BY JAN HAAG
ANTI-WAR POEMS
"APRIL IS THE CRUELEST..."
opening of The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
#69
04-04-03
Odd that this "cruelest" should be running through my head today.
It is
April. Rain drops. Cold. We no longer speak of
hail. Now it's "ice
pellets." I ask my geology teacher: "Why?"
"Perhaps it sounds more
militaristic." That's acceptable in this, the cruelest
month,
producing, as it is, a wasteland of western civilization's
seed-bed.
Set the Tigris afire, the Euphrates ablaze, annihilate the
cradle between
the rivers. It's time for Mesopotamia to be full of craters,
bomb
craters, missile holes, unidentified dead bodies, the residues of
civilization.
The Taliban blew up Bamian's
Buddha, Bush's America blows up Nineveh, Babylon,
Ur, the Chaldeans, the Sumerians, Jarmo, all barely guessed at before
they were nine thousand years in the past, peered at curiously
by
the 20th century, blown to smithereens in the 21st, subjugated,
as all things salable, under the price-tag of oil. "Rulers for
Sale"
"Countries for Sale" "Presidents and Premiers for Sale" We live
in the
bargain basement of a world gone drunk on greed.
It was ever thus in the cruelest world, made so by
the cruelest animal
who, lamenting all the while, kills and kills
and kills, letting the desert sands drink the blood of children.
#125
11-09/10-03/12-25/26-06
I WANT TO KNOW
For Chungmi
Listening to the radio, when some of the odd programs come forth on
a Sunday morning, saying things (one never hears on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS,
NPR) from college campus stations or Berkeley or other
banished-to-the-fringes
and marked-to-be-annihilated-by-the-FCC places, I hear a
recapitulation
of Korean war news that none ever heard fifty years ago -- still
don’t
hear today, except on the odd Sunday morning stations of college campuses
or
Berkeley or other banished-to-the-fringes,
marked-to-be-annihilated-by-the-
FCC places -- that dozens? hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands? of our
U.S.
troops, our boys, our brave boys in khaki, while they were annihilating
villages
in Korea (would annihilated villages in Vietnam) stood in line (probably
in the
evening) for access to the rape rooms. Joking and laughing, eager for the
combat, they stood in line waiting to stick their penises into the bodies
of terrified girls and women. Maybe there were rape rooms for the gay
guys, too, waiting to stick their penises in the assholes of the Korean
and Vietnamese boys. Now, we’ve all heard -- if we listen carefully
to odd
radio stations or have a friend who wrote a play -- about the Comfort
Women, raped, mutilated, killed by the Japanese. These victims now,
slowly, cautiously have
stepped forward to tell their tales. But what we don’t hear, have
never
heard, is what happens to the other victims: those lads, the U.S.
troops, our boys, our brave boys in khaki who pulled their penises out
of their khaki pants and pushed them into the fragile bodies of little
girls, mothers, sisters, daughters, who, if they (the girls) were lucky,
then died
with the injected-by-many, smeared-semen oozing white and viscous from
their
gentle-lipped hidden entrances to the privacy where babies come from,
slipping newborn
into the world. The soldiers, we assume -- because they were the winners,
the
conquerors, the God-on-our-side ones -- lived on. Dozens? hundreds?
thousands? hundreds
of thousands of U.S. troops, our boys, our brave boys in khaki,
our rapists-come-home now walk among us leading “normal” lives.
There is
never a whisper about prosecution for the rapers (whether they be our boys
or Japanese or Muslim or Christian or Jew) in any war zone where
victims, losers, are shackled in rape rooms or restrained eagle-spread on
the
ground by the lads (their friendly, cooperative buddies) so their comrades
can push
their penises into the contorted-by-fear bodies of young girls, grieving
mothers,
widows, aunts, grandmothers in each war zone where this has happened from
time
immemorial. On each battle ground, the lads, our U.S. troops, our boys,
our brave boys in khaki or blue or mufti, stuff their penises limp
and covered with their buddies’ semen, and the girls’ blood and
fear, back
into their pants, adjust their gun belts, bringing their heavy weapons
again around
front where they can be easily grabbed to shoot, and walk off. Or,
leaning against a tree or the wall of the rape room, they light
a cigarette and enjoy the rumpus of the later comers with the girls,
women, meaty-pieces for penis-hard men. What I want to know is:
who are these men now? Do they enjoy sex with their wives? girlfriends?
prostitutes? Are they the ones who go on raping in “civil
society?” Are
they the ones (Congressmen, for instance) who vote for more wars, more
combat,
more victims so they can go again into the rape rooms beneath the
trees and stick their battle hardened penises into other peoples’
mothers, sisters, daughters,
and the butts of other soldiers twisting, turning, screaming not to be
raped?
