The Easiest Thing in the World - 1. The Easiest Thing in the World, and other poems

.

 

 

---

 

 

Preamble

 

Just A….

 

“You’re just a…” this; “Just a…” that,

Have I too often in my life heard;

“Cuz, you’re just a Fucking F*g…

“Yeah, you’re just no better than that word.”

 

And they’ll say how stick and stones

Are best for a c*cks*ck*r who must

Be shown his place in this world…

Think Matthew Shepard on bob-wire trussed.

 

While the ‘gay panic’ defense,

For predators like his murderers,

Springs them scot-free out of jail;

The kills are licensed to perjurers.

 

Premeditating takes time,

So I’ll just have to accept the tag

Till the day they come for me,

Saying, “No one cares. You’re just…. A F*g.”

 

 

 

Poem No. 1

 

I have read how Melville’s

Seventy-two Civil War poems

Were composed within weeks,

With not a one of them started till

The war’d come to an end.

 

Then from his pen poured forth

An unbroken stream of consciousness,

Recalling the details

Of moods and events from start to close,

In poem on poem.

 

So, as the three-year mark

Inches forward for the Pulse murders,

It’s time I too let go

And remember what I saw and felt

In tragedy’s aftermath.

 

To free my consciousness,

To allow long-stymied processing,

Is now my only goal –

That and remembering the victims

And the piece of hate that killed them.

 

 

 

Poem No. 2

 

We’re told of the murderer’s

“Religious mercy”

How with his virgin handgun

He put them down,

A “kind” bullet through the brain

For those crawling –

Already cut to ribbons

In the opening

Spray from his assault rifle –

Crawling away,

Bleeding to death, yet alive,

Executed

By abomination – his

“Religious mercy.”

 

 

 

Poem No. 3[1]

 

I remember seeing them on TV, the two families

agreed to bury fiancés Juan Ramon Guerreo and Christopher “Drew" Leinonen side by side, the joint headstone to memorialize their love and optimism

for a future that will never be. So I would rather pretend I do not know

family selfishness split them up – one buried in Michigan; one in Florida –

but if need be, let this

 

 

Juan Guerrero

& Drew Leinonen

  

stand memorial to your love.

 

.

 

 

 

 

Poem No. 4

 

A Triolet…

 

So the reporter insisted,

robbing their dignity in death,

”gay” were not the names be-listed –

So the reporter insisted –

purporting lies much too twisted

and be-fouling them with his breath.

So the reporter insisted –

robbing their dignity in death.

 

 

 

Poem No. 5

 

Prelude:

 

Here within my head, like

strains of involuntary recall,

the horrors play back, like

his rifle’s relentless recoil.

 

 

Villanelle:

 

For, if not us, who’ll remember?

Despite all the things they might say,

It’s we who must nurse this ember

 

Tell who made June a December,

Dashing so many lives away –

For, if not us, who’ll remember?

 

They are prone to misremember

And politicized. Come what may,

It’s we who must nurse this ember

 

With the Club’s dead, we’re a member,

Each a survivor in our way –

For, if not us, who’ll remember?

 

Time will work to un-remember,

Smother feelings under its sway –

It’s we who must nurse this ember.

 

And never let them dismember

The truth of why they died that day,

For, if not us, who’ll remember?

It’s we who must nurse this ember.

 

 

 

Poem No. 6^[2]

 

Of Man nor God, I neither knew

Yet each held sway upon my heart

As if the other owned the part

Both lied about and said was true.

 

And so a dirge-like melody

Haunts over and over again

To be sad incessantly when

Mad laughter sounds like elegy.

 

Funny though, for it’s always here –

This schism split down to the bone,

Making me half-cherish my own

Backwards logic like something clear.

 

For neither Man nor God can know,

The human heart about to break

Does so not through chancing mistake,

But cocoon-like, so it may grow.

 

 

 

Poem No. 7

 

Deniers come in many shades –

Purple to say Jehovah’s Witnesses

Weren’t killed by the Nazi Machine

 

Rouge to insist how the Khmer

‘liberated’ the Cambodian folks

By putting their skulls on display

 

Red for the Republicans who

Stick their ostrich heads in the Fox ‘News’ sand

Of foreign-controlled media

 

Gold stars of effort go to those

Who say the gold stars of the Holocaust’s

Six-mill died from nat’ral causes

 

And for Pulse Deniers, what shade

Best troops their lie that Gay people weren’t killed

In blind hatred for who they loved?

 

There’s not one hue that fits them best,

So blithely march on, you Pulse Deniers,

Under your rainbow flag of hate.

 

 

 

Poem No. 8

 

Skyscraper:

 

Left alone

in shadow’s reverie

how soon the human brain picks apart

the pixels of the matrix we think of as soul,

but what comforts lie beyond the void

viewed through a lack of love

un-absolved?

 

There are none,

and you see what I mean

before I have a chance to say it,

for every human connection must still bind us

if we are to proceed as a race

unafraid of progress

kept level.

