Pagan's Soliloquy

1. Revulsion

I'd turned my back on that day's crucifixions.
The Gods know I've seen enough suffering
Since the Romans commenced their bloody rule.
That day, as the three wooden masts of pain
Anoited the Hillside of the Skull
With their gaunt, black shadows of suffering,
I made my way instead to the sea.

Angry winds had stirred the sea into a tempest.
Waves raced toward the shore like vicious dogs
Baring their whitecapped teeth in fury as they
Leapt up to try to rip into the jagged breakwater.
Retreating, snarling, battered to a bloody brown
With their cargo of loosened red clay,
It seemed as if the sea had become a chalice
That had caught the blood that had been shed
For man, by that strange, insane Jew
Dying in the company of thieves.

I wished for a moment to shatter as a wave,
To dash my doubts against a sea wall of certainty,
Splattering into spindrift the fatty complacency
Of a diet of intellectual sweetmeats.
Leaving them to taint the turbulent water
Rather than having them festering inside me,
Infecting my spirit with cynicism.

2. The Vision

My meandering musings were slain by a shout.
The waves were leaping skyward, dancing
In a wild tempestuous ecstasy.
Tiaras of foam were burnishing their crests.
The dazzling display of light that blinded me
Was as overpowering as the fragrance of roses
That seemed to waft from the sea to my senses.

Rising from an ocean that had suddenly come calm
Was an iridescent scallop shell
Bathed in crimson light.
Burning, passionate red crimson!

Standing on the shell that rose from the water
Was a voluptuous vision of womanly perfection.
Looking glass liquid droplets still clung to her,
Shimmering like tiny lights of illumination.
It was Aphrodite!

She smiled a wan, sad smile.
It was an expression of bitter knowledge;
Of remembrance, of love, of Ares, of Adonis.
It was the knowledge of her impending death;
Telling me that Gods as well as men are mortal.
She slowly slid beneath the waves.
Before I could utter a protest, she was gone;
Disappearing behind a blinding cascade of spray.

3. Revelation

You want despair?  I'll now give you despair.
There was a time when all the trees had names;
Baucis and Philomon were linden and oak.
One could watch Naiads leaping from the rapids
As their river tumbled joyfully over the rocks
On its plunging journey toward the sea.
Dryads floated through the forest's dewy mists.
Even crags and rocks were imbued with spirits.
No more can I hear the faint trills of Pan's flute,
Nature seems bereft of its beauty; soulless, dead.
Little did I know that day that the death
Of that odd man-God would mean the end of mine.
That the gentle deities who shared my world with me
Would be banished by this dark creed of cruelty,
This strange religion of suffering, denial and death.

Final Disposition

Generations of beings have returned to dust
Leaving no deeds worthy of note
Nothing written that we remember
No songs that are still sung

Count me among their number.
Give me no hulking stone
No grieving angel
No pithy epitaph

I've done nothing to deserve
Such immortality

Just dump my ashes
Into the St. Louis River.
Let me drift into Lake Superior
To mingle with her
To become part of her
Immutable beauty

That will be enough

In Pursuit of our Painted Dreams

Nursing the last few dregs of his athletic prowess,
The aging high school phenom sullenly degenerates
Into tavern softball leagues and bar stool reminiscences.
A couple's marraige becomes a charnel house of bliss.
Like ghouls they devour each other in their prison.

On the satin sheets of their minds' voluptuous desires,
They'll embrace that lovely wanton slut of self-delusion,
Looking for reality in mirrors stolen from a fun-house.
There's none of us left with the innocence to tell them
That the Emperor's been sold another suit of new clothes.

If the incensed fists of the vice squad of reality
Could bash their way into our secret whorehouse of desire,
And shine their soul-searing beam of sudden illumination
Upon the stark naked premises of our existance,
We'd push away the painted dreams that we'd embraced.