Do they come home, cacooned by their memories? Maybe they are the ones
who declare themselves for these wars. For I, personally, don’t meet
any person
who defends the U.S.A. terrorist attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,
Columbia,
Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cambodia and the hundreds of other
countries the
we have infiltrated, invaded, raped “to bring democracy” into
the lives of the
living and the walking dead, whose innocents, with genocidal fury, we kill
in
countries not our own, where we bomb so we can rebuild (at great
profit) their infrastructures. In the polls, Bush and his henchmen still
stand high.
Somebody must vote for them. Are these voters the old rapers with the
hard penises? gone soft now with the remembered horror of destroying the
bodies,
the lives of girls, mothers, daughters, widows, aunts -- who now
need Viagra to
get it up just enough to father a single daughter for their later-
in-life pleasure. Who are they, these dozens? hundreds? thousands?
hundreds of thousands
of U.S. troops? -- our boys, our brave boys in khaki, brutally screwing
their sisters, screwing the earth, so there is no place to come home
to unhaunted by their hideous memories. Is my experience so limited or
have
all the rapers become liberals? demonstrators? protesters? Did they change
their minds once
they experienced the “glories” of war -- or -- do they want
more? then some
more? more under the trees, in the rape rooms -- changing procreation to
putrefaction
with their terrible pleasures -- to be lived with, remembered until the
day they
die, victims forever of man’s uncontrolled terrorism of his human
sisters and brothers.
MONGER
"...one who exploits, or busies himself with, something in a sordid or
petty way..." Century Dictionary, p. 1083
01-29-03
So there is only family life and war mongering
left, and economic
development.
Down through time and space we have eliminated
the
soul and art (now reduced to cartoons).
We have eliminated
handmade and hand calculation.
Mongering has become our sole
activity.
Do not dare to create unless it can be sold.
Breed,
breed children, recommend the Republicans,
"...now used only as the
second element in compounds." CD, p.1083
with their war-mongering, white, Yale savage
in the White House. We know what that
means:
cannon-fodder
-- can't be righteously at eternal
war without a good supply of
stalwart boys.
Can't look in God's eye, call him our own
unless we have sons to
sacrifice,
foreigners' blood to pour on our Nasdaqian
altars. After all, their
lives are meaningless.
MOSQUITO
(Aedes aegypti)
"Any of various dipterous insects...the females of which..." Century
Dictionary, p. 1096
02-04-03
I'm, more or less, a nine pint, 8% female,
so it would take 851,718*
simultaneous bites
for mosquitoes to drain my body of blood. Does it
help that they'd all be female, stabbing away, sucking?
Would
it be possible to put up with this blood-sucking without
flapping
one's arms, hopping about, crooning and shouting?
What would be left? A
flaky wasp's-nest-like tissue?
Or just the fat that floated on the
fluid?
"...puncture the skin of animals (including man)..." C D, p. 1096
Even I am two-winged about this. Should I
fly away? Stick around? Be
drunk to the dregs?
Animals usually only have tails to swish. We have
intellect to wield, yet we stand still for this draining
by
the "self-revealing grotesques"** now in office -- mostly male,
a sex
change must have taken place -- who suck and squeeze.
Tiny as
mosquitoes, they manipulate our lives,
cannibalize our life blood.
And they can be fatal.
* BLOOD FACTS
,
MOSQUITOES, PHYSICS:
Volume One, Resnick, Halliday and Krane, 1992, UW, OUGLibrary Question
Board
**discription (of Trent Lott) borrowed from The New Yorker, 01-06-03,
Remnick, p. 29
MATAEOLOGY
"Vain or unprofitable discourse." OED, p. 223
02-08/09-03
Well, well, well, my eye fell on this before I could
get back to the
Century, but such a perfect description
of the present state of
affairs in the Bush-impacted
White House, which may indeed lead to the
end
of the world, is not to be resisted at 6:00 o'clock
on a
Saturday morning before going off to Fidalgo.
My guess is, useful
though it may be, the word
wasn't much used after 1716, but then
splendidly:
"Those Sacerdotal-Secular Mataeologues of..." OED p. 224
as if the scribes were describing Bush and his cohorts coming
along a
couple of centuries later. Self-interest and private agendas
don't
much alter through the ages: greed is greed, war mongering
war
mongering, idiocy idiocy, and puppet handling
was honed to a fine
art long before the usurpation
of the world's most powerful chair by
the little Bush's
corrupt coterie. Every empire champing to rule the
world
has its comeuppance, though many lasted longer than we will.
MINUSCULE
"A minuscule letter as distinguished from a capital or an uncial..."
Century Dictionary, p. 1067
02-10-03
In general use: very small, but not so small
as foraminifera. Seeable.
