BETWEEN MANKIND AND MANHOOD

BETWEEN MANKIND AND MANHOOD

The old man is wary
The old man is rough
The old man ain’t waiting
He’s had enough,
The old man is weary, but
The old man is tough
The old man is certain
He’s had enough,
The young man is angry
The old man is strong
The young man’s impatient
The old man holds long,
The young man is fearful
The old man don’t care
The young man stirs others, but
The old man will dare;

The young man is hell-wrought
The old man thanks God
The young man runs riot
The old man hits hard,
The young man talks always
The old man’s ashore
The young man still cowers
The old man’s at war,
You think age a warrant
I’m not talking time
I speak of man’s Nature
His soul, flesh, and mind;

There’s a young man in many, yet
An old man in few
Why the world is so troubled, and
Men do as they do, for
Theory’s your wisdom
Cunning your thoughts, yet
Between them together
Always you’re lost, so
Your cities are rotten
Your races are run
Your collectivist shitholes
The old man will shun, and
Your classes are broken
Your reason corrupt
Down do you stumble, and
Cannot stand up
For no man is master
Who won’t stand alone, for
You moderns are plastic, but
The old man is stone;

Thus the young men are cattle
But the old man’s a wolf
For the masses are cowards
Who cringe at the gulf,
‘Tween mankind and manhood
In their broods and their tribes
Yet he’s better than you are
For He is Alive…

THE ECLIPSE OF THE LIGHTLESS MEN

THE ECLIPSE OF THE LIGHTLESS MEN

From the face of the moon do the gods watch the sins
Of the dim absent dreaming in the darkest of men
Do the stars in their orbits, falling to flare
Alight in the cities, or ignite in the air
To illumine the blindness, unruly console
When the blackness eclipses the depths of their souls?

The mirror is silver, the heavens are deep
The eyes of the lightless like death do they sleep
Their tribes all afire, rimmed by the blaze
Yet their hearts are all stone, and their minds all a maze
Where the light cannot shelter, nor sun still abide
No thread to remember, no savior arrives,
For the men who are lightless grow great in their herds
Yet of hope or of Wisdom nothing is heard
An Eclipse of the Silence, the cold and the still
The Furies unfrozen, a debt to fulfill
For the Plague that was promised is spoken again
The Cure long abandoned, a whispering wind,
The masses are metered, each measured alike
For man is as nothing when compassed by night
The Earth is ill-favored, the moon eats her share
The darkness within us escapes to the air –
Though who bothers to repent, or lust for the light
When the lure of the eclipse burns yet so bright?
Encased in our Eclipse who yet occupies
That nature eternal that never can die
Or wonders to wander where darkness is rare
Where men yet make marvels, not terrors declare?
I would I could tell you, I would that I knew
For the lies of the lightless have eclipsed me and you…

______________________________

My poem commemorating the Solar Eclipse in the year of our Lord, 2017, and the current (and constant) nature of man…

I began it around midnight yesterday and concluded it about 0200 hours today (8/21/17).

#writing  #poetry   #eclipse

 

The Sad and Superficial Countenance of Modern Man

“Desperate to dwell forever upon the perfidies of the past they endlessly recreate the very same within themselves and so never breed a worthwhile future, or an offspring fit for life”

Scene: The Sad and Superficial Countenance of Modern Man, from my play, Modern Man

WITHOUT A PLAN

WITHOUT A PLAN
(TO THEIR KNEES)

To their knees the fell men bent
Their manhood sold, their courage spent
To herd, en masse, their movements ran
For of them all, the same demand
That everyone should bow and scrape
To each other, no escape
No Rising High, no better god
Submission’s slave and worldly shod
Their only prayer to king or queen
The present age their only dream
Out of their mouths come feckless oaths
From their hands spring deeds to loathe
No shame, no guilt, and no reform
Repentance laboured, and stillborn
Deceit a crown for cunning heads
Their dawn as dark as creeping dread
Their craft disguised, but inward bred
Their soul’s surmise, that “God is Dead”
To be replaced with urbane art
The bane cum blessing, bitter hearts
Society their altared grave
To seize and offer what they gave
Back to themselves while it will last
Though of rot their bid is cast
For all that man can build and sow
He cannot his redemption grow
He thinks him “Wise Sophisticate”
To lure on Good, himself the bait
He does not know he stinks of Death
To Doom he’s drawn, his own bequest, and
The Physic True who could arrest
Who’d Cure decay within his breast, why
What self-wise man has any truck
With God or Savior when to luck
He trusts his Fortune, built by hand, his
Only Truth that man is man –

That god within – without a Plan.

OR IS IT?

OR IS IT?

All men are equal

Yet very few are

Some pause at nowhere

And others go far

You’re taught all your ideals

To find few who keep

Them as you’re told to

Awake, or asleep,

The Child is the Father

Or so it is said,

Yet even in childhood 

Indifference is bred

A quorum of billions

A lone, single soul

A balance of equals

Or a thing to enroll?

