oh say, can you see

i stand with the People of Iraq, whose burdens surely exceed their share;
those that didn't drown in the sea, and those still suffering there,
running from America's freedom bombs, bursting in the rotting air.

in the dawn's eerie light with its cancerous, phosphorous glare,
our delusional, exceptional pride is too much for my heart to bear.

what it was, and who he is (that speech by Jesse Williams)

arriving unannounced

yet accompanied by thunder
a single, fragile man

makes his awe-inspiring stand;

his presence instantly,

innately understood

for what it was

and who he is...

this new unwavering voice
rising in those who can hear it,

rallies those accustomed

to making do with none;

its siren call a summons
unburdening the bereft,

the bearers of luminous voices

taken so cruelly,

and thoroughly before;

the speech indelibly memorized
in the mesmerizing moments
when first it was heard,
its fiery cursive a coursing dna
kindling its vessels
as it whispers past the skin,
seeping through sentient seams,
to reach the daring,
unsullied dreams
of a fresh regeneration
of starry-eyed souls;

cherished and treasured
in intimate, sibling spaces
for discovering and sifting,
for the future's uplifting,
and the slow and supple savouring
of a million aching hearts;

healing like the freeing words
of Malcolm and Martin,
brimming with the power of water
to send forth feeling shoots,
to cleanse corrosive trickles
of a borrowed, bankrupt oppression;

and, falling like scripture,
to embrace the graceless
with its selflessly reflecting
undaunted perspective,
glancing off the lapping love
bequeathed by those
who came before,
its tidings collected
like the gospel of rain
in empathetic pools;

evoking the confiscated comet
trailing courageous laughter
that fleetingly blessed us
with the dazzling Sandra Bland,
it sears its own resplendent path,
wrought in the astonishing light
spilling from a fearless,
clear-eyed intellect,
a blazing forthright beacon
from heaven's untenanted door.

it is at once a manifesto
and a startling manifestation
of miraculous, enduring hope.
for despite everything,
not least the relentless  insult
of being an "other"
in one's own home,
it has managed to remain
all these dreary, visionless years,
resiliently alive.

and though it showed up unannounced,
it sounded in our ears,
like a recovered, remembered angel
heralding the first,
brilliant yet brittle
unprecedented dawn
arriving at long, long last
to quench the
seemingly endless,
almost unbearable
"starless midnight of racism and war."

there's still time
to chuck the white invention
and thereby discover
the essence of humanity.

there's still a little time
but,
not really all that much.
***** ** ***** ** ***** ** ***** ** *****
- Evan Hawthorn, the 30^th of June, 2016

beastly day

it's a beastly day.  motion slowed to a fragile, slanting stance;
waves of tectonic repercussions visited on a contorted body;
the tipping balance attendant on a merry night by the fire.
and yet, as the breeze cavorts with my curtains
and a baby robin discusses hunger,
my muse spills out its magic streams,
having arrived at some mystical conjunction
that suits its confidential nature.
and i, blissful beyond belief,
spin my words like glass ornaments,
entirely oblivious to everything else on the earth.

little Cousin Juniper

my little cousin Juniper, growing in phases

was chastised by his family for being a Goth.

persisting in developing his own devices

he sprouted wings this morning.  it turns out he's a moth.

Jesse & Calvin; (hero of bees & the bees' knees)

Jeepers!  two generations of jaunty gentlemen,
quite gentle and très jejune,
gelin' together in the light of love's delight
on a sweet, tranquil night in June!

might makes right

as i try to process heartbreaking, ungraspable grief, preparing myself for the
inevitable ways this latest unimaginable loss of precious young, unlived lives
will likely be used, and musing on the never heeded calls for gun control in a
land that makes more weapons than any other product, i feel compelled to point
out that we must cast our gaze deeper than the tools that enable America's
exceptional violence.  we must address the doctrine of "might makes right"
that is virtually enshrined in our society, and which, with the lockstep support
of the two party system, takes unconscionable resources from our public
commons, at an astronomical level far beyond the comprehension of every
other nation on the planet.