Useful. The small cursive script developed
in the 7th Century. Perhaps
it includes those minute ways
of writing on the human heart,
the calligraphy of pain, awareness, sorrow, foreknowledge
of
what the children will go through. We welcome them,
and then, right
away, we make it unpleasant for them,
teaching them deception, devious
ways, malice.
"...opposed to majuscule." CD, p. 1067
Nothing much changes. The majuscule is almost unknown
except in
airy-fairy, surely unattainable ways. We define
ourselves as human by
our faults. He lies. It's only human.
He kills things. It's only
human.
Once in a while we get tired of death and
destruction.
A few 100,000 or a few
1,000,000s protest,
but this hardly
registers in
our common-currency minuscule.
Outside the pale. Ignore it. Continue.
MANGONEL
"A military engine formerly used for throwing stones, etc." Century
Dictionary, p. 1012
02-12-03
It has many forms: mangonele, mangenel, mangunel, mangenele, mangurnele,
mangnel, maungenele, mangonelle, mangonell, manchonel, manganel,
mangonel,
magnel, magnale, magnelle, maggenell, magonneaul, mayelle,
magonel, magonell,
mangole, mangonneau, manganella, mangona,
mangonnum, mangon-em --
then there's the Greek magganon
-- all meaning, quite singularly:
"an engine of war." The OED traces
the
first usage
back to "Mangunell," 1194. So many many engines "
...for
casting stones
The OF feminine form is: "...mangonelle... [or]...It. manganella..." OED,
p. 118
and other missiles..." One wonders what the feminine form
was used
for. So many words, now useless --
just as silo-ed missiles outdate,
become useless before a decade
is out. If
only we could get
men concentrated again
on piling stones, Obelisks, Pillars, Towers,
encourage them to play
with their "engines [sic] of generation,"
leave death and destruction to gentle Lethe.
MEZENTIAN
"...suggestive of Mezentius, a legendary Etruscan king who is said to have
had living men bound face to face..." Century Dictionary, p. 1055
02-14-03
Both the Century and the OED suggest, by "legendary" and "mythical"*
respectively, whether
they mean to or not, that Mezentius
may have never lived.
But living, let's you and me,
spend a moment thinking of his purported action.
Stand, embrace your brother (or mother) and
be bound,
face to face, lip to lip -- smooth, maybe silk ties, around
your neck, around your shoulders, layers upon layers
of bondage,
so you cannot move, or sit or walk.
"...with corpses and then left to die." CD, p. 105
Possibly you can lie or fall down with his (her) body
beneath or above
or beside you while eternity
passes, while starving to death you
contemplate the horror
of your captivity, the putrefaction of your
bondsperson. Look steadily
at this image. See if you can recognize your fellow man,
see if you can
recognize yourself suffering
as the legendary perpetrator of this Mezentian
action.
Ask the purpose, poetic or mythical, of our hatred of one another.
*OED p. 404
MASS DEMONSTRATION
Mass1 may come from "...dismissal..." OED, p. 205
02-15-03
You'd think some where in the four pages of "mass" in the OED
there'd
be room for "mass demonstration," but the classifications
of "mass,"
"the masses," in both the OED and the Century concentrate
on the lower
classes:
"...the great body of the common people; the working
classes or lower
social orders; often contrasted with 'the
classes'..."*
Of course, both carry the thoughts of the
1930s.
Today, February 15, 2003 may help revise the lexicon
Mass2 is probably from Gr. "...barley cake...knead..."
Century
Dictionary, p. 1025
An estimated 10 million people will be demonstrating today
in cities
around the world against George Bush's war.
10 million people turning
out for peace, 10 million people
asking America to stop its mindless
aggression against others.
Even years of Inspections and
Negotiations is preferable
to another event in George W's ubiquitous
war plans
to subjugate the world and its peoples to the
corporate-ruled will
of an unelected
madman gone ballistic with his superpower.
*Century Dictionary, p.1025
MARCH
"...to...advance in step in an organized body..." Century, p. 1018
02-16-03
Ten to twenty million people around the world, yesterday,
marched
to protest George Bush's manufactured quarrel with Saddam
Hussein.
Half of the signs carried in Seattle
-- home of the 80,000
turn out for the WTO and for this new
turnout of 90 to 100,000 -- cried "No Iraq War," the
other half
shouted: "Impeach Bush." "What kind of peach?" "Impeach!"
"What kind of peach?" "Impeach!" But there has not been one
mention
of these signs, this consensus, in
"...to go somewhere at one's command..." CD p. 1018
any media. Listening, watching, reading assiduously, I have heard
(here in Seattle) just one report that said -- out loud -- that
there even was
an Anti-War March in Seattle. The media
reports
1,000,000 in London, 3 million in Rome and,
additionally, the 1/2 million in New York. But not one word
about Seattle's protest, nor the protests in at least 50
other
American and non-American cities with -- who knows what
signs.