 

Quantum thought

must rule our every move

within this chess game of existence,

and more so, it must be unconsciously given

to those frightened of humanity,

causing pause in their heart

when they hate.

 

So, left then

by shadow’s reverie,

the mind of Man blows itself apart

each time it examines what makes up our own soul,

but so it must be in a matrix

sought as a void to fill

with our love.

 

 

Poem No. 9

 

Kyrielle:

 

Too often madness is homegrown,

And hearing the killer's father left no doubt

When he said the H-words needed to atone:

‘Kill 'em, and let God sort them out.'

 

He appeared on television

As victims on the floor were still bleedin'out,

Lauding the wisdom of his son's decision:

'Kill 'em, and let God sort them out.'

 

And what of the murderer's wife?

She accepted his evil plan as "devout,"

Knowing of his Grindr account and secret life:

'Kill 'em, and let God sort them out.'

 

So must we praise divine mercy

As but an ugly plant from hate's soil to sprout,

While before our living eyes we're forced to see:

'Kill 'em, and let God sort them out.'

 

 

 

Poem No. 10[3]

 

Tanka-Stanza:

 

One hundred and nine

sad trooping of the colors –

just one video

of support and compassion

tagged "fake news," One. Hundred. Times...

 

 

Poem No. 11

.

Jack Spicer, the poet of note,

Warned fellow poets not to rush into things.

He testified vision comes first,

And poems should start like the Myth of Leda,

Knowing our fate lies in God’s arms.

 

How am I to be hero to this work,

when all I view seems unbearable?

The posted videos are myriad,

and comments left soon after the event

filled with warmth, and sympathy, and anger,

are now buried beneath avalanches

of bot Holocaust Deniers moved on

to teach our children how the queers made up

a media-lie known as Orlando.

So where is my humanity as I

Pick up this pen and begin this poem?

Where’s my vision of how this stream of words

will settle in the mind of a reader;

will I be able to become hero

and see the end of this poem before

my streaming flow of ink and consciousness

write the very last word upon this page…?

I intended this to recall to mind

how the flood of the initial efforts

of reporters, commentators and Gops

lecturing survivors how this event –

how they themselves amid the blood-carnage –

weren’t targeted for whom they love, for whom

they watched their boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses

be executed with the F-word on

the lips of their witch-hunting assailant,

was an assault on “America,” not Gays…

how it had nothing to do with them, those

nasty F*gg*ts and their nasty quote-un-quote

“Sexuality,” that straight-made straitjacket

to limit, control, castrate, lobotomize,

retaliation-free for a century

until the Gay Minority forced them

to use our self-chosen moniker of Pride –

the Gay Word – how no, this mass-murdering

has to do with anything except that.

And how, in the initial force-feeding

of this coverup, the pale whitewashing,

noble men and women stood in Washington

to belie the lie as utter hogwash.

Republicans too, some of them that is,

suddenly grew a backbone and then claimed

the Gay Minority as theirs too

for the first time uttering the idea

that Gay Americans matters to them.

A far cry though from Democrats’ inclusion,

the party who first advocated for

non-discrimination; a Queer Bill of Rights;

in its televised National Convention

way back in 1976.

So, now my vision for this poem seems

like an idea struck upon a cold flint

a million years ago, for then I saw

a poem of me watching videos

of those brave Republicans in Congress

standing up for Truth, Justice – and for Us –

and listing here their names for posterity,

but the pathetic reality is,

I can’t watch them again; I am no hero,

not to this cause, this poem, or to me.

These words will end in the same condition

In which they started – hurt, confused, angry.

 

Knowing our fate lies in God’s arms,

And poems should start like the Myth of Leda,

He testified vision comes first,

Warned fellow poets not to rush into things,

Jack Spicer, the poet of note.

 

 

Poem No. 12

 

Elegy

 

June in Florida, and sweetness

Lingers on even urban airs,

Drawn from its hidden shadow-lairs

By the moonlight’s coy discreetness.

 

Such beauty has license to rove

Within or without every heart,

To shelter there or soon depart

Like a boat from a private cove.

 

But so too in Night, evilness

Sweats chaos from its stinking pores,

Drowning out the Good it abhors

In base, dog-eat-dog primalness.

 

Crickets cry and gunshots are heard –

Who was singled out this time ‘round?

Close ears if you can to the sound,

But your turn’s coming, take my word.

 

 

Poem No. 13

 

Chain Verse:

 

I remember survivors’ testimony –

The murderer paused in his tracks,

After putting down with cold acrimony

A young black man with a bullet through his head,

Lecturing the dying with his facts

That any other Blacks who were not dead,

Should stand up, and exit with his best regard,

Saying sorry for his attacks,

“Because in America, you’ve had it hard.”

 

Because in America, you’ve had it hard…

Forgive him for his Queer bigotry

And crawl out, if you can, with his kind regard.

