An Eagle Flies

An Eagle Flies a Distant Sky
Crystal eyes, aetheric nerves

From distant skies look down.

Robot claws release their grip.

Fires of hell begin their fall.

Beneath, an edenic plain.

Two children, sisters play

With a doll blue eyed and blonde


Passing between small dark hands.

 

Bright smiles, laughter break under


Dark eyes. Joy and leaping

Steps as a new game begins.

The doll's pulled two ways at once,

Breaks and its wound bring silence,

Small recriminations.

But huddl’d beneath the sun

They splint and bandage its arm.

 

Becoming nurse and doctor

Another game is born.

The shade of the courtyard wall

is now a hospital ward.  

Faster yet hell’s fire bores down

From wings they never see.

Bursting through the courtyard wall

A pyre engulfs brick and stone.

 

Smoke and dust carry the flame

That melts the broken doll
,

lighting the sisters afire,

Burning flesh to char the bones.

Dead splattered meat draws the flies.

Games, dreams, and hopes are gone

Still above the eagle soars,

Crystal eyes never weeping.

 

Aether hides the assassins.

It’s us they claim to serve.

But where lies the loyalty

To life, to joy and laughter?
Where lays the true loyalty?
Is it to human life?
Have we forgotten what once
we lov'd and held so dearly?

Life, liberty and freedom
are not divisible.
True liberty and freedom
can not be bought with murder.

 

For all the victims of assassination, the killed, the wounded and their families, friends and neighbours:

 

This nation once opposed assassination on principle. It is our to our enduring shame that fear and indifference permits those we elect to continue in this morally reprehensible calculus of murder. 

Executive Order 11905 signed in 1976, by Gerald R. Ford formally banned political assassination while "improving" oversight on American Intelligence agencies, stating No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.
This order was strengthened by Jimmy Carter's Executive Order 12036 in 1978 which states No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
Executive order 12333 signed by Ronald Reagan reverted to a language closer to Ford's order; No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.

Today, assassinations have become a routine instrument of national policy. So long as the proposed target is named as a terrorist, the American president can, on his signature alone, authorise a drone strike anywhere in the world except American territory. The level of acceptable "collateral  damage," other people killed or injured in the strike is likewise set according to standards set by the president alone.

Recently border security forces have been authorised to use drones. Though it is claimed they are unarmed, they are reputedly of the same type used to carry weapons overseas.

Total civilians killed are estimated at between between 380 to 801.  The moral damage done to our nation and to democracy has been incalculably high. 57 drone strikes are known to have occurred under the authority of George W. Bush in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen alone.

During Obama’s two terms, 563 known drone strikes are know to have occurred in the same countries.
In Afghanistan during the Obama administration, more than a thousand strikes took place in 2016 alone. Those documented above do not include the far larger number of declared military drone strikes in that benighted nation, nor in Iraq, or Syria, the Sudan or Libya.
Constitutionally, the only way to effectively end this world wide campaign of terror is for the American Congress to ban political assassination in its entirety, and to provide for effective oversight armed drones, banning their use either entirely or at the minimum in declared wars. Armed drones, if they must exist, should be operated only by the military, not by so-called intelligence agencies, which have time and again proven unreliable when granted unsupervised power.
Here's the source for drone use data.

 

Line 411ƒ

For Francis Bacon  &  George Dyer 


How turns the key
That turns but once,
That's heard but once?
Does it lock or free?

What sensible nonsense! 

What freedom whilst memory persists?

Whilst indictments stand?

When remembrance convicts?

The key heard by the living

justly locks, and can only lock
Till the cells of memory give up,
Discharging these small potentials.

There is no otherwise, no other way.
The key once turned is the door locked,
Always locked, till the death of memory
enacts the voiding absolution on the lost. 

  

Francis Bacon's studio reconstituted at the City Gallery - The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland.
Photo by Antoine Moreau - Copyleft

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

And

And

A sound slips the tongue
Forward closing the open palate
To a stuttered stop that opens again.

And

Dividing while appearing to join

Life and death

Wisdom and madness

History and fable

Past and present

Yesterday and tomorrow

Simple and complex

Empty and full.

