COMPLETED WORKS

ARROGANCE

Their fate they gave in trust,
In service to the homeland.
They would do what they must;
They would protect the homeland.

Afghanistan was crushed;
The Taliban defied us.
al-Qaeda was ambushed;
That would not be denied us.

So, how could we have let them down?
Iraq was not in question.
Oh, how tears flow in their hometown!
With arrogance, we press on.

The world was at our side;
Disdain was our rejoinder.
We mustered up false pride;
There was no other stronger.

They now face puny arms,
With peace nowhere in sight.
A phantom foe still harms;
He does it bite by bite.

GEOPOLITEVIL AND THE MILLENNIA

Pregnant air bears the scent of geopolitevil, emanating from strident tones of factionalism, classism, marginalization and clumsy attempts to whitewash a dark past with new brushes.

Pungent redolence is spread by cynical paeans to peace, whilst restless arms fervently fan whirring winds of war.

A new millennium begins calmly enough, despite premature predictions of concomitant chaos.

Offset in temporal placement, as are the notable events of the nascent First Millennium, remarkable occurrences of the Second Millennium inexorably are set into era-marking motion.

SLAVERY IS FOREVER

There seems to be a general tendency to treat human bondage, as practiced in pre- and post-Revolutionary times, as an embarrassing blip in history that effectively was put right by the Emancipation Proclamation. Wrong! Slavery is an indelible thread in the warp and woof of the fabric of the United States of America.

Unlocking the chains that held the body was the easy part. The Emancipation Proclamation did not address that other bondage that was so meticulously applied to the mind, the conscience, the soul, the spirit… Great pains were taken to dehumanize, to deprive, to debase…The subject had to be kept ignorant, uneducated, convinced of its inferiority. These chains are so invisible that sometimes even the subject is unaware of their existence. These invisible chains do not go the way of all flesh. Rather, they are passed on ad infinitum.

Slavery will be with us always—in one form or another. It is a moan from the fields, a Spiritual, the Blues, Honky Tonk, Jazz, Swing, Rock and Roll, the Beatles… It is a barefoot shuffle, the Cakewalk, Tap Dancing, the Jitterbug, the Hustle, Hip-Hop...

AMERICAN HERITAGE

The voices of doom are heard in the land.
They ask: What is it they all want now?
We share all this room, we lend them a hand;
we must have done something wrong, somehow.

They tend now to crow and hyphenate so,
A tendency quite disconcerting.
Equality's now the law, don't you know;
They’re not constitution’ly hurting.

The answer comes back, a whip's snappy crack:
Where were you when we were there suffering?
We tried to get in; you ordered us back;
A deaf ear you turned to our uttering.

You sewed up a flag and had a nice war,
Declaring this land for humanity.
We wondered what all the fighting was for,
As we saw no change in your sanity.

You first stole our land and locked us away,
And called us inhuman and savages.
Through games of chance, now, we make mis’ry pay;
You say we take unfair advantages.

We sailed from that old Dark Continent's dock,
In chains and in abject humility.
But, we arrived, not upon Plymouth Rock;
Our voyage was meant for utility.

The South rode high on our bent-bodies' sweat;
The North chafed, and sabers went a-rattling.
Abe Lincoln was forced—the challenge he met;
Reluctantly, chains fell a-clattering.

But, freedom, we found, was short-lived; what's more,
Old Jim Crow would make us rue the day.
Sans acre, sans mule, for the nouveaux poor;
The next hundred years, there'd be hell to pay.

You welcomed us in to drive spike to rail,
We united both your coasts, east to west.
You ridiculed us, you pulled our pigtails;
You drove us hard, kept your feet on our chests.

Then, when the building of rails was all done,
And we sought our rightful place among you,
We were stopped by the Exclusion Law gun;
Which meant deportation for "Fu Manchu."

You took San Juan Hill, chasing away Spain
From Cuba and the Caribbean Sea.
You used the "Big Stick" to buy sugar cane;
Puerto Rico was passed along for free.

Then, we Boricuas became instant wards,
In Uncle Sam's tender and loving care.
He gave us "free rein," but he held the cords;
Now, politics is our national fare.

Citizens of the U.S. we became,
With all of the customary trappings,
Including queries: Which race do you claim?
But, what of our ethnic overlappings?

The U.S. replaced Imperial Japan
In Subic Bay, far in the Pacific.
You invited us aboard your tin cans;
You told us the view would be terrific.

We found out the truth, when we all signed up;
You wanted us for sea-going servants.
But, on the mainland, we really wised up;
A brown skin can create a disturbance.

