Synchronized Chaos has published my work again.
Ink Pantry, Scarlet Leaf, Spill Words, Synchronized Chaos, Two Drops of Ink, have published 15 of my recent poems. The poems are posted below along with audio and photo clips.
Synchronized Chaos Publication
List
1/2/2020 2019 the Year that was
1/2/2020 the terrifying teens
1/3/2020 Dreams
1/3/2020 Fate
1/3/2020|the Oyster Speaks Up
prior publication
the Dogs of War are Howling
Idiots in High Places
Masters of the Universe
When Will This Madness End
End of the World Blues – FB Posting Found Poem
the year that was
January
The world watches in amazement
Longest shut down in history
Watching it all in Korea
contemplating escaping the cold winter
February
World watches as North Korea and the US
Walking back from the brink of war
escaping the cold winter blues
revisiting Vietnam after 15 years
March
The chaos president continues his chaos tour
the world begins to ignore his constant insane tweets
heading back to DC inspecting property
seeing old friends glad I retired
April
the chaos King’s policy remains a shamble
as the Mueller team closes in
in Korea I write a poem a day
and begin to become a publish writer
May
watching from afar
the chaos in DC and the world
traveling to DC to inspect property
celebrating my wife’s big 60
June
the President walks away
from anon deal with the North Koreans
I am back in DC
end up cruising to Alaska
July
watching the insanity in DC
while visiting Alaska, Seattle and Yakima
visiting my father’s grave in Yakima
communing with family ghosts
August
the dog days of summer the world is consumed
And in the worldwars, rumors of war, trade wars
retuning to Korea
surviving the August sauna like summer
September end of the world he does subway malevolent today
The whistle blower sets off a bomb he December 11 Internet is it a fire fire is our burning bright and then go nearly as high places have shown is doing and one of aggression turning in our in our lives behind unless I know Mimi is just laying on the side there’s a Denteley harji quality to it as the world burn some money in the world approaches I have where in his van horn of the house and is in a green fire 25 music Viking in my memory and was hellish
the president lies no quid for quo perfect all
trying to avoid watching the news
hiking in the Korean mountains with old friends
October
the President flitters about my crisis after another
the UN diplomats laugh at him national humiliation
returning to DC, yet again more property blues
celebrating my 64th year orbiting the sun
November
the House starts formal impeachment hearings
watching fascinated by the impeachment drama
entering my third NoVoWrMo competition with Timeless Love
ending the month sudden surprise trip to Okinawa
December
the year ends on a high dramatic
President Trump becomes the 3rd impeached President
hiking enjoying the late autumn like weather
contemplating my wealth at the end of the year
the Terrifying Teens
2010
The dark days of the great recession
Begin slowly to fade away
Ending my Barbados experience
the best job in the foreign service on high note
best labor officer award
2011
the president and Congress locked in battle battles
glimmer of hope as economy comes back to life
Studying Spanish arriving in Spain
worst year ever part of three years bad luck
2012
the US re-elects the Black President
rejecting Romney entitlement mentality
I leave Spain my last foreign posting
buying new property in the fall
2013
In the US the religious right
loose the social Battling gay marriage, legal pot
Starting a new job as an evaluate program evaluator
ending my six month wandering the halls of State
2014
The tea party rebellion on the right
Moving to Capitol Hill
My sister’s sudden death rattles me
2015
The end of the Obama era
Was this the beginning of the end of America
Beginning the year with a new job
resolving to retire, enjoy life while I still can
2016
American voters succumb to madness
Elects the mad would be king President Trump
We traveled across the country 10,000 miles
To celebrate the end of my foreign service career
2017
the year of the chaos president
Fast and furious disruption to the norms
Went to Oregon to renovate property
becoming wealthy in the process
2018
the American public woke up
Send a blue wave to clean up the mess
Moving back to Korea
Blogging up a storm
2019
in the end of the year that was
The house races up and impeach is the president
I travel to Vietnam, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Okinawa
Dreams
Dream what may come
Recalling past lives lived
Every fantasy comes to life
All night long
More nightmares to come
So many worlds to explore
Fate
Fate has a way
Many years ago I was surprised to findAlways catching up
To you
embrace your fate
that is what’s up
at the end of the day
Endless dancing away
The Oyster Speaks Up
A diner sits down
looking forward
to eating oysters
it was their season
after all
just as he was about
to pounce
on the oysters
the head oyster spoke up
saying
hey human what the hell
do you think you are doing?
you think you have the right
to eat me?
that’s violating my human right
don’t ya think?
the diner laughed
said to the oyster
shut up and accept
it is your fate
to be eaten this date
just let me enjoy eating you
and you have no human rights
as you are in fact
not human don’t ya know?
eating the complaining oyster
shutting him up
as he ate him up
Prior Publication
Dogs of War are Howling and other poems were published earlier in Synchronized chaos. I wrote the poem, “Dogs of War are Howling” in 2003, and updated it in 2017.
