Long Gulag Poems
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
In Our Hearts and Prayers
How do we discern the truth of world affairs?
A raging war that take lives and impedes;
Truth lies on the lips of those in our hearts and prayers.
We seek to be supportive and show that we care,
From the tyranny that has been decreed.
How do we discern the truth of world affairs?
From a far, with out-stretched arms, your grief we share;
War, a tragic means to an end, we all agree.
Truth lies on the lips of those in our hearts and prayers.
Innocent lives whose faces are stained with tears;
From the mighty arm of power, propelled by corruption and greed.
How do we discern the truth of world affairs?
What will become of the worlds future heirs?
At any cost the powerful will succeed.
Truth lies on the lips of those in our hearts and prayers.
The visuals of war are hard to bear;
Will there ever be peace for humankind to be freed?
Truth lies on the silenced lips of those in our hearts and prayers;
How do we discern the truth of world affairs?
Sub-atomic particles
the atoms they form
molecules, cell organelles
cells, machinery of life
organs, organisms
communities and ecosystems
planets, solar systems, galaxies
galactic clusters and their inverse
black holes the doors to other
universes, a contradiction
in terms.
For language and its shadow
consciousness must hold matter
the material world snugly inside concepts
theories and hypotheses to be
experimentally verified using vision
and the other senses, collecting data
and interpreting the known facts
accumulated over time.
Can matter
exist without a consciousness to behold it?
Believing in
our mortality (the species)
we have created God
(a supreme being)
probably not carbon-based
to encompass every universe
but is God
inside or outside
consciousness? Can God
tell us what to do
or must we tell God
alone
what to do?
Here is ego
projecting personality, exerting force
on community, asserting the existence
and predominance of component DNA.
An already hackneyed theory that DNA
survival drives
procreation, personality, savings bonds
everything but poetry (most poems included).
Mustache, cowboy hat
horse whisperer, gulag master
Odysseus, King Lear
salvation in the details.
Yes, these personalities individual and interesting
as opossum, bear
oak and ash
beech nut, pine cone
Grand Canyon sandstone, Green Mountain granite.
Under leaden skies where shadows gather,
We look back at the great tragedy of the ages,
Since the Enlightenment, we admire the shattered dreams,
Where optimists, as architects of false hopes,
Have woven the warp of fear and bitter fury.
The fire of illusion rose like a falling star,
Its light shining over darkened lands,
But the flames of dreams became burning infernos,
Where angel wings and the voices of humanity burned in darkness.
In the ash temples of the troubled past,
The ghosts of the Holocaust and the Gulag whisper,
Great crimes, born of dazzling mirages,
Are painted on the canvas of history, by the hand of unbridled desire.
On the night sky, we weave constellations of despair,
From dead stars and galaxies of remorse,
We are not surprised that illusions have nourished deep wounds,
When those drunk on hopes created ruins of desire.
The palaces of dreams were built on abysses,
In labyrinths of longing and eternal deceptions,
Their towers, constructed from the sands of time,
Collapsed under the desert weight of empty promises.
Fallen angels weep in the recesses of memory,
On wings broken by ideals too high for humanity,
And the souls that believed in earthly edens,
Found only desolate fields, filled with sorrow and silence.
Gazing towards unknown horizons,
In this timeless scene of immortality,
The optimist wanders, an alchemist of his own disaster,
Turning the gold of hope into the lead of eternal regret.
And beyond the mist of time, in complete unknowing,
Only echoes of lost illusions remain,
There, where the curtain is moth-eaten,
We see only masks and spirits that dance in silence.
In the mystic darkness of our existence,
Lies the painful truth of our dreams,
In a cosmic chaos that intertwines hope and ruin,
The optimist and the pessimist, united in the infinite dance of destiny.
Capitalism is you paying a dog sitter
To take care of your two poodles
Capitalism is the Mets paying a great hitter
Or your mom, shopping for noodles.
Capitalism is hiring friends you once knew
To start a company, see an idea through
But some will target you and demonize
If the idea works, after many tries.
They say the profit motive is the key
to exploit the worker, cut down every tree
Rich people get rich because of greed
They shouldn't own more than what they need.
If a fat man stands by a thin lady, they infer
He got his meals by taking them from her.
