Running from a season while chasing a muse through a mall
She disappears through the doors
while I'm still trying to find
a parking place
Her sweet scent wafts
around the kiosk
"You are here," it says
I think that debatable
A fat guy philanderer
smiles at her recent depression
left in his lap
I decline to follow suit
suspicious of his red & white suit
A shop keeper gives me
a receipt
says she left it in her hurry to elude me
didn't say what she bought
but the last four digits of the credit card
are mine
A choir sings standing
I glimpse her face
her voice hear
harmony hangs reverberates
Look again into every face smiling
Hers, not hers
not anywhere
I am here
apparently, she is not
Might as well shop
- MH Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 12.23.12)
editor's note: On the 11th hour of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a trek to the mall, a dash for a parking spot, a map of the madness, a scent of perfumed gifting, an impostor in a fat suit, a Xmas caroling choir, a gaggle of grimaced faces... and a receipt showing all the damage done! 'Tis the season... - jo
a christmas pome
the fool considers
the construct of the season
myriad noels
god rest ye merry
ad infinitum
yuletide eternum
ever glows the fire
heating the outer chromium shells
of jingling bells
dangling jangling from the nape of the neck
of harlequin
covered in black and white checks
yin and yang contrast
twixt blindness and sight
holiday opulence
or occasion for thanks
we make the choices
annual opportunities
to be numb to the game
or look around differently
the fool embraces
the good and the soft
the kind and the caring
with angels aloft
fair messengers singing
a heavenly tune
rejoice in the notion
the faint possibility
that one day a year
can proliferate multiply
into every and always
and peace on earth
good will
good will
good will
- MH Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 12.25.11)
editor's note: Why do we limit this feeling to only once a year? Let's make everyday a holy-day! Come one and all, let's put on our jester hats and be enlightened fools! Peace on earth... can it be? Who knows, perhaps someday... - jo
Run On
I’m gonna spill a lot of words
In rapid succession
Articulate angst
That everybody feels
Say out loud the imperative
Not Now!
Not Me!
Not Here!
Not Ever!
Ever goes the swing and sway
The spit-fire words of
What the Fuck?
You wanna do that here?
Now?
Without a net?
Extempore?
Without preparation or education
And research?
Shoot syllabic spider webs
This is connected
To that connected
To you connected
To the unraveled
Unorganized orgasmic obnoxious
Run on sentence
Sentience can’t be proven outside of anxiety
And honest introspection
Spin on spill out
Prophecy forsooth
For who can tell
What happens next?
Elbow to elbow hip to hip
To drop and drip
And scoop up circumstance
To dance
And look askance
At you reflecting me
In your private pupil agony
No worries no waste
No hurry no haste
The peace will come
In time in time
The peace will come
For you and for me
And for some
Running on
Running fast
And stopping never
© 2008
- MH Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 10.01.11)
editor's note: Yes now! Yes you! Yes here! Yes... always! Oh, and a big ol' YES to never stopping! We gotta keep on running on 'cos if we stop we just might drop. Hats off to poetry editor extraordinaire MH Clay for spilling a lot of wonderfully mad words upon us all. - jo
Daddy’s Steps
Aw, Mom
What can I say?
What can I do that would justify
My behavior to you?
I’m just runnin’ in Daddy’s steps
Dark passion and rigid adherence
To rules of propriety and proper deportment
This is the way
I know it, I walk it
In social circles I talk it
The right way masks my dark obsessions
Those black proclivities
My indulgences
Matching step for step
The trails that Daddy trod
You don’t know
Could not accept
The paths he trod in his dark days
Of aimless youth
His pursuit of gonad directions
The frivolous fruit
Daddy’s compulsion
His hot pursuit
Is mine, is mine, is mine
I know him now
Better than I ever did
We have morning coffee conversations
Over eternity and survival
And belief in the cult of “One”
So now, more than ever, I am Daddy’s son
Step for spoor for trail to track
I walk the path from so far back
That I can feel his father’s rejection
A seventeen-year-old’s perplexity
Over what to do
Where to go
Who to trust the way to show
I watched him
While chain smoking Marlboro reds
He crying, rolling on the bed
I was seventeen
Still pristine
Still grasping, gulping, taking all I saw
As mine to be
This world existed for my pleasure
Yet, Daddy cried and howled and convulsed
“Don’t leave me alone,” he begged
I was empty, impotent
Unable to encourage
The icon that could turn my bowels to water
With a disapproving word
“Don’t leave me”
While I had nothing to give
But smoky, 8% tar and nicotine exhalations
You expect me to know or understand
When all I can think about is getting high
Or getting laid
Popping my school-boy cherry?