(Or is it – inrole?)

All men are equal

Perhaps this is true

But not in the living

And not as they do;

Some men are driven

By doom, and by fate,

Some will learn early

Some will learn late

Some never catch on

Pity them, yes?

Some will gain nothing

Not knowing it yet,

Some will have treasures

Envy them, no?

Advantage breeds profit

(Or is it – plunder?)

Or didn’t you know?

Some will find searching

Some never do,

Which is the better?

I leave that to you

Some will have false peace

Some will have war

Though no fault of their nature

She’s adored, he’s abhorred;

 Some will thrive greatly

Some will fall hard

Is it luck or Good Fortune?

Or the skill of the Bard?

You want I should tell you?

Hell, I’ve never known

Yet even unwitting

I still play along

For the Chance or the Purpose

That I may be one

Such men as are disposed

To know what they’ve won

For all men are equal

Admit it or not

For no one is certain

If paid, or if bought,

Cause all men are equal

Even when not

For man is a mortal

(Or is it – a man is immortal?

Either way, eh)

What a Gordian Knot…

 

TO PORT OUR HOME, TO STARBOARD STILL UNKNOWN

I began this poem around noon as a response to today’s Daily Post prompt on Voyage. I got two stanzas in and then my daughters needed my help and then someone working with me on one of my start-ups demanded my attention and so therefore I have had to leave it at this point. I apologize but that kinda thing happens in life.

I intend to finish it but cannot do so at the moment. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless, and have a good day folks…

 

TO PORT OUR HOME, TO STARBOARD STILL UNKNOWN

To port was home, to starboard unknown foreign seas, and
Lands bespoken of in dream, where endless roam great beasts
Not seen since man was in the cradle of his mother’s shore
The stars still young and uncertain in their unfixed course
Across the skies of night still bright with constellated myth
Prodigious like the unseen figures which grappled in the dark
Around the moon’s white lantern in desperate search of a world
So new, so full of wonder, that no other home would do,
Not, at least, to the Daring

To port is home but on every other course the waves break
Upon a soil unsown with the tares and tears that common habit
Bestrew along the Earth we know so well by mundane states
Unchallenged in their broad decay and rush to ruin
Across the fields of ancient countries whose ground is salted
With the misery of crawling empires and rotting kingdoms
Made of man beneath the shadow of what is most foul within him
So old, so full of apathy, that no such home can seem true
Not, at least, to the Wise…

LET’S BLOW THIS ROCK

Well, they might very well convince me anyway. Since I was a kid I’ve wanted to be an astronaut and I’m more than ready to blow this rock. Too many damned backwards, insane, and evil people populating Earth at the moment.

Of course I reckon to some extent it’s always been that way, and maybe we’d just take our twisted bullshit with us. But at least it’d be a chance at a fresh start…

 

NASA’s Mars Recruitment Posters Will Convince You to Go Die in Space

Ria Misra

Yesterday 2:55pm

Filed to: MARS

80.3K

11129

Okay, poster. You make a compelling argument—sign us up!

True, there will be obstacles: For one, the Martian corps that these recruitment posters from Kennedy Space Center are attempting to enlist us in does not exist. Also, as of yet, no human has ever stepped foot on the surface of the red planet, much less worked some kind of shadowy night-watch position, that (rather terrifyingly) appears to require the constant use of a space harpoon.

But, no matter! The can-do spirit of these WWI- and WWII-influenced posters has already inspired us. We will be teachers, and welders, and farmers, and satellite technicians, and guards against the Martian night-octopuses that presumably overrun its lunar plains. Just let us know when those enlistment rolls open up.

Full resolutions, suitable for printing on your own, are also publicly availableright here.

All images via Kennedy Space Center

AN ANCIENT RACE – FIRST VERSE

AN ANCIENT RACE

I came upon myself one day
Hoping there to find
Someone truly great and grand
Some One quite divine

Reflections of me seemed to prove
That I was all I thought
High and noble, quite advanced
Superior, self-wrought

To all the others I was king
At least so to myself
I was different than they were
And twice as good as well

No one could me anything
Was not my Image clear? (dear)
Me to everyone I met
Was what I made most dear (clear)

Then one day I found that I
My mind, my soul, and flesh
Was just as mortal as they were
And now not quite as fresh

The image that I fawned upon
The reflection I adored
Was but of human denouement
And mirrored self-amour

Now no greatness lingers here
No moral high and grand
Except this caution, yet my friend,
Like me, “you’re just a man…”

 

NEVER AND FOREVER – FIRST VERSE

NEVER AND FOREVER

So you never cross a frontier.

What is that to me? What is that to you?

So you perpetually bend the knee.

What is that to me? What is that to you?

