Tag Archives: slavery

PAR FOR THE COURSE

PAR

par for the course
par for the curse

mute the Wasteland
savage reduction of
noise
    stanza
by
stanza

you feel it in your bones
tremors under the skin
your tectonic
plates shifting

specialists mailing in
their verdict
      you on the verge
of breakdown

hanging by a thread
golden, astral silver
or maybe just
Manchester cotton

an industry booming
blackening the sky with it
suddenly
       in the wash there
is blood
much red blood
humanity split, a house divided

par
   for the course
echoes, allusions, vertigo
in the poetic factory,
foundational mythologies,

whatever
   it takes to finesse vers libre

rich resources to be mined
be inevitably exhausted

see there
    what scripture remembers
we should know,
it needs to
tell us

   a door opening, first
thought springing
to mind
  must be of awakening

so much out there
the picture freezing
in anticipation

of expected regret,
customary hesitation

step
    by guarded step

par for the course

,

SIDE

SIDE

smokestack lightnin’

wild side
other side
                  flip
side

bit
on the side

I hears you
   can’t do nothing
when twelve bar slide
or blow
   that blues harp

so much death in that ocean
under that mud-brown river

hell yes

I’ve studied that time
saw how
it lost
     its colour

all that
glorious grey

      war never over
till its over

divide outside always
                   first inside

AT ROME

AT ROME

they look back
longingly at Rome
whose triremes ruled
the Mediterranean

whose legions kept
control over
much of the
known world

whose slaves rebelled
and were crucified
along the entire
length
    of the Appian Way

by the monstrously
rich General, Marcus Crassus

who would come to
be captured by the Parthians
and fed molten gold

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

proceedings were held up
because the burgers and cokes
had not arrived

then they
        stopped shirts, swopped swords

slavery remained the elephant in the room

it was either kiss and makeup
or unconditional surrender

Arnold Schwartzenegger was playing General Grant
the Rock (naturally)
was playing the ghost of Stonewall Jackson
Charlie Sheen
was totally miscast as Robert E Lee

he rolled ten singles in succession
and so Vicksburg fell
and Pickett’s charge was defeated

unfortunately this doesn’t mean shit
because the Japs and the Krauts
invaded on alternate history Netflix

they promised to
have a comnerative reunion meeting
when the time felt right

slavery remained the elephant in the room

(a room
      nobody bothered to, didn’t
even think to clean)