Aw, Mom
I have the same addiction
The same desire for acceptance and recognition
The same uncertainty
The same intimidation
“I will bury you with a soup spoon”
My exploits are greatness
Like Beowulf or Alexander
My legacy is the steel of soldiers
Who shed their fear and doubt
Who lock and load
And scream defiantly in the face of destruction
Then retreat to the bottle or the needle or the spliff
Or the bottle recedes to the news bite
6 o’ clock monotone
Take your ease, America
For your safety is ensured
Mom, this was Dad’s path
I walk it yet
I can only hope to fill
Those footsteps
With half the weight he carried
I follow his trail
Experience for myself his travail
For I am weak as
Strong as
Full of ideals as
Loving you as
Hoping I can trip by
The grand inquisition as
He tried to be the best as
True as
No patience for the fool as
Cantankerous as
Don’t fuck with him
By driving slow in the fast lane as
He could be
Honest to the end
Mom, I can only aspire to be half as good as that
Walking in my Daddy’s steps
© 2008
- MH Clay
(added 10.01.11)
Rapid Eye Movement
Just on the other side
Of all this levity and celebration
Is nothing
A throbbing silence
A heart beating down
To stillness
Jubilant voices
Echo back to dumbness
Before the idea
Before the utterance
No breath
No thought
No
Thing
Just on the other side
Taps the finger
Muffled ticks and tacks
To grab attention
To remind
We tip toe through our reverie
To let awareness sleep
No susurrant snooze
No dream
No waking
No
Thing
- MH Clay
(added 10.01.11)
Thanks
<24Nov10, ThanksEve>
I'm thinking about this T Day
This Thanks Day
Thanks for this
And thanks for that
But not much giving
At least as much as we get
ThanksGetting
So, this little gift from me
To say, Thanks for all I've got
This world of expressors
Singular confessors
Atoning for what they see
And how they see it
Casting their pearls
Towards me
That's remarkable
Truly thankworthy
So,
Thanks!
- MH Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 11.25.10)
Don’t Need No Shades
Turn that future up
Way bright
Burn it into my retinas
Cuz there’s no better way
To improve the outlook
Of those who always see
The dark side of things
- MH Clay
(added 08.21.10)
Driving Through Venus
ON the drive through Venus
The first thing you see
Is the imposing row after row
Of rise-to-the-sky steel girder
Power line towers
Pulling the lines off the far horizon
Into the step-down station
Where Venus distributes
The flashes of solar cycles
Transformed into current alternates
To drive the toasters
And flat screen TVs
For the zombie multitudes
Of planet Earth
We are the aliens here
Cosmic interlopers
Pushing through to the next rest stop
There isn’t one here
Venus is sterile
So close to the Sun
Shrouded in mystery
Clouded from view
Blind to the astral population
Stopping in Venus for energy downloads
Fed through the robot repository
Transformed gamma stepped vibrations
Of terrified electrons
Coerced by the galactic agenda
Into chasing down the copper conduits
Of human invention
Which make us think
We’re alone out here
- MH Clay
(added 08.21.10)
What TV Taught Me
Hialeah
I remember this name
From black and white TV
Bookies making book
On my national broadcast system
Hialeah
Where horses raced
And rich Jewish retirees
Escaped for an afternoon
Away from their cartoon harpy
Jewish brides
Hialeah
Gimme twenty dolla’s on
Born to Run to place in the fifth
“My God, he’s hemorrhaging!”
I didn’t know what that was
But I could tell it had to be bad
Since she was crying pretty hard
I was home alone with strep throat again
And 2 pm is the worst time
For a ten year old
With the TV to himself
And nothing but soaps to watch
“Things are different now.”