So you cower for forever from everything around.

What is that to me? What means that to you?

So you never attempt some Great Thing, or much of anything at all.

What is that to me? Why is that anything to you?

So the world is as it is.

What is that to me? Who will change it now?

So you are just as you seem.

What is that to me? Who are you, to you?

So you live and breathe.

What is that to you? And what is that to me?

So evil grows and thrives.

What is that to me? Where are you then found?

So corruption long abounds.

What is that to me? When do you ensure?

So you are just as you are. So I am just as I am.

So the world burns near and far, so it seethes, and so it drowns.

What is that to me? What is that to you? What is that to us?

Yes, what is that to us?

And, what is that to you?

A MAN FIT FOR LIVING

A MAN FIT FOR LIVING

A man fit for living and bound to no thing
Of Grasslands and Dark Earth and Bright Skies he sings
The High Hawks in Heaven his oracles are
The Moon is his Mistress, his Companions the Stars
His axe on his shoulder, hammer in hand
He cuts down the dead things and builds up the land
Plowed earth and clear fields, rivers that teem
Hills built by his hands to climb as he sings
A man fit for living, unbound and set free
Grown from the Good Earth, as tall as the trees,
The beasts of the wild fields all flock to his call
He waters and feeds them, none bound to his thrall
The sun fixed at High Noon, the air full and fresh
He wanders the forests, warm in his flesh
He eats when he hungers, he drinks when he thirsts
Nothing he covets, in nothing finds dearth
Would that all Men in just manner could bring
Forth such a Man Fit for Living, in himself everything

 

Today, when Sam (my Great Dane) and I (and Erika, one of my cats followed us) went for our morning walk in the woods the above lines came to me. I ran it through my head as a song, singing it to myself in order to memorize it until I could get back to the house. I’ll finished it later today, after munch

I may let it stand alone, put in in my new book of poetry, or use this in one of my novels, like The Caerkara. Right now I’m leaning towards putting it in the Caerkara.

THE EARTH AND MAN

THE EARTH AND MAN

The Earth is plowed
The Earth is sown
The Earth she swells
The Earth is grown,

The Earth below
The humble Earth
The Earth she knows
There is no dearth,

But for now…

The Earth is dark
With blood she’s stained
The Earth she moans
In endless pain,

We think we must
We think we shall
In constant lust
Our sins allow,

Yet…

The Earth she wants
A Man grown True
To care for her
As men should do,

The Earth desires
To grow Great
The Man should help
Her Procreate,

All that’s Good, and
All that’s Best
That is his Duty, and
His Test,

So…

The Earth is plowed
The Earth is sown
Her great renown
The better known,

When Man is Just
When Man is Strong
And escorts her
From every wrong,

Thus…

When all men steward
Their own Earth
With time and patience
Giving birth

Within themselves
To greater things
The humble Earth
Will endless bring

Forth High and Holy
Life…

A Talk on Monsters

THE MONSTERS AND THE MAN

To me the monster is that Man
Whose spirit we cannot
Unwrap from evil in the womb
That ferments as it rots

To me the monster is that Beast
Whose tearing maw will bleed
With uncanny ichors hot
To digest what it breeds

To me the monster angelic
Who fell to Daemon’s pit
Broods on murderous revenge
With septic, cold intent

To me the monster prodigal
Like a Titan strides
To grind upon the red shorelines
Where terror does abide

Yet in me Monster curls and sleeps
Hibernating long
Dreaming when he will awake
To sing his monstrous song

So knowing this, and monsters well
I keep him drugged and bled
So he will never wake in me
To do what I most dread…

__________________________

To me there are four types of monsters in this world: The Evil, Unrepentant Man, the Naturally Savage Beast, the Supernatural Daemon, and the Unrelenting Prodigy/Prodigal.

And then there is me…

Writing North East

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you don’t come to one of Dr Alison Younger’s talks, you are truly missing out. On December 1st, at Café Culture in Newcastle, once again, we were all enlightened as Alison took centre stage in talking about the things that go bump in the night. In other words, monsters.

For century’s these creatures of the night have taken over the pages of our books, and scared us silly on our TV screens and according to Dr Alison Younger, they’re not leaving us any time soon. Because gothic sells, monsters sell.

But why do we enjoy them so much? The things that frighten us at night, it seems strange that we’ve formed an attachment to such creatures. But, when you look at the evidence, it’s overwhelming. In her talk last night, it was said that we need monsters to make us…

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INTERMINABLY SO… from DIVINE SOPHIA

God is the least passive and static Being and Force in the universe. Any universe. If you are “waiting upon God” then it is only because you have gravely mistaken your real position in relation to things. God long ago easily and immediately surpassed you and is merely waiting upon you to catch up to him, not the other way around.

Do not deceive yourself. You do not “sit and wait upon God.” God sits and waits upon you… sometimes interminably.