POEM: NEWS OF THE WORLD #16

I know this must sound all you and not me,

but reading tea leaves, as far as I see,

makes me less grateful, though hardly less free—

we live in a time that borders the sea.

So I’ll stop with this me, myself and I,

listening instead while a dead baby cries,

whose mother still soothes her infant’s last sighs,

who stares from the past and into my eyes.

YOUR STARVING BABY

CAN DINE ON FRESH SNARK!

Writing such nonsense had once seemed a lark.

Now all those babies who die in the dark

are left in big piles, to clutter our park.

The signs for the taking of too much time

are found in abstracts, along with the crime.

Headed and footed, a brisk pantomime,

like poets in search of a last, lost rhyme.

What is the reason for all of these stars?

Why are there deserts that cross over Mars?

Will whales mate with mice? Will swords not leave scars?

And when will we learn that near comes too far?

If this island Earth is all that we’ve got,

resistance is futile—until it’s not.

If salt water won’t turn triffids to rot,

then maybe it’s time to pack up our lot.

So where do we go? How far will we jump,

in getting away from President Trump?

He’s under our skin—a nasty old lump!

Tell me again why we call him a chump?

Must each new springtime come with its Caesar?

Like each new mistress, now we must please her.

Will she take jewelry, fine silk or rich fur?

(Maybe that cancer we thought to defer?)

“THANK GOD I’VE CANCER!”

SAYS MAN WITH TWO HEADS

“I thought I’d wake up with half of me dead!”

Some blessings are born; some others we dread.

(Don’t prick your finger while darning that thread.)

FLOODS COME TO CAPETOWN! Sorry for fake news.

They really are dry, they’ve cancelled the cruise!

JERUSALEM NAMED GOD’S GIFT TO THE JEWS!

Yes, it’s still fake, and it still means we lose.

Columns of soldiers and lines of black ink—

besides killing babies, what do you think?

Are there connections? Where is the link

in raising some cane and raising a stink?

We’ve modern wars now, all lasers and drones.

We dust their cities; they bury the bones.

And whether we choose now Eden or Rome,

we’ll not have to hear them as they all moan.

Why is the telling so often the told?

Is it just spelling new words from the old?

Where in those legends of heroes so bold

are fathers who cry when their sons are sold?

Ships sail such oceans, while castles of sand

are washed by the waves from a foreign land;

stormed near to rocking by the smallest hand—

cold now, and still, on a wet, stony strand.

When told of new calves born down in the south,

proud father you are, you shout from your mouth.

Your throat is quite parched, though don’t blame the drought,

for dry mouth, like truth—and murder—will out.

So play with your monsters, play with your toys.

Play for your masters, you good girls and boys.

Don’t worry, the world is used to your noise, 
and soon will return your vanishing joys.

Oh, moons will still rise and stars fill the sky,

no matter our questions; no matter, “why?”

Time will pass slowly; our time will race by,

till all that is left is whispered, “goodbye”.

………

Thus, those beginnings that near to the end

(soft kisses on lips, those flowers to send,

the birth of a baby, deaths that will rend),

will all pass along the way we all wend.

THIS IS A POEM THAT I WROTE IN EARLY 2018. It took a couple of weeks composing, editing, and trying to lump various stanzas together in thematic groupings (sort of). It is one of the angriest I've written. When I wrote about the "waves" from foreign lands, the photo of the little Syrian boy that pricked the world's conscience for a time, came to mind. Children were on my mind, and the harms we do them.
 Also, I wanted to have a deeper historical perspective, hence the images of Rome, because I thought that the more things change, the more they stay more or less the same. An Arab Spring today brings autumn's despot.
I attempt to end NoW poems with an optimistic thought or image, though I find doing so a struggle sometimes. Here, the cautionary ending suggesting: 'as ye sow, so shall ye reap' isn't completely heaped with despair, I think. I argue that we have a choice about what we'll pass along. How we live our lives today directly affects the lives of those generations that follow us, thus it behooves us to choose our path with care.

Cheers, Jake.
 

Note: Many photographs help us to understand ourselves and our world. They teach us about ourselves, about life and the people we meet. They show us, as often as they possibly can, how the others in our world are not so 'other' after all. Photography, at its best, teaches us about our common humanity. It is a lesson we need to learn, even if we have to keep learning it, over and over.

The photo of four year old Alan Kurdi, whose tiny body washed up on a Turkish shore on  September 2, 2015, while he and his family attempted to flee across the Mediterranean to escape the madness that has become Syria, is shocking to me, as it is for anyone who views it. It is one photograph among so many that captures the horrors and brutality of war, and its effects on the most innocent among us.