Long Folker Poems

Advent
by
Rick Folker
December, 2017

"... you know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake ... the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us throw off the works of darkness and...

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The 'Beloved Community'
by
Rick Folker

One beloved community
in God's world
Where each soul honors
the Image of God in the other
Where neither Jew nor Greek
Woman nor Man
Delivers the 'manifest destiny'
From Sinai's peak

Where all are called to Isaiah's mountain
Eunuchs and...

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Mimshak*
by
Rick Folker

As the Lord lives, it must be the Lord himself who will strike him, whether the time comes for him to die, or he goes out and perishes in battle. But the Lord forbid...

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Resurrecting Icarus
or
A Modern Moral Fable
by
Rick Folker
Kansas City, Mo


Daedalus claimed the sky,
Built a labyrinth from which
Theseus could fly
...
Minos enraged, entombed the 
Treacherous Daedalus in a tower
No sky could aide the architect’s power

On high
No land, no sea
Gave...

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The Ethical Self
by
Rick Folker

If there is evil here, it is complacency, and it is collective.
- Courtney Martin/columnist for On Being

The Moral Arc is bent
but not broken
It can be retrieved and repaired
like a shattered heart
withering in...

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On Reading Akhmatova
by
Rick Folker
Kansas City, MO

...delighted in deliriums,
In singing about tombs.
I distributed misfortunes…

… But I am not allowed to forget
The taste of the tears of yesterday.

- Anna Akhmatova
“The Last One”

Awake in my darkened room
Another nightmare...

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Ibrahim’s Broken Dream
by 
Rick Folker

His withered hand sifts through the sand,

“My descendants, Isaac-Ishmael are like
stars that have fallen, sand scattering into a
nameless lake ...
Something causes him to wake
some voices whispering,
"Remember Isaac, Remember the Knife.

Lillith-like women...

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Mother Tongue
by 
Rick Folker
March 15, 2017

Words...
Words bereft of beauty
bitter words
barely concealing the 
viscious intent of 
opaque surfaces
concealing truth with 
the fake, urging us to destroy - not to make
swallowing the ashes; leaving rage in their...

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That Which IS
(for Julian of Norwich)
by
Rick Folker

I came across it 
in a bookstore
As if you were standing 
right there and smiling,
"Now do you understand?  
It IS enough."

You, in your cloistered cell
assured us of the...

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59
by
rick folker

What happened in Vegas
Should not stay in Vegas.

Such a mind-numbing tragedy
cannot be contained, nor constrained
or explained
by a simple 'summing up'.

No, never 'what happened in Vegas'
Should be termed, the new normal
Or the the new acceptance
Of...

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Phantom Lovers
Rick Folker

Seek the meek
In bars discreet
Where men hold men
longing
to be 
complete

the disco days
the haze, the craze
before we ever dreamed
there could be a party crasher
like AIDS

dance, dance, dance
abandoned, unbound
that heady freedom
offering a chance

Your soul is...

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It's Not My Job
by
Rick Folker

It's not my job to teach you of 
love;
to pull you, pry you from your
place of hate.

It's not my job to lift you
from willful ignorance
when you elect a president
the despot whom...

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Sit Transit Gloria Mundi
Rick Folker

Our current consumptive culture
Salivates over
"Tech" and "Cell" and "Screen"
That transmits the lurid, pornographic
Apocalyptic scenes.

We long for the end
Of the endless 24/7 hollow info
Hoping, even praying that 
The Moral Arc would start...

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What Remains
by
Rick Folker
June, 2017
Kansas City, MO

When the crowd clamors
And the tocsin clangs

When the mighty and powerful
Crush the weak, the vulnerable,
The poverty that chains and shames

When fear fights fiercely
With the menacing gang
Silencing the prophets
With their poisonous...

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Scare-City

by

Rick Folker

Here on these mean streets...
The palpable lack of love
Threads through the alleyways
of brutal loss and unanswered prayers;
The anguished cries of despair rise
with the unforgiving heat.

Here among the forlorn refugees,
the frightened and the poor,
Can be...

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KINDRED KIND
by
Rick Folker

We need prophets and poets
Poor people, lost people
Raising their voices
In Rage

We need Feminists
Fearless Gays, Forces of Freedom
Ready to
Engage

We need Blacks
We need Browns
Burning with your 
Fundamental 
Faith

We need the Unsung Young
And the Yellow-Red tongue
Yelling...

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Lost Lamentations
by 
Rick Folker
(remembering Charlotesville)

"Miserere mei, Deus"

Lost among the shrill voices
of blame, of rage, of insatiable violence
The low, plaintive lamentations
the sackcloth, the ashes
the Cry to Heaven for mercy
smothered by media spin,
justifications and sin!

Forgive us Heather
Forgive...

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