When Pearl Harbor broke, we muttered, 'Oh, shit;
"it will be just a matter of time, now."
But, we couldn't guess, then, the worst of it;
The midnight knock would soon cause quite a row.

Our West Coast homes we abandoned in days,
For stables, then camps of concentration—
Awaiting in vain, through our confused haze,
The German/Italian consternation.

You say we're "Wetbacks," who sleep in the sun,
But in the fields, it's our wet backs that break.
We fill your markets; we tend to your young;
It’s we who put the food upon your plate.

The Southwest was ours, at nature's behest;
We are a people, civilized and proud.
Your destiny came to be "Manifest."
What brass for a Johnny-come-lately crowd!

So, stop your whirring; the border's intact.
There are no hordes to justify your fear.
Chingada madre, pendejos!—In fact,
iNo se dan cuenta?—We're already here!

The voices of doom are heard in the land.
They ask: What is it they all want now?
We share all this room; we lend them a hand;
We must have done something wrong, somehow.

They tend now to crow and hyphenate so,
A tendency quite disconcerting.
Equality's now the law, don't you know;
They’re not constitution’ly hurting.

AT LONG LAST

With faith and family intact, they survive the crucible of cruel Egyptian bondage. Even as they watch the Red Sea roll over the remnants of Pharaoh’s army, little do they know that suffering in the shadows of the pyramids would be counted among the least of their trials.

After two score years of desert-wandering, and armed with a ten-point, divine mandate for living, they are delivered into a Land of Milk and Honey. Despite the apparent preciousness of their legacy, peace would be only a provisional respite in their exodus. Amid the many future plights of this people, there would burn brightly the eternal flames of the miraculous lamps at Masada.

While attempting to retain their dignity under the Roman boot, there arises the fateful convergence, at Jerusalem, of the Sanhedrin, the Procurator of Judea and a popular, itinerant rabbi. From that point on, as their great temples lie in the dust, they are splintered as a people and dispersed to the four corners of the earth. This Diaspora is to be long and tedious, as callously they are driven from one nation to another.

This second wandering in a desert created by a mentality of uncomprehending humanity is made tolerable only through their unflinching faith in Yahweh and family. Of much importance would be those steadfast tenets, as they approach the twentieth century and the most devastating outrages ever perpetrated by humankind upon humankind. It is ironic that a century—which in the confines of its mere one hundred years would exceed all previous accomplishments to the benefit of man—
also would be known as the low-watermark of human degradation!

After such a Holocaust, they again—and with a sense of finality—seek a renewal of faith and family in a long-ago-promised place. Again, peace proves to be petulant when pursued.

So, now, at long last, at the dawn of a new century, can we not heed the exhortation of their best-known son—the one a goodly part of the world embraces—
At long last, even as another conflagration threatens to again rend the world asunder, can we not heed his constant invocation to accept, also, the rest of his brethren?

MY COUSIN IRENE

My cousin Irene
Is an elegant queen.
She rules over Roosevelt Island.

This reign, of course,
Has been brief, perforce;
Previously it encompassed Manhattan Island.

In days of yore,
Her haute couture
Competed with upward-bound edifices.

She would sally forth
With minks from Dorff-
-man and leave Fifth Avenue in pieces.

With body erect and eyes straight ahead,
Her broad brimmed hat seemed to float.
With model’s legs upon stiletto heels,
That girl was not going to vote.

She hailed from Philly, a greenhorn kid,
And took New York by storm.
There was no going back to the sticks of P.A.;
This gal had come to do harm.

She managed the mail and broadened Broadway.
Tin Pan Alley was her route.
She outshone the lights along the Great White Way,
And upstaged the Brooklyn Bridge, to boot.

Now, don’t go thinking that what I say
Refers to some kind of ego trip.
That’s just who she was and still is today.
It’s not rocket science, you radar blip!

Underneath it all, she has a heart of gold.
Her hand to many did she extend.
Some bit her fingers; but that’s a tale of old.
From those things a healthy heart can mend.

But, come what may, as the years roll on,
Her spirit never flags.
She’ll hang in there till the break of dawn,
With a pace that never lags.

Who is this lady, this dynamo—
This still-upon-her-throne queen?
Well, simply stated, I am pleased to show
None other than my dear cousin—Irene.

BUT, WHAT OF OUR SEXUALLITY?

Words and images we hurl through space,
Around the earth and beyond.
And, with skill, we alter someone's face.
We choose to be dark or blond.

