Man of stone

versus man of steel

neither one

has yet the feel

of their barbaric rage's consequence

from the erratic ages of arrogance

Man of leisure

with every modern appliance

man of science

never sure

whether the discovery

is poison or pure

Man of love

manna of all life

man who takes

the world as wife

weds a woman

well rounded

Wonder woman

at your new found wings

alive with enthusiastic quiverings

though untested and quite untried

they leave you uncertain and terrified

of their awesome height

but do not let them fold in fright

before they display the nature of things

For laughter drifts lightly

on the winds of change

that can make the mighty break

and the meek bow and bend

but serve also to send

the swirling snowflake

on a search that may never end

through storms of influence

that toll the liberty bells

feathers unruffled by consequence

they bear you where the eagle

dwells

still you must pilot your flights of fancy

for to be herald of dawn and soul

will depend on how you control

the course of your itching independency

Release me

O freedom

lift your heavy hand

before my life and liberty

become supply and demand

Cease

dead drum

your destined beat

that manifest march

binds my feet

to the rutted roads

where the rich retreat

Give peace

to the tattered flag

that muddy politicians drag

feigning noble honesty

to protect their selfish tyranny

Pipe a dirge affluent fife

for the land impaled

on this twin edged knife

Freedom, flag, fife and drum

what new symbols

have you become

now that justice is deaf and dumb

And the Statue waits

for the skies to clear

as the lonely eagles disappear

pursued on steel wings

by the scavengers of fear

Two cents

buy ten

hundreds sent free

all slaves with

brotherly war bonds

buxom blonds win

twin world holocausts

Hall of mirrors

salutes Hiroshima

red if by

blue if by

blast the whites

of their eyes to

the fifty stars

in the dutiful

voracious skies

In the land of Lincoln

buy a Ford, push a Hoover

Mother sees light

names son Eddie

Yellow journalism

yellow fever

yellow peril

jello and cracker barrel

secession depression

prohibition television

two bars in every barrage

and don't forget the stripes

Yipes by golly

Fulton's folly

Yankee come home

to the astrodome

Grand canyon

Steve Canyon

Old faithful

taxes

Dick Tracy

downtown Macy's

mace and Marlboros

Twenty three skidoo

and Dewey too

Melting pots moon shots

big cheese hot shots

J.F.K. R.F.K King

Danny Kaye

See the U.S.A.

There are no boys

in Amerika

only traditions

There are no joys

in Amerika

just ambitions

There is a ploy

in Amerika

to emulate politicians

who only destroy

America

with their corrupt decisions

You must employ,

I implore you America

of your own volition

people from a new alloy

of truth and erudition

to halt these cold institutions

Do not toy

Amerika

with freedom's fragile visions

They are the envoys

of your nation's intentions

For if you make democracy a decoy

Amerika

Land of deceptions

I will say with saddened breath,

Is not your liberty worse than death?

From the Sewers of Society

blossom the flowers of humanity

Believe Buddha, question Socrates

scrutinize Jesus

They will tell you that

rich men are ever in a paradox

of paradise and hell

and poor men become president

But you cannot comprehend this

It puzzles you, for you are middle class

You dine on the stale crumbs

of the rich man's wisdom

and act, vicariously happy

on the commands of the poor

Sleep well the live long night

in your sanitary cess pool

where high and low

are digested to form fertilizer

for the newborn and starving

You are not despised,

We seek your ignorance

as the seed of innocence

We crave your tastelessness

to find the spice of life

We are you illegitimate children

the weeds in your well tended garden

We love you

and all you need do

is pluck your pride from us

A saffron sunrise

chafes the city

an inner urban exile

wheels his vehicle

down the streets

the jigaboo jivers

jockey and jostle

on the corners

to taunt him

daily he must survive

this jarring jaunt

down the gauntlet

of concrete

Is it worthwhile to arrive

enervated but alive

at a job that will rob

him of his victory

and bore him off to sleep?