Was Leslie Nielsen’s line
To Warren Stevens
By which he explained the affect
A young and voluptuous Anne Francis
Had upon him
She had to be nineteen
And my God she was hot
But I was a child
And the references to The Tempest
Were lost on me
I hadn’t read The Tempest
We had just discovered my near-sightedness
Because I couldn’t get close enough to Huckleberry Hound
Color TV wouldn’t be around
For another 10 years
TV gave me my first really bad news
While televising the first assassination
Of an American president in the 20th century
The bad news for me was
No cartoons for three days
I was nine
Later came more bad news that I could understand
The “Veet Nam” war
Then Bobby and Martin
Bad shit
Watts, Chicago ‘68
When I was just trying to be cool
TV taught me Cool
I watched for Cool
The Stones were cool
But they didn’t get on TV much
The Beatles were cool
Ed’s people thought so
On national TV, they got him to say so
Jimmi got on Johnny
I think he played Purple Haze
My Dad was outraged
And I didn’t know enough to shut up
It wasn’t all distortion through amplification
There was melody and diction
It was clear
But, “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’”
Were not words a 12 year old was going to say out loud
To a Father who was ten beers and four shots
On his way to another night of belligerent oblivion
All those shows
Object lessons
Rob and Laura holding hands
Across the space between their twin beds
But not for too long
Ward and June
Talking through the complexities
Of rearing Wally and the Beaver
In white America
“Tell the truth”
“Show compassion for the weak
And downtrodden”
“The ends never justify the . . .”
Meanness before harm never
Or strike before stricken
But, slide before slipping
Glide upon the stumble
Turn humiliation into pride
Glide
I learned to examine the evidence
Analyze the circumstances
Expose the man behind the curtain
Uncover the secret wheels
Indict the corporate criminals
Convict the simpering smiling
Slick grifting shyster
Robber embezzler of fortunes
The old man’s
Young widow’s
Yours and mine
Brain matter turned to jelly
Independent actions warped to mindless obedience
Buy more
Borrow ever
Debt is gain
For someone else
Someone smarter, richer
Rich enough
To pen the writer
Hire the director
Threaten the producers
Seduce the investors
To bring in the money, money
Document the crime
To the morbid fascination
And abject impoverishment
Of us all who pay, no matter what
The cable bill
Or the satellite bill
We have the choice
And think this makes us free
- MH Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 08.21.10)
The Grid
You can take that off line
But not off the grid
There’s no dropping out
You can’t drop a stitch
You have to be visible
Accessible, be heard
And when you speak be crisp
As crackly as a potato chip
Each word you say
Must snap its way
Into the consciousness
Of the apathetic
Instigate action
Inspire change
The change of each cog
To mesh with the magneto
That spins the grand combine
Which turns the great wheel
That moves the giant mower
To whack ripe opportunities
Into the high hopper
Which feeds the machine
The insatiable vacuum
That never loses suction
When vulnerable, succulent souls
Are so sweet for the taking
The grid
The long leash
The internet satellite signal
Lo-jack chip behind the ear
Just beneath the scalp
Setting alpha brain waves out of phase
To control the impulse
Weaken the will
Enable the “reach out
And jump through our ass, give up your life
Forsake family and friends
To satisfy a customer”
With no face or feelings or purpose
Other than to ensure your every thought
Is consumed with anxiety
And concern over how to bring in
Another two million delectable morsels
Of gross margin
To fatten the bottom line
Of the machine
The queen machine
The god machine
The “our purpose serves the greater good”
Far beyond picayune personal proclivities
To procure a pusillanimous pittance
A pauper’s puny perfidy
Our goal is to make the magnanimous
Mother machine
Crank out cookie-cutter encryptions
Devoid of character
Motivated to mollify the moods
Of the machine
There is the mystery
The code un-cracked
That we would succumb
To such subjugation and slavery
Ever wired to the grid
Shamefully submitted to such stark disclosure
Of all that we hope and are
For fear that the mindless motions
Of the monster magneto
Somehow spins with greater speed
Than our simple insignificant aspirations
Or primal human needs
Copyright 2007 Michael Clay
(added 08.21.09)
The Fall of Sumer
“For want of a placeholder
This civilization shall fall”
* SSOF, 21st Century
We can’t feed another digit
To the maw of the machine
It just won’t take it
So what, if the customer
Wants only one extra feature
Without that placeholder
The customer can take what we have
Because we can’t force it
Though we tried and tried
There was weeping and gnashing of teeth
No placeholder
And the system won’t recognize the request
The Standard Of Work can access no document
Because the system had no Process Of Record
By which to execute an idea
A desire for something more
There is no placeholder for more
And for want of that
The forecast is missed
The operating plan falls short
The people are scattered
And so on and so on
All we have of the Sumerians
Are some crumbled foundations
Sunk in centuries of sand
And a pile of clay tablets
With records and records
Of business transactions
Cuneiform scratchings
For the counting of cattle
And bushels of wheat
And clusters of figs
So many markings
To count to the highest number
Impeded by a scarcity of clay
They didn’t get “zero”
They couldn’t squeeze a large number
Into a smaller space
They just spread out
‘Til the desert couldn’t sustain them
Leaving us their legacy –
Lack of vision
Only eyes for the horizon
In this desert now
For want of a placeholder
Copyright 2008 Michael Clay
(added 08.21.09)
Whip Snap
Whip snap the set trap
Trying to catch those bees
Thinking about my flabby physique
I ought to quit smoking and drinking . . .
