Autumn Children

How sorrowful a passing ere you were born,

Untimely autumn child of mother forlorn!
Of spring air you'll never take a breath
Nor on thy small face sense summer's sweat. 

Ripped from your cocoon untimely, too soon...
Exposed to cold air without the wat'ry womb... 

In the husk you were shattered broken, all alone,
Before once you felt life in tiny feeble bones.

And yet thy killers shall never rue that day

Nor ascend the gallows tree for their crimes to pay.
For taking thy precious lamb, which was but one,
When from immense flocks they might have drawn.

How many of thy kind have been thus caught?
Whole heroic lives extinguished ere they fought,
Passions never noticed, beauty as rubbish tossed.
It is for we the living to prevent thy being lost. 

An Ode to John Milton

Milton, I lay mute before your feet.
Who could hope to best your sway
over this vast imperial domain
that stretches from hell hiding
beneath the feet of your rhyme
to heaven crowning its highest thoughts?
There from your seat in this middle
earth on that precious Isle
anchored in the silver sea, you
remain behind your moats and walls.
The vasty deep cannot consume your
bones spread round the earth by empire.
Nor, these bones rejected, the ether
which joins the bones together:
the human love of liberty and freedom.
Where is your better, equal even?
Return, I pray, my voice in double portion,
show me best the way to teach this love
to unlettered generations living dead.

Moments of Silence

What is a moment of silence?

Is it a response to our “disbelief, terrible sadness and quiet unyielding anger”

Does it demand our introspection,

Or do we know exactly what we feel in that moment?

In that moment of political, social silence,

undefined by the simple parameters of time,

are we fully aware of the empires we make?

Should we accept the silence?

Who does silence honor?

What does it say of a nation that it is

Speechless. Unprepared. Non-responsive. Irresolute.

In that moment we redefine ourselves recklessly.

That moment is stolen time, never to be returned.

It is a child that cannot care for those who occasioned its feeble and uncanny existence.

Its irony is deafening to a race distinguished by speech.

It is a moment of surrender,

To something new and foreign

Not the force of terror but fear.

In that moment, while terror played the fool

Justice removed her blind

To gape at the spectacle

And despair with a tiny prick

Stole her virtue in the street.

So what have we to say of moments of silence

They are imperial bridges across the Rubicon

Assembled by the people working in silence

The Blind Man

What name shall I call you?
Scornful son of Absalom
Who wrecks the sacred grove.

For success you would part
With even the most holy
Beliefs which were your own.

Oath breaker to father
A shame to your mother
Vile traitor to your own

Thou blind man of the morn
On whom Dawn scatters vainly
Her rays on your bleached eyes.

You amongst the cattle
Led the charge when Hermes came
To find your new cavern.

May your tired clichéd ass
Hang you by your empty head
From the limbs of your conceit.

The Lions are Chained

 Now before he [Christian] had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage… …and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way… …then he was afraid… but the porter at the house whose name is Watchful…  …cried unto him, saying, Is thy strength so small? Fear not the lions, for they are chained…
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

Hark good Christian, whom do you fear,
as to my house you do draw near?
The blustery winds of pagan days?
Tis it the mousers by the way?

Is it the horsemen of the storm,
that keep you from my house so warm?
Or do these primal tawny cats
inveigh against you in the path?

Fear not oh soul, whate’er you see
beyond this world is not their see.
They may clap you in irons which can
transform in heaven to golden bands.

For while you pass beside them here
They may not blister soul but ears.
Their reign, earthly not eternal
Cannot save from fires infernal.

Come now, their claws can’t harm your skin
Only the pride that clothes your sin.
And if you have a taste for pride
Then find a path which suits you, wide.

An Ode to Prometheus

What are these chains that bind your flesh
to the great rocks of Caucasus?
What heaven sent this dark gadfly
to pick at your hepatic vein?

It is the old regime of gods
since fallen to the Goodly Fere,
It is the tyranny of Zeus
destroyed by so much more than fire.

Why Prometheus, gave you fire
to mortals for their own demise?
Why fight the lightning with its child
when words are so much more potent?

Fire is the weapon of the king,
the warmth of human existence,
which may be denied at his rule
and used to burn his enemies.

Whatever God gave man his speech
Deserves much more praise than you do.
For man may use the fire to fight,
but flames burn without distinction.

Prometheus, I would loose you
To serve a higher, nobler cause.
But, i am also bound beside you
Captured by a tyrant god.

Hello World!

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a person who is interested in language and literature, history and mythology, current events and public policy. This blog is primarily about my literary interests, which of course are colored by my other interests.
As for some of my beliefs, I am open minded and interested in different points of view but if you disagree with me, be prepared to defend your ideas.