We'd flee, bereft of our false pride, dignity's garments,
Out into the mocking laughter of a cold, disdainful world.
Our shame would become a matter of public record.
The derisive cackle of that seductive wanton, illusion,
Would echo through the night as she rifles our clothing.

Look at Teddy Roosevelt, that "big stick" wielding jingo.
He collapsed in grief when war's reality touched his soul
With the telegram that informed him of son Quentin's death,
Or Woodrow Wilson, who spent his frail health lusting
After his scantily-clad League of Nations gossamer vision.

They died physically when their illusions were wrest from them.
Most men live on, but they labor under the soul-killing burden
Of acknowledged failure.  What of we who slink away though
To hide and lick our wounds?  Does our bitter defeat quell
The lusts that send us out like dogs to sniff after dreams?

The allure of illusion is a stubborn, pervasive vice.
In the morning we'll rummage again through our mind's closet
And pull out another threadbare cloak of rationalization.
Tomorrow night we'll set out in search of another strumpet
Of self-delusion.  She'll massage our egos, pump up our pride,

And tell us the lies so necessary to our existance.

Pygmalion Revisited

Mikos last saw him embracing Galatea,
A statue brought to life, Aphrodite's answer
To prayers that begged for the stone maiden's love.
Mikos visited them again though, last winter.
Galatea's gotten fat.  She's now a slattern with jowls.
Her breasts are sagging like a thatched roof
In need of repair.  She's got a termagent's tongue
And a temper volatile as an enraged Achilles.
Their six children have the manners and shrill voices
Of a flock of gulls quarrelling over a dead fish.

Cowed, Pygmalion flees to his workshop refuge
And bars the door.  His desperation is tying
His deliverance to yet another creation.
With a fervency he felt only once before,
He beseeches a miracle from Phyxios, the God
Of miraculous escapes as he labors
To shape a lifelike image of winged Pegasus.
With haste he chisels at the sullen, stubborn stone.
Sweat runs down his tired, ruddy face, and his hair,
Thin and hoary, is mottled with flecks of marble.

Mrs. Draper's Christmas Letter

"I might as well get it over with," she sighed.
She was as devoid of inspiration though,
As the brittle trees and snow shrouded landscape
Were of beauty and budding green life.
She bit her lip as she began to write.

"It''s time for the Draper's Christmas Letter.
We've done a lot this year, so guess I'd better
Get started filling you in on the news
While Bill is on the couch, taking a snooze."

Yeah, old Macho-Man growled, "Don't bother me
With any of your Christmas poem bullshit."
I suppose it demeans the dignity
Of his doctorate to wish  "Happy Holidays,"
Or to ascend to the spirit of the season.

"Bill's still with the college, I'm at the bank,
And for our good health we've the Lord to thank.
And as for our youngsters,Janie and Mel,
They're both in high school and both doing well."

I can just hear Bill reading this, a trace
Of sneer in his voice.  Like a well-trained soldier
I'm not supposed to think for myself,
Just follow his lead.  I'm only the wife.
He's the hallowed intellect of the family.

"Janie's a writer, her efforts show it.
She won an award, Bill got to bestow it.
Mel has given us such gridiron thrills;
No one's heart swells any prouder than Bill's."

"Yeah, Bill's got a lot to be proud of," she mused.
Mel is as arrogant as his old man.
I should write about the lovely young girl
Whom Bill bullied into having an abortion
With all his talk of Mel's brilliant future.

"Mel's bound for college and a law career
And of high school Janie's got one more year.
The kids stayed home while we took our vacation
Bill and I made New England our destination."

Sounds like fun on paper, but what a disaster!
At Longfellow's Wayside Inn I watched Bill
Act the jerk, belittling Longfellow's work.
Like he's ever written anything of lasting value.
He's great though, at disparaging other's efforts

"We saw Longfellow's study and Walden Pond
And Concord Bridge where revolution dawned
In America, and then on to Bunker Hill,
Where many redcoats the minutemen did kill."

