Beware of Men

 

Beware of men in suits, my son;

Trust not thyself to a woman in heels:

Whose hope is in the gleaming, glittering hoard;

Whose souls were long since traded on exchange,

Bought and sold

For silver and gold.

 

Follow them not down plushy corridors,

Through halls of vain regard and empty praise,

Up glassed and brassy steps to penthouse peaks,

Lush with cool-roof chambers,

Void of cheer,

Smooth and sleek with stain of dark veneer.

 

Beware of him whose name is on the door,

Keep watch on her who sits enthroned within,

Whose tongues like cooing birds behind their hands

Sift lies through smiles

And whispering wiles

And falter not while hope of conquest stands. 

 

Beware!  Their dewlapped hearts are far from thee,

Enwrapped in bills and bonds and shares and notes,

Blanketed and muffled to the ears

Against thy sad and solitary cry.      

Not fallen earth

Nor barren birth   

Can move them to the brink of bitter tears.   

   

Be not deceived nor follow in their way;

Forgo their cocktails, shun their happy hours.

No longer do they mind the soul’s bright spring:

They weep not with the dew

Nor shiver with the rain

Nor tremble with the leaf nor feel the pain.

 

Forsake the stocking sheer, the silken tie;

Return to the soil and taste the tang of earth. 

Put hand to plough, face front and trace thy furrow, 

Reclaim the dark and fecund fertile land.

Plant thy seed

Against thy need

And look not back where whitening pillars stand.

Peace and Safety

 

When we saw him we cried,  

          “Peace and safety!”

But that was before

We knew.

 

Standing in the checkout line

At the reading of the law,

The law concerning those who buy,

Who bid and barter, buy and sell,

We took the mark

And bought the farm;

We cleaned the clock

And swallowed the camel.

We cried, “All clear!”

And cleared the deck.

We battened down the hatches.

 

We built the wall,

Secured the line,

Bolstered the brand,

Bettered the business;

Ate and drank,

Secured the bank,

Banked the profit

Lived and laughed.

 

We laughed and lived

And looked aside

And seized the long

Awaited prize

And so survived;

With foreheads to the fore,

And man against man against man,

While the dark stranger

Goes under the ban.

 

“And that’ll be

Ten and four and six

And six and six and six,”

And straw and mud for bricks

While the dark stranger

Goes under the ban.

 

So in the end,

Our purchased provender bought and bagged,

We bent and spent and went  

Each to his own way

In safety and in peace;

Backwards to the back,

Foreheads to the fore,

Never been here before.

 

Hoping to be spared

Tomorrow.

Politicians

   (To be sung to the tune of “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder)

 

Various politicians

Rising in the polls,

Gaseous emissions,

Questionable goals,

Men with creepy hair-dos,

Women dressed like guys,

Stumping on the night news,

Wearing suits and ties.

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —-

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

Various politicians

Debating on TV,

Confirming our suspicions,

Exposed for all to see,

Raising lots of money

Images to sell,

Trying to be funny

As guests on SNL.

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —-

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

Various politicians

Want to build a wall

To keep out kids and Syrians

Who want to kill us all.

Talking about ISIS,

Wearing ties and coats,

Hoping war and crisis

Bring them lots of votes.   

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —- 

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

       (Originally posted December 1, 2015)

 

Cloudscape

 

Outside the window,

Beneath the left wing,

Penumbrous and billowy

Snow hummocks surge,

Boil from the bottoms,

Heap upward and pile;

White pillars through doorways

All smoky emerge.  

 

Tall cities appear

On the fairy horizon,

Unbodied and sharp-edged

At the bourne of bright blue,

Skyward to tower,

Ten times beyond flight range,

Out beyond sight range,

Clean shadowed and new.

 

Five thousand fathoms

Beneath flying feet

The gray world rolls onward

Beneath the gray ceiling

To dim sunless sunsets

And black starless nights

Where few can discern

Between seeming and seeing.