The Dogs of War are Howling
The Dogs of War
Have been set free
Of their cage
And are out
Howling at the moon
The Dogs of War
Have been set free
To wreck what havoc
Might be
Yes, the Dogs of War
The Hell Hounds
Have bound out of their cages
Sniffed about
And smiled
At the destruction they saw
They knew soon
They would be in their element
As the world descends into chaos
The Dogs of war
Are at foot
The chaos is upon us
The evil grows and grows
And dark noises are heard
Here and there
And the dogs of war
Smiled
They knew soon
They would be in their element
The war machines
Came to life
The plans came out of the books
The military might be unleashed
And the Dogs of war
Smiled and howled at the moon
And the rest of the world
Shuddered
At the thought of what was yet to be
Satan on the other hand
Was happy as can be
With the evil shit
That was going down
He smiled
Patted his hell hounds
And told his dogs
The war to end all wars
Armageddon is upon us my friend
Soon, mankind will know
The face of absolute evil
And they will love it
When I take over
The armies prepare
The bombers prepare
And the dogs of war
Are happy
Unleashed to do their mischief
And soon millions may die
And the pits of hell
Will open up
And the judgement day
May be upon us all
Madness descends upon the land
The fog of hate envelops us all
And reason and civilization
Fall away
As the Dogs of War
And their minions
Take over the minds of man
And the end of the world
And the beginning of the end times
Come upon us all
The usual lies descend upon the world
Kim Jong Un is evil personified
He must be destroyed over there
Before he can destroy us over here
The lies continue unabated
And Kim plays along
With each day unleashing another threat
With Trump and his minions
Responding in time
Saying the time for talk is over
The time for robust action is here
The machinery of war
Once unleashed
Can’t easily be stopped
There is a certain cruel logic
That demands that the war go on
And people die
And people suffer
And the US goes bankrupt
Morally and fiscally
And the evil that men do
Goes on and on and on
But the war machine must be fed
The munitions makers must be paid
As each million-dollar missile is launched
Millions more are made
And the corporations
Think of the endless profits
To be made
Every time they kill
With the war machines
But who cares about the victims
They are nothing but collateral damage
Who cares about the soldiers
Nothing but cannon fodder
Who gives a damn
About the dead
They are dead and gone
Just think about the profits
Think about the profits
Satan is happy
The dogs of war are free at last
Idiots in High Places
this poem has been published in a number of other sites.
Many years ago
I was amazed to see
So many idiots in high places how are name
All over the world
Senators, congressmen
Office directors
so many idiots
in high place
all over the world
Presidents
Corporation CEO’s
All were idiots
Completely stupid
People who should have known
A thing or so
because they should have seen a thing or so
and yet these idiots in high places
would reveal their total ignorance
every time they opened their mouth
or tweet or email their profoundly wrong thoughts
and it never ceased to amaze me
that few ever challenged these idiots
few ever said but you are wrong
or you don’t have a clue
and these idiots caused so much damage
to those around them
to the country and the world
and now we have the idiot in chief
in charge of the richest most powerful country
the world has ever known
and I wonder how
in a country of 350 million people
we ended up with such an idiot in charge
But the idiots in high places phenomenon
Exists everywhere
Corporations made stupid decisions
Countries make incredibly bad decisions
And these idiots in high places
Can’t hide their ignorance and pure stupidity
They can’t pretend anymore
In a world of 24/7 constant news
The idiots every pronouncement
Fills the airways 24/7
And the only people who know better
Are too afraid to say what they know
That the idiot in high place
Is an idiot
and is destroying the world
and so, we are doomed to die
due to the idiots in high places
Masters of The Universe
this poem also has been published in a number of sites.
The earth has been invaded
By hideous blood sucking vampires
Disgusting vile alien creatures
Lacking any human empathy
These so-called Masters of the universe
These psychopathic monsters
devoid of compassion
Are everywhere
They even took over the White house
And to these vile creatures
devoid of compassion human sympathy
Everyone is nothing but a commodity
they worship the god of the market
While proclaiming that they serve Jesus
Jesus would turn over in his grave
To see these people in action
Delta airlines
facing the worst hurricane in world history
Decided that the expeditated thing to do
Was to raise prices
by 600 percent
Instead of doing the right thing
The compassion thing
The human thing to do
offering free flights
Delta executives thus demonstrated
That they are no longer humans
doing the right thing
But greed driven monsters
As are all the other soulless automatons
Who have taken over the world
Perhaps some day
Jesus will come back
And smite these motherfuckers
Send them to the hell they so richly deserve
We can only pray
For our deliverance from such evil
Who have taken over the planet
When Will This Madness End?
first published in Poetry24
Yet again we turn on the TV
And witness horrible scenes
Of unparalleled violence, hatred and despair
An old man consumed by his own demons
Opens fire from a hotel room
Killing 60 people injuring hundreds
In Las Vegas, Sin City
And the cry goes out throughout the land
Why yet again this tragedy
The usual suspects are rounded up
It’s the culture, stupid cry the conservative voices
And there is nothing we can do
It is like the weather
Bad shit happens
Guns are the price of our freedom
Guns Don’t Kill People
The only solution is more guns for everyone
The only solution for a bad guy with a gun
Is a gun guy with a gun?