Yeah, and motel rooms that smelled of Lysol
And leather attache cases.  Those lonely nights
When Bill and I would retire to our room
After supper were filled with heartbreaking silence
As each of us mulled the other's shortcomings.

"From Harvard Common to Cooperstown
We travelled through rustc villages and down
To the ocean.  As we drove up hill, through dell,
We both got to know each other so well."

There were times during out trip when the road map
Would snarl into yarnlike strands of gibberish
And we'd end up lost.  My life's at that point now.
I've come to realize that I'm somewhere else
Than where I'd rather be at this time of my life.

"We'd like to wish friends and family the best
And hope that your homes are the snuggest of nests,
And to those of you that we can't be near,
We wish you much joy this coming New Year."

Yeah, Bill is right.  This stuff is pretty trite,
But in my last stanza I'll set it all right.
Hey, that rhymes too.  I'm thinking in bad verse,
Banal, like most dialogues of marraige.
I've burst from the fetters of parenthood, alone.

"We wish you Merry Christmas, but this is goodbye.
I suppose you're all out there wondering "Why?"
This is the last letter you'll get from the Drapers
Cuz today I'm serving the son of a bitch papers."

The Dream-Piper

He heard it off the island of Naxos
Avered the old sailor, his skin brown as baked earth.
It was a voice, strong as winds presaging a storm,
Yet the sea was calm, with moonlight shimmering upon it.
"Mikos," the voice thundered.  "When you reach land,
 Go proclaim that the Great God Pan is dead."

"Christians have pulled down our temples,"
Gumbled Mikos, "and have replaced them
With their stark lonely image of a mast and pain.
No more are our rivers and forests
Home to fair nymphs and dancing dryads;
No longer can a wanton maiden
Blame her full womb on a God's ravishment."

Mikos had been fooled though. 
The Chritians had transformed Pan
Into a demon with horns, their scapegoat
For their creed of suffering and remorse.
Pan sought his refuge behind the veil of dreams.
Now that puckish deity sounds his pipes
To awaken our subconscious desires.

Our dreams, like frequency waves, roam freely
Beyond the Puritan blackness of night,
Beyond the confines of logic and reason,
Beyond responsibility and time.
The Goat-God's smile is inviting
As he picks up his flute, and with a few notes
Beckons us to enter his nocturnal realm.

There erotic forbidden visions dance
Frenzied revelries of somnambulance.
Satyrs cavort and centaurs prance
To a musical exhortation to romance.
Dryads whisper tales of divine dalliance
To nymphs who long for their own chance
To catch a God's lascivious glance,
While intoxicated lustful Maenads dance
With abandon and wild exuberance.

The delicate gossamer webs of dreams
That I spin in sleep vanish when I wake
As though swept from the ceiling of my mind
With a broom dipped in the river Lethe.
This morning though, I awoke with a longing.
A strange melody of unknown origin
Was raising passionate havoc with my mind,
Drifting in my thoughts, just beyond full recollection,
Were wonderful visions of the Plains of Acardy.

John Bell Hood

When John Bell Hood led men into battle
He was the king of death's angry domain.
He rode like a knight, scorning the rattle
Of gunfire dealing its quick death or pain.
To him bullets were gnats and Yanks cattle
He'd drive before him with righteous disdain.

Back home in Richmond Sally Preston turned
And  banished Hood's name with a haughty glance.
"He's a clumsy bear, he's crude and unlearned.
 I want a man with finesse who can dance."

"Come on boys, we'll make them Yanks skedaddle!"
At Gettysburg Hood's confident voice soared
Above the fray.  Conspicuous in battle
On horseback, with eyes steel hard as his sword,
A shellburst knocked him from his saddle.
A shattered arm became bravery's reward.

"In love with Hood?  Absurd," Sally sighed.
"I'd rather have my heart impaled on a lance
Than choose to become that loud Texan's bride.
I want a rich man who can laugh and dance."