They have a plan, they'll change how we live
To each what we need, from each what we give.
But its been tried before, in variations
Too much stagnation in welfare state nations
And when healthcare is run by the state
You'll get your cancer treatments, six months late.
Under Mao and Stalin, dissidents die
Don't argue with your new rulers, don't even try.
Be careful with facts that your kids should know
Kids better bend with the wind, or to the gulag they'll go.
But maybe free enterprise is not credible
And government cronyism is inevitable.
Social engineers pass mandates from on high
Companies too big to fail bailed by the little guy.
Just a treadmill to say in one place
No social movement, stuck on first base.
But there too, government had paws on the scale
Trillions in debt, educate kids to fail
Take a place like East Stroudsburg, PA
Forty percent of middle-schoolers didn’t feel safe.
Most little kids afraid to go to the bathroom.
Its all government run, a horizon of gloom.
Life is tradeoffs, every engineer knows
Cutting costs can matter, even lives lost
But money doesn't grow on trees
And life's necessities aren't free.
You can make socialism your ideal
Can say that you care, their pain you feel
But some of us will strive for a free market instead
The star we follow won't be red.
12/7/22
All over the map
Can't stay on track
Still inside a shack
Drinking yak
While it's pitch black
Listening for the sound of a songbird
Not living long term
Still taking a wrong turn
Giving into strong urge
Honestly I'm barely mad
I'm just very sad
Truth be told, I am an extraordinary man
Meanwhile most are off in fairyland
Out of context
A continual process
And contest
Of nonsense
Rarely done in good conscience
Jiminy
I smoke like a chimney
Round the clock consistently
I drink like a fish
Blackout when blitzed
Then wake up unable to reminisce
I do it all again shift after shift
Hit after hit
Sip after sip
This cycle continues to loop on
As I move along
Through the fog
With a few dogs
While inside a gulag
It's been too long
Now I grew strong
Talk is cheap
It's beyond belief
Just sought relief
Yet the cost is steep
At another junction
No longer able to function
From overconsumption
Behind the scenes or in public
They always judge quick
Then jump in
Always trying to pull some trick
I handle these munchkins
With a front kick
Easily they're done with
What was once hid
Left them perplexed by what I just did
Unlike all these hypocrites
Went through the thick of it
This is an iceberg and that's just the tip of it
My Constitutional Rights as an American Citizen no longer apply to me.
It's as if I were never ever born in America, My Most Beloved Country.
Thanks to the Bush administration and the administration presently
I have become truly what I can only define as an American Refugee
and I'm not the only one.
There is now over A Million
Suspected Enemy Combatants just like me.
We have all been placed on the government's watch list
because we reserve the right to peacefully protest
and demand answers to our questions regarding the 9/11 tragedy.
Right now, thanks to the Bush administration and the administration currently
the President can order anyone to brake into my home without a warrant literally
and search and seize by whatever means all of my property.
Under authority of the President they can detain me indefinitely
without notifying any of my friends or family,
at any undisclosed location without any legal representation allowable to me.
Did I mention that a warrant they do not need?
I can be tortured but they call it "Enhanced Interrogation"
because again, thanks to the previous Bush administration
president Bush enacted into law
that Suspected Enemy Combatants are not prisoners of war
and not subject to the Geneva Convention.
Perhaps none of the above will ever happen to me
but that doesn't matter because it still could very well come to be.
The bottom line is that many other decent people just like me
have been stripped of their American Constitutional Liberties
and all because we reserve the right to protest our government peacefully
regarding events that preceeded the horrific 9/11 tragedy.
My God given Constitutional Rights have been taken away from me.
I am truly a man without a country, an American Refugee.