So once more, the victims had shoved down their throats

The bile taste of religious ‘mercy’

With the killer’s words acid-etched in history

Leaving all of us who have been left behind

To fathom hate’s idolatry

Like a burning bullet through a loving mind.

 

Like a burning bullet through a loving mind

There’s no way to restrain such spite

Exiting all of us who’ve been left behind,

Acknowledging how nothing’s really changed yet

And their hate is well within sight

Waiting for the next attack without much fret,

For they say that’s the fate of this ‘life’ we lead,

And there’s no point really to fight

Before that moment we’re left there, forced to bleed.

 

Before that moment we’re left there, forced to bleed,

Cut by religious mercy’s glass shard,

Severing life they’ve deemed unworthy to lead,

“Because in America, you’ve had it hard.”

 

 

 

Poem No. 14

 

Gravity I

 

My thoughts merely appear

To circle ‘round a drain….

An endless repetition,

One thought gravity-pulled down

But never pulled through the plug.

My thoughts appear merely aimless….

 

 

Poem No. 15

 

Haibun/Lanturne:

 

Most of them were so young, so vibrant with the surge of springtime life; they were suffused to the gills with optimism. The murderer took so much more than promise with him, when he took their lives.

 

 

A

June frost

lingers still

in Impatiens'

scent

 

Their

other

name matters –

those Touch-Me-Nots

froze

 

We

gard’ners

of silence

can only mourn

blooms

 

lost

in time,

never changed,

never thriving –

froze.

 

 

 

Poem No. 16

A Kyrielle Sonnet

 

In pain, how the pain remains

To ever gild anew with fresh

Smirching stain what the pain contains

As a haunting ache of the flesh

 

To die it rules, without regret,

And mingle life’s blood afresh

In death’s never-ending upset

As a haunting ache of the flesh

 

But turning points must come to all,

Though they with gravity enmesh,

Slowing down hope to only a crawl

As a haunting ache of the flesh

 

In refrain, how the pain remains

As a haunting ache of the flesh.

 

 

Poem No. 17

 

Gravity II

 

For each Black Hole of sorrow in the world,

Consuming itself, making density

Endlessly swirl at its pain-filled center,

Is there a White Source outlet somewhere spun

To return that crushed sadness back to us,

Refreshed, remade, re-enacted as good?

 

Do our sorrows get recycled on Earth –

What is taken away as endless pain

Returns as pulsar-flashes of goodwill

That we can see and feel, and yet know not

The cosmic crucible from which they came…?

 

 

Poem No. 18

 

a translation for Jack Spicer

 

In my dream, it seemed

the easiest thing in the world –

I simply reached out and

with the tip of my index finger

resting on the side of the

cockpit fuselage

I kept the jet from crashing.

Why then is it so hard for God?

What part of His imagination

fails humanity on a daily basis?

How many planes fall from His

sky each day…?

How many of His lives are lost

to guns each day…?

To hate each day…?

To bigotry, misogyny, homophobia,

to racism, sexism, genderism,

religiosity…?

To all the litany of “little” things

the mere brush of His finger

could do away.

 

I awake from my dream

wondering why my powers

of sympathy are

so much greater

than His?

But, and there are

always buts, stringing themselves

across wastelands of

human time, death

and misery….

But, why should we think

God cares? Is not that

the greatest human sympathy?

If we did not care about Him,

who would…?

Not nature; not Melville’s

heartless White Whale,

the hot storms of the earth,

nor its fissures or sinkholes

swallowing our lives with

no regard for family, or

wives or children; or husbands

and parents – no.

What we care for makes us human,

and that includes the poor

helpless little entity

which we keep safe and warm

against monstrous reality,

the small little one

of our hopes and fears,

the one we call God.

 

To Him we attribute

that finger I dreamed of,

the one that saved lives

with the simple will of thought,

and acts with a sympathetic heart.

To him it would be as nothing

to ‘save’ everyone at all times,

and keep human misery a myth.

But…. The fact He cannot

proves His nonexistence every day,

in every way.

 

The Easiest Thing in the World

 

 

Poem No. 19

 

A Triolet II…

 

To our face the reporter insisted,

stealing from them their dignity in death,

not ”gay” were the victims’ names be-listed –

To our face the reporter insisted –

grinning, purporting lies deeply twisted

and thereby be-fouling them with his breath.

To our face the reporter insisted –

stealing from them their dignity in death.

 

 

 

Poem No. 20

 

Ballade:

 

Last night I dreamed of an earthquake

Whose tumult seemed quick and far too vicious –

Upheaving the floor like a snake

With undulations deep and capricious –

Feeding Man’s fears of the superstitious

Which view every hint of omen

As warning good deeds of the malicious

Truth that sudden Death’s no phenomenon.

 

In cold sweat, I bolted awake,

Aware too well these thoughts are pernicious,

Demanding my heart take a stake

In niggling such phobias omