The Pagan Activist- Poetry

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Pearly Gates

I'm sorry sir, but you cannot enter.
Yes, I checked three times.
Yes, I know you were a minister
but you never understood.

You mistreated your wife and your daughters
by assuming they were less than you.
You forced your sons to be silent
blood-thirsty creatures
they were never meant to be.

You took to the woods
to hunt and destroy
After the slaughter you laughed
and found it gratifying.

Worst, you felt condescending pity
toward most of mankind
for not having the answer
when you never even knew the question.

You followed a book as a guide for life
a book written by men
and men are often wrong.

What you never realized
is that men do not make
the laws of the universe
and men do not rule the heavens.

Putting On Airs

They say God has always been
before man, the planets, the Universe
before nothing

Biographically entangled with evolution
primates possessing naive belief
in chromosomatic superiority
genealogically dependent
upon paleolithic ancestors

The devout may be astonished
come judgement day
to see neanderthals
in the realm beyond

How's Annie?

(A Farewell To Twin Peaks)

The owls are not what they seem
perceived reality, mere deception
blood dripping slow motion
splashing like lava
as it strikes tile
only juice from
a mammoth slab
of cherry pie
Without chemicals he points
hieroglyphic gospel
ignorant millions
refuse to genuflect
while the dwarf dances
Fire walk with me
bleak and backward shrieks the choir
of other-world giants and
endangered pine weasels
Under blazing white lights
doughnuts, dozens artfully
arranged on a platter
weep chocolate frosting tears
black
coffee and splinters
fly unacknowledged
blind ears, deaf eyes
the glass pot shatters
Lost in the midst of douglas firs
captured in pursuit of
The White Lodge
They will again be joined
in Valhalla

I Read Too Much Dorothy Parker

It seems a most peculiar thing
in days of equal rights
girls are taught that time will bring
those shining armor knights.

We still read them the fairy tales
which make them dream of princes.
They'll have to wait 'til marriage fails
to come back to their senses.

Harvey

Amidst steaming, smoking
bubbling beakers
test tubes and flasks
filled with
technicolor chemicals
a tiny white rabbit
stared with
pastel pink eyes

Humans in lab coats
loomed
seized the lupus
shoved it through
the apparatus
only the head exposed
the lids they fixed open
with small wire staples
driven in to the skull

If the rodent blinks
the substance is expelled;
if allowed use of the legs
it will claw out the orbs
leaving only blood gushing sockets
which are useless to science

Fingers squeeze the rubber bulb
of the dropper
flooding the eye
with a scent or a dye
or a cleanser
Technicians are immune
to the dog whistle
screams of agony
issuing from the bunny's throat
immune to the blood dripping
from its neck
the metal of the cage
cuts
when the animal thrashes
yet it cannot stop

The researchers record
the reactions of the eye
giving no notice
to the being
who houses it

All in the name of science
to further the causes of humanity
we need a sweeter-smelling
hand lotion
a more vividly tinted
candy coating
and we simply must have
lip gloss in a deeper shade
of pink

and they are
after all
only rabbits

Population Tumor

Procreative, contraceptive mishaps arise.
Compelled to share the affliction
like Tom Sawyer they labor
whitewash trauma to triumph.

Decades of drudgery
annoyance, distress, liability
recriminations and wretchedness
perennial employment, prodigious expense
unsalaried, unrecompensed.

Evolutionary urge, biological lapse
primordial malady, neglected antidotes
Tragically will society proselytise
paint the epidemic a desirable shade
cause of its ills, genesis of its destruction.

Infant Mystique

A trend in this country
to deify infants
the populace marvels
extolls their virtues
Seen as unique
unparallelled
inspired creations
profound works of art

Yet how unlike
works of art they are
with age the regard ebbs
most of humanity
is able to make one
no talent required
There is an abundance
in society
millions created
accidentally
millions are not wanted

There is no mystery
to their existence
no need or urgency
to increase production
There is no shortage
of human beings
Still there are fools
who value
a work in progress
over the life
of the artist

Hemingway

Trying to prove something
to himself and to others
his appetite for recognition
ravenous, insatiable
"Look at me!" he shouted
"See what a big man I am!
Bring me more women, more roast beef
more cigars, then
let's go shoot an elephant."
bloodthirsty, obese
intoxicated misogynist
the prototypical American male
And in between, he wrote
Short stories, novels
Intentionally cryptic
non-stop he scribbled
each paragraph
an unending sentence
with impoverished punctuation
Concluding each construction
he would annihilate the inception
massacre the conclusion
to render the opus
opaque and obscure
From what was he hiding?
What was concealed behind
the excesses in his life
the penury in his work?
Something lacking within or without
a dwarfish soul?
Infinitesimal talent?
a teeny tiny penis?
Perhaps he feared clarity
The populace might discern
how little he had to say
how abysmally he expressed it
Not surprising his popularity
if every male longs to be the
great white hunter
master of his universe
and the desire of females
to be bit players
disposable in their own lives
merely bear children
and swoon now and again
Yet one should write
of what one knows
It cannot be denied
that this he did
Gluttony, violence, womanizing
and that most noble of sportsmen
the mighty matador
testing his strength and skill
against a mortally wounded
doped-up bovine
He flaunted bravery like a
bulging bicep
courage he brandished like
a jeweled cape before a bull
Yet death unmasked the harlequin
his imagined biography erased
by the steel of the shotgun
he pressed to his skull.

Suffer The Children

They live lives of agony
deprived of sunshine, fresh air
like a man locked in a coffin
unable to move
dreaming fragrant fields
of sweet grasses and clover

Abducted at birth
refused milk
of their mothers
they are fed synthetic
pharmaceutical sustenance
noxious to infant systems
enough to fatten them up
and keep them always
desperately ill.

Having known no other life
they are quietly accepting
of this bleak existence
but they must think
the gods find them offensive
to allow such treatment
they must think
they pissed off someone important
to deserve such abuse.

Is deliberate torture
ever acceptable?
Does the end ever justify
the means?
possibly.
for global preservation
or personal freedom
maybe.
But simply because these babies
are not considered of worth
unless perverted and mutilated
for man's use?
never.

Is this pain to be ignored?
Can we really turn our backs
upon a creature whose greatest pleasure
is an early death?
Would the gods approve of man
remaking the earth and its inhabitants
to satisfy gluttonous appetites?
Please
Do not eat veal.

Winter Wonder

Iced cumulus cookies
tier up the cirrus chimney
Puffs of molasses scent
glistening sucrose sky.

Absurdly fluffy figures bustle
the Willy Wonka scape defile
If I could bite off their heads
I'm sure they would taste of marzipan.

Sunday Surreal

Sunshine was slam-dancing
maddening, deafening in its glee
hangover's hooves had cantered off
gin laden sweat wept from aching pores

The horizon seemed too close somehow
The landscape listed slightly
nauseously to the left
skidded and slipped back again

Galactic vandals had viciously painted
the vaulted canopy of blinding sky
eye-stabbing razor-sharp
nightmare easter-egg blue

Hackneyed cotton candy clouds
slow-motion floated over
like technological effects
in a Vegas theme park

The maliciously garish backdrop
curved to cover the asylum
too tightly for the inmates
to truly thrive.

If I could only reach I would
pound it, crack, hammer,
smash, bang, shatter it
break the dome wide

To see if balloons
would fly upward
or small toys and candies
fall to earth.