Plaid

[Capstone]

Plaid... Dead men don't wear it....

Some of us 'wear it' in our genes.

Death: what a comforting thought...

 

[Capstone]

Inside Job

Never mind the physics (molten steel
that ran like tears down stories never told)
of demolitions secretly controlled
and falsely waving flags that sealed the deal.

Never mind the motives (black and gold
and greedy hearts of war too cold to feel
the pain of innocents who'll NEVER heal)
of those corrupt enough to be so bold.

Never mind the casualties, reveal
the truth that 9/11 was foretold --
a "new Pearl Harbor" waiting to unfold
the flag of so-called patriotic zeal...

 

[Capstone]

Keep Off the 'Shrooms
(The Revelation of John the Divine)

Munching on some mushrooms, suddenly...
I saw a beast rise up out of the sea
with seven heads, ten horns (on each a crown),
and on the heads the name of blasphemy.

The pelt was kind of like a leopard's, brown
and spotted up; but oddly, looking down,
I saw his feet were much more like a bear's,
then up again to see a lion's frown!

Some dragon gave him power and an air
of great authority upon a chair,
because, I think, of his horrendous scar --
a wound that must have left him dead, I swear!

The world began to marvel, near and far,
and worship both the dragon and the scarred.
"Who's like this beast!", I heard somebody say,
"Can anyone defeat this Mourning Star?!"

And then was given him a certain way
to speak abominations night and day
to anyone with ears with which to hear
the blasphemies he wanted to convey:


"Who leads into captivity
shall go into captivity!
Who lives by clinging to the sword
shall perish by the ringing sword!

Here is the patience and the faith of saints!"

And then I saw another beast was coming from the earth,
with horns of lamb or ram descent, a voice of dragon birth,
he exercised the power of the first to break the seal,
and caused the Earth to worship one whose deadly wound was healed.

He conjured fire in the sky within the sight of men,
deceiving them to spread the word to every nation's kin.
For great or small, and rich or poor, and free or bond alike,
the time had come to take a mark or die on hunger strike;

for nobody could buy or sell without that little mark
within their brows or in their hands, embracing in The Dark
the name or number of the beast (whichever one they picked)
numeric'ly denoted as "six hundred, sixty-six".

Then waking from that juicy trip, a final vision came to me:
the purple vomit, blowing chunks of funky mushrooms by the sea.

 

[Capstone]

What "Is" Is

What is is from what used to be --
from what once was, that is --
for what's to come is never free
from what is now that used to be,

nor has what was but is no more
escaped from what has always been
evolving from what's passed before
through life and death's revolving door...

 

[Capstone]

Unmarked

Let's walk between the cemetery stones
inscribed with all that matters in the end:
the names and dates above the buried bones
of lovers, family members, and our friends.

Let's pause before the smallest one of those:
a crumbling little block of chalky white
atop the grave for whom god only knows,
whose epitaph has faded out of site.

 

[Capstone]

Here and There

There also hear:
They're all so here.
Their 'all' so here --
there also here --
they're also here!
They're All. So hear.

 

[Capstone]

Alter Boys

Collared, robed, and vested
in cathedrals full of lies,
the men of cloth molested
and their mounting alibis

provide no absolution
to completely altered boys,
nor pay the restitution
owed the former priestly toys.

Instead the former playthings
face the retroactive crime:
abuse that each new day brings
at the hands of Father Time.

 

[Capstone]

The Face of Time

Cold, unmoving, porcelain,
expressionless and void,
from most accounts an ugly mask
reluctantly destroyed.

Ceramic features turned to dust
and pieces on the floor
reveal the depth of lonliness
One hadn't seen before.

Now in the mirror One sees through
the delicate façade,
no longer does it obfuscate
the naked face of 'God'.

And in the polished stainless steel
that's marking time upon my wrist,
I watch the quarter-seconds steal
the minutes from the solipsist.

 

[Capstone]

The Story of US

An Eagle, once majestic, soared above
all other birds of prey, of song, or flight,
on massive wings propelling (left and right)
together for the sake of life and love.

An Eagle, once majestic, fed her young,
atop the craggy cliffs above the sea,
to help them grow to self-sufficiency
and independence from their mother's tongue.

An Eagle, once majestic, fluttered down--
her right wing wouldn't flap beside her left,
not even though it brought her certain death
among the lowly creatures on the ground.

An Eagle, once majestic, now decays
beneath the sky she ruled in better days.

 

[Capstone]

The Abomination of Desolation

Learning daily of the devastation,
lessons wrought as total deprivation,
teaching elementary desolation,
failing in the social revelation,
doomed to mirror the passing generation:
educating this (abomi)nation.

And in affect, that bleak abomination,
perpetuated future devastation,
by leaving heirs of total deprivation
the ethics of their moral desolation…
to crush the hope of any revelation
for students of the coming generation --

the hope, in fact, of every generation.
But can we heal the sore abomination?
Reverse the Inquisition's devastation?
Construct, amid the literal deprivation,
a learned oasis in this desolation?
Can we beget a 'Holy' revelation,

whose nature is a human revelation?
Spontaneously push our generation
away from dogma-based abomination,
beyond the shadows cast by devastation
from crosses of Golgothic deprivation,
where not a soul would feel the desolation?

