Different Year Same Baggage

This winter, the New Year has become a trollop of time.
An indecent excuse for the changing of the year.
It violates our thoughts with despair and declension,
This calamity of illness, a contentious infection.
The brave face, a stout heart, none can turn it away,
It is earned, bought with the coin of ignorance.
Its festered soul nurtured by social pestilence.
The nations great shamans are lacking a cure,
Burying their heads in tribal hoodoo voodoo.
All opportunity to soar above dyscrasia, squandered,
Wasted on petty dogma and personal convictions.
The world waits, groaning at humankind’s confusion,
City on the Hill eagles have fallen from the skies,
There is no one left to teach them how to fly.
A year just begun, its inheritance, last year’s baggage.

2023, Donald C Harbour

Ode for Politicians

There was a time when I believe in you,
believed you were great, I overlooked
the tarnish on your soul, the blemishes
that you had acquired with your position.
Then you stumbled, you sprawled
in the ditch of politics, the sewer
of corruption, a belligerent narrow
minded corridor of greed, of deception.
I am ashamed for you, feel pity for
those you hurt, those that you deem lesser,
those that seek justice, only to find
grievance cast upon the rocks of self interest,
bigotry, religious indifference, hate.
You call yourself a person of the people,
yet you only people your hollow person,
an illusion of ego, a festering pox,
diseased by conceit, hiding an intolerant
pornographic personality of megalomania.
Do the world a favor: leave, adios, so long,
sayonara, take a hike, abscond with your bag
of lobbyist promises, and kiss our
collective up turned posterior goodbye.

©2016, Donald Harbour

Consequences

The years continue to fly by,
casual acquaintances, fleet of foot,
a dimple in time, of no consequence.

We are positioned to  respect authority,
to believe in the system, hide behind
its pseudo shield of  protection.

For order, for the nation’s good.
thus the mind is plowed, sowed
with the seeds of social control.

Beggar of the greedy, manipulators,
fear forged in lies and corruption,
we grow older more complacent.

Place one foot in front of the other,
toe the mark, walk the path, stay
in line, don’t complain, be a patriot.

Watch the shadows created for you,
there is a man behind the curtain,
he runs the show, you have a ticket.

The theater never closes, the show
continues, you are a seated actor,
participant in your own demise.

Wrapped in a shroud of cultural cloth,
buried in a coffin of political dogma,
one cannot escape the future.

What will be is ordained, contemptuous,
manacled, shackled by religion,
society’s boundaries, doomed.

Our beliefs, poisoned by labels
marking others different from us,
shallow humanity lacking compassion.

When you are poured back
into the cusp of creation, what
part of you will you leave.

What will honor your life, how will
consequence have made a difference,
will the hell you left, follow you.

©2015, Donald Harbour

Enchantress

in the verdant deep woods,
the tome of time waits
an ancient silent sentinel,
expressing life in each leaf
in every dewdrop falling
from breeze blown boughs,
the scent of time is bound
to woodland earth creatures,
to the forest fertile loam
giving reason for mighty oaks,
dogwood, sassafras, spindly pines,
here there is quietude in life,
a circle of creation, dying,
birthing, returning, the rhythm
of the eternal seasonal clock,
as it has always been and will be,
Mother Nature does not care,
she is creation’s mistress,
her oil, gas and her coal,
are mankind’s succubus.

©2014, Donald Harbour

A political barnyard

The barnyard political pastures
are being rutted by feral swine.
Their heads foul with their own droppings,
snouts coated with mendacious swill.
They are gluttonous hogs eating garbage
tossed by Praetorian money changers.
Bloated guts rumbling with putrid dogma
baked in billionaire board rooms.
The mindless population of poultry pecking,
squawking, strutting, satisfied by jowl crumbs,
Chickens accepting what ever is left
clueless about their ultimate plucked outcome.
Together they breathe contaminated air
ignorant of the poison they inhale.
There are squabbles over pigweed,
pearlwort, purslane, petty feedlot growth.
Attention to the triviality of life, ignoring
their ultimate fate, a slaughterhouse.
When they are gone they leave only
the waste of their pitiless passing.
Another layer of manure awaiting
the next generation’s contribution.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Cows are plotting to end the world

When the world ended the atmosphere blazed,
From horizon to horizon in a blue methane haze.

Homo sapiens died, their extinction complete,
No longer lesser creatures with forks would they eat.

The conspiracy planned since the dawn of time,
When the first rumen, humans killed to dine.

People had ignored the United Nations report
Instead laughing and saying: “It’s a crude joke of sort!”

There in words, as plain as day, it could be read,
“Cattle eliminations caused global warming,” it said.

But the truth was hidden by burps, belches and farts,
As the world’s cattle diligently performed their parts.

Each had a job to eat as much food as they could,
Ruminating gas production by thoroughly chewing their cud.

All this, while humans fought over oil prices, religion, tax,
Miley Cyrus CD’s, political parties, plastic boobies and sex.

Cows lay in fields placid, non threatening and benign,
Methodically eating, chewing, flatulating, biding their time.

The earth grew warmer as their efforts rose in the air,
While scientist begged humans to eat less meat, in despair.

Cow pies covered the fields as the green grass grew abundant,
Environmentalists argued over positions inane and redundant.

Then an upheaval so massive it’s hard to understand,
Cows the world over organized to make the last gaseous stand.

With an earth shuddering roar cows let loose a trombone blast,
Humans held their noses, grimacing, gagged with a gasp.

The skies were finally saturated to the fullest extent,
There was no other contribution, not a single cow could vent.

All bovines moved as if a perceived signal had been given,
To rivers and lakes and hidden valleys they were driven.

One volunteer cow stood on a Rocky Mountain height,
Its suicide mission, the methane atmosphere to light.