A soggy fog is soaking up

the harbor

the sloppy swells are laboring

groggily toward the shore

On the beach into the tavern

the mist is reaching

carving a cavern

from the clouded door

A smoky fog is settling on the

bar there

The already soggy seamen are

soaking up their stout

A muffled fog horn bleats

and they labor to their feet

sloppy and stumbling

they splash into the street

where the world is waiting woozy

both inside and out

White eyes eater of the road

runner on the lane

White eyes, dry in snow and rain

burden beast for the pampered load

White eyes count them in the night

straining for the amber goal

White eyes bright with sightless light

growing beyond control

White eyes breathing flame

belching scentless death

White eyes erotic on the screen

White eyes is a sex machine

White eyes obeys its other head

White eyes idling

White eyes dead

c

a

r

apace

goes

tunes

nivore

nage

cass

een

ess

go

Pictographs of exhibitionists

Scribblers

rodentic nibblers

at the crass trash

public eye pie

junk mongers

modeling their hungers

peddling dribbling

excretia

as the new media

feeding each other

phlegmy praise

that further starves

all our minds

for beauty

Crowds humming with

auditory hallucinations

hoping all

will accept their

conceptual visual mirages

or at least pretend

that the consensus

of laudatory convictions

is mutually estimable

Global village idiots

dutifully and amiably awed

by the depth and breath

involved in their flawed

fleece of perception

smear the smooth

salve of rhetoric

on all our lips

to render us mute and docile

but intrinsically leprous

and abhorrent to our

own touch

O where are the

lipless salveless

silent saviors

who will raise

the resisting leaden arms

of the supplicants

There must be some

among the many kins

of mannikins

who are unarmed

Anoint their feet

that they may be footloose

suffer them abuse

so that we are buffered

from the recluse

Blacken the

innocent's eyes

that we may have supervision

but above all,

soothe us that

we may be blissful

in our obliquity

Tunnels of love

labyrinths of dreams

islands in the streams

and gulfs of wanderlust

history's naked runners

breathe empty gusts

from the funnels' eye

in the bullet-gray, silverblanc, satin sky

and dash down

boulevards of steel yardsticks

fleeting spectres that rouse

the shredded flag of curiosity

avoiding the visas, the tricks

of the vanquished void observatories

of the sly and the lax

leaping over the ghetto glutted gutters

to enjoy relief at the utter oblivion of the chainless

Yet, of what ever is gained there

is left no track

for it is painless

Heroes and hermits

all the same

appear queer, cunning and thin

for their odd old custom

of repasting with only the cream

of the crop

While we unscrupulously win

and devour those at the top

Towers of force

vestiges of virginity

the last bloody natural resource

placated and pastured, pampered

with kingdom and helpless horse

Maiden-heads, figureheads, deathsheads

flowerbeds breeding frustrated

nomadic doughboys that chase

the migrating pie in the sky

There is a core

of fluid molten matter

beneath this thin crust

which we trust

to provide us with butter

(tread lightly lest the bread of earth crumble)

and beneath a mere whiff of wind

a variety abounds

that astounds us with

incredible intricacies

In the time it takes

to think to blink

we have hurtled

and spun in a span so swiftly

that the distance would girdle

this fly-speck globe

Surrounded as we are

by nothing and all things

blank, burning and buried in ink

yet in our inevitable circling circumstance

so vastly vulnerable to chance

we are advancing toward a star

which is retreating from a star

and all are fleeing from somewhere

whose center is obscurity

what a poor small joke is security

What an enormously easy task is happiness

to fly into the arms of any orb

whose very core is all absorbing heat

whose shore is deadly white light

How infinitesimal

even inconceivable by comparison

is the tiny mistake or

more correctly the natural blunder

that could erase us from the universe

And what is worse,

is that we are equally capable

of doing it ourselves

Sail with truth

on a constant course

Let love be your youth

Let life be its force Maintain your mind

for in time you will find

that you are the mainstay of Man

You are the wheel

within the race

so in turn you feel

the lack of space

that crowds your creativity

with the useless activity

of building a monument to man

So trust your strength

flex your sight

and then, at length

ascend the human height

surpassing elder destinies

surmounting earthly capabilities

for you are the mountain of man

Rejoice in your wisdom

and forget your name

this throne's not our kingdom

Eve's apple was just a game

Our spirit will survive

if your thought stays alive

We are high sky gliders

the simple siders

We make daring deciders

out of everyone

Beware the weather

that freezes the feather

and tightens the tether

to the reality hiders

who spin lies like spiders

hoping to hold you down

If we all tug together

we'll loose the leaden leather

that makes our smile a frown

An being sunshine striders

no blind backsliders

ride the first rising star out of town