CONFESSION ZERO

The people readied themselves for the celebration, burgers, hot-dogs, refreshments, and beer, but ahead of their gleeful caravan was mankind’s lies and grime that the wind dropped until the unbearable stench was hard upon them. The grave spirits wept of the fading justice, tears tilted their red cheeks into the pungent air opening the fear-filled and stinking carriage, lowering the trappings across the doldrums. They stood, one next to the other, smiling in quiet optimism as the odor drifted through and crawled up their expectant noses making bed in the deep ruts left by the torrent of recent wars. The spirits had not meant to overstay their welcome. They had not meant to disillusion. (But the world’s people are so pliable, so tired, that even expected news rocks them back.) Monuments of sacrifice on that day split open like melons, exposing the battered hearts gasping at the shock of dishonor standing limbless before them. They never imagined the disease would find them...

There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. __Pablo Piccaso Teach me to paint! Teach me to paint the sun like you, daddy! It’s better that your life be painted first, my child, and from its color you might then paint the sun. You mean like you? No… I mean like you. © 2007 mrp/thepoetryman Happy Birthday, Ben! ( Ben Heine - Cartoons )

When the last merry gun had stilled and the cannons no more their glee, the friendly hillside fully tipped and poured forth a failing moan. It was observed that the mad rally of murder had slung back its odd grief upon the valiant influence of dissent and lifted away our Superman, breath snuffed, keen upon the plot. Kindness stepped out with the news treading the living shores of home. Soon the prayers had eaten enough foul lies and their blind wrath monstrously grew into hell’s rumbling cavern of vengeance. In this cave there are no friendlies, no shape, but that of fear and fury, our Superman when all else fails to stop the torrent of reasonless cries and endless lies and hopeless wars and gathering storms. Momentarily calming is the knowledge that death has visited yet another blameless child. Blameless! O! Let this thirst be driven out of our hunger! Stop this, our firing into the shadows of rage! O! I wander through these blackened ruins! I’m a friendly! Cease firing! I’m Pa...

The flags aren't flying like they used to. They're not riding on cars, fastened to newly bent, molten beams wafting in the prickled air where gray spines of steel sliced open our fortified tranquility, where the most we had to fear was ourselves. “Where is the wind?” we call out. “Why do we still bury our poor children in the flag draped caskets of a rich man’s war?” Have our principles plummeted into the craven jaws of gravity where a once proud people reveled in the reasoned hope of humankind? Where is the wind? The pennants to their flying? They’re not waving red, white and blue, they’re not beaming over the living, or wafting in the haggled air where bodies coursed downward, hands empty of symbols... © 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

~ The very first two lines of the Iliad read: μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν, Rage—sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles, the son of Peleus, the destructive rage that brought countless griefs upon the Achaeans... Achilles is the only mortal to experience consuming rage (menis). His anger is, at times wavering, at others, absolute. The humanization of Achilles by the events of the war is an important theme of the story. ~ O! Handsome warrior! Great fleeting Achilles! Your death, where water touched you not, resounds in this, our flag-flooded globe. Who can fly their banner higher? March in more an eloquent step? Harmonize more superbly the sacrosanct song? O! Thetis! Had you but anointed your child in a sea of flags and not the river Styx... © 2007 mrp/thepoetryman The Funny Side of Troy

----A young girl in a magical land as her father foments war---- On stage are a large group of massive, ancient trees, center. They appear angry, their limbs extended in a gruesome dance. As the audience waits for the houselights to fade and the fantasy to begin, a haunting didgeradoo solo begins to play. As the houselights fade, the didgeradoo will peak and then fade down, but not out. (Nighttime. MASOUMEH [Sinless, Innocent] stands among the many colossal trees. She is waiting on someone…or something. In her hand she holds a small wooden doll with orange hair. The hair brushes against the leaves on the ground as she waits. The wind begins to pick up now as the didgeridoo gets stronger. Soon the ground around MASOUMEH begins to quake and the wind becomes fierce. The wind is furious, yet she is not lifted by it. Soon MASOUMEH looks up directly at the audience. She holds her doll in the air as if to offer it to them. After a long moment MASOUMEH brings the doll down again, its hair...

The gentle brush of leaves awakens me startles me out of my amber vision a recurring dream, hooded men with rusty swords, wrapped to the knees in crepidas , tramp solidly over The Colosseum floor thickly marching -click click click click- oven timers set to broil. Surrounded by a pride of green faced lions, proud men and women and children, gleaming with a brilliant, crisp air, the kind of air that comes from victory or the expectation of it. We stand in the center, debris rains down around our feet, the horde growing uneasy, licking their chops ready to grimly applaud and point collective thumbs down. Our flesh vibrates with the rumbling ground. We wait, we breathe, perhaps for the last time, the emperor waves his yellow hands. There is an ear-splitting silence. The hooded men like canyon walls lean forward, click. We do not flinch, click. We do not flinch, click. We do not flinch, we raise our steadied weapons and begin to paint. © 2007 mrp/thepoetryman