Five political poems by Daniel Wilcox

Five poems
by Daniel Wilcox

Caught in the Act in Iraq*

Take the smart cell phone and punch up hell
In the new republic where they proudly voted
With their inked hands they grab around rocks

To bash red the helpless young woman
In her royal blue skirt and white blouse.
Writhing alone, she lays on the old ground,

Yet ages ago one son of man stooped
And wrote in the desert sand the words
Of judgment that only he who is faultless

May cast the first stone to the ground's abyss;
But now smartly dressed males lean extending
Their mobile phones to catch the violent action next

To police officers who stand 'idol' at this judgment
In their black U.S. vests proofed from bullets,
Next to the sleek SUV's parked by the worship center;

Watching their huge crowd—old and young males
Pounding the helpless girl to death with large stones
Because she was seen strolling in conversation

With a young man of the town near the river
From a different ancient religion, "so it goats.' *
Thus this girl of 17 is bloodied to death

And her life cries out against 'modern' Iraq
Where the handwriting darkens the wall
Of these savage males full of ruthless sin.

Foolish men of the present dominion,
Weep like he of old so much wiser
Who removed all the stones from men.

*CNN news and John 8: 1-11
References to Vonnegut, Islam, and Judaism

####################

Carpet Diem

Carpet Diem!
Shout the modern carpet baggers
Carping on the weaknesses
Of transcendental waits,
These false rug merchants
That swindle your day
Out from under you.

When telling you to seize it,
The apple of your upset cart-pet,
They say pluck it!
They pull from under ways
Claiming no ultimate ride
Nor lamped Light

And you fall down
To their cave of bagged words,
Linguistic stone instead
Of the living Water.

Don't!

Seize Forever.

Carp -- to pluck
Carpe Diem: Latin-- pluck the day
Webster's: Pleasures of the moment without concern for the future
Carpe Aeterna: Latin—seize forever

++++++++++++++++++++

Playing 'Heir' Ball

Our historic cat coughed up
a wadded brown object,
thumb-sized
and yarned…

Ah forget
The long-winding 'tail';
go pell-mell
to your cultural
memory--
what was
your latest
cough up?

####################

The Day My Battery Died

Living on the lush island
In that new time of '68
Near Washington's Crossing
Close to New Hope, Pennsylvania
Where William penned a new state,
Founded His Holy Experiment
Transforming human government
Until the Seven Years War
And its white land lust
Scalped away the Ocean of Light—
Each native woman's head
Selling for 100 British pounds--
So the Friends resigned in mass
From the Legislature unwilling
To arm White raging muskets.

But here I live 210 years later
After crossing the stream at the ford,
Like I do each morning and even,
Showering with a cold bucket
Of water behind a blanket
Draped over my open
Van doors, living in
My Chevy Greenbriar
I have christened
The Mystical Hippopotamus,
Because my right-wing landlord
Kicked me out for
My anti-Nam sign
On the van's rear.

Comes the humid night
Of the presidential vote
When I sit on the edge
In the driver's seat
Going no where fast,
Gripping the red wheel
Listening to the sad turns
When Eugene McCarthy
Falls down to tragic defeat
Like a cherry tree before it time,
And the long shadow of 50ish
Joseph, his Hydian twin
The 'right' but wrong
Batters the American dream,
Assaulting 'this land is yours'
With more killing of natives,
This time of the Viet unkind;
The dream of Paine loses to the
Nightswine mudded wrong;
Eugene's vision poked out.

On this night, I curse the darkness
But when I try to start my engine
The key only rotates the starter
For my battery has died
From listening to the death
Of my generation's ideals
And lost new hopes
Another crossing indeed
But not of the revolutionary kind.
William penns the obituary,
The dying of Martin's
LIGHTED DREAM

++++++++++++++++++++

The Kiss of Death

The Chince beetle comes
At night to kiss our faces;
Nor so strange as
What other time or date
In stealth and cruelness
Than while we sleep
So oblivious?

After an earlier before
Smooched blood meal
Of hellish romance,
The biting of another,
He now leans his
Proboscis in close to us
And feeds deep many times
His body weight until
A glutted ball
Of our red fluid.

Anesthesia in his
Saliva keeps us from
Feeling his hard peck
Until too-regretted late;
He defecates with his lust
A parasite within his feces
Trypanoma cruzi to our faces,
A microscopic swimmer
Who slips into the blood hole
Bringing destruction's
Chagas climax.

This sordid after-play
Destroys our bodies' organs--
Heart, guts, and esophagus;
We lessen, sicken, and succumb,
Smacked by the greedy guile
Of this avaricious paramour
Our Judased parasite of
The wide world round;
Yes, plain-worded in the end--
Our selfishness.

Author bio:

Daniel Wilcox earned his B.A. in Creative Writing from Cal State University, Long Beach. He is a former activist, former teacher, former wanderer who has farmed in the Middle East and lived on an island in eastern Pennsylvania. His writing has appeared in The Other Side Magazine, various poetry journals such as The Centrifugal Eye, Sentinel Poetry Online, The November 3rd Club, and The Indite Circle. A short story based on his life in the Middle East was published in the September 2007 issue of The Danforth Review. He currently resides on the California coast with his mysterious wife and youngest gaming son. His writer's website is at http://seaquaker.com/.