An armed society is a polite society
And people need assault weapons
To go deer hunting
No, it’s the guns, cry the liberal pundits
We must confiscate the guns
Ban Assault weapons
And join the rest of the world
Where such carnage does not occur
And we sit around and argue
Knowing that there will be a next time
And another time and time and time again
Until the end of time
What is the sickness in our souls
That allows for this hatred to fester so
Deep within the minds of our killers
And why is it that they are almost all
White men with a grievance
And almost never crazed Islamic terrorists
Or black people
Or women
Why do they act the way they do
Is it just the mindless violence
That surrounds us all
Violence is as American
As Apple Pie
The TV and movie purveyors
Of pornographic violence
The pornographic display of violence
That washes across us every day
The 8,000 murders we have seen
By the time we are 18?
Or is it simply
That killers can easily
Get the latest bang for their buck?
We are all responsible here
The negligent parents
The overworked schools
The soulless corporate world
That treats everyone like disposable commodities
The lack of human connection
Maybe even the lack of God
The police department
Who think it is open season
On black Americans
Killing them with impunity
Because they can
And the gun sellers
The NRA and their brain dead
Captured politicians
Who block all gun control legislation
And even in the face of this carnage
Want to make it easier to buy guns
Even though 95 percent of Americans
Want to end the gun show loophole
Requiring background checks on all purchasers
The NRA will prevent this measure
And that measure
And defend the right of the terrorist
On the no fly list
To be able to buy a gun
Nothing will change
Until we conflict the evil
That lurks deep within each of us
There will be another Las Vegas
Soon enough
Despite all our efforts
Despite any new laws
There will be evil men
Who want to shoot and kill
Who have somehow lost
Their essential humanity
Lao Tzu said
The more laws there are
The more criminals there will be
More laws are not the answer
For a law cannot make a sick soul whole
If Satan lives on
He is laughing
All the way to the proverbial bank
If God lives on
He is ruing the day
He created Mankind
And the carnage will go on and on and on
Until the day emerges
When we all proclaim
Enough, no more
The killing, hatred and violence
Will stop
No More will our people
Grow up to be such monsters
That day will come soon enough
Until then we will all suffer
The wrath of the killer gun men
In our midst.
End of the World Blues
The heat is simply malevolent today
As if the very fires of hell were burning bright
In anger at the idiots in high places
That have so destroyed God’s wonderful creation
Turning it into Hell on Earth
It’s been hotter than this, I know,
and maybe it’s just the angle of the sun,
but there’s a deeply harsh quality to it.
As the world burns up
And the end of the world approaches
The wind is blowing hard off the hills
and visions of a great fire 26 years ago
are spiking in my memory.
People are reacting badly to this weather
The commute in was hellish
Every seemed to be speeding way
above the speed limit.
Driven mad by the heat and the wind
There were multiple stalls and accidents.
People were cutting each other off
road raging in the extreme.
Everyone seems to be feeling
the way I was I wasI have
Every man woman and child
Was out for blood that day
I was missed by inches
by huge pickup trucks cutting me off.
There are more street people
acting aggressively near the campus,
bothered
barking and yelling and stalking around.
Completely lost in their own world
Sensing that the end of the world is near
Students in the hallway
aren’t chatting with each other.
I haveEveryone seems irritated
and haunted.
Afraid that the end of the world
Is upon us all
The pool was a cool, silent refuge
from all of this for an hour
but the brassy relentless
assault of the afternoon’s heat
bore down on me
just beat me down I have
as I walked back to the office.
I hope the day passes quickly,
and no new fires start,
and we all get home safe.
From Ned Garret’s FB posting: near the campus Mark Hankiin scott
Has anyone else notice that the heat is simply malevolent today? It’s been hotter than this, I know, and maybe it’s just the angle of the sun, but there’s a deeply harsh quality to it. The wind is blowing hard off the hills and visions of 26 years ago are spiking in my memory. People are reacting badly to this weather. The commute in was frightening in spots. Every other driver seemed to be speeding way above the speed limit. There were multiple stalls and accidents. People were cutting each other off and road raging in the extreme. I was missed by inches twice by huge pickup trucks cutting me off. There are more street people acting aggressively near the campus, barking and yelling and stalking around. Students in the hallway aren’t chatting with each other. Everyone seems irritated and haunted.
The pool was a cool, silent refuge from all of this for an hour, but the brassy assault of the afternoon just beat me down as I walked back to the office. I hope the day passes quickly, and no new fires start, and we all get home safe.
Comments
While I acknowledge that “Dogs of War” in some ways reflects the grim scenarios currently at play in our shared world, I haven’t yet given up hope that the crumbling of the existing order we are witnessing might also represent the chaotic transition to a new and (hopefully, eventually) brighter future…if only because it’s difficult to live in despair.
Also, when it comes to destroying the world, let’s not forget that we of USA are more capable of nuclear destruction than North Korea. Our arsenal is larger.
Congratulations on your vivid poetic imagery. Keep writing.
the end