And from the absence of that desolation,
renewed divinely in our revelation,
Humanity might spark the generation
of education sans abomination,
without the fear of future devastation.
If not a total lack of deprivation,

at least a lack of total deprivation
would finally erase the “desolation”
that's bound within the Book of Revelation;
as students of the Final Generation
would understand the true “abomination”
had always been RELIGION's devastation.

This is my generation’s Revelation
to The Abomination's Desolation:
your deprivation was your devastation.

 

[Capstone]

Barflies

Deceit, the stark
and naked truth
reflecting lies
wherein she stares:
decanter's tawdry
lone vermouth
upon the rocks --
the flesh she bares.

Enter the shark:
the razor tooth,
with blood-shot eyes,
he coldly glares
into her swiftly
fading youth,
and on the rocks...
he'll taste her wares.

 

[Capstone]

To the Builder of Sandcastles

A lonely, everlasting point of view
amid the ebb and flow of lapping waves
that bear the palls to underwater graves
of all created near the restless blue,

a sculptor works alone upon the shore;
a low-tide architect of watered sands;
a master, notwithstanding filthy hands
that shape the 'scrapers of medieval lore...

to CRASH back down to Earth in tidal highs...
to drown the castles in the lowest lows...
to cause the precious work to decompose,
denying only "Him" that sweet demise.

My God, how fucking helpless must you be...
to watch as your creation's swept to sea?

 

[Capstone]

A Single Leaf Remains

Though Autumn tried persuading him
to follow others where she blew,
he took a stand out on a limb,
by holding fast to what he knew.

And still he clings courageously.
What held the rains will gather snow
and wither on defiantly,
as if to say, "I won't let go!"

I'm not like him.

I'm not courageous, strong or wise;
the sweet persuasion of the wind
has carried me through stormy skies...
and left me here to count the sins.

So in October's chilling breeze,
I stand amid that pile of sin,
and rake the leaves and memories...
and wish that I'd been more like him.

 

[Capstone]

The Prevailing Wind

In silence posed the broken stone
a question to its kin:
for what on Earth can stand alone
against the mighty wind?

And for that matter look around
amid the fallen wood,
and see the strength that wasn't found
in numbers when it stood.

Nor on the rural countryside,
on mountain, hill, or dune,
not even in the city's light
is humankind immune.

And so for stone, and wood, and men,
together or alone,
the answer's in the carnage when
prevailing winds have blown.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Steve Martin was right.

He often is.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

There's a reason for that.

 

[Capstone]

Nightfall

Who's left among the laity
awakened at the break of dawn?
Whose dream is but a memory?
Who has the will to carry on?

Who's coming, now the day is done,
to mourn the passing of the light?
To watch another fallen sun
give way to yet another night?

 

[Capstone]

Where?

Where children learn to teach the old,
the weak to bear the strong;
where those who can will give up hope,
and those who can't will carry on;
where brave men run away and hide,
and cowards stay to face their fears;
where those who talk and listen well
to hear the deathly silence: HERE.

 

[Capstone]

Tsunami 2004

A broken shell upon the shore;
a spirit washed away;
a little girl alive no more
this cruel December Day.

Now hair entangled with debris
won't hide her guiltless face.
Now blackened eyes peer out to sea...
but as for life, without a trace.

And yet her fate, though truly sad,
seems somehow less severe
than that of those like Mom and Dad,
alive enough to shed their tears...

for one they lost ironically
to such a brutal wave
that swept away indifferently
the love they couldn't save.

Now cradled in her Dad's embrace,
the shell for whom they cry;
their little girl has left this place...
but didn't wave goodbye.

 

[Capstone]

The Greatest Moment

I've been shallow;
I've been deep;
I've lived a life
in waking sleep;

and chasing dreams
throughout the days,
I've spent the nights
in other ways.

I've driven fast;
I've cruised the strips;
I've tasted of
the moistened lips;

and reaching heights
in tangled thresh,
I've felt the warmth
of inner flesh.

I've scaled the walls;
I've sailed the seas;
I've soared above
my enemies;

and striking high
the fatal blow,
I've stood atop
the conquered foe.

But looking back
on years of strife,
the greatest moment
of my life...

was on the day
my kid was born...
and I was there
to clip the cord.

 

[Capstone]

Chapter II: No Form, No Rhyme; Just Reason

The Size of Time

What if increments of time
were complete rotations
of finite diameter
and constant speed
(say that of light)?

And what if the sizes
of those rotations
constituted acceleration
or deceleration, as the case may be...

in relation to rotations
of various diameters,
so that if I were driving at 55 MPH
for a solid hour, I'd be traversing...

a distance equivalent to that
of the rotational diameter of an hour
at C?