 

Unfinished

 

 The promise is not to be

Perfect, but to grow until

Complete; the goal is to rise,

A trembling and unopened

Bud upon a trembling stem,

Blossoming beyond dark skies.

 

The command is not to be

Flawless, but to bleed until

The wound’s bled out and swab-swirled

And cauterized and clean-healed

And all fresh-skinned and covered

Over in the other world.

 

The problem is not to be

Good or better, but to be

Forgiven, pardoned, set free,

Liberated from the grim,

Gray, daunting, paralyzing

Struggle with necessity.

 

The good work that was begun

Goes on day by day by day

And stops not until the end,

When, stepping through the portal

And pushing the veil aside,

We meet our eternal Friend.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

Propaganda

 

I’ve seen your books and your magazines,

I’ve seen your newspaper articles,

I’ve seen those programs on TV.

I heard the things you said to me,

You tried so hard to set me free

With all your propaganda … 

 

You exercise manipulation,

You try to indoctrinate the nation

With all your little tricks on Madison Avenue.

Well, now I got some things to say to you,

‘Cause I know just what you’re tryin’ to do

With all your propaganda …

 

What will you do, my friend,

When you find that you’ve come to the end?

When your lies and your tricks are played out

And your ultimate ending’s in doubt?

You’re gonna see the sky opening wide,

You’re gonna see the Son of Man descending on cloud –

And what will you say when you come to the Judgment Day?

 

‘Cause in the name of modern practicality

You sacrificed your sense of reality,

You started talkin’ ‘bout the New Morality –

But it’s just another way to say plain indecency,

And now you’re tryin’ to push it off on me

With all your propaganda … 

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

(Another Levellers song …)

Sunrise Service

 

Barbarians within the gates

Wait patiently their chance to pounce,

While loyalties and loves and hates

And blind allegiances announce

With urgent importunity

The time to poise on razor-edge

And seize the opportunity

Along the teetering temple-ledge.

 

While in at that same portal rides

Astride the gentle burden-beast

The king of beasts and all besides

Towards the sacrificial feast.

Now blood and horn and burning flesh

Upon the altar crimp and broil,   

Burn and bubble through the mesh

Of firepan and brazen coil.

 

The darkness falls; a cry rings out.

Then just as soon the shout falls still.

And in the next the rabble rout

Goes driving up the hollow hill,

The cross before, the mob behind,

A knife concealed in every boot.

A veil on every face, the blind

Rush blindly to the judgment-moot.

 

One hangs there between earth and sky;

A great black thumb blots out the sun. 

Rocks split and tumble.  Day’s bright eye

Is swallowed up.  Cold rivers run

And steam through cracked and crumbled stone.

The dead come forth and go abroad – 

Joint on joint, and bone to bone,

Skin on sinew, flesh and blood.

 

The tomb is sealed.  The darkness covers

Weary watchers watching hours

Come and go; corruption hovers

In the air like threatening showers.

All gladness gone, all joy lies crushed

Like trodden grass.  All life is done.

But then, as all the world lies hushed,

Hope springs afresh with morning’s sun.

 

 

Enemy Alien

 

Behold the Enemy Alien –

Strange sojourner from another land,

Banished from the garden of his birth,

Bound by a chain to this fallen earth.

 

Commissioned or condemned

Or by appointment he walks among us here,

Whether God or self or devil be to blame,

Sustained, repulsed, and rebel to the hateful game.

 

A captive clown and bringer of wry smiles

To knowing lips and stylish minds he stands,

Opposed and opposite to each and all,

To the very brick and mortar in the crumbling wall.

 

Outside the gates he lifts his idiot cry,

Outside, with desert lips, and shakes his staff

At all who dwell within; his budding rod

Shall bear for them the bitter fruit of God.

 

Behold the Unknown Stranger –

Analog man in a digital world,

With neither numbers nor electrons in his veins,

But blood and poet’s words and harper’s strains.

 

The stench of death he seems to one and all,

Preferring, as he does, these streams of life.

He clings to goodness and to timeless truth

And grows from wise to fool and sage to youth.