And
Conjunction yet division
Innocence and guilt
The emptiness of plenty
Famine and surfeit
Hunger and satisfaction
Faith and silence
Cries and shouts.

And
Chants echo forgotten meaning
Plain words and lost intentions
Inculcation and form
Open and formless.

Yes and No.

Castor and Pollux

The battered yellow cab left me
near the corner of Castor and Pollux.
I threw down my jacket and cap.
I stretched just a moment or two
and then joined the dance.


We danced from corner to corner
softly, softly chanting the ancient words
"besot the day, besot our night."
Sway to ancient words of Hellas.
I leave me behind.


Our chant and our dance lead us out,
free from expectation, want, or desire.
Bestill the day, let live the night
and all days and forgotten nights
gone no place at all.


We leap in that place that is not
but still is the dance. On fire, yet moving
I sweat, I’m hard, yet more I climb.
Senses bears us, "Stay in the dance.
Tread a measure more."



Then dance o'er shadows all until
weary, breathless, chanting the ancient words,
we breath the bonds. Whispers, shouts
now carry us up as we sing
this relic in my ear.




DHH

Waltz

rhythm
between morphine

and mortuary

Field

 

Stepping foot
on a field that has gone to grass
untilled, unseeded
given back to its past

 

For two centuries or more

men made the field

with oxen, horses and tractors

first pulling stumps and lifting rocks

then turning it’s soil every fall

but they’ve stopped.

 

The family that ruled this land 

has no sons or daughters

to guide the plow

to till and furrow

not even to gather the last planting 

clover, meant to heal the soil

and feed the milk cows now sold off

It will be only a year or two
till the field can no longer be a field
till wild grass lays down roots too dense
and the seeds of quaking aspen
take hold and throw up saplings
too thick for the tiller's blades

If the farmer cared
he could fix the fences
and let cattle pasture there
it's not yet too late
for grazing to cut back the grass
and a hatchet or ax
to take the saplings down

But, the farmer does not care

he’s left the land

for a easier warmer life

than found in this place 

of winter wheat and corn 

knee high by the 4th of July

 

there will be no fence
no ax, no rumbling tractor
he will give no care
to this place that once was a field
and now somehow differs

Now others care
they walk this field on padded feet
they find sustenance not
in planted seed
but in the raw unplanted

shoots of spring 

and the dangling berries
of summer and fall
 

Soon the field will
no longer be
but their's
and not a field at all.

© 2019 David Hermanson. All rights reserved. You may not copy, quote or convey this material for any purpose without the explicit permission of the author.

Darkness

in darkness sounds and movements

The Hidden Meaning of Birds

truth is a residue
of unfettered habit

Victory - Iran

.

.

In darkness
sounds
and movement
tracery of fear

sniper's bullet
sings
a sound heard
near

soldier
armor heavy
fears

in daylight
shining shards
broken glass

smooth stones
let fly

jeering children
scratch a line
in the sand

.

.

Victory - Kuwait

 .

.

.

shuffling feet

bare and naked

gray wind

blown sand

cracked skin

.

.

Red Shoes

.

.

rhythm
between morphine
and mortuary
3/4  beat
not a two-step
just  waltz

Dance
fast
widening steps
breath
faint  blue

feet
aswirl
not red shoes
the same

Morphine played
too short
blue into red
short steps
razors
razors
always
the same

.

.

Niagara of memory viii. Canada Never

.

.

i.
when I was a child
Nike missiles pointed at the sky
when ever we were afraid

When Khrushchev
hammered his shoe
the missiles lifted

When Cuba
began to build
Russian missiles
our missiles lifted

When a submarine
came too close
our missiles lifted

When an airplane
strayed afar
our missiles lifted

When the Russian Navy
put to sea
our missiles lifted

When the Soviet
Army marched
our missiles lifted.

When in Washington
our men
were frightened
our missiles lifted

Did the missiles
save us?
As a child
I did not know

In my naïve
way I did know
that we did
duck and cover
when
our missiles lifted

ii.
Nearby the  missiles were great balls of ice cream, each one perhaps 10 or 20 yards across. We were told that these great domes protected the sky. Now of course I understand that these great white balls sheltered sweeping radar antennae.