Ah! Freedom! Democracy! "What kind of peach?" "Impeach!"
MEMORIED
#23
2-15/17-03
I have slept in a cave in Malibu, high in the hills
in the golden
rock, looking out over the dark chaparral to the Pacific.
I don't go
there often,
in memory. I seldom go near my
other lives.
Yesterday, I ate camas -- a little white onion-like, crocus-like bulb --
at the Mima Mounds. It was slightly sweet, starchy, dissolving
to
a gelatinous-pudding-like substance. The Indians cropped it
in the
Mima Mounds.
...fraught or associated with memories." p. 1042
That, too, will become a memory. And the movement of the neck
East
Indians make, so slight, so full of secret delight, ambiguity
so well
described in the Burma* book I am reading --
more accumulations of
memory.
And the Peace
March of 10 or 20 million, Saturday --
that, too,
will dissolve into memory unimpeded by failing to cause
the
White-House-madmen who rule the world, who don't listen
to the people, to change their minds.
*"...she tilted her head slightly from side to side... a habit he had seen
in many of the Indians. It was quite subtle, as if she was enjoying an
inner joke that was much funnier, and much more profound, than her words
suggested." The Pianist, Daniel Mason, p. 219 -- the subtlety of this neck
movement and its meaning, which is somewhat like a jeweled serpent's
swaying to music, is here well described.
MUSIC AND MADNESS
"...responsiveness to musical sounds or harmonies..." Century Dictionary,
p. 1112
02-17-03
A Sufi in Poona, at whose feet I sat for an afternoon
and a cup of
chai, suggested the tempered scale might
be the reason the Western
World is so out of tune
with all other civilizations.
For,
though we love our music, all but unbeknownst to us,
it sets our teeth
on edge, we have divorced ourselves
from the harmony of nature, from
the restful, natural
tones of the just or harmonic scale,
Mad -- ultimately derived from Indogermanic "to change"... OED
p.13
"Ungovernable anger, rage, fury... " OED, p. 18
and we have suffered a disjointedness, aggression ever since.
Equal
temperament was first used in the early 16th century,
and universally
(sic) adopted by the Western World
in the early 19th century --
significant dates for the mad
aggression against all others of the
European/American
nations. I, who have studied, Nada Brahma,
vouch for the soothing effect of the natural, non-tempered scale,
the rejuvenation of equilibrium, a return to humane love
"Equal temperament was an innovation that allowed for more than one key to
be played on a single instrument, the sacrifice being that no key would be
in perfect tune. To tune in equal temperament meant deliberately creating
beats, adjusting the strings finely so that only a well-trained ear could
discern that they were slightly, if necessarily, out of tune." Daniel
Mason, The Piano Tuner, p. 214
MONEY
"...coin or certificates...also, any articles or substances similarly
used...hook-money, knife-money..." Century Dictionary, p. 1083
02-18/19-03
There is no hope.
In Gandhi's day they still had the land. The
people
walked it, sat on it and, for the most part, could even
till a meal from it. They had cotton and fought for salt. We?
We touch the earth at no point. We walk on concrete,
drive, fly. Food comes only from the grocery store
It's price,
dependent on manmade, owned and patented seeds, rises,
rises. With
food controlled for profit, used as weapons,
"...also, property considered with reference to its pecuniary
value..." CD, p. 1083
Remember, it takes only 40 or 50 days to starve to death.
No, its
not a conspiracy. It's a business deal. The end
of the world will
be contracted out to the highest bidder.
He will proceed. For
profit.
Read John Pilger's THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD,
just one chapter: The
Great Game. We, you and I, are neither
pawns nor obstacles. But then, one day they may miss us,
finding the world contains only oil, money,
body parts, luxury
items, not even an expendable flunky to carry
in the tea. I used to
blame England for destroying other civilizations
But, as it turns
out, they were only the gruesome overture
to Imperialism's God Blessing America.
"In Japanese use, a personal or family device..." Century Dictionary,
p.
1082
02-20-03
The heavy silken drag of the kimonos over the polished,
grey cypress
floors, so clean that even on white tabis
the dust does not show:
the
sound sibilant, the perfuming
wisteria intoxicating, the aloneness
devoutly to be wished.
Flickering pictures, mon of the mind.
Flowers from ancient worlds
of slowness and time. Coveted and
misunderstood by the West.
Coveted mainly to be destroyed, forcing
nuclearized Japan to re-arm,
to re-engage in the aggressive,
regressive
world's demise
"...or cognizance." CD, p. 1082
If you don't know this one, it is a heraldic
crest or
distinguishing
badge used by the Japanese. Exquisite, often
monanthous-embroidered.
