Thursday, January 15, 2009

Here Come the Frowns

Someone recently remdinded me of a little lyric from the old (1973) song by Stephen Sondheim, "Send in the Clowns."

"Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here."

This inspired me to attempt:

"Here come the Frowns"

I love a farce.
Karl Marx did, too.
He said we get history twice:
Farce as Part Two.
But Tragedy first
Must slake its foul thirst;
So, Part One will do.

Isn't it grand?
That Shock and Awe!
Some looting and then civil war.
But, for the flaw
To really sink in,
We just need to skin
The last man of straw.

Argue the case.
Shoot for the moon.
Crusades in Lunacy led
By a buffoon.
Send in the Marines.
Police those latrines.
The Army comes soon.

Then we stay on.
Quagmire sets in.
The years pass and nobody pays
For the great sin.
Thus, in one's career,
"Advance up the rear!"
Becomes the true spin.

So, "Suck on this!"
"Don't fuck with Jews!"
Friedman and Goldberg now spit
Their juandiced views.
Just send in the tanks.
No need to say "thanks!"
Then black-out the news.

War on the poor,
Trapped refugee.
We'll teach those dumb Arabs a thing,
Since they can't flee.
Thus zionists claim
Apartheid's no name
For theft they decree.


Christians and Jews
Love Son, fear Dad.
Muslims say their Prophet speaks,
For which they’re glad.
Yet what they all claim
To know they defame
Each time they get mad.


Here come the frowns.
Smiles disappear.
We’ve seen this act so many times
But still we hear
That this time the game
Won’t work out the same ---
Till this time next year.


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2009

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

A Yellow Bravery

Although I long ago swore that I would never write a single line of "hearts and flowers" verse, I have to acknowledge with much appreciation my old friend Bob Shelby whose own poetry inspired me to attempt a fifteen-line sonnet on the theme of Dandelions and whatever symbolic meaning one might want to attach to them. Hence:

"A Yellow Bravery"

A dandelion in the lawn
hides nothing from the jaundiced eye
of those who view askance such spawn;
who’d sooner dig it up to die
than see this vulgar volunteer
pollute with poetry the strain
which, fertilized with dung of steer,
conforms in green without a stain
of yellow. Yet – as passerby,
and sky above, and browsing deer
can all attest: this gaudy guy
lives in the open, not in fear.

To gardeners in their pruning throes:
Please leave behind a root that grows.
I’d know them all again, my woes.


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2009

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Diurnal Dialectic

Thinking of a stray lyric to an old song my mother used to sing:

I went walking through the park
Goosing statues in the dark.
If Sherman's horse can take it, why can't you?

... led to a brief meditation on day and night, night and day, and a

"Diurnal Dialectic"

Before the dusk and after dawn,
Between the twilight edges of the light,
A race obscene to look upon
Continues on its mindless road to night.

From sundown until sunrise,
Confusing lust and love,
The poet's pornographic play
Embarrasses the moon and stars above.

Before the steak and after eggs,
Between the main and minor of our meals,
The questions that our language begs
Obscure more than the god of Lies conceals.

From lights-out until sun-up,
Through nightmares; peaceful dreams;
And much disjointed nothing, sounds
A schizoid symphony of sighs and screams.

Before the going-down of day,
And after sun-up puts an end to dark,
The intervening hours stray
Like perverts goosing statues in the park.

From supper through till dinner,
Conflating dreams with thought,
The saintly sinners celebrate
What they have stolen from the ones who bought.


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2009

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Thursday, January 08, 2009

Cozy, Scandalous

With apologies to the shade of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his immortal poem "Ozymandias," I offer here a brief meditation on the current, continuing, and contemplated depredations of the Apartheid Zionist Entity upon those captive Palestinian Arabs who had absolutely nothing to do with the German/Christian persecution of Jews in Europe before and during World War II. For want of a better title, I'll just call it:

"Cozy, Scandalous"

I met a refugee from Gaza Strip,
Who spoke to me with empty, staring eyes
Dumb words whose depth of pain I could not grip
With all the helping hands the world denies
While lapping up the lurid lies that slip
And roll so greasy off the practiced tongue
Of Zionists whose caged and wounded prey
Are told to flee and leave their dying young
To weep beside the corpses of their old
In darkened shattered former homes where they
Cannot refute the garbage we’ve been told
By glib Israeli liars trained to spread
A veil of darkness over crimes they’ve sold
As “Peaceful Co-Existence” -- with the dead.


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2009

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