To His Civil War Comrades

Andrew Koon's tribute to his comrades in arms
Stands watch in the Vermont, Illinois cemetery.
The bronze sentinel leans on his rifle silently.
The bivouac of the dead that he towers over
Isn't likely to be roused til Judgment Day.
The white Grand Army of the Republic markers
With their curt Joe Friday "just the facts, ma'am"
Inscriptions are mustered in obedient ranks
At their positions in block, row and lot.

"The war years were the best years of my life,'
Andrew Koons would sigh, longing for his lost youth.
His practical farm neighbors in rural Illinois
Measured success by harvest and crop yields,
Relegating the War to Independence Day.
They laughed at old Koon's yearly ritual.
He'd fetch his uniform down from the attic,
Struggle to squeeze his bulk into the faded blue,
Maybe pop a button or two, polish up his boots,
Then go to march with the vets in the big parade.

The sword has been sheathed, and the tempered steel
That had once made Georgia howl has lost its edge.
Garrulous ancients now talked of the War of the Rebellion
With affection, as if, on the brink of entering Valhalla
They've reshaped what had been a youthful commitment
To serve their country into a lifeline tied taut
To an outcrop of youth and camaraderie.
The testosterone-driven adrenalin of confrontation
That they'd felt in combat still surged in their memories;
Easing their inevitable rappel into the abyss of death.

The old vets harbor an affection for war.
It's the fat old Rebel General Joe Wheeler
Waddling up a Cuban hill with the U.S. Army now,
Wheezing "Come on boys, let's get them damn Yankees!"
It's the bitter, asthmatic old gringo, Ambrose Bierce
Heading south fifty years after he fought at Chickamauga
To seek his youth again by fighting with Pancho Villa.
It's Johnny Clem, the drummer boy of Shiloh.
Now seventy, begging President Wilson
To let him serve in the ranks, a decorated hero
Who longed to fight again, this time in World War One.

War is the rejuvenation of old soldiers.
Who cluster round the rumbling medicine wagon
To purchase Doctor Mar's Feelgood Tonic.
They pass the patent remedy concoction among each other,
Believing that they've rediscovered their youth by bellowing
Like young bulls, cavorting warlike and howling for blood.
The audience works itself into a frenzy to buy,
Waving the lives of their and their neighbors' children
Like dollar bills as they vie to purchase the patriotic lie.

Andrew Koons tried to sell us the lie as well.
He came back from the war alive, unmaimed;
And on the victorious side of a struggle
That had cost his Nation a half million men.
The serene pose of a sentinel at ease one sees
In the serenity of an cemetery, can't be found
In the smoke, cries and chaos of a battlefield.
Walk over to the statue.  Examine it closely,
Then give it a rap.  It will resound,
Depressingly hollow.
As empty as the rhetoric that urges men to war.

Jack the Ripper's Star

"Every man and every woman is a star."
                                      Aleister Crowley

As the Earth's population continues to swell
Toward the tipping point of its axis,
The showers of stars spraying out like diamonds
From the fingers of creation multiply as well;
The Universe is constantly expanding.

As new suns illuminate the heavens
Old shining orbs flicker out and die,
Becoming cold desolate chunks of stone
In lifeless solar systems.

The Star of Shug, the inventive cave-dweller
Who first fashioned wheels to lighten his load
No longer gives off any radiant light.

The Star of Swack, the brave nomad
Who shaped the first spear that successfully
Pierced the hide of a wooly mammoth
Has dimmed to darkness as well,
As have myriads of generations of suns
Of those who lived and died unremembered.

Red dwarves, red giants, even supernovas
Such as the beacon of Bethlehem that led
The Magi to the manger behind the inn.
They had their moments, then expired,
Just as Jack the Ripper's star will as well.

A hate-filled unrepentant psychopath to the end,
Saucy Jack, the sex-crazed stalker, fervently hopes
That when his star finally does give out,
It explodes with a resounding  "BANG!"

He's hoping it bursts like a swollen seed pod
Hurtling forth lethal asteroids of extinction.
He envisions one cutting its way through the void
Like a finally-honed surgical knife
Until it slices into some smug little world,
Severing the carotid artery of its existence
As if it were some old whore's neck, nothing more.

Sixteen Blinks from the fall of the Blade

It was as though those who held the scales of justice
Felt that they had to whet the blade of the guillotine
By bathing it in blood.  Snarling like rabid dogs,
Teeth bared, foaming at the mouth with class hatred,
They wished to destroy anyone who had risen above them.

Membership in The Academy of Science was suspect,
A liability in a society where ignorance held sway.
Antoine Lavoisier, the Father of Chemistry,
Was arrested, brought to trial, and convicted
By the bloodthirsty brigands who were "The Republic" now,
Vindictively flexing its power over those who before
Had oppressed, vexed or simply had intimidated them
By reputation and ability, by sentencing them to death.

Lavoisier, a nobleman, had pleaded not for mercy,
But for time to complete an important research project
That he insisted would benefit and bring honor to France.

"The Republic has no need of scientists, Citizen,"

Was the curt rebuff uttered by the judge, who instead,
Had him hurled into prison to contemplate his end.

