embers laid on the cindered dish proffered by Mr. Fish; )(* a psalm for Thanksgiving's mourning

[retreaded by my muse, which, sensing presence, thence revised, our second annual
unfolding, quite reupholstered, from that first illumining of a cartoon's loom, kindled
on beholding the work of my friend, the wondrous Mr. Fish.  without further ado,
heed thee and thine then, this our heart's unbelted psalm.]:

and verily one might ask
how such a 
so long silenced

rebellious ringing dirge

tolling at last
for an
unfathomed irrighteous litany
of scattering,
shattering,

unmattering worlds

inhabiting an unchannelled,
uncongenial and unsampled,
collective keening voice,

indivisible of spirit

hearkening for
the
revenant resonance
of
unrequited truth

can ever again hold its weeping tongue

*

when even now
the coiffed and scripted,
vetted and indebted,
conscience unembedded

zombie army of corporate operatives

are blithely manning
the
righted side
that
blistered history's

embezzlement bristled,
presumption gristled,
theocracy thistled,

violence epistled

immaculate infrastructure
of
Western impunity

with its lavish cobbled stable
for enabling fable;

that privilege-bedangled,
star spangle-angled,
confirming firmament;

that regal dispensation
of honesty dispensement
and its
knowing recompense;

that black hole of redaction
spiraled by a binary
mimed and dining,
mined mine minding
circus of distraction;

the freedom styled,
ellipsis beguiled,
air wave curbing,

proportion interring,
demonology blurring,
wrath of god incurring

"regime" murdering media

and those flippant,
crippling,
conning coins

twirling
in the
Apparency
of Democracy's

whittled brittle twilight

their complaisantly
complicitous,
incessant hurling spin;

the simplicity crowning,
reflection confounding,
emotively astounding,

(profoundly blind
to irony's drowning)

wholly-owned subsidiary
tactical factions
of
austerity cranking,
disinformation banking,
"representation" mangling,
"interest" entangling,
public trust fandangling

stone-bleeding amnesiacs
and
brokered, photo-op asses.

and they're all
working overtime,
their poses to the grindstone,

to finely hone
the intricate synchronization
of
syndication's "developed"
enveloping syncopation

that adeptly manages
the seemingly conflicted,
imperiously rearing,
subjugation steering

magical collapsible
Overton window

of lemming hemming,
ranking, rinking
and think tank planking

aligning the sinking
siphoning, stalling,
general
psychopath
talking head installing,
and that
sly writhing sidling
of shuffling, appalling,
unruffling shawls

to the well-strung tune
of
bankrupt capital's
"sole essential",

archly starched,
curtain lurking,
contradiction berserking
Frankenstein plutocracy.

and all the riled while
those chest thumping,
precedent trumping,
golf cart jumping,
famous checks and balances

have been craftily shafted,
garrotted, and plotted,
slotted and silted
and carefully tilted out of kilter,

their grafted branches
staffed and caraffed
by the decades in the making
revolving door staking
incorporated spores'

reality turfing,
arrogance nursing,
diplomacy hearsing,
independence cursing,

"benevolent intentions" versing,
"presidential" bomb bursting,
doomsday rampart thirsting,

hocus bespoked, self-focus firsting,
insatiable dominance reimbursing

winsome billionaire brigands

barfing that prosperous, posturous,
war drum thumbed, dumbly numbed,
conservative cum
"liberal" weaved coeval,

smugly rugged pilgrims' "progress"

with its hazing, phasing, and praising
brazen blazing brands;

the barking braggadocio
of an oarless arked,
gullible marked,
bifocal blindered,
pushmi-pullyu
pious and pitiless pirate's parade

decked out in America's
unquestioned tradition
of
patriotic-opticked,
irretrievably racist,
invasive and placist,
culpability eracist,

(all but invisible
to rung-bunged, sound bitten,
ego smitten purchasers
of nation-hooded "good"s),

scandalously panderous,

intelligence-proof
and
election-immune,

invincible lockstep conformity

(sewn from the same
remorseless garment
that
early in its infancy
fabricated whiteness)

colour coding expendable skulls

so the lobbied embodiment
of profit assuring,
terror immuring,
liberty obscuring storm troopers;

the armed to the teeth
fell quelling shell
of
the red and blue sortied
Empire's New Clothes;

that super sized,
power infected,
"threat" convected,
disrespect perfected,

convincingly projected
"protection" racket
of
lynch entrenched,
mythos-dosed,
Hollywood-idolled,
export-import
heroes and cops

can add to their staggering pile.

