Meeting on the Mountain
MEETING ON THE MOUNTAIN
Of the crime-I plead guilty. Mainly because on the surface, promises from the likes of you are hard to swallow. Sometimes you just can’t be trusted. I’m not going to lie. I set out to destroy you face to face. I was going to confront you with every damning doubt I ever had. You were going to admit your incompetence once and for all. But when that moment came, all I could do was stand there stupidly in front of you. Suddenly I felt like Jacob when that angel touched him and made him fall down flat on his face in the desert. While spitting the sand out of my mouth, all I could say was- you win again.
Notes: Inspired by my struggle to continue to believe in God and his all encompassing power
I Tried to Make You Ulysses
I TRIED TO MAKE YOU ULYSSES
I tried to make you Ulysses
and myself Telemachus
Until I realized that
there was nothing Homeric
About lipstick on your yellow
collar or your clothes in a grocery bag
Hmmmm..let’s see I think you -
my would be Odysseus -
Spent more time with your barroom
Circe than all of your other journeys combined
And myths you see in a concrete
lawyer child support world
Lie more vociferously than
the fatherly truths they represent
Because at least the sacker of
cities came home
Notes: Inspired by my own absentee father during my childhood
Elvis Had The Right Idea
ELVIS HAD THE RIGHT IDEA
well
imagine that-
the bloated drugfish
of a man who died
gasping for air on
his bathroom floor
made one of the
most profound statements
of the rocknroll
twentieth century
and it still
resonates to this
day-
once in a fit of rage
this pudgy american
saviour
shot and killed
the TV that
he was watching
Notes: Inspired by the notorious Elvis shooting at his TV incident and by the mind numbing nature of television
DEAR WHITE
DEAR WHITE
Dear White
In this subtle age of reconciliation
I must choose my words colorfully
So as not to upset the cart of
Integration - so I’ll say what I have
to say like this:
There are no Aunt Jemimas or Uncle Bens
Or Cream of Wheat Men even though
You can still see them
There are no Dixieland propaganda mansions
Inhabited by Hattie McDaniel or Butterfly
McQueen even though you can still watch them
And there are no epithets that can express
The abject absurdity of words that you have
Allowed to survive just so you can still
Use them
Dear White
Bales of bales of rotten cotton lies are
bought and sold on American auction
Blocks every day and if you are a buyer you have
Poisoned yourself
Notes: Inspired my initial watching of Gone with the Wind
The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time unlike, say, brain surgery.
– Robert Cormier (via writingadvice) Via writing adviceI am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains„ deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.
– James Kavanaugh (There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves)(Source: myquotelibrary)
Via quote library.
NIETZSCHE IS DEAD
Ecce Homo!
The syphilitic philosophical masturbator
Proclaiming God is Dead
From his thus spake Superman chair
Leaves me whispering to his long decayed flesh
As I breathe the 21st century wind - I’ll make up
My own mind motherfucker
IN THE SKY
In these days of flying murderers
Memories are vulnerable
When houses were falling down
In trickiness
I was with them reaching
Listening to a terrified
Single mother afraid her
All- American baby boy would fall
From dreaming so high up
The birds flapping their
Curious feathers like flags
Encouraging me- I swore I could see our
Fatherless home back in Ohio
As my steel and glass
World champion brothers held my
Outstretched wings paternally
And whispered that every Icarus
Gets his chance- I just needed
to learn how to fly
ABBIE, I KNOW YOU WOULD BE LAUGHING
Abbie, if you could only see past
The helmeted policemen of the grave
And see Steal This Book on spiritual
Suburban bookshelves next to
How To Talk To Your Guardian Angel and
Flag shirts that made the silent majority scream for your
Hippie head on sale for $19.95 at K-Mart
I know you would be holding your genuine patriotic stomach
From the pain of your riotous glee all the while
Figuring out a way to block panty wearing G-Men
From reading your e-mails
Jesus Guevara
the way i see it
sometimes i think
its our only hope
at ironic reconciliation
some thing (the only thing)
that justifies my time in these
God Damned hills
i can’t stand for anything less
than you coming from the Left
and not the Right
extrapolations aside , Christ,
holy freedom
not devilish constraint
puts me back
at your feet
kissing the bloody
ground of moral
revolution
About me
Unless otherwise noted, the poetry contained herein has been written by a poet who lives in the Midwestern section of the United States and for reasons only known to him, goes by the psuedonym John West.All other poetry posted here is a mixture of stuff he likes......
