Long Herded Poems

The Amistad Mutiny

Slavery, a dirty word no matter how it’s pronounced:
Abducted and herded to the slave fortress of Lomboko1 for trade.
To be tossed in chains below deck on the Portuguese ship Tecora,2
Sailing the Atlantic Middle...

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Geese, Goslings and the Bridge

Sometimes, when you least expect it, Mother Nature makes a u-turn and draws you into the ridiculous.  Such was the time recently as I was returning from a friend’s home...

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On the canvas of a cold, grey, winter sky,
In large black letters above the Iron Gate,
Read the message: "Arbeit Macht Frei".
A shrewdly sinister, propagandist lie,
Designed to deceive all of our eventual fate.
This was the very...

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May 29, 1957: …have to think about getting a thesis director…know no professor yet in the department…someone suggested i get hold of Derek Fogg for an intro to the big guns in the philosophisches Seminar…can't...

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The Serb Dog by Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
     There was a bunch of soldiers standing around watching
a house burn and somebody said "Was that somebody screaming,
did you hear somebody scream?"...

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Acquah Vicki on Sunday March 31, 2013

 THEY CALL ME NELSON
 
No man can keep the spirit contained 

He herded sheep when they 

called him by name (Rolihlahla)
 
His teacher gave him a new name...

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What if political parties
all over Earth
were invited together to sign a covenant
at a We The BiCameral People Party;

A covenant to never nominate or endorse or vote for a candidate for public office
without economic
and political
and environmental
and...

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holókauston

Around that table picture the scene 
Self appointed leaders if you know what I mean 
What were the topics on the agenda that day 
The Jewish race is about to pay 

Who gave the right...

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Migrants on the move from violence
their only possession
breath-space on a smuggler’s boat
secured with back-bent harvests 
in pretzel-bent systems
weight of crates of strawberries 
hoisted on hell-bent backs
just trying to reach Spanish-shores’-east 
from Moroccan beach with a...

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Animal Chain Atrocities

No longer a bucolic photo op
bedecking a cover of Life magazine

Free grazing
pastoral images
now but bewildered enslavement

Animal commodities
factory farms and feedlots
CAFO habitats raising
sixty billion a year for dinner tables

Chickens

Hi-Tech slaughter
football fields long
alethic poor
four walled...

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“They took the whole Cherokee nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife”
        From “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and...

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All of the images
Sending mixed messages
Massacring the masses
\while we view hindsight through rose-colored glasses
And all the whispers stop
Silence thick as the sound of a pin drops
Moment of silence for all of the victims
The same silence...

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Reflections of my 59th birthday

This day gave me a new perspective and new appreciation
I awoke with a terrible cold and fever and spent the day fighting it
I slept the entire day away
No celebration or walks...

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They could hear the mighty felines
Running in a line behind them
Han and Kwona and the children 
Knew that they were being herded
 
These great sabre-tooth cat hunters
Were the rulers of the forest;
Now they are no longer with...

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CHAPTER 6 (d, continued)

Several times he threw the wing-form
With advice from Han succeeding
To produce a soaring flight path 
Then returning to his duties 
 
As troop leader; now the females 
Brought forth food they had collected
And their business turned...

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MANIPULATION AND WAR’S SPECTRE

When races, politics and religions,
Are grimly brandished as righteous reasons, 
To bloody calm fields and serene seasons,
Tis madness, paranoia…delusions.

A mans grandiose superiority lore,
Humanity’s stinking, putrid, sore,
To slaughter the blameless, to covet more,
To...

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What of "Free-Will," of which the prophets foretold?
A cruel little lie, bore of simple human design,
are our minds even capable, of the power to choose?
Or, are we blind sheep, being herded by the flock,
wrangled all...

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Both feet on the floor, 
Its’ 6am and once again I’m rushing out my door. 
Dressed in a hurry, showered and shaved,
My mind is cloudy, its’ still in a haze.
I rub the crust from the...

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Across the cracked concrete slabs,
past a fallen dogwoods left lying like so much litter;
at the red brick base of the courthouse, the jurors strode.

Through the doors too heavy for a mere woman to open unassisted;
and...

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Hey Alex you were just a number
Used and abused into a slumber
All those tours hoping you would blunder 
Slicing your brain like a cucumber

No Gordon you don't know
I'm the stronger person which I can show
Your...

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“But as I wandered through New York City
my hopes soured, and then began to sink,
people like livestock, herded this way and that,
endless laws...and good lord what a stink!

“Was beginning to fear there was no escape,
that...

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Once our land stretched from coast to coast
and the drums of the people beat proud
we were mighty and we were strong
     we were happy . . . 
then the white came...

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O' it's written in books and songs,
That we've been mistreated and wronged;
Well, over and over . . . . 
               ...

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Motherland
             Journeying into the unknown
             Journeying into a deep soil
 ...

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In Ongata Rongai's club, a memory song weaves,
A tale of Newton Karish and daring thieves,
Late '90s, New Year's Eve, a lively show,
A sold-out crowd, in high spirits, they'd go.

Karish, unlike modern stars who mime,
With a...

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