*

and so the bell tolls

for the discarded
disarmoury of harmonies;

lost languages,
extincted birds,
and
the ravages of reason

stranded
by
devoutly plied,
karma denied,
blithely abided,

unrepentant genocide,

and the
"goodwill" trilling,
fretwork shilling,
teamed shirk instilling,

circle perked,
McCarthy uncorked,
treason seasoned,

seamings
of
silence.

it tolls,
again,

again and again,

and
then again,

again

for the blearily myriad
buried or harried,
tethered, unfeathered,

harum scarum'ed
and caromed
communities and cultures,

unheeded and unseeded,

trampled by the ramping
of humanity's dearth,

administered by tariff,

by the self-appointed sheriff,
of
that medieval saged,
relentlessly staged,
modern day rage
for
the gold crush rush
of molded olden daze,

hung around
the campfire spired,
cross embossed,
equality tossed,
alzheimer's glossed,

glutted weapons passing for aide,

children screaming in midnight raids,

"global battlefield" crusades.

in the exemplary templed
Capital of Capital,
whence sparks are stamped
and sharks arise;

where even the shadows lie,

that wanton ring rules them all,
and with exception
binds them;

hypocrisy's leading
stacking and racking,
toxic placquing epoxy proxy,

that chief reprimander and thief,

the "practical" partitioner
of
shelling's swilling
coalition of the killing;

phoning in the drones,
fencing reservations,
sanctioning infanticide,
and
lining up the sands;

gating's plating Grand Poobah
appropriator of "homelands"

who no longer even counts

the berths unearthed,

sorrows docked,

oaths mocked,

or sparrows,

unspared.

*

and though we've been told
not to ask,

the bell still takes
a shelfless, selfless
universal foal to task;

and hence, mayhaps,
by holding ones breath,

by silently upending
the shoulder tug attending,
murmurings of crickets

or peering through
the spigot rivetings'
hellish ashen cracks

(in the mainstream shellack's
immaculately protracted,
soundly surrounding
impoundings)

the call will arrive
to
ears
that
sear

clear enough;

that quaking psalm of
othered mourning,

with its marginal adorning,

a throat catching burden
of
utterly human lament

in the very
contrary
illness
embittering
the wind,
itself.

in the borderless, orderless space
that paling, hurtling race

(misplacing the one)

has robbed of throbbing echoes

there thrums that ancient
ineffable questioning rhythm

for the resolutely
cast askance,

unexplored insights
of
a billion broken
indigenous mirrors;

for the fragile,
threadbare,
stripped of air,
ghosts
of
our
connection,

flickering in the candles,

beckoning home
the whollying of days,

searching for
half remembered rhymes;

awaiting,

anticipating,

(uncertainly framed
in
splintered nooks,
and
anxious,
shadowed corners)

beneath the bereavement
cleaving to eaves,

and
silled in the chill,

from time berimed,
frost accosted,
comfortless windows,

our mother's other children,

unrecognised siblings,

the one and the all,

before and aft
the
hauling's
fall

pooling in their
numberless,
overlooked fisheries;

the collateral,
colonial cattle
in
that selective,
elective Father's
utterly
forsaken folds;

unnamed and uncounted,

the fragmentary hosts
of our
temporary dust

resounding
and collecting
in
those lonely
yearning harbours

that ache
within
the
Commons
of
our
Souls.

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the 24^th of November, 2019