Eyes wide open in horrified terror,
Mouths gaping, blade-stifled in mid-scream,
A severed head held aloft by its gory locks
While a bloodthirsty mob cheered and applauded.
Apparitions of execution, terrifying wraiths
That his imagination had conjured forth to dwell
In his mind's charnel house of death and cold stone.

A visit in prison from a trusted friend pulled him
From that maelstrom of morbid contemplation
Threatening to pull him down to drown in madness.

"What could Science learn from your final moments?"

His friend asked him.  They discussed Charlotte Corday,
The brave young woman who had stabbed Marat,
A crime that left the same mob howling for her head
That now demanded his.  Supposedly, after the blade fell,
The executioner held up her head and then slapped her face
To demonstrate his personal abhorrence of her crime.
Witnesses said that her face flushed red with anger,
Not blood, and that it wore an indignant expression.

Accepting his lot with stoic resignation, he resolved
To determine how long a brain could still function
After the body, its source of blood and oxygen,
Had been severed from it.  He vowed to his friend
That if he could do so, by sheer force of will
He would force himself to blink continuously
As long as his brain could command that function.

When the scientist's turn came to face the blade,
The mob's favored form of barbaric justice,
Lavoisier's colleague later swore that he counted

Sixteen blinks.

What force of will, what concentration
Must it have taken to surmount such pain.

 Sixteen blinks.

One

Pain

Three

Fear

Five

Rage

Seven

Self-Pity

Nine

Despair

Eleven

Regret

Thirteen

Light

Fifteen

Release

A Prairie Storm

The wind has picked up, and the weather is tense
With the anticipation of coming rain.
Dark clouds billow, bulging and flexing their biceps,
Muscles of the storm, rippling with power, taut
With energy that's roiling to be unleashed.

Lacking inspiration in the flat landscape, the artists
Of the plains paint portraits of the people;
Their faces weathered as ancient mounds, furrowed
Like plow-torn fields, their eyes squinting at a sky
That can bring moist salvation to their crop,
Or the hail that can mean its destruction.

With flash and thunder the dark grey biceps
Pummel the window, their wet fury unleashed.
The man moves to pull aside the curtain, his face taut,
When he's moved to speak, his voice is no longer tense.
"We're lucky, Anna," he whispers.  "It just looks like rain."

Another Cynic

You've heard the tale
Of Diogenes, the Cynic,
Who walked the streets of Athens
In daylight, clad in a dirty toga,
Carrying a lamp.

When he was asked
"Why?"

He responded
"I'm just looking for an honest man."

Meet Rich Hanson, the Cynic.
He's just looking for "hope."

Weathering

The scent of antiseptic sterility,
The hard steel exam table, morgue cold
To the touch, left me feeling none too bold.
It tends to shrivel one's vitality,
This search for rogue cells that can kill a man.
The refrain, "my body, it's been a good friend,
But I won't need it, when I reach the end,"
From Cat Steven's Tea for the Tillerman
Drifts through my mind; the scan is reality,
A jolt, a reminder of one's mortality.

Like a stray dog the years dog our footsteps,
Impervious to our kicks and curses.
Youth cocksure becomes age that rehearses
Humble prayers and turns to sacred texts
To prepare for an audience with death.
The inexorable onslaught of time
Testifies as mortality's witness
As endurance ebbs to shortness of breath.
As if being wracked for some crime unknown
Strong limbs with arthritic stiffness groan

Volcanic passion thrust forth an island
Of sea-defying smugness, basalt proud.
Time-weathered now, a reef on which gulls crowd.
Presaging a water-shrouded shoal of sand.
If we could just choose to halt time's ravage
Of our island at some youthful time of desire,
Our proud landmark outcrop that waves savage
Could rebuff them to harmless spray and aspire
to an eternity.  But perish we must.
Time's relentless waves beat us into dust
Just as islands to sand, and iron to rust.

The Mother Jones Trilogy

(Three "Spoon River" Poems)

Alexi Rakowski

I was handed a sign to hold that demanded
An increase in our pay and an eight hour day.
When the strike-breakers came the cops accompanied them.
They bulled their way through us, their brass-knuckled hands
Brandishing clubs or socks filled with lead weights.
A blind rage took hold of me and I swung my sign
At the head of one of the helmeted hooligans in blue.
In Russia the Czar used his police as agents of repression.
In Lady Liberty's land the rich have bought them as well.
How can you respect authority that can be purchased
By selfish men to do their evil bidding?
How can you respect laws that are written to protect scabs,
Yet can also be used to punish union workers?
I took a club to the head and came to in jail.
I heard an angry woman cursing out one of the guards
In language that a stevedore would have blushed to have heard.
Her voice softened though, as she knelt beside me
With her pail of water and rags and began to clean my wound.
"You're an angel," I whispered gratefully.  "A humanitarian."
"I'm not a humanitarian," she corrected me sharply.  "I'm a hell-raiser.
"Hang in there, son.  Get well and return  to the fight."
Her care and encouragement forever wedded me to the union cause.
I later found out that this ministering angel was "Mother" Jones,
Whom mineowners called "The most dangerous woman in America."