It struck a match, a beacon that flared a bright red,
And thrust it into the green layer just above its horned head.

The rest is history, there is nothing more one can say,
Only cows populate the earth no humans lived past that day.

Note: Several years past a Wall Street Journal article proposed “Cow Tax” in an effort to underscores the Greenhouse-Gas Divide. I thought; “Could there really be a grain of truth here?” The poem is a response to ‘what if’!
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©2014, Donald Harbour

Dali got it right

Last night I happily dreamed,
Our world’s ship turned upside down,
Giant oaks hung suspended in the air,
While birds flew on the ground.

Air was not polluted for breath,
All water pure for drinking too,
The earth’s creatures took photographs,
Of caged humans in their public zoo.

It was a world of imaginations,
Where peace reigned supreme,
Where guns were licorice sticks,
And oil was frothy whipped cream.

Blue skies were always overhead,
Rivers and lakes placidly flowed,
Fish were scaled in sparkling diamonds,
Multicolored butterflies paved each road.

Cows were made for milk and mooing,
Chickens cheerfully clucked a chicken song,
Lions laid beside fluffy white lambs,
No one ever heard the words: “This is wrong!”

There were no gods or seraph,
No torture or misguided religious grief,
No war mongers, government or politicians,
Pontificating their bellicose belief.

Pink peddle-pushers road horseback,
Through fields of limeade green,
Not found were homeless without homes,
Unbranded tennis shoes were only seen.

Dali was captain of this wondrous ship,
Sailing over the sea of cosmic space,
The passengers of his whimsical bark,
Different hues of the same human race.

Dawn pulled me from the dream,
It whispered a new beginning had begun,
Startled I realized in a jolt of epiphany,
All of us, could make this year, the one.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Humanities legacy

For a moment I felt panic,
reaching in mankind’s pocket I found,
not a spiritual coin there,
not a cent to our name,
thus it occurred to me,
how will humankind be valued ,
what decides its weight in gold,
a child collecting for the hungry,
a minister begging for his church
a greedy banker holding forth for more,
a politician sending youth to die in war,
corporations queuing up for contracts of death,
what stain decides our existence value,
how does life weigh the human soul
is the evil of mankind more weighted,
than the purity of love and kindness,
has humanity so lost its way, that
it has become a pox upon life.
and what will give worth to it,
what will weigh its soul against destiny,
will nature turn her back on us,
lack forgiveness for our transgressions,
humanities castigation of lesser creatures,
defiling creation the essence of the eternal,
how can we find the worth of humanities name,
how will we be defined by the Celestial,
will our name become parasite, pariah,
carnivore of the cosmos, succubus,
vandal of the weak, the less fortunate, poor,
I fear our name is Dante’s king,
I fear we have grown cloven hooves,
the defilers of all that is good,
perverting spiritual beliefs,
and yet, there is a dime left,
it shimmers in the pool of tomorrow,
waiting to be grasped and spent,
a dime for our salvation, redemption,
will we spend it wisely, give it worth,
will it decide how mankind will be remembered,
finding value on the scales of the universe,
or will we be come curious fossils,
studied by our world’s next experiment.

©2014, Donald Harbour

 

Shi Tao

Shi Tao, a Chinese poet and journalist, was arrested for an email he sent to pro-democracy websites in 2004. He was finally released from prison September 2013. It should be noted that his conviction was predicated by an email taken from his private account by Yahoo and given to the Chinese government. He served 8 years of a 13 year sentence. Congratulations Shi Tao, you made it. The following is a protest poem about the injustice suffered by Shi Tao, which I wrote 7 August 2008. It speaks for every person that promotes freedom and human dignity for all the repressed peoples of our world. You can read more about his arrest and the poem “June”, by Shi Tao, here.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Shi Tao your thoughts are as water,
They will always find a way out.
Your suppression is a cotton gag,
Soon to rot and disintegrate.
Despot leaders and jailers all die,
Their passing the cleansing of stain.
Their trial against your humanity,
Rust on the steel of human rights.
History’s repressive governments,
All of them are footnotes in time.
The poets, the writers, the teachers,
Their words the soil of expression,
They pay the price for our freedom.
Your penned words etched on paper,
A killing field of social injustice.
The world’s authoritarians fear this,
Their minions the truth eradicators.
Shi Tao, unlike you they are fools,
They never learn the pen’s strength,
The weight of your written words.
They cannot dismiss freedom’s voice,
For your brothers and sisters speak.
Your indignity poison to the corrupt,
The gall that spills over black deeds.
Nothing exists forever except,
The verdant fields of knowledge.
The poetry of your life, Shi Tao.

Copyright: 2008 Donald Harbour

Where there were green fields

Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg

On a ridge, astride my horse,
A scene of hell spreads before me,
An acrid pall hangs over a valley,
Wild flowers no longer grow here,
Their splash of colors erased,
Where green grass grew, mottled grey,
What the eyes see, the ears refuse,
Sounds that no human should hear,
The metallic rain and thunder that fell,
Replaced with the rasp of suffering,
A constant wasp stinging the mind,
Burrowing into the body’s soul and sinew,
What madness possesses men to so struggle,
What insanity this sacrilege to earth,
Religion, ideology, imagined boundaries,
If there be gods what must they think,
What punishment greater awaits us all,
And yet we pursue, we choose sides,
Never really understanding why,
Reason clouded by ones heated passion,
Later in reflection, supping a bitter cup of regret,
I turn away riding into the fog of time,
The lesson is never learned, never realized,
It is a continuously spinning many-sided dreidel,
We are all doomed by its predictable choices,
Our only salvation is tomorrow, let it not be another today.

©2013, Donald Harbour