We were told that the Nike missiles would rush into the sky to take down any Russians before they could reach us with their atom bombs  (That's what we called them then -- atomic bombs).  What they did not tell us was that these missiles would shoot up from Niagara Falls where we lived over to Canada where they would explode with their own  nuclear fury, bringing down not one, but a wave of Russian bombers.

I wonder what the Canadians thought of this idea-  that American atomic bombs would detonate over their lands and people.  Perhaps they did not know that the America's nuclear shield rested on their heads.

iii.
I think  clean
Canada
a lake
only
the faintest
tobacco
stain

swimming
in plain
sight
of  the bottom
and sky

hard rock
Islands
between the grass
and poor scrub
pine

sky
blue to black
and the thousand thousand
stars
fireflies
no difference

iv.
In 1961 when the Power Project was completed, Niagara Falls  became the largest hydropower producer in the Western world. Waters diverted from the Niagara River fed great generators that supplied electricity to homes and industry as far as New York City, 250 miles to the south. Survivability was the buzzword of American defense plans in the 1950s and 60s. War hawks like Gen. Curtis LeMay believed that a small nuclear conflict could be survived, leading to an American victory. More than 310 Nike missile sites dotted the United States, protecting vital resources and populations. Each site held three or four underground bunkers feeding missile after missile to launching rails above.  It is not known how many of these sites were nuclear capable. Given the otherwise miserable ineffectiveness of the Nike system, it seems likely that most of the missiles were nuclear tipped.
Canada's largest city, Toronto,  is due north of Niagara Falls, at just the optimum range for a Nike missile

v.
bright
I think scoured
Canada
a lake
steaming
black
and gray

rock
and ash
here and there
white with heat
Ash

Toronto
still
no cries
just ash
Ash
still

.

.

Words

.

.

.

Words dissolve
like candy in the mouth
particles of sweetness
that spread decay.

.

.

.

L O U D

.

.

Hyperbole is the common mode
such that quiet seems to shout

ANY WHITE              SPACE 

SEEMS TO SAY IN WORDS 

      LOUDER THAN NOT

.

.

 m...e...a...n...i...n...g.........a...t.........p...l...a...y

...
...

.

Hurt

...

...

She hurt me tonight.

It was the first time
in all the years of her care.



In all the years
of shared sorrow
she had never hurt me.






She was careless tonight,
that too was new.



She was angry and tired
and she didn’t care.




But she was shocked
jerking back when I flinched.



I think she hurt
more than me.

...

...

...

... 

...  

Niagara of Memory ix. Blades

When I was a young child it became my habit to follow my grandfather's every step. One day, when his tractor was broken we drove down the road toward the river.

The upper Niagara
smooth
deceptive
green
wideness
shines
then shimmers
at noon

My grandfather's friend was a welder, and had fashioned a part for our ancient John Deere. We stood in the bright sun of noon in the man's dusty barnyard. There was a boat up on blocks. It was full of shine and polish. I walked around the boat, dragging my finger across to surface in that mannered way that only small boys could accomplish. As I came close to the stern of the boat and it's two polished propellers, the man and my grandfather rushed to me. The man pointed his finger at me, scolding me for the marks that I left on his beautiful boat. But, all the more so for coming near his propellers. My grandfather said to me: "These are so sharp that you'd as soon lose a finger as touch them."

The upper Niagara
cold
broken ice
running snow
twisting cold
blue
sightless gray
sundark
at noon

Driving with my grandfather again. Again his tractor had broken down, but now it was the unrelenting gray of winter. He was a good neighbor, my grandfather. His tractor plowed a dozen driveways after a winter snow. His generator gave light and heat to five or six houses when the power went out in a storm. He was a good neighbor. The road was ice and slush as we drove.  I stayed in the car as my grandfather met the welder. He returned a the few minutes, struggling to carry a heavy load in the snow and ice. I used my breath to clear a patch on the window, so that I could see my grandfather. Behind him, just out of the gray shadows, I could see the boat. Even in the winter it stood there dangerous.