The chrysanthemum mon
is well known in the West.
But there are others,
or were. No, "are"
is correct for the rich, the powerful, the
elite are
always with us. It is the poor who disappear, are
replaced
without warning, evidence, compassion, cognizance. However, their
mon
are,
meanwhile, singularly unimportant, festering to claim their own.
MONETIZE
"To give the character of money to..." Century Dictionary, p. 1083
02-21-03
I want to leave this page, to think something else,
but my eye
falls
on the definition of this age.
Each thing in the world: item my item
is
monetized.
I cannot leave. I am shackled. I first noticed
the phenomenon when I was studying the law.
This was 1988,
and
just beginning development, like a "developing"
country was the
"economic theory of the law" -- essentially:
Charge more and more
until
the people bleed, and bleed, and bleed,
"...legalize as money; coin into money." CD, p. 1083
die of terror, fear, frustration, die of starvation,
incarceration.
A
most effective way to limit use of your resources is:
find out who
really wants what, then make sure
they pay and pay and pay and don't
get it.
Peace, justice, compassion, food. Don't limit birth on
the overpopulated
earth! We NEED the cannon fodder. One talent the
poor
and ignorant have is to reproduce without end.
The rich? Well, they're deep into cryogenics and cloning.
MOSLINGS
"...vulgar form of Morsel, v. " OED, p. 683
02-22-03
Being distracted this morning, the dictionary I grab
is the OED, and
there is "moslings" --
kind of an adorable word (like a kitten).
In the 1875 quote "...used in wiping off metals while
grinding and polishing." But it's not in the Century.
Too old? Not
even an "archaic." But Morsel v!
We have to look into
that. Oh, my God,
there's not even a "morsel v."
MORSEL
"To divide into 'morsels' or small pieces." OED, p.672
in the Century, only an "n." -- and in The American Heritage,
the
Random House, no v. : "to morsel."
Even as late as 1861, we have
from Lytton and Fane:
"The split and morselled
crags." O
look how it started out! 1598 Florio, "to morsell,
to bite." And
1621 Molle, "Chopping into pieces, morselling
and deuouring their
prisoners." Well, now, we don't
do that today, do we?
Just
nice clean carpets of bombs macerating the millions,
Vietnam,
Cambodia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq -- it's not only okay,
it's good
for them, and they should appreciate it as
much more sanitary than "moselling."
METONIC
"Of or pertaining to Meton, an Athenian astronomer of the 5th century
B.C..." Century Dictionary, p. 1053
02-25-03
19 years ago it was 1984. Long past now, that famous,
literary
year, it passed by with little drama, but its prophecies
coming
true year after year after year. In 2003 we're not
as susceptible
to shock at lost 6
of liberty, lost of ethics, rip-offs,
get-richer schemes of the rich,
the power-mad egos of madmen.
America's propaganda machines is more oiled
than Orwell's; black is
white, war is peace, no-see-um enemies lurk
behind every bush while
big-brother Dubya
"...the Metonic cycle...of 19 years...[when] the new moon recurs on
the same day of the year..." p. 1053
plucks away our rights, freedoms, way of life in the name
of saving
our rights, freedoms, way of life. He creates new
monsters for each
occasion, bombs while his buddies pipeline for oil
saving some for
him too, should
he outlive the new order. If people get in the
way,
those who protest the bombings and those whom the bombs land
on, no matter, Dubya assures us he will hold firm in
The Great Game, Imperialism, Colonialism, Globalization.
SESTINA FOR THOREAU
#47
03-03/04-03
Choose words carefully it's time for laments.
Wink continuously, don't
see or hear.
Pull the new cap tightly against the wind.
Listen to
free speech whistling through corners.
And at the edges of leaves and
fields, wait.
Don't believe the world is safe or good-willed.
Citing his pig-headed resolve, good-willed,
the president of
the free world laments
war and seeks it. He, unable to wait
for
its
declaration, smirks and does hear
no man. Pipers careen around corners
swept by linguistic debris and the wind.
In opposition,
millions choose the wind,
walk the street bearing signs, crying,
good-willed.
Knees against concrete they pray on corners
The
un-elected president laments,
finds no reason to listen or to hear,
decides, re-decides new motives can't wait.
He sends troops,
more troops, and weapons to wait.
Huge, nuclearized, aimed into the
wind,
blissfully metal, unable to hear,
while leaflets announcing
noble, good-willed
intentions flutter with dooming laments
for
those to die on targeted corners.
Those on the lamentable, doomed
corners
are instructed to rejoice as they wait.