Well, maybe smoking
I ought to work out more
Learn to grow vegetables on my roof deck
Learn to dig those furrows with a double-barrel
Because there’s more to repel than grackles and crows
And I’ll have to pollinate my buds with cue tips
Which I’ll have to fabricate from dandelion fuzz
Or something else, like old fiberglass insulation
Because there won’t be anymore dandelions
Or bees to pollinate them
So, I’ll have to get into shape for that
Others will be in shape
They’ll be muscling flat screen TVs
From uptown high rises to take along
To some other, better place
Where there won’t be electricity
But plenty of plutonium slag heaps to plug into
No place for pride or greed
Or credit card wet dream
Instant gratification
We’ll have to work hard
For every little thing
Like picking the fiberglass filaments
From old insulation
To make cue tips
To pollinate our tomato blossoms
Because by then
We will be
The only bees
There are
Copyright 2008 Michael Clay
(featured in the poetry forum 08.21.09)
Jindai Ji
(Deep Great Temple)
Bamboo forests, node by node
Growing, pushing upward
Bearing the weight
Under which we stroll, oblivious
To the centuries that have passed below
Such a soft green canopy
Illusory, iridescent blue
Butterfly, weaving, passing through
Leading us on a pilgrimage
The deep great haven
Sanctuary
Renovation
Restoration of the old
Unnoticed
Minor ripple in the pond
Beside orange, white, red carp
Generations old, ignorant
Of here today
When always has been now
Monday afternoon
- MH Clay © 2002
(added 06.19.09)
Youte
(Anse LaRaye, St. Lucia
A Friday night in June, 2002)
“Sick Youte!
Wicked Youte!”
Through these streets
Youte runs
Youte of the Friday nights
Youte of the street parties
The islanders move late
Move into the night
In the disco, lights are flashing
Rastas pulse to the reggae, country beat
Vacillating, syncopating
Rhythm and color spill into the street
Where sounds and smells
Attack the senses
Lobster, shrimp, seafood all
Life is consumed here
In great, gulping mouthfuls
There stands Augustine Raspar
Spouting wisdom for any to hear
“I make everyone dance!”
He laughs, “Because you never know.
So, live fast and quit!”
Amen
There stands the church
Graveyard full of those who danced
Youte grins a skeleton grin
He towers far above the town
Grinning down
Below him, pulsing mad and fast
Rastas, lobsters, island women
Sleek and brown
White-skinned tourists
The music rises
Engulfing all in a flood
Youte moves through the crowd
Taps each reveler on the shoulder
And leads a long conga line
Down to the shore
Skeleton grin
Until everyone is smiling
“Sick Youte!
Wicked Youte!”
- MH Clay © 2002
(featured in the poetry forum 06.19.09)
Buddha’s Teeth
The Buddha smiles
Thirty-two pearlies
Gleaming white
He is so far beyond
We cannot see
Such blinding light
And ancient princess
Set in motion
The obvious outcome
Of her devotion
So drawn to him
So captivated
His teeth
She prestidigitated
And placed within
A holy shrine
A silver door
She locked behind
The faithful come
The stone is polished
By devoted knees
The chants resound
Entreating Buddha
“Nirvana, please!”
Buddha had a great idea
“Just change the way
you think,” he said
His misguided followers
Made him into
God instead
-
Years went on
The message changed
The great idea
Was rearranged
How odd to see
It’s not the same
Marred by our whisper
‘Round the circle game
And so it goes
The Buddha muses
When all is one
Nobody loses
Think or pray
The wheel will turn
All the while
Gleaming white
Thirty-two pearlies
Buddha smiles
- MH Clay © 2002
(added 06.19.09)
Hey, Walt!
