THE END OF INNOCENCE Listening to Henley’s – Heart of the Matter
Just when you think you’re ‘grown’ – Oh no, honey. That never-ending day? Just beginning
You don’t see the Heart of the Matter Until bits of flesh and brain matter come at you Flying with force spraying red onto the porch and the Window glass of the passenger’s side We draw our curtains – to watch the trial As the beast, powered by fear – goes dark Returning in a suit and tie – explaining itself to White juries – Some will empathize As science explains quickening heartrates The Battle Royale; An amygdala punching its way to gold Destroying its prefrontal cortex Science will explain ‘early trauma’ choking up What resembles pity for the perp Whose name we know Not the victims’ though. They die twice Getting lost as we scatter The holy water of good intentions Over the mass graves Of forgotten identities Forgotten answers Emotional forensics Why we fear? Why we hate? Why we act? Why we don’t? We fail every day that We don’t eradicate what kills us With every bullet With every dollar rise in A murderous stock pumped up In ability to kill and enrich at once The mass murder of hope suspiciously Triggered by happy believers Those with thoughts and prayers Like casket wreaths Obscuring the many Hearts that matter
THE UNBEARABLE EXCITEMENT OF BEING
They’re there every morning – the ones you don’t
Want to be
And before the sun reaches its crest
Something has sprung
Morbid and murderous
From an angry breast
No cure.
We’ve buried the key
In tangled banks
No antidote for certainty
We’re at the interstices
Life Vs. extinction
Trapped and sordid
Beings fighting
Pleasuring ourselves
In tears and blood
They’re there every morning – the ones you don’t Want to be And before the sun reaches its crest Something has sprung Morbid and murderous From an angry breast No cure. We’ve buried the key In tangled banks No antidote for certainty We’re here at the interstices Of life and extinction Trapped and sordid Beings fighting. Pleasuring ourselves In tears and bloodThey’re there every morning – the ones you don’t Want to be And before the sun reaches its crest Something has sprung Morbid and murderous From an angry breast No cure. We’ve buried the key In tangled banks No antidote for certainty At the interstices Life Vs. extinction Trapped and sordid Beings fighting Pleasuring ourselves In tears and blood
ADULTING
Aristotle says;
Education is the best survival tool for old age
What Ari doesn’t know is that the
Truth found in education at night
Is now the lie used against you
Circling the continent twice by the
Time you awake
But you carry on as if it hasn’t
•
There’s frustration in being adult
When grown men fight in high-rise sandboxes
In suits bullet-proofed with dollar signs
But you carry on as if they don’t
•
There’s frustration in behaving grown up
When the agony of the human condition
Can be rationalized
And we carry on as if it isn’t
•
There’s frustration in being grown up
When the door to respond-in-kind
Remains locked by decency
Yet you pull on it anyway – as if it isn’t
•
There’s frustration in being grown-up
Knowing that civilizations have been lost to dreams of retribution
Ungovernable desires
For the “blood-dimmed tide”
To drown the babble
AND the rabble
But you desire it anyway
•
There’s frustration in being grown-up
Knowing the constancy of war
Feeling the subliminal connections between
Truth and chaos.
And we carry on anyway
Holding our truth in hands folded in supplication
As we kneel, unreasonable, at the edge of age
Amid the *signs that tell us to behave like adults
*Invisible ink
•
We drag our middle-class, care-worn hearts
Across years of capitalist tyranny
Through periods of relative decorum
Retreating waves allowing enemies
Time to deep-fake truth
And we must behave as if they aren’t?
CIVIL WAR Part II
I find it amazing (not in a good way) that we are at 250 thousand deaths from the Corona Virus and the President is holed up in some emotional underground bunker tweeting instructions to those who enable him in his efforts to subvert democracy. He has no plan to help Americans through this pandemic. His only plan is to help himself to a second term. I’d like to say we Americans don’t deserve this but, I’m sure we do.
For so long we’ve moved ahead (those of us with good jobs and relatively happy existences) willing to put an uncomfortable, unaddressed history behind us. We have buried our worst moral transgressions so far below the dirt of this country’s emotional North South Line that when part two of the Civil War erupts, we fail to see it. We’ve been blinded to the GOP’s red on one side and the Democrat’s blue on the other. Only now we are becoming increasingly aware that the Mason-Dixon Line in this part II of our Civil War is – Donald J. Trump.
We’ve been blinded. Had – by that long arm of the far-right con working always behind a curtain. We’ve been distracted by the clown sent out to mollify and entertain the crowd. We couldn’t see the con because we are the mark.
G.D. Feldman 11/20/2020
HOW DARE WE
How dare we believe that the ALL in
Liberty & Justice for… includes us
How dare we believe our marching
Will bring about change.
How dare we stomp on the weak
Promise of equality.
How dare we want the privilege to
Walk.
Talk.
Drive.
Be in any space. Any place
How dare we reach into the tall
Grass of corruption to
Throttle the snake of injustice
How dare we show the audacity
Of hope
How dare we?
How dare we not?
GDF ©9/2020
CIRCUS FAMILIAR
I’ve come to accept the spectacle
The morning face that stares back at me in the mirror
Large pores packed with night-sweats and frustration
There’s lots to do but nothing to say
That will ease the guilt of not doing
Most likely I’ll clean my keyboard
remove the fingerprints
angry smudges that dappled my screen with hope.
I’ll open the Times app before adjusting a pillow behind my aging back
I’ll sip some tea as I consider the tilt of the screen and font size
I’ll search for good news as if
I’ve not already thrust my chin up to the edge of humanity
To improve my view of its destruction.
I’ve come to accept the spectacle
Gwen's World 