Am I the only one who finds this scary?
http://billythekidsters-antisocialclub.ning.com/forum/topics/american-gulag
Power of Journeys
New horizons speak in hope and pull me to Pablo Neruda’s country
‘Twenty poems of love’ inspired by Santiago Robinson Crusoe Island
Serene landscapes volcanoes Andean mountains are outspokenly funky
I seek the space vibes vastness Chilean seduction loudly and silent
Few books opened my voice more than ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ scripted
by Alesandr Solzhenitsyn and thus my eyes have to explore the Siberian Plain
Despite all that ice a melting pot of souls minds and cultures encrypted
I need to welcome silence once more and Lake Baikal into my inner terrain
‘The Paradise of the Blind’ with heart blooded ink by Duong Thu Huong
wants exploration quiet reflection uncontaminated comprehension
Nature wrapped in philosophy the Mekong Delta is where I belong
Peace solitude reclusion at times require my full travelling attention
On this voyage Pinochet Stalin and Ho Chi Min can stay in their grave
Blending and mixing with beauty wise words Mother Earth is what I crave
Abominable barrage bombards
fortified barracks show
warring subsequently, incandescently,
and brilliantly doth glow
biden time, this
garden variety Joe Schmoe
hunkers down deep
within arched bunker poe
wet tickly donning
pence sieve stance against row
battery weathering incessant assault
invariably waiting for Godot,
albeit devout atheist doubting Thomas
suffers major blow
wavering, vacillating, undulating...
ominous foreboding,
viz more'n one circling crow
decries status ranking sincerely
truly posthumous hero
reconnaissance delivers...
yup absolute zero
looming dark shadow
futile against inconsolable sorrow
anonymous bookish deadened
erstwhile febrile fellow
good as gone, cuz yours truly...
fresh outta ammo
resigned killed in action
another unmarked grave
housing lovely bones
courtesy contemplative bro
charred body foretells, know,
and promises not one daisy will grow
despite fervent obeisance
soul fully do I futilely bellow
worse fate than death
i.e. gulag archipelago
feebly decrying, lamenting,
lamely pleading against
bleak unfair in apropos
sentence never granted furlough
never to witness celestial amarillo
beatific, cathartic, fantastic...,
nor chase gold pot end of rainbow
all pleasant dreams, I must forego
seek neither fame nor glory hobo
content whiling away (Billy me)
idolized time solitary Homo
sapien re: me tortured afterlife
enslaved forever guilty "fake" pharaoh
moans... suddenly joyous tears flow
aforementioned psychedelic mashup
figment of imagination - psycho
illogical gallimaufry, hallucinatory,
and illusory expo
attempt lame analogy how I wallow,
when setting sail
to launch crafted poe
whim, whereby invisible
battle scars attest
successful amphibious ambition
inundated battling lightspeed tempo
competing ideas exhaust
thus, I seek comfort of
soft cloud like pillow!
It must have been made
and rejected
in times grinding gears –
a knobby irregularity,
a leftover of smelt and dross.
This is all there is
a gobbet of oven clinker,
but behind it I sense cracked teeth,
soot seared across burnt eyeglasses,
blackened bones,
for after the gas came the flames.
Here it is,
a fragment long convulsed
from its own incineration,
an irregular rake-off, smithereens
dragged across a blind stone floor.
This tittle of slag once had to fit something
the rough rim of an iron door perhaps
behind which an old furnace
still cools in faraway minds.
A ferrous chip chiseled from a gulag,
or a souvenir from an SS campfire meet.
There is always something left
after the unthinkable,
always some spicule of irregularity,
detritus to explain or confound
as we toss it back into the fire again.
Have you been
Hiking the Quiraing trail on the isle of Skye?
watching golden eagles as they fly by?
Have you been
Hiking through fields of paintbrush on Mount Hood?
From Trillium Lake to Timberline, if you haven't you should.
Have you been
Pushing a frontier, discovering the new
Being all you can be, pursuing every clue?
Have you been
Locked in a small box on a Sandinista command?
They call it a Casita because there's no room to stand.
Have you been
Found dead in a Gulag before you might have been traded
For a Russian hitman, now all hope faded.
Have you been
Imprisoned by the scheming of one man's small mind
wings clipped, hemmed in, and confined?
Have you been
Locked up for ten years in Ariel Castro's basement
Chained, beaten, having ten years wasted?
Have you been
In solitary confinement for a year, because you protested fraud
In a D.C. jail, rights trampled roughshod.
Have you been
Dying with no friends left, in a hospice bed
Your sons think you are unaware, but you're all there, not yet dead.
Have you been
Dreaming at your desk, with your eyes wide open?
Looking for space, wishing for time to surf life's ocean?