The free world's
president hears their laments
crying for life as if they were mere
wind
in willows, willing to comply, good-willed,
eager to die for
American greed. Hear,
hear, O president, Iraq begs to hear
genocide justified on the corners
of the free world, murder done
in good-willed
remote, removed, sanitized halls where wait
awful
dooms of heartless, profit swept wind
over the corporate landscape
that
laments
our market share, our imperial wait
grown thin, the
implacable need of wind,
of power, for the hypocrite's laments.
O he laments and laments and laments
promises, promises, wild
in the wind
his righteous blood is up, war cannot wait.
HANTS
#O9
01-14/12-13-03
It's the odd things that haunt one,
things you wouldn't begin to
think
of as ghosts or hants. Life --
a testing ground
of peculiar behavior, endurance.
You can hear it disintegrating all
around.
(Mostly because I have a radio
and not a TV.)
I was struck last night
thinking about the giant leap living
things have made from cloudy,
all but transparent, amoeboid
things
to the grace of my cat's arched neck.
He rinses his dark
ears with, first, one
soft white paw and then the other.
With patience we could probably
last another hundred million
years.
But its not likely with XY
chromosomes,
drumming bongos
in the ears of the dominators.
They silo away
nuclear waste, its
toxic power
retained until the sun cools,
until telescopes,
that have not yet seen
the beginning of the world,
pick
up the end --
for nobody.
LAMENT II
#12
01-27/28/12-13-03
Let's face it,
I started out with a dream
Of fame and
fortune,
But another dream as well:
To think deeply.
To
divert fresh dew into
The river of unmatchable
Pleasure I found
in books.
Oh, I have friends enough,
Cyberspace buddies
Who've found me out
There in the void,
Who read and quote
me.
But that's not the fame
I was looking for, certainly
Not the fortune. I have not made
A penny a poem in a lifetime.
What I did find was a way
To hone my mind, spend my time,
A reason and enthusiasm
To follow many curious roads
Exotic
foot paths, trails,
Leading into the brush
Of my mind,
untrammeled,
Untamed off shoots, side shoots
Fairly frequently
a fortnight
Ahead of the pack, enjoying,
Like masturbation, a
solitary
Pleasure. Neglected, frowned upon
By those of the
tenured path.
The world has got more cramped,
More
criminal, more owned
By the greed and possession mongers.
There's hardly a place left
For a wayward thought
But a
doorway pre-claimed
By the homeless. Scandal
Salaciousness
have their audience.
Thumping music and howling
Song share the
air with bells
And whistles, the tsunamis
Of traffic,
machinery, the caws
Of the million crows, the screeches
Of
seagulls, the mandatory
Preoccupation with coin counting
The
tabla rasa of the soul.
I used to blame the British,
Those colonizers. For a long time
I blamed them for the
ruination
Of the world, the siphoning off
Of difference, for
the murder
And enslavement of the races.
But then the blaze of
two planes
And two falling towers highlighted
The fuzz in our
own navel,
The stink of rotting morals,
The putrefaction at the
core.
Thus it was and ever shall be.
Times were not worse
before,
Nor were they any better.
Is this that much
sought after
Goal of life? To have the eyes
Pried open ever so
slowly, ever
So painfully to recognize that goodness,
Truth and
beauty, freedom and compassion
Are merely the placating words of
murderers,
Enslavers, that the lie is total in this world
And
in my own heart. Even my kitten Shiva
Is half malicious, blood
drawing, a tiger,
The other half soft-pawed and purring.
The
earth supports us and opens it jaws
Periodically to consume us or
blast us back
To our constituent molecules. Is that
The lesson?
Is that the goal of consciousness?
To learn that the division goes
right to the core?
Is the core. To learn, as Sadhus know,
That
there is nothing to do but sway
To the rhythm of the way
things are,
Will ever be, sit in contemplation
Of the spectacle,
enjoy the ephemeral view,
Dubious knowledge, dubiosity of hope
Dubiously conceived around dubitable thoughts
Dubitably executed.
Dubitancy of motive of
Dubitant leaders, dubitate followers,
Dubitating ethics, dubitatingly initiated.
Dubitation the result,
dubitative the future.
Dreams are gone, hopes are dead
Life goes
on, nothing changes,
Nothing remains the same.
I still can't
figure out why I go on
Entertaining myself at the concert,
The on-going-ness of life. It is still impossible
To believe that
life is as ornately simple
As it turns out to be: Like a murder
case
Requiring only motive, means, opportunity --
As fitting to
life as to death. What will be will be.
What is is. Chance plays with
dice.
Dice rule the world. To what end? --
You well may ask. To
the end of motion
And pattern, energy's release.
To be so
unrecognized, to have lived
so long, written so much, to remain
unheard, humanity's anguished heart
has frozen like a ball.