Rare is the illness we cannot cure,
Gone is the circus sideshow.
Brine from the sea we make clear and pure,
Dams halt the great waters’ flow.

Yes, our intellect-reality
Is our crowning-glory pride,
But, what of our sexuality—
Why from this fact do we hide?

Here stops cold our curiosity
Of what makes us humans hot.
How still becomes our verbosity;
There are some things that interest us not.

Reality is now "virtual;"
To Earth we're no longer bound.
Surgeons today are quite merciful;
They effect cures, now, with sound.

Oh, how we strive so to stretch the mind;
Oh, how we reach for the sky!
Marvelous are those things we find;
There's nothing that we won't try.

Yes, our intellect-reality
Is our crowning-glory pride,
But, what of our sexuality—
Why from this fact do we hide?

Here stops cold our curiosity
Of what makes us humans hot.
How still becomes our verbosity;
There are some things that interest us not.

HARBINGER

Adrift upon indiscernible seas of the mind,
Where tides roll in, leave thoughts behind,
Afloat amid ethereal waves,
Sodden, undulating caves,
A vision far out did I perceive—
Horizon-bound—begin to weave
Insinuatingly its form,
Extracted from the new day's storm.

This spectral vision provoked in me
A dread one hopes was fantasy.
A thing of phantasmagoric bent,
As closer it came and distance went,
The air did cleave and reason rent.

The essence of me was stuck in place,
Without retreat—there was no face!
What was this indefinable phantom?
What was its nation? What was its anthem?
There were no words, yet did it speak,
Its meaning doom-felt, dark and bleak.

But soon its message did I divine,
About which import I should not opine,
But pass along without delay,
Before dawned yet another day.
entreated was I these thoughts to relate—
A-tumbling they cane, in prolific spate.

Contain them I tried,
But could not—I cried.
The weight of the burden was hard to bear;
It dragged me down in great despair.

The ominous presence would not depart,
Until I swore upon my heart
All that it wished me to convey,
Ere light remained upon that day.
I bade it spare me that awful charge—
To put its mission’s cause at large—
Till time should permit me to digest
The ponderousness upon my chest.
It seemed piteously to relent,
And eerily this message sent:

To one and all upon the earth,
Where peace and care are both in dearth,
Take cautious stock of thy depleting larder.
Note that replenishment comes harder.
And, too, take stock among thyselves,
Be ye giants, be ye elves.
Note that the future, in time and space,
Ye shall not know, ‘cept face-to-face.

With this, it turned to-wand the west,
A ghostly tear upon its vest.
I watched, until it sank below,
Amidst the ebbing solar glow.

INSTITUTIONAL PURITY

Institutions always flaunt the purity of their intentions.
Purity?—Bah! What purity?
Societal?
Governmental?
Political?
Religious?
Scientific?

Of the lot, I'd prefer to have lunch with Science.
After all, it fought off all the rest—and won!
Of course, Science has its stains, too.
After the impugned nobility of Copernicus
(it took the Vatican from circa 1500 to circa 2000 to grant him absolution!),
And if we disregard the perfidies wrought by Piltdown Man and eugenics,
Science is just about as clean as you can get in that crowd.

Society?
There's the dilemma.
Is it the tail of the dog?
Does it push or is it pushed?
I have a feeling it's the most dangerous one of all—
Because it's always there.

Government and Politics are shacked up, of course.
Machiavelli exposed them in the Prince and the Discourses.
When they get along, we're generally in good shape.
But, when Government kicks Politics out of bed, it can cause a world war!

The Greeks and Romans had the right idea about Religion:
Instead of assuming that they were created in the image of the deity,
They created the deity in their own image.
In that way, they were always in control.

Danger appears when Politics and Religion go to the same party.
Invariably, they end up going home together, thereby tarnishing both their reputations.

Yes, all things considered, I'd rather hang out with Science.
But, purity?—Bah!
What purity?

E FLUTE OF THE DUENDE

Away in the distance, unheard, yet it calls.
It captures the will, tugs one through unknown halls.

Upon silent waves does it fly, ether-borne.
It floods all the senses in silence, this horn.

The flute of the duende does not all inspire;
Each heart vibrates not to the strings of his lyre.

The notes of his instruments strike every chord,
And hang there, suspended, like Damocles' sword.

I fathomed not what strange voice kept me so rapt,
Nor why to its music's mode I should adapt.

Now it's revealed whence those strains, whose antics droll:
'Twas none but damned Duende who rattled my soul!