The upper Niagara
thick green
green  windowglass
infinite depth
under the shelter
of a willow tree
darning needles
and damsels
shimmering in
silver flakes
of heat

It was late in the spring of my sixth year when we drove down to the river again. No tractor problems then. We went all the way to the river, to see my grandfather's friend race his dangerous boat. All the boats ran full throttle, on but never in the water. They did not roar so much as scream a high-pitched complaint. Behind each boat a great tail of water rose into the sky. The river bank was lined with people, some jostling a little here and there the better to see. My whole family was right at the river's edge, sitting in lawn chairs waiting for our friend to race.  I remember being worried that some boat might not stop, or understand that the Falls were there, just a mile or two down the river. My grandfather's friend made it round the circuit twice, but then his boat touched the water, and then again deeper still as it atumbled across the green. Our friend was hurt, but not too badly. Those shiny dangerous propellers sank beneath the river.

Niagara of Memory xi., Drift

This bright memory.

A small child
dressed for the cold
stands beside a drift,
watching his father shovel.
 

The child uses mittened hands
to carve a space in the drift.
It becomes a cave of sorts.
 

The child lays himself down
into the cave, finding warmth
as he pulls the snow inward,
shutting out the wind and sky.
 

Light, coloured by snow 
passes through the walls of his cave,
a flood of sparks, green and blue.
 

The arms of the father
enfold as he is lifted
from the snow,
cold, near senseless.


The cold is white
that blankets the heart
and steals all colour away.
The cold.

Blue Cliff

The question raised: Why does the mute poet speak in our mouths?

David's answer: Arrayed in white, there is silence.

Commentary:

We speak of elder time

in influx rhyme

of other thans.

White dress, black dress and lime

so stillness spans.

Luddite

We are murders and suicides all,

patricides and matricides

and insecticides poured down the drain

We kill it or her or him

however we call the Earth

we murder and we rush

like no lemming ever has

down to the burning Sea,

alight with herbicides

and spilled oil

or the gray of oil burned

The Earth dies,

and still we dance,

thinking that $50

given to Greenpeace

will make a difference

What is it that we could do

to save her or it or him, the earth

can we turn off the machines

can we say to those that have not,

that we all must not have

what kills today, and all tomorrows

I have a son, a boy of 13

I cry at night when I think of what he shall face

as the Earth dies, and the seas rise,

and unknown winds scrape the land

he is such a beautiful boy,

and I fear for him

Can we turn off the machines

Will we see the beautiful contrail

not a mark of the primacy of men
but an arching sigil of poison

that must end

If what I fear is true,

then this flattened world

will grow new mountains

in the agonal stresses

of our fall

The tectonics of our failures

leaving death upon death

and again more,

more than we can think

more than we can fear

Mountains will divide us

as we scratch and scramble

for what remains

But the have-nots

will precede the haves

by only a year or a decade or two

From one height to another

voices will call

and perhaps in the strain

some sanities will emerge

too late

much too late

Television is want to show

that some killer meteor

will be our end

taking us off the hook

that we have ourselves nailed to a tree

leaving us to fear what we cannot see

but television is another machine

can we turn the machines off

can we stay our hands from murder

can we stop the rush

who will we call

as grave digger to a world that dies
is God in the Yellow Pages

listed under "divine"

will he or she attend to us

who are parricides

Can we turn off the machines?

Pain (Neuropathy) i.

I am that maddend dog

that chews its leg,

that last unknowing.

I am the breath that burns

a gasp of fire

a sound rises from me

from me

it trumpets

in hoarse staccato pain

The sun burns bare skin

until char takes the place of blister

and the bone feels the roast

then there is no bone

no thing at all

the trumpet sounds

but only a pitiless

unsounding

there is no gabriel

but only that other angel

that from his throne

condemns

no soul

no soul

but only soulless

pain

pain

and again pain

clouds cast a shadow

light burns more slowly

bone are recast

sinews knit

fat is reclaimed from the fire

morphia claims the reborn soul

to cross a river, but not fall

not fall but trespass against

that other angel and gabriel both

and sleep

sleep were neither gods nor angels

can confound or heal or burn

sleep

only sleep