Poem: Fall Shadow

 

Fall Shadow

 

a cobweb of leaves

kept breaking around,

smaller and smaller.

no cure for such wine-

hued deteriorations, no glue.

they faltered to snap as feathers

fallen to pull me down into

their sticky lack of reason, wrapping me

in their unruly cloak.

who i was was the leaves:

the wrinkled assemblage of such faces,

of scrunched chins and

waterlogged jowls and torn eyes.

a slither of the history of my shifting years.

they had become as huge

as a sea anemone which was as big as everywhere

my footsteps had ever tread. 

they knew my smooth moves, 

my flashy darts, the empty fear

behind my fish stare; and they knew

how to collect me, to reveal the

mystery, and why.

 

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11/30/25 mods

Guest Poem by JL: Healthcare beware

 

Healthcare beware 

I don't want to go there
CEOs reaching out
Whats that all about
Grabbing for cash
filling their stash
while I'm over here
picking from the trash
Living in a canvas tent
can't even pay the rent
The cost of selling my soul
To the corporate Black hole

Living in a tiny house
Like I am a fucking Mouse
But I am a queen
Escaping The Machine
Daring to dream

 

by:  JL

 

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This poem is by an up and coming local poet with a trenchant, evocative voice.    We in the USA do not have a right to healthcare.  We have to earn a visit to the doctor by paying cash.  The price has gone up and up, all my life, as the country has become more and more corrupt, the wealthy hogging more and more of the pie.  The wealth distribution curve in America is that of a 'third world' dictatorship.  If you get cancer in this country, it is not uncommon to lose your house, your home, everything, to pay for treatments.  The whole system is rotten with greed.  And the fish rots from the head.

 

 

 

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Poem: The Gods

 

The Gods

 

sampling hors d’oeuvres

from celestial platters,

what do they know?

weaker than a mother’s tears,

or the battlefield that ate her son.

their bloated goblets, their timeless

obese coffers, their indolence

punctuated with our pitiable prayers,

 

what if we meager entertainers

sat down and glared at up

at the blue, one-way window,

and mocked the gods

with a collective, resounding shout:

“who will idolize us, offer us flesh!”

 

and yet, we believe.

 

when some foolish thinker

proves that the gods are nothing,

mere mutual illusions,

heavy analgesic chains,

we say nothing, know nothing,

do knowing other than bury another day

in the cemetery of our ignorance.

 

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Quote: " ... ranks of the insane."

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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane--Marcus Aurelius

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Compare to the MLK quote, "the morass of propaganda" :
https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-morass-of-propaganda-quote.html

Quote: "Evil asks little of the Dominant ... "

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Evil asks little of the dominant caste other than to sit back and do nothing.
    --Isabelle Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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Poem: Sensitive

 

Sensitive

 

if you find that peace

in the miracle of a common bird

amid this purgatory of smiles,

then you can no longer ride

the merry-go-round of cruel jokes.

you stand amazed and confused:

how this clown and that toadeater

and this pettifogger and that doppelganger

throw their zest away, how

they let love sink in the arms

of withering, unseen fiddleheads.

if you find that peace, the sort

far beyond the spiders who decree

they construct Jacob’s Ladder,

you abhor

the chopping down of dreams

to construct proper family trees.

you abhor the pluck and burn

of flowers at the stake

in the name of dollars and war.

you …   you wander

among fake gifts and kind evils,

vigilant to nurture that little flicker

of truth in your heart.

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11/21/25 "money" replaces "crusades"

Dream Quote

 ===

Q: What's going on here!

A:  What's going on is much greater than what's going on here.

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Poem: Conclave

 

Conclave

 

this clotty mass,

this wizened rut, rabid from bloody wine,

they peck at each others’ decay,

 castigating so sweetly

only morticians see the bites.

 

in red wool and white leers,

in cowls and cassocks,

stoppered by prunish heads,

they come.

this sclerosis of vultures.

 

a single smile

darts with the grace of an elusive bird,

sharing their fanatical face.

 their eyes glare with a jaundice bottled by skullcaps.

their mouths expostulate,

credo quia absurdum.

 

thus they absolve each others’ failures.

 

whatever god enthroned them

can’t be so great—

 not if they wear His signet.

not when their plump miters

erect such immoral mortal pride.

 

 

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11/18/25 ... "bird" replaces "lizard"

11/16/25 ... mods off and on

The RCC is a sexist organization on a global scale.  Imagine if they banned Black people from leadership.   Somehow, though, it is okay that they ban all women.

The RCC is riddled with pedophilic sexual abuse by priests, covered up by cardinals.

Many of the ancestor's of RCC adherents were enslaved Native peoples.  Columbus 'discovered' an island for Spain, initiating centuries of genocide.

Someday humanity must confront the lies at the heart of our major religions--or perish in ignorance from the godlike weapons we wield in fanatic 'holy' wars.

Dream Quote

 We give birth to mourn and celebrate to kill  (dream)

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Excerpt from NYT Article on Skochilenko's “My Prison Trip”

 From the NYT article, "Seven Years for Antiwar Stickers?  Russian Activist Would Do It Again":

When Aleksandra Skochilenko affixed five bogus price tags bearing antiwar slogans to the shelves in her grocery store in St. Petersburg, Russia, she did not anticipate receiving a seven-year jail sentence … “The values of freedom of speech, of peace, could be more important than spending even 10 years in jail,” she said in an interview, comparing her experience with that of Antigone … Ms. Skochilenko, who [now, due to a prisoner swap] lives with her longtime Russian partner, Sonya Subbotina, is a sometime painter, musician and aficionado of 1960s American hippie culture. She has just published a memoir, “My Prison Trip,” illustrated with her own naïve, cartoonish drawings … [Her trial statement included the words,] “How fragile must be the prosecutor’s belief in our state and society, if he thinks our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five small pieces of paper? … I’ve been incarcerated for over a year and a half now, alongside murderers, thieves, statutory rapists and pimps. Can the supposed harm I caused even compare to those crimes?”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/world/europe/russia-protester-antiwar-aleksandra-skochilenko.html

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