'might makes right' is worshiped on our televisions, in movie theatres and
children's video games.  we are steeped in it from birth.  we have been
patriotically and pridefully exporting it to the world ever since we honed
our skills, claiming from sea to shining sea our "homeland".  its 'profit'
entirely controls our foreign policy, and is, in fact, what our "foreign aid"
mostly consists of.  and at the pinnacle of our political system, our president
is the commander and chief of the unequaled force that enforces "our" will,
used as the one-size-fits-all solution to every external "threat" our arrogant
presumption stirs up.

of course, the uncounted multinational murders our president presides over
are directed at officially sanctioned victims.  but in a country where mass
murders literally spew from our entertainment and the assassins are venerated
as heroes, spouting wisecracks as they demonstrate their absence of humanity,
never facing the slightest retribution, a growing number of damaged, disturbed
people are bound to go off the rails and choose their own victims, defining for
themselves who the "bad guys" must be, that dehumanized set of humans
we've been taught since infancy exist, that our culture, grooming us to be
citizens of empire, starting with the Indians, but claiming all sorts of 'japs'
and 'crouts' and 'gooks' and 'commies' and Muslims along the way, deems
perfectly acceptable to kill.

this is the precedent that allows people to be grouped together by
approximate skin colors, or by their looks, and makes them unqualified
for American "justice", and afraid to fall into the hands of the police.
for once the Pandora's box that sanctions the dehumanization of humans
is opened in the profit-driven dumbed down land of might makes right,
it is open season on life itself.
- Evan Hawthorn, the 13^th of June, 2016

thrice yikes! (the latest chapter from my novella-poem in progress "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons")

the door of the spookhouse lugged itself open

to accommodate the animated broom,

attending to attenuated tissues

and briskly dislodging accretions of gloom.

a turbulent breeze rattled the garden

and Sharpebeake and Dithery dived out of its tide.

observing the approaching hail of petals

the broom stiffly bristled and swept back inside.

as the sun took its turn arraying the bower

a staggered Sappy emerged from the trees.

propelled by the vision thrust upon him

he stumbled to the grotto and slumped to his knees.

Dithery landed next to her sister

in a fluster of feathers and sputtering caws.

tilting her head, she said "shouldn't we help him?

i fancy there's something amiss with his paws."

"that's one of our fledgling's pedestrian projects.

you needn't fret.  i expect it can crawl."

Dithery demurred.  "the poor wingless things!

it's a wonder they manage to waddle at all!"

as Lumpy was ladling seconds on porridge

a sheathed figure waltzed through the kitchen door,

and milking a theatrical entrance

a drapery of frippery flopped on the floor.

Trixie the barmaid from the Gimpy Gait,

patched lashes glitzed in glitter, lush lips glazed in gloss

flaunted jeweled hands on pert, sashaying hips,

his lavender curls like flippant candyfloss.

Rashful bridled as he plunked down the fritters

on the quivering edge of going berserk.

"how am i expected to scrounge up breakfast

with people leapin' from the freakin' woodwork?"

the minstrel laughed as he pushed out a chair.  "how's Trix?

has the Contra Band been clapped in the clink?"

but he couldn't hear the disgruntled answer

over Rashful's thrashing dishes in the sink.

"i'm afraid i've come with unpleasant tidings

spilled from a goon what was cryin' in his mead."

"unless our sainted sock's gone spastic" piped Mock

"the ill wind that brought you is freighted indeed."

Trixie flinched as he noticed Solomon,

deferentially nodding his swiveling head.

since none of the others were disconcerted

he feigned nonchalance to camouflage his dread.

Sylvana passed him the last of the kippers

and Gropey plucked his knife from a swishing scrap.

though unnerved by the bumping cutlery

he managed to evict the fingers from his lap.

when Mock sent out runners to fetch the salt

his affected composure left off its pretense.

"seein' as your mouth's already open" snapped Mock

"what say you dish dirt and siphon suspense?"

"oh, right!  well, the clangin' wankers are on the move.

your lot's been decreed a terrorist cell.

a pod of the People's Free Collective

hatchin' Commie plots in the godless pits of hell.

i think that's how the pickled git put it.

that, and you're behind the princess's abduction."

Mock seemed pleased.  "now that's deflective invective!

offending logic with dodgy deduction."