Dubitatively
Forming duble by dublers. The dublet heart
Cries
against dubment, against duboisine,
Fate dubs each invisible.
Where will the anguish lead? Lay down
Your ploughshares,
sheath your sword,
Nothing happens, but what happens
Today.
Content yourself with your
Contentable life, wishing, striving
Produces nothing, there is no content
Tomorrow. The dubster plays
us all
Dubul what we are, Dubya is what
We will be given a
dubylle chance.
I'm not what I wanted to be. I'm not
What I
seem. I am what I am
And finally may be
Content to be.
PRE-ARMAGEDDON SESTINA
#55
03-15/26-4/06-03
If we anticipate earthquake
If we predicted a tsunami
If we see
fire
If we forecast flood
If we fear a tornado
We evacuate
the people.
We rescue the people
From the shaking earthquake
From the howling tornado
From the drowning of tsunami
From the
sweep of a flood
From the blaze of fire.
Armageddon is
brimstone and fire
Bush's choosing good and evil for people,
His
war will cause a flood
0f corpses and cripples like an earthquake
3,000 bombs will tsunami
The land, one person per bomb, will
tornado
Iraq's world, equal the Twin Towers, a tornado
Of
disaster. Bush and Hitler call such fire
Bombing "shock and awe."
Power no God, no tsunami
would vent on His people.
In such a
premeditated earthquake,
In such a blood flood
Why do we not
shield people from the tornado
Rage of a madman who, in a flood
Of
righteousness, will make the earth quake
To avenge his Pa, to snatch
oil from the fire
To topple a man he deems more evil to his people
Than himself. This Herculean tsunami
Of aggression we watch
gather his strength to tsunami
Millions without hope of rescue from
the flood.
Billions can be spent, but not to rescue the people.
Tear them with tornado.
Sear them with fire.
Bury them with
earthquake.
But offer no rescue from the pre-planned tornado,
Don't shield them from fire.
Don't protect them from earthquake.
Be about your righteous mission, Bush, make the earth quake.
Your hatred, madness against millions will fire
Armageddon's tornado.
BATTLE SHOCK
or
CAN YOU HANDLE FREEDOM
#59
03-27/29-03
At just below seventy its scrumptious to know
that one is all but
irrelevant to this society.
No one needs you, no one wants you.
I
even begin to expect less
of myself.
After the Iraq War started
I heard a psych-type
define Battle Shock (BS for short)
as usually
happening to young
warriors -- who get so
stressed out
that
they want to run and hide. Not just from
enemies, but everyone, every
human
alive -- the creators, all of them,
of this horror we
live within.
"Life!" I thought!
The definition of my life:
progressive abandonment of every
outpost, back-turning on every
human: brother, father,
husband, lover, man, child, mother, sister,
woman, friend.
Retreat,
higher, higher, higher,
away from
humans, into the works of humans,
the intricate, awesome works of
humans embroidered
in space on the loom of time, the expendable,
large, drifting loom
suspended
-- for a moment -- in
infinity
between the shifting subduction of the plates,
the fiery
expansion of the trenches, the explosions
of the mountains, the deluge
of the glaciers, the catastrophic floods.
One looks upon our works
and weeps. If humans could do that, why
could they not love one
another? Yet, I suppose, like my
battle-shocked self, the question is
backwards. Humans love each
other's works
too much, covet
them, crave to possess the unpossessible, will kill
to possess, possess
more, possess most, unable to conceive
that, like the dinosaurs, they
were created
to be spectators, to enjoy the beauty
of the
world.
Or, on the other hand, like the dinosaurs, because they eat
a lot, they
are dangerous to themselves, the environment, others.
We
have little evidence that dinosaurs fought
each other since they
lasted
seventy-
million years, about sixty-seven
million
more than we have -- so far. They seem
to have been in harmony with
their environment. What
does harmony mean along the food chain? I eat,
you eat, we all eat.
Where's
the woe? Maybe our biggest
problem
is in inventing compassion. I eat, you eat,
we all eat?
Why make it a problem? I die, you die, we all die, why
claw our
cheeks? We have let our sorrow define our humanity. Was
that
wise?
I ask the basic questions over and over and over again? Why?
Because
I suffer from Battle Shock? Alone, I have no one to talk to
but
my computer. It has certain rules, I have certain rules.
I
only "get involved" with it, when I forget
to obey the
rules.
Otherwise, it leaves me alone, does what I ask, serves as an
exteriorizer
of memory. Memory! Ayii! Human's wounding
compassion
will
last as long as memory -- 'til all the walls are sand
again,
the mortar melted from the bricks, bodies
burned to
ash.
