to in the end receive in annals honorable mention
from family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, institutions.
Categories:
conflagrations, creation, dream, family, friend,
Form: Verse
Long ago,the guinea fowls congregated
Clourfully and innumerably
And sang sweet songs
And played in the savanah
They sang for the for the antelopes
To leap and dance in the beautiful grass lands
The farm boys listened and danced too
And their hearts were merry
At night around the fire the folk tales were interesting;
The wild dogs barked ;
The nightjars called peacefully;
The owls clamorous,booming hoot was heard
The starry fireflies flashed in courtship elaborate dances
But the conflagrations came
And swept across the grass lands and bushvelds
The axemen were merciless ;
And by their millions the trees were severed
The poachers were ruthless
And the animals wild knew not more peace
The guinea fowls were poisoned
The nature loving farm boys beheld
All this chapter in heavy hearted silence
The guinea folws and other song birds
Shall never sing again
And the times shall never be better again.
Categories:
conflagrations, change, conflict, creation, earth,
Form: I do not know?
I traveled with Gulliver in his travails
Often times involving in shipwreck-
Or becoming prisoner of the Lilliputians of life.
I sailed on the ocean of life-
Getting marooned on an island called strife.
I must live; but life someday I must leave.
I thread this path with none to share in my grief
Worried that someday the planter will come to fall his tree.
Guns marching forth on the street of Glover;
Sending its victim on holiday to the cemetery at Akoka.
Speeding vehicles diving deep in the belly of the ocean
Conflagrations wailing along the neighbourhood,
Devouring what is left of the existence of man.
This death, this pain and this hopelessness-
Are the travails warped around our mortal existence-
Which to its realities we shall wake up to when we are long gone.
Categories:
conflagrations, life,
Form: Rhyme
Clouds follow stars
In filmy coverings of flesh
Hope bringing his own content
To harbours steeped in everlasting peace.
Whither fly the sparrow
From your altars buried deep
Conflagrations of incense expand there
Following before to keep your faltering flight
Where will I find
The sum of a sparrow lost
Floating on strings that through
God’s dust will change in pulling her along
Hushed the brave sleep
And there fulfill their frail song
Then will they come to him and fall
Helped in each descending stair to rest in peace
Categories:
conflagrations, death, history, hope, life,
Form: Blank verse
Dropped By A Peacock
I can no more justify these poems
than can the pyromaniac
his conflagrations. We both
stand back, the pyromaniac
in his alley, I on my hill,
each of us loving
the leap of our flames.
His are gazelles but mine
are just feathers
dropped by a peacock.
Donal Mahoney
Categories:
conflagrations, imagination
Form: Free verse
They watch me as I spend my time
As if they know the score
Sometimes they laugh
Oft times they cry
Out there in nevermore
And as I use their ways of life
In daily situations
They play what if in shadowed halls
Or minor conflagrations
It’s harder now to make a friend
Than e’er it was before
So many sudden partings end
The close felt feelings more
And all those generations strove
To spend their ways in pleasure
How many counted all their days
As simply buried treasure
What was it for that all before
Was there a hidden meaning
The chorus from the ghosts of friends
Is pulsing me to leaning
Into steady winds of time
To tack and come about
And shout
Come taste in haste the waste
Enough of all your keening
Categories:
conflagrations, life, me,
Form: Couplet