 

Outside the gate, beyond the rain-dark wall,

Where little flowers bloom in innocency,

He flees the stinking city of the damned

With Noah, Moses, Lot, and Abraham.     

  

 

 

Yearnings

 My soul yearns for that God’s touch

Who soiled His soles on the Jericho Road.

My eyes strain to see

That striking figure by the sea

Of Galilee, head and hands

              Uplifted

Stark against the sky,

Sandals planted firmly on the sand,

Investing all the powers of the Cosmos

In the breaking of the loaves and little fish –

Too little, as it seemed, among so many.

 

 

Nothing More to Say 

(Regretful Lines Written To an Old Friend)

 

I would have been your friend, nothing more,  

           If you’d have let me in;

But friendship knocks in vain upon your door.

            It seems you play to win,

Or not at all.  And when I would not dance

            To suit the tune you play,

The jig was up.  And so I lost my chance.

            There’s nothing more to say.

 

You seem so cold, as cold as Snowdon’s dome,

            As cold as the snow-bound hills

From whence you came.  This never was your home,

            Nor could it be.  The frills

That thrilled you so much at the first must lose

            Their grip and so give way

To offers of better things.  You can’t refuse.

            There’s nothing more to say.

 

And yet I fear for you if you’re so blind

            That you can’t see the hurt,

The dust of disillusion left behind,

            The trust that must revert

To barren if not bitter soil; for when

            A day is called a day,

If one can’t call a friend a friend, well then,

            There’s nothing more to say.

 

Power, position, influence, a name

            Loom large on your horizon

You plan, you plot; you subtly make your aim

            Successful.  You’ll surprise them

As you surprised us.  Words once lightly spoken

            Have lightly blown away

Like waterless clouds.  When promises are broken,

            There’s nothing more to say.

 

I see it all so clearly now, but find

            Great comfort in the vision;

I think of what I might have left behind

            And rest in my decision.

For when we’ve cut through all the frills and fluff,

            When the hymns have all been sung,

The goal of Ministry seems plain enough:

            Climb up another rung.

 

There’s nothing more to say; and yet, somehow,

            I must extend my line.

I miss the friend I never knew; and now

            I fear the loss is mine.

God grant that we might each one die to pride

            And bend each to the other,

And whether here or on the Other Side,

            Grow friends as well as brothers.

 

Afterthought

 The van is here.  They trundle you away.

            Already you are gone.

At heart.  I fumble for the words to say

            To you; but there are none.

 

I took my pen and wrote, but it betrayed

            My baser, meaner thoughts.

Can a leopard, short of being flayed,

            Expect to change its spots?

 

 

Politicians

   (To be sung to the tune of “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder)

 

Various politicians

Rising in the polls,

Gaseous emissions,

Questionable goals,

Men with creepy hair-dos,

Women dressed like guys,

Stumping on the night news,

Wearing suits and ties.

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —-

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

Various politicians

Debating on TV,

Confirming our suspicions,

Exposed for all to see,

Raising lots of money

Images to sell,

Trying to be funny

As guests on SNL.

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —-

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

Various politicians

Want to build a wall

To keep out kids and Syrians

Who want to kill us all.

Talking about ISIS,

Wearing ties and coats,

Hoping war and crisis

Bring them lots of votes.   

 

When you believe in people you can’t even trust,

Then you suffer —- 

Politicians ain’t the way.

 

THE AGE OF CONFORMITY

(To be sung to the tune of “The Age of Aquarius”)

 

When everyone starts “working out”

And SUVs replace all cars,

Then Facebook will rule the planet

And Starbucks will steer the stars.

 

This is the dawning of the Age of Conformity,

Age of Conformity,

Conformity,

CONFORMITY!

 

Marathons and low-carb diets,

Texts and tweets and blogs abounding,

Super Bowl and “Game Day” parties,

Patriotic orthodoxy,

Working space that’s kinda boxy,

From Tacoma to Biloxi,

Conformity,

CONFORMITY!

 

(Painting by George Tooker)