The earth's core will bubble, its mantle will ooze, extrude,
it's crust will
one day erode back to nature. Erased will be the
skyscrapers,
the rock-cut caves, the ribbons of transport,
and the
transports of delight
wrought
in the bosom
of humans by the
twitter of birds
in the trees. Did the dinosaur's heart twitter as it
became bird,
archaeopteryx, took to the skies, abandoned its great
girth, became
satisfied with flight and song? Would they, O long-lived
species, have
comprehended
without smugness earth's
swallowing,
eight billion years hence -- by the sun -- a bit
of a
while after man has eliminated his own species
with smart bombs,
intelligent zappers of electronic systems.
Even as
I write.
The total destruction
of human thought, both en-computered and
in-truth
hovers heavily over my shoulder, like Poe's "Nevermore." So
far we
hesitate to "fry" their systems because, doing so, we would fry
our own. We have not
yet managed "smart" electronic erasers. We can
blow up Bamyan with a set
charge, we can attempt a blow up of Baghdad
with fallout from
Hitler's policy of "shock and awe." Indeed, what was
more
shocking and awesome than the Twin Towers
crumbling?
We
are democratic in our willingness to share our weaponry with one
another. We are one. Our only enemy is ourselves. Will we
be
able -- in time -- to "love one another right now?"
Are the
"bird-descendants," the Battle-Shocked
humans ready
for
flight?
into space?
into the sun?
into everlasting
night?
In
to
ob
liv
i
on
?
*
*Oblivion, n. "1. the state of being completely forgotten. 2. the state
of forgetting completely. " Random House Webster's Dictionary, 1998, 3rd
Edition, p. 496
COMING SOON
ANTI-WAR POEMS
beginning with
ICON/SHRUB
#05
01-15/16/25-02
Just a few days after
the Enron Scandal breaks
the headlines
announce:
"PRESIDENT FAINTS AFTER
CHOKING ON PRETZEL."
Like
old Papa Bush
who, fainting in Japan,
ended up with his face
in a plate in the wake
of an automobile
crisis. They seem to
sicken by what they
feed on. Corporate greed?
Internal
combustion?
Their world screwed up like
a salted pretzel,
an intricate web of
favors and desires,
assassination
threats
against Florida Jeb
(an unsuccessful
diversionary
tactic, if ever there was,
to which the world paid
scant
attention, yawned)
-- and the devious Cheney
with a heart condition.
God bless America.
Now the WTO, viper nurtured in the breast
of American Capitalism, turns against
our Corporate Giants,
Microsoft, Boeing. To
lose Tax Benefits? -- to be sued by fellow Giant
AOL -- can it happen to the richest man
in the World? Eat well,
Giant Cannibals. God bless
America.
GO GIRLS GO
#12
06-06-02
Go girls go!
Lead the way!
Get out of here!
Get out of
it!
Life!
"The Ministry of Health plans to fight suicides by
limiting access to pesticides..."
"But experts say rural women [in
China] need other help, particularly counseling."*
My dear Martin
Fackler, idiot man,
they need a reason to live!
You try being a
slave,
a piece of property,
used,
abused,
see if you don't
rush for the exit.
What I can't understand
is why most
women
DON'T
commit suicide.
Used,
abused
from almost
the beginning of time.
Pesticide for the "pests"
seems a natural
solution.
Go girls go!
Teach the rest of us!
To escape.
Let
men and their infernal greed own the earth.
Let's go
elsewhere!
*"Suicide rate for Chinese women is high" by
Martin Fackler, AP, in the Northwest Asian Weekly, 4-13-02
A study
recently published in The Lancet estimated, 157,000 Chinese women die by
suicide every year [ Not a lot out of 6 billion, many of whom are
treated like farm cattle -- maybe worse.] On the other hand, Lithuanians
(men and women) kill themselves at almost double the Chinese rate.
OPTING OUT
#29
08-30-02
I think I am opting out.
The medical profession thinks
I am
anxiety
ridden and depressed.
My riposte is: You'd have to be crazy
not to
be
anxious and depressed
in a post 9/11 world run by
a non-elected
madman
who thinks he can go
king-making in every other
country if
they don't agree with
us, call them The Axis of Evil,
bomb them
into oblivion.
The world has not seen
such mindless aggression
against its people since Pol Pot,
sure-footed on the footpath
blazed
by Genghis Khan
and the old testament
heroes who
went
into "Enemy" villages and slew
"every man, woman, child and
cow."
It was ever thus.
You'd have to be mad
not to be
anxious
and depressed.
Or
opt out into the illuminated
sunshine world of
cottonwood
shadows on the wall.
The bliss of not being here.
When
the sun doesn't shine,
I am not here.
The shadows are darker than my
heart.
My pain is illuminated by
the blankness of being.
Copyright © 2003 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INDEX TO THE ANTI-WAR POEMS
BY JAN HAAG
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