Main Street Disneyland
Technicolor cartoon fairytale perfection
Evil always thwarted, endings always happy
The streets were clean
The French Quarter more festive than Bourbon Street
It was wholesome
Those darkies clappin’ spoons and tap dancin’
With wide ivory smiles
“Thank You, Mr. Disney!” they’d say
It made our white hearts proud
But now the streets are filled with trash
The paints jobs bleached and peeling
Bird shit on the fence rails
Cracked glass windows
What happened, Walt?
You promised us every Sunday night
How perfect it would be
But now look!
Cigarette butts, rancid beer piss reeking from
The back corners of Frontierland
And no more darkies
Or buffoon sergeants Garcia cumerbunds
For Zorro’s white “Z”
To make us feel our whitest best
No savage Indians in feather dress
And so much trash
No more the impression, the empty deception
That perfection is perpetually sustainable
Only the rolling balls of paper and waste
Cuz’ there just no one left
No jive-boy
Jimbo
“We’ll white wash’em tasteful
so we can devour ‘em”
Under privileged
Gratefully tap dancin’ darkies
To sweep up
- MH Clay © 2008
(featured in the poetry forum 07.17.08)
Pentecostal Pastel
Pale blue leisure suit
White dress white shoes
Polyester beige and brown houndstooth
Platform shoes
The preacher’s suit
Is jet black
To best offset his diamond pinky-ring
An accusing eye
Which exposes our envy and our greed
We will go forth at altar call
Our weekly repentance
From our lives of dissipation and excess
Our idle amusements bible study talk and talk
Eat cake drink milk talk more
We’re overcome and Spirit filled
The secret language God’s converse
From our sinner’s lips is spilled
“see my tie”
The sisters praise
Loud Hallelujahs with arms upraised
“a ree bo bo”
We stammer so
Little babes with clumsy tongues
We stutter and we hum
All the elders raise their hands
To thank their dogma and their god
Their replication of generations
Of stand up sit down
Jericho marchin’ the chapel round
To trap our evil lusty demons
‘Til the walls crumble
In our jabberin’ jumble of noise
Who can stand
As He did stand?
Why, none of us can
But it’s OK now, how can we be?
Tall as strong as divine as He?
Not one
No matter
Just speak and bleat
And keep up the patter
To be exempt
Even donkeys, dumb asses
With braying mouths
Have uttered sounds which qualified
As God talkin’ to Himself
“see my tie
A repo bo
A repo see my tie”
Oh, my
- MH Clay © 2008
(added 07.09.08)
My People
My people are something special
I identify with my people
My people get me
I am somebody with my people
My people is how I cope with insecurity
You may be something, but not to my people
My people keep me once removed
I’m insulated by my people
My people is how I put you in your place
You may have clout, but not with my people
My people will work it out with your people
Superior by far are my people
My mentioning your people is just my concession
I am being polite
But I mean to have my way
My people ensure that I will
I am guaranteed success by my people
I don’t have to take risks
I don’t have to be vulnerable
I don’t have to look at you
I don’t have to let you look at me
I don’t have to stand on my own merit
I don’t have to think about acceptance without merit
I don’t have to
My people love me
And you are not my people
- MH Clay
Drone
I’m a drone
I’m here to fuck the queen
And die
I defy my insect destiny
I will not drone
I will chrysalize
I will complete the change
From worm to butterfly
Behind my myriad eye
My soul is that of a butterfly
But, you can’t see me
You’re caught up with the challenge
Of so many mirrors
In which to admire yourself
You can never see beyond yourself
You’re the drone
Not I
You can fuck the queen and die
Not I
(By the way, the queen told me
You have a little honeybee dick
And you always come too soon)
- MH Clay
Postcard
Our sunshine turns the air orange
We wheeze and grin
And take it all in
We’re fighting over apples
In the produce section
We’re roasting
Beneath the sun’s convection
We’re melting on concrete
Wish you were here
We’re scrambling for sustenance
Bony, brain dead children
Are eating dust
And shitting blood
Our ground is saturated
By the floods
We’re surrounded by decrepitude
And rust
Wish you were here
We’re pushing through it
Bringing joy and angst to it
Yes, it sucks
But we make the ducks
Which trim the tops of our Mohawks
We’re strong together
We’ve learned to absorb the shocks
Wish you were here
We’re wondering about the reckoning
The penalty for heeding the beckoning
Seeing the wonder
Consuming the plunder
We’re pondering the question
“How?” and “Why?”