By September Hood was back in the saddle.
His left arm was useless; his good hand gripped
The reins as he led troops into battle,
To Chickamauga, where minie balls stripped
Leaves from the trees, where a surgeon astraddle
A bench, from Hood his mangled leg ripped.

"Engaged to General Hood?  Don't get me riled,"
Sally scolded.  "Poor John, he hasn't a chance.
I'd rather by brutal bluecoats be defiled.
I want a man who will laugh and can dance."

Constantly in pain, strapped to his saddle
Now to help him stay in it, John Bell Hood
Led his men to Atlanta for battle.
He had to stop the Yankees if he could.
Sherman's troops threatened Atlanta, and would
With a victory, sound Dixie's death rattle.

"He's such a brave man," admitted Sally.
"I hope he can stop the Yankee advance.
But he's not the man with whom I would dally,
I'm holding out for a man who can dance."

Hood and his men were too few and too tired
To manage more than to annoy their foe.
On to Nashville, where their last hope was mired.
He rallied his troops for one final blow,
But when the smoke cleared, their hopes had expired;
His army was crushed.  He'd no place to go.

"We'll not be married," said Sal feigning sorrow.
"War's slaughtered so many dreams of romance.
 He's maimed, poor, with no hopes for the morrow,
 And I still want my rich man who can dance."

Divorce Roadkill

The shedding of the skin of attachment
Exposed a new pattern of circumstances
Never envisioned
During the romantic promises of
"Til death do us part."

A marraige now brutally crushed
Like the head of a snake
By a speeding tire,
Poison-spewing fangs driven
Into and broken upon
The brutal hardness of asphalt.

With the severing of bonds
Comes the shadows of wings;
Black-robed ravens
And carrion-feeding lawyers
Flutter down to feast
Upon the corpse.

Soon barflies
And lounge lizards
Will join them
To devour the remains.

At the Gravesite of the Haymarket Martyrs

It's like a scene out of the French Revolution,
A bit unsettling to encounter in Chicago.
Resolute Lady Justice is striding forward,
Drawing her sword to protect the fallen worker
That she's crowned with a wreath of laurel;
A victim of the Pinkertons perhaps
Or of cops paid to intimidate the strikers, or
Of assassins hired by McCormick or Pullman.
Robber barons will pay the minions of the State
To serve them or to overlook their crimes.
Justice has an impossible task ahead of her.
There are so many workers for an icon to protect
That too many people only pay lip service to.

The monument at Forest Home Cemetery
Is rarely visited anymore.
A few old Wobblies come to doff their hats,
Recalling the days they sang "The Internationale,"
When they actually believed that workers could unite,
Triumph, and receive the fruits of their labor.
A few earnest anarchists, idealists and romantics
Who haven't yet had their dreams of a better world
Tasered, maced, smashed by a cop's nightstick
Or compressed into "Free Speech Zones,"
Make their pilgrimage to pay homage,
Not only to the five Haymarket Martyrs
Who were innocent of the crimes they died for,
But to all the labor reformers and "communists"
Who've chosen to be buried near the monument.

Emma Goldman,  Lucy Parsons, Ben Rietman,
Joe Hill, Big Bill Heywood, Voltairine de Cleyre...

Sadly the visitors are far too few
To validate August Spies' prophetic words,
Uttered in a muffled voice from beneath
The stifling hood of black canvas
That the hangman had pulled over his head.

   "The time will come when our silence
     will be more powerful than the voices
      you are throttling today."

The silence of this gathering of the dead
Is broken only by the twittering of birds
And the distant hum of freeway traffic
The labor martyrs who were wrongly condemned
For their beliefs rather than their guilt;
Who gave their lives in the struggle
To win us an eight hour day,
More time to spend with our families,
Some respite from a life of wage slavery,

Rest almost forgotten.

Corporate America has the upper hand again.
There will be new martyrs.

"They who do not study history
  Are condemned to repeat it."