Scottie Walker

My co-workers never had much use for me, contemptuously
Referring to me as an "ass-kisser,"  or "company man."
I always knew though that I was better than the "tunnel rats"
That I had to work with.  I was forced to leave the mines though,
When some of the men discovered that I'd been turning in names
Of union organizers and those miners sympathetic to joining one,
To management.  I feared that if I stayed after my role leaked out,
That they'd find my body someday in some branch tunnel,
My head caved in and a bloody chunk of anthracite beside me.
There were men now who hated me and wanted to see me dead.
The company brass took care of me though, getting me a new job
As a Pinkerton dick.  How I loved my new uniform!  Two rows
Of shiny brass buttons, a badge, a gun and a billyclub.
As for the men who had little use for me as a co-worker,
You think I didn't lay it on them when I got the chance to?
Let me tell you this, you ambitious young men:
You'll rise faster if you ally yourself with capital.
You do its bidding and you'll reap rich rewards.
You join a union and all you'll get is a club to the head.
I rose to become Chief of the State Detective Bureau.
I had a grand mansion on the hill with the other rich folk,
And the boys at the club addressed me as "Mr." Walker.

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

I could have given up when I lost my husband and children
To a yellow fever epidemic, then my dress shop to the Chicago fire.
Instead, I remained to help work to rebuild the city.
Soon the laborers that I worked alongside became my family,
And like any doting parent, I wanted better lives for them.
Better lives that could only be attained by union solidarity,
By organizing to work together to seize what the business interests
Would never deign to open their wallets to give them.
Management didn't know how to deal with a resolute woman.
They couldn't beat me into submission as they did the men.
I fought for labor's children too, as if they were my own.
Challenging the legislators, like those in Georgia,
Who had just passed a bill to protect the songbirds,
Yet offered no such protection to the mill-shackled children
Who worked brutal hours until all song was drained from them.
I was an advocate for the miners.  When the owners would close
Mountain roads to me, I would ascend to their holdings
Via deer trails or by wading up mountain streams.
I became the "Mother" who urged her boys to read and to stand firm.
Nothing daunted me.  I even took the cause to Rockefeller himself.
My "thank you" was the fifty thousand miners that gathered
At Mount Olive, Illinois, to consecrate the imposing monument
That they'd raised money to erect at my gravesite.  A touching tribute,
But I wish they'd spent that money on their children instead.

Black Hawk's Bones

(Words in italics are those recorded as having been uttered
 by Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kai-Kiak, known to white settlers
 as Chief Black Hawk)

He had lived too long.  He'd watched a never-ceasing wave
Of settlers move in, unearthing the graves of his ancestors
With their plows, putting up fences, debasing with their liquor,
Demeaning with their laws or damning with their religion.
Theirs were not his tribal ways, theirs was not his God.
The Earth is our mother - we are now on it
With the Great Spirit above it.  It is good."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

"Rock River was a beautiful country.  I fought for it.
It is now yours - keep it as we did - it will produce good crops."
The elderly Sauk statesman, whose bones now ached as though
He'd waken from a sleep upon frozen, unforgiving ground
Gazed out at the white, mostly unfamiliar, some hostile, faces
Who had come to hear him, not out of respect, but curiosity.
"I was once a great warrior.  I am now poor."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

"I have looked upon the Mississippi since
I have been a child.  I love the Great River.  I have dwelt
Upon its banks from the time I was an infant."  Not entirely true.
He and his people had been driven west, until a yearning for home
Moved him to lead his tribe in an effort to reclaim their heritage.
"White men came year after year to cheat them and take away their lands.
I have done nothing for which an Indian ought to feel ashamed."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Their doomed quest was met with military might, a pursuit
That chased his people down at the Bad Axe River, where cornered,
They were picked off by sharpshooters who showed no more mercy
Toward squaws and children than they did toward braves -
Firing at them as though they were rats rather than human beings.
"A few winters ago I was fighting against you.  I did wrong, perhaps,
But that is past - it is buried - let it be forgotten."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

The ultimate dishonor came soon after his death.
The old Chief's bones were dug up, stolen, cleaned and varnished
By a shyster intent on displaying the skeleton for profit.
Black Hawk's son appealed to the white man's justice
That had failed his people so often in the past.
Asking that the bones be retrieved and the thief punished.
They were recovered and identified by Black Hawk's widow.
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Bones however engender no respect, unless considered
Saintly relics.  Black Hawk's were not viewed as such. 
The box of bones eventually was lost track of, rumored
To have been incinerated in a Burlington office fire,
Or more likely, buried without ceremony in a potter's field
That section of a cemetery reserved for the indigent,
Those too poor to pay for a marker of remembrance.
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Such an ignoble end to such a noble life,
To have such a forgiving spirit callously discarded,
His remains lost to history, giving us no Canterbury
To make a pilgrimage to; no gravesite to visit,
No bones to become the objects of our veneration.
"He is satisfied.  He will go to the world of spirits contented.
He has done his duty.  His father will meet him there, and commend him."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."