And submitting our suggestion
Couldn’t it be different?
Couldn’t there be change?
Would that be too dissident
Too alien and strange?
We’d like to talk it over
A path to walk it over
Wish you were here
We feel the pain, we hear it
The children giving up the spirit
The humiliation, the shame
The crying of shattered souls
The passing of fathers
The filling of holes
The struggle to make sense
Of the silence and perceived indifference
We need to bear that
Someone to share that
Wish you were here
- MH Clay
Tweak
If you don’t like’em
If presentation or context falters
If you don’t like’em
How their drivel your good mood alters
Don’t endure’em
Tweak’em
Take out your tool
Your wisdom for the fool
Turn’em clockwise or counter
Command the encounter
Forcefully direct their gaze
To take in the other view
A different from their mother view
Tweak’em
Bespeak’em
Stick your fingers in the dike
To stop the leak’em
Tweak’em
But, when I’m feelin’ bleak
When too tired or dumb to speak
I need a higher plane to seek
Baby, help me
I need a tweak
Roll out your love to meet me
Soften the blows that beat me
Batter my balance and unseat me
I would rather lie down
My anxieties tie down
I would fly down
And up and ‘round
‘Til you wire up and freak me
Baby, help me
Tweak me with your love
Tweak me with a shove
Over the brink
Into the drink
Heels over head and back from the dead
I love you baby, tweak me
With your love
Tweak me with your love
Tweak me
Tweak me
Tweak me
- MH Clay
Deconstructing Pettiness
When they knock you down
And step on you
Say those things that demean
And deflate
Do those things that undermine
Upset your self-confidence
Whack a hole in your sails
You think of them
With skin peeled back
To expose a puny brain
An undersized heart
Yeah, when they’re exposed
Their duplicity and arrogance
Will be made plain to all
That’s the way it should be
Make them see themselves
Maybe then they’ll learn
Yeah
It never works that way
They step on us, from me to you
To higher planes
Near the top
Making their plans
That don’t include us
Behind and forgotten
Aw, shit!
This is maudlin
And morose
I see the same thing
In my mirror sometimes
‘Til I walk around a bit
In everyone else’s shoes
Listen to their stories
Damn!
Even those assholes have their fears
- MH Clay
Clouds
Wrap words around vision
Feelings, tangible happenings
Liberated doves, flapping boisterously upward
Into such a sky
Rushing to freedom
Unlocked
The door of my bone chamber
Creaks open to reveal long horizons
A whole life, a thrilling tangle
Of past and fantasy
Propriety would dole out tools
To dissect, separate the two
Splayed, naked under stark light
Reward those who will denounce
Ally with the one, accuse the other
Grow up, mature, denounce
While I run back into the mass
A child again
Racing, reveling
Laughing out loud at the wonderful sensation
That comes with a two-armed
Grasping embrace of clouds
- MH Clay
Old Generals
He remembers the glory
The triumphs
He speaks of camaraderie unparalleled
He is a caricature, a cliché
The young soldier sees the battle
Up close and bloody
His buddies die around him
Splattered unrecognizable
They are traumatized
And also, are a cliché
The reason is gone
The need for reason, gone
The story is predictable
Each life the same
Old battlefields, national monuments
Young soldiers on leave,
Fresh from new battlefields, still wet with blood,
Stand and look at empty fields
But can hear the cries and explosions
Old generals bring wreaths
Wear medals and sashes
Long deaf to those cries
Long blind to the smoke and still, finally still, bodies
Long bored with the thrill of conquest
Calloused to the moral dilemma
The hard choices –
These young lives
For all those others
The greater good
For this small evil
No purpose is so great, anymore
But young soldiers look for leaders
Someone to follow
To articulate and emote
Only old generals
Wooden icons
To fuel the great ideal
The old generals
Are no longer enamored by any
For them it’s all the same
Bloodshed, glory
No matter, no consequence
Only the haunting of old decisions
Gone wrong
History written
From which no one will learn
The old general looks upon the memorial field
And is embarrassed to catch himself
Indulging in such adolescent fatalism
It’s full circle
In the end, it’s only a green field
Fertilized with old bones
Mulch for the trees
- MH Clay |
