Saturday, October 31, 2020

Thanks for the Insurrection

 
Thanks for your blunder,

You orange-haired wonder,

For aggravating Americans out of their dream

Killing two major parties with one small stone

Expect it that soon you’ll be cut to the bone

 

Leave us nothing but civil war,

You ignorant childish whore,

The militia we’ll pummel into their graves

The out-of-work bosses’ factories

Collectivized in the land of the finally free

 

You’re more than an Obama Bush,

In the final beer hall putsch,

When you fascists are cut down in the streets

But if not for your despicable overt-ness

Those Dems would go silently, worthless

 

Let’s take advantage of your rot.

Comrades, the iron’s hot

To forge a new society from the shell of the old

When the value of accumulated wealth is debunked

And the capitalist world is flunked

 

Hail, Caesar Trump,

Campaign in vain on your Ahab stump

Lead your lemmings down en masse

As we commutate your 2020 vision

With victory marches of derision

 

Come on, Trumpster,

Like an unsuspecting martyr,

The nation sick with out-of-control fodder

Eat mistakes your ego bakes on fire 

And stoke the flame of workers’ desire

 

Come on now Trumpelstilskin,

Though your nap has hit a bump,

Every goose step deflowering starlets

Make them carry their fetus to term

And christen them with crosses you burn

 

Commander in grief,

Nothing less than a thief,

Fan the flames of revolution

Shoot at the looters that ask for more

Of what you said they were living for

 

Thumbs up, gangster dumpster, 

Donald Corleone’s Trumped up monster,

Like the Godfather’s henchmen thrived

With all your courtiers by your side

Fuel the tanks for their final ride

 

Be an unwitting hero,

Mister bankrupt zero,

As we cut the locks and fling open the gates

Until the ruling parties sharing power

See mansions crumble in your finest hour

 

So be it, Donny babe,

It is what it is so why be afraid,

Comrades, let us go for his throat

Char your White House bride in black

And tear it down so there’s no going back.

 

October 31, 2020

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Monday, October 19, 2020

Only a Hobo Knows











Only a hobo knows

The spot under the bridge 

Where decent men dare not  go

To make excuses at a moment's notice.

The train of thought missed by napping,

But hobos know what experts never learn

That rudeness with no honor

Is a fiddler without a bow

At a jig he doesn’t care to go

When a camp fire’s all he needs

Without invitation or host.

He is easy-going in his cares

But careful of shifty-eyed agents

That break promises to protect their own. 

Not  a damn ride for a  hobo 

In an abused class used to being passed over

Where no appointment holds fast

And years until he makes a stand

Yet his  still life's oh so grand;

That gypsy loves him head to toe.

So next time  you pass his way

Leave a message he won’t answer

For this hobo knows a thing or two

And neither is any use to you.

He knows to not get too close

To those that meet him on the road

To nod at fellow travelers when they say:

"I  know a safe place tonight to stay

under the bridge of expectations."


October 19, 2020

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

For Quarantine in Paradise









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After finishing books in Taiwan

I would wake in a stupor in Pittsburgh

In a slashed and burned democracy

Whiffing the rank smell of death with pride

Singing sad songs on the front line of no-man’s land

My countrymen, worthless and sick of trying.

 

Though I was furthered  to be the light

The wood that burned the flame was exhausted

Yet the realm of enlightenment remained

For this cautious old fox walking on ice

Not wetting his tail in disastrous attempts

Of transition from a disorder yet complete

 

Cancel a reservation and hold my breath 

Lean on the other leg in anticipation

Of  a fruitful spring vacation

With my eyes wide open and letting go

In retrospection it will seem 

I passed through phases of a dream

 

To mind the gaps at empty stations 

Safe in Taichung as the virus spreads

Glad watching a hag picking toes on a bench

Better than being lost in flight

Or returning home in the dead of night

For quarantine in paradise


October 12, 2020

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Saturday, October 3, 2020

Waits for No Man, Time nor Tide










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As the orange sun sets in the west

People make plans but G-d knows best

An unrelated series of events

Transforms the world through which we vent

Like dominoes in an unplanned trigger

A simple need so vigorously

To reach the mind with tangled instruction

No ulterior motive or appetite for destruction

The anticipated outcome holds no weight

Saved by grace in a leap of faith

All for the good of gentle souls

Who needn’t worry as it unfolds

It comes together beyond our means

For nothing is really as it seems

When inspiration from fantastic landscapes

Finds destinations wise men take

That is the place you ought to go

The more you plan the less you will know

I cast my fate to the wind’s exposure

Like autumn leaves, thoughts find closure

Making connections, forming a bridge

Gathering sense approaching the ridge

Crossing onto the uncharted side

What waits for no man, time nor tide


October 2, 2020

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Monday, September 21, 2020

Until My Dying Day


Why would I leave this paradise to go

To where they say I’d be a fool to go?

With no one casting me out.

But  in a fool’s paradise

Overlooking those in need,

 What fearful hard-heads don’t realize,

What the selfishly unhealthy can’t understand:

That life in an unchanging replica, 

Brings misfortune to the pariah 

For those who think it lasts forever.

I have to keep on moving out of  forecast range

As animals feel earthquakes before they arrive

And verify omens out of our reach.

When men on the chessboard tell us where to go,

We must tune in to frequencies on pirate radio

Without  concern that it is in vain.

I will leave and feel no pain,

May it always stay this way

Until my dying day.

 

Dedicated to Mary Catherine

September 22, 2020

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Monday, September 14, 2020

A World of Change

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A pen is too permanent for a world of change

When discoveries and detours are unknown

Beyond the bread and butter issues at home

Who knows where I will roam?

 

An opportune virus opens the door

Quarantined in a hotel to avoid the bends

Decompressing in conditioned air

Holed up like Marco Polo with stories from there

 

Pencil me in to the bottom of the ninth

With the home team down by a run

One hit will tie the score

That is what erasers are for

 

A death in the family would hold be back

Or a gallbladder cyst in need of removal

The orange sun setting in a Taichung sky

As orange clouds o’er Portland drift by

 

Fire needs fuel to keep it bright

A spirit renewed to carry me through

I am burning to see my regeneration

To shatter my porcelain vase of fixation

 

As I sit balanced on the river’s edge

A bridge to developments yet uncrossed

Bats overhead to and fro in their dances

The river between us rolls on taking chances

 

As I sit over here in suspended animation

Watching wispy clouds in the teal of dusk

Migrating birds in formation southerly

To this startled onlooker it seems suddenly

 

The flock knows how they are heading

Not forgetting when and whither

But I take chances with uncharted fate

The Tao’s has good intentions so I mustn't hesitate

 

Write me with pencil in the book of life

Smite my enemies on the road I travel

Nudge me aside from foolish pride

Up and front with nothing to hide

 

A pen is too final for writing a story

Space bar and delete key on the P.C. sticking

As the plot thickens, my character develops

By the true light my intention envelopes


September 14, 2020

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Tuesday, September 8, 2020

In Debt to David Graeber

 

Shortened days darkened

Prospects diminished

Street lights illuminated

Chances finished

Change succumbing

Crescendo drumming

My heart stinging

For one died bringing

David Graeber departed

Before the party started

Sustenance withholding

With glory unfolding

Sunset west persisting

Despite all our resisting

Rising morning east

He made his magnificence

When he sought it least


September 8, 2020

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Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved