a cricket at time's hearth; ~ *>* ~*~ *~* ~*~ *<* ~ grasshopper Jiminy's soulful soliloquy

going by the mainstream's

liberally hacked,

culpability weaned,

divisive spliced,

splained and spleened,

reality hijacked,

context smithereened,

protection racket plaqued,

teaming of seeming,

nostalgia gleamed

narrative shellacking

of

understanding's lack

as seen in a theatre near you,

say, in the apps

enveloping

the tap

of

developing

stories and trappings

sorting and stamping

rampant conformity

on tapestried "happenings"

framed in

famed taming's

toxic proxies' box,

or aligned in the shrill

reassuring sidelines

of social media's

authority sororitied

Rapunzel

tunnelled funnellings

individual awakenings

(which is to say, our only hope)

tend to sound like

grains of sand

in a fire cracked

hourglass

rolling off a

nuclear optioned

fable stabled

table top.

for it's always been the case

that our relative,

time

more than likely

a second cousin

of

the focus choking

devotional

notion

of

self,

is,

naturally enough,

our enemy

like the one

we met

in

Pogo's gentle mirror.

and no one can define

when unbridled fleecing's

relentlessly unheeded

feed back loops,

of earthen respiration

and societal desperation,

all those industrial

self-righteous

piloted,

mythically predisposed

infections of projection,

swirling their inevitable

karma armed

banded and binding

denial drugged

under the rug

out of mind

stackings of traction

in man-unkind's

landmined

nightmare panoply,

will snatch from our

as yet helpless,

unrecognised hands

the fragile opportunity

sparked by

the increasingly

"intelligence" monitored,

"full spectrum dominance" adhered,

fear peered

and

ceiling waxed

all too human

connection of the internet,

that greatest of all threats

perceived

by the

powers that own,

reflexively censored

for its radical tendency

to

undermine

consumptive presumption's

white god goaded

complacency bloated

winningest finned

reflectionless gloated

divinely anointed

self-appointed

policing greased

crowning of thy good

(which is to say,

the seal of assumption

of the independence billed

bootstrap scooted

Hollywood rooted

in piracy looted

progressively

possessive pilgrim's

will silled

freedom to kill.)

*

here's to a rash

of nationhood chucking,

i-magi-nation plucking,

tribal bible demagnitising,

divided conquering

skewed news imbibing

rivalries unprising,

offensive defenses untriggering,

disordered

and

borderless

wake up calls

before the unforeseen

consequences

already quilting at full tilt

past every elective circus,

ringing in the searing

roar of scoring profits

toted in the good guys'

inviolable dividends

Gollummed column

of precious,

plague ridden externalities

forecast amidst the

bloodless rocks,

mothering of bombs,

sanctified starvation

and genocidal tidings

of the lesser evil

otherings of collateral

snagging first place

in the concerted

revolving

selfishness absolving

change blurting

flirting skirting

bipartisan escorted

hoard boarded,

railed

and ushered in

labour belaboured

Christ unsavoured

phased in tasered

We the

wee People

incorporated

race

to

the

bottom,

tied with pride's umbilical cord

to a competition drummed,

Nature thumbed,

scientifically progressed,

invested paranoia blessed,

racist placist

indigenous erasist

psychopathic insistence

on

ruling the unfurled world

tucks in

the slipped

through

our

senseless fingers

singed

remains

of

life on earth's

humanity strained dust.

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the 24^th of November, 2020

embrance

and now for something completely different, in honour of yet another

focus hewing day, designed to misremember what America's relentless

beaconing does unto others, Marcella Giulia Pace offers us her winsome

colourings of the moon.  for the brown tinged grey of that mysterious

sauntering companion, hovering beyond our breathy atmosphere,

strained through a screening of framed sheenings over ten years'

devotion to perspective hoppings amidst votive Italian perches,

illumined through the varying blue light scattering and dust accruing

ruddy earthen sway, provides an almost giddying display.

repeated, defeated,
brittle skirted
and shatter shuttered;

infecting projection,

its gloom foredoomed

on obliteration's
self possessive loom;

felicitations on the remembrance of all things cast.

*

- Evan Hawthorn, 11 11 2020

on the trail of a manticore's spore (on the day before another oarless or)

so Alfonso just bumped into the knob
that tunes up the tv,
as an anxious voice admonished us
to not turn "our nation"
over to the "crazy radical left."

as if anything approaching a left
could possibly exist
in reality's homeland.

as if a different humanitied wind
could even quiver
the relentless mainstreamed sway

of consumptive presumption's
patriot plated racist placist
indigenous erasist
rooted dismal failure
to comprehend a worldly view,

blared by the duelling
propaganda outlets,

mined by the right and whiter
firmamenting parties.

they may as well be warning us
about kindness taking hold.

or that snowball's chance in hell
we'll ever stop interfering
in other peoples' governments.

me, i'm worried about
bendy plowshares
dulling our freedom,

letting the bottom fall out
of the trillion dollar weapons industry.

and what about the scarcity of manticores?

who's gonna' save us from those
ubiquitous unicorns,

poking holes in our tightly reined
nationhooded projection,

focusing its profitable dearth
of selfless connection's
universal reflection

on the starless midnight,

so bleakly oblique,

of barking's darkling matter?

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the last day of severing's nethered ever