Beasts

 "As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields." -- Leo Tolstoy

 

Beasts

 

In the old black and white movies

the aliens were heartless and cruel.

They didn’t care

about me and you,

they just wanted what they wanted

and if you got in their way, you were food.

 

At the table that night we laughed

relieved that it wasn’t all true

and ate every bite of beef stew.

 

Oh, the killing places have thick walls

and the battlefields are so far away

nothing touches us,

nothing gets in the way

of a good time…

 

We watch movies from the old war

and see what the fascists had done,

the camps and the cages

gas chambers and ovens

and nausea grips us, their evil appalls;

if you got in the way, you were meat

rot that just got thrown away.

 

And, when bullets ripped through the classroom

when innocent first-graders died

we gasped in horror at the evening news

“what is wrong with our country?”

and tore the legs off a carcass to feed.

No, nothing gets in the way,

not compassion and not common sense,

of a good time.

 

No, we don’t want to see

seared beaks and cramped cages,

cattle who struggle and dangle

by their legs as they’re bled;

dolphins who die drowned in blood

the screams of their young in their ears…

 

 

 

 

The holocaust of everyday:

They’re put on a track to die

Life is all horror and misery

Not a flicker of hope in their eyes

Until throats are cut and they’re bled

if they’re lucky.

 

The great wheel turns again

Relentlessly grinding our humanity down

We don’t want to see the cost

The stench in the air that kills us.

 

We should have everything that we want

fast food, cancer, diabetes

dead skin to put on our feet

a heart attack where we lie on the couch

watching death on the evening news.

Nothing gets in the way

of our good time.

 

No, there are no glamorous vampires.

There are monsters in many ways;

waters that flow with bacteria

wars rolling forever, like blood;

the din of agonized dying,

the laughter and cheers at the game

where a beautiful creature must die

slowly

degraded, alone.

 

No, there’s nothing we won’t to do

No matter how ugly and cruel,

Because nothing will get in the way

of our good time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where To Look

 

 

“My mentor, Gottfried Muller once said to me, “Thomas, do you want to know how to look into the eyes of God?’

‘Of Course!’ I answered.

‘Then look into the eyes of any other living thing,’ he said.”

--Thom Hartmann “The Last Days Of Ancient Sunlight”

 

 

Yes, I’d grown cynical

Lived a life so long wherein

I searched for Him

In every church

in temple and mosque

Read a thousand tales

In a thousand books

Sank my mind

Into the lost valleys

Of philosophies, of physics theories

Trying to catch a glimpse of Him

Through lenses, windows

The bottom of a glass

And in the winds

Of lysergic journeys

Fell long distances

Rose to vaporless vacuums 

Sat cross-legged under sweet trees

Humming the Mandala of Om

Counting breaths, searching Yarrow stems

Laying prostrate on red rock mesas

Beseeching the curtain be parted

And peace be granted

To my groping heart.

 

I’d grown cynical,

Starved, fruitless and weak

Spirit parched

Past all love, I thought

Until

One day I turned to gaze

Into the eyes of

Another being

And that’s where I found Him,

Staring back at me.

 

 

Intimations of Autumn

("Early Fall View, Palo Alto Baylands" by David Saltaire)

It begins now

although days are still heated.

It begins in deep night

where the cold coils and waits;

it is there in the morning

where the crisp snap of air

makes me reach for my jacket

the light one I bring out

with one missing button .

 

I feel it now

in the ruddy sun’s setting,

in the damp under  trees.

in the midnight it’s creeping

in the rush of water 

soft, in the old meadow

in the business of birds

and soft, timid mammals,

geese huddling, planning

ancestral arc of migration

 

 

I feel them now

as they test heavy wings

in the still of the cooling,

sapphire skies

growing restless in flight

I feel them weigh time,

watching the hours

without knowing they do this

but, soon they must fly.

 

 

Yes, it’s coming in echoes

from summers now past

when in spirals life winds

through it’s course, once again.

I don’t go to meet

what’s coming for me

but I won’t resist the

pull of its will;

I’ll go where I’m led,

with philosophical grace

and pass through the valley

of fall’s unsteady light

to the palace of winter’s

dark, icy might.

Oh, yes,  it is coming

from this very night.

 

 

 

Intelligent Life

("Hail in the Desert, Northern Nevada")

Do the heavy clouds

Mutter their tears and glower?

Well, and if they do

Sweet sage answers with

Kind and liberal breath,

And so does the dirt

Proclaim itself with flint and dust

On a rainy day.

The Quail race, heads forward

And beside them tiny chicks

Flutter and bounce like feather balls,

And so, outside our evil world

They move to their own

Beating of hearts.

So, too, the snake coils

Under sheltering rock

Lizard scrambles, looks over his back

And darts into brittlebush.

The innocent datura

Luxuriates in soft trumpets

And grows it’s fatal fruit.

Above, the Hawk soars

On solar winds, below

Ancient stars, all

Enmeshed in the hunting of time.

We know all this and yet…

And yet somehow, we still can

Call our lives civilized

And say they’re the benighted ones.

Worth only the subjection of pens

And the yield of the butcher’s blade.

Ah, but let the lay of the land

And the current of wind

Expose this ridiculous lie.

The native ken of the reviving Fish

The patience of the creeping Newt

The watchful eye of the Rabbit

And the yip of the Coyotes

Proclaim a thousand nations

And histories beyond our understanding.

We think ourselves so bold and knowing

But where does intelligence lie?

Oh, muttering clouds who hold

Our so many lives

In their vaporous hands

The sun beyond, who’s mighty beams

Rest quiet and modest upon our fate,

Perhaps they know in their ages

What was really meant

When a lonely, wise wanderer

Spoke to every heart and soul

The words prophetically ringing

In my ears today…

The meek shall inherit the Earth,

Someday.