                                                                             Rich Hanson

The Loneliness of Injun Joe

It's time to retreat again,
To scuttle spiderlike back into
The most private recesses
Of cognative reflection.
In these caverns of conscious thought
These are the rooms that I rarely visit.
Here my darkest secrets lay suppressed.

In this netherworld of self-recrimination
I'll seek refuge in the soul salving
Withdrawal into solitude.

Here I tread upon recollection
Crushed into layers of sentiment
As I weave a disillusioned path through
The sedimental strata of my past.

At the end of this labyrinth of memory
My torch illuminates
The experiences that I've examined,
That I've reshaped into a mythology of self.
Chalk, iron powder, charcoal and berries
Crushed to use to create wierd scenes,
A strange tableaux of cave paintings
That quiver to life in the flickering light.

Here I'll dig through the silt of forgetfulness
To unearth images that I've long suppressed,
That I've wrapped and buried like Kachina dolls
In this, the holiest sanctuary of my soul.

This is the place where I hide aspects of self
That I don't wish the world to see.
A refuge from my wife, my son,
My friends and my parents.
I've locked out all humanity.

Is it perverse of me to retreat,
To withdraw deep into myself,
To compartmentalize my life,
To play Bartleby in such a selfish way
When I've got people who love me?

Loneliness is the damp musty smell
Of brackish water, of our despair
As we weave our way, blind as cave-fish
Through the dark stream that we call "life."

When I finally tire of poring through
My pathetic cache of regrets
By the dimming light of this dying candle,
Will I be able to roll away the stone barrier
That seals this entrance to my cave.

Christ, I'm not.

I'm more like Tom Sawyer's Injun Joe;
Trapped in darkness, thirsty and hungry,
Shut away from the mass of mankind,
Condemned to licking moisture
From the damp walls of my cave,
That false promise of liquid solace that
Leaves just sand and grit on one's tongue.

As my last candle gutters into blackness,
I stand alone in this cold musty room
That's become my silent tomb.

As I bellow my frustrated loneliness
At  indifferent walls,
They only echo my impotent anger
Back at me, taunting me
To cut loose with yet another

Primal scream.

Requiem for a Rocking Horse

Dylan's rocking horse grazes at the curb today.
His broken-down nag gets to take its final look
At the blue sky as it waits for the garbage truck;
After the growling crunch of a compactor's jaws
It will be laid to rust in a cemetery of refuse.

Our son always viewed it as his galloping "Horse."
His friend was always there to carry him away.
He'd climb, often sleepy-eyed onto it and rock
Into alertness; tenderly placing a blanket
Over "Horse's" head became a bedtime ritual.

The discarded gown of a graduate of childhood,
"Horse's" shiny brown leather and flowing black mane
Already bore the scars and fraying signs of age
When his possession passed to our son's brand
To be of service to yet another young cowboy.

The snap of a spring soon became a calamity
That could conjure forth a torrent of frantic tears.
Deprived of his means to escape into a world
Of bounding motion, Dylan would panic like an angel
That found itself earthbound, deprived of its wings.

It's now a starving emaciated carcass that bears
Little resemblence to a horse; a skeleton of steel
That's retained its bouncing life of liberating rhythm
From Dylan's first hesitant climb onto its saddle
To his wild, pendulum rides of reckless abandon.

He'd ride his limitless range of imagination.
The green living room rug became the prairie,
The cats mountain lions and the dog a snarling wolf
As Dylan outrode gangs of stuffed animal outlaws
While roping in vocabulary with a lariat mind.

He rode you from stimulation to Sesame Street,
From Big Bird to Smurfs, now to Power Rangers,
Your time is finished.  You've been callously discarded,
Just as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus soon will be
During his inexorable journey toward adulthood.

"Horse," may you gallop forever in his reveries;
As free as the wild stallion that races the wind,
As unfettered as the dreams of our childhood.
I hope that there's a stall for you in Dylan's memories.
I'm certain that you'll always retain a place in mine.