Rashful caught sight of something in the window

that snagged his attention and held it in thrall.

as he sidled unnoticed through the back door

Mary the banshee glided in from the hall.

"who's tickling my ears with that dulcet din,

budging a coffer that's scraping up the grout?

wee as a gnome, or some other slight kin.

but the garden's gone dark and i can't make him out."

elation ensued which funneled through Lumpy.

"our Sleazy and Chester are back in the fold!"

Mortimer's wonder was tempered with velvet.

"just prior to the rain.  it's what she foretold."

frayed percussive patterns were pelting the panes

as smudged clouds thickened, injecting gloaming gloom.

and those in the kitchen were stricken at once

with a ponderous presentiment of doom.

"some comely peddler must be hawkin' glum pusses."

Sleazy in a snit sauntered through the room.

"ain't none of you chuffed or rubbin' your peepers?

this grubbery smacks of an overbooked tomb."

it was then that the siege made itself known

with a seismic breach that loosed their apprehension,

a jarring affront on lateral boundaries

displacing their spatial comprehension.

and it rattled the foundations of the spookhouse

arousing the dust of unsettled fears,

while waves of shock blown out of proportion

dispersed a distortion that hammered in their ears.

it ratcheted into an unsteady rhythm

jolting them out of their stupefied trance,

jilting bouncing plates off jittery shelves

like angst-addled slammers at a brittle punk dance.

as a burnt, acrid smell stung startled senses

an ominous rift fretted though the rafters.

the cracked oven door sprang open with a thud

deflating the soufflé they'd stashed for afters.

Sylvana and the bard were first on their feet

ducking under Mary, flapping through the hall,

almost tripping on the trundling watchrug

rolling rolled up in a slumping, flumping ball.

they pulled up short where the entrance had been

and Pally was prying a still smoking boulder

egged on by the frenzied, hook-slinging hat rack

upending itself to bolster his shoulder.

panicking mammals were hurtling in

as they frantically scrambled for somewhere to hide.

a shivering rabbit pierced everyone's hearts

with eerie, shrill cries too wretched to abide.

the shuddering tremors had unhinged the shutters

and thus a terrible racket ensued;

derailed by the throes of stark indecision

they slammed shut and open, coming quite unglued.

the careening flight of the barreling monkey,

entailing the broom and bits of the floor

was crossly curtailed by a lumbering bear,

despondently pawing the fragmented door.

as Mortimer scanned for flashes of armour

a catapult hurled another assault,

etching in the earth the ramifications

that spread like the scars of reciprocal fault.

  

Chester's presence was dappling the forest

with a restless strain of itinerant dusks,

blotting ephemeral visits of doubt

foraging for conscience in the helmeted husks.

for even in the ranks that trample defiance

enforcing for order its biddable train

a penchant for compassion perversely persists

hatching attachments to mitigate pain.

the twilights cavorted with the bruised, leaden clouds

assembled like threats of angry disdain,

frowning on the skittish, indecisive bursts
that bandied about the intermittent rain.

deeper in the woods Rashful startled Sappy

rooting out secrets beneath the ancient eaves;

immersed in the first commiseration,

imbibing the sighs of impressionable leaves.

"you missed my breakfast to dawdle in a daze?"

he snickered while flicking incidental burrs.

"i expect your daisies have all gone to seed.

ods bodkins!  what's joggin' that noggin' of yours?"

"if you must know, i've had another vision."

Sappy kept twitching, spilling trepidation.

Rashful's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

and the trees went on absorbing milling tension.

then the burden gushed with headlong abandon.

"we were surrounded.  i saw it, clear as day.

the royals and their minions.  they'd found us out.

Guanyin in a window, holding them at bay.

windy beyond belief.  and here's the weirdest part.

our Weepy was dancing with Pasty's deer.

she herself was awake.  embracing Sylvana.

swamped in pink petals, swirling round the bier."

the ground seemed to slip from under Rashful's feet

as the wind picked up and he sank to his knees.

at that precise moment both of them grasped

the conspicuous drift of the stiffening breeze.
***** ** ***** ** ***** ** ***** ** *****
- Evan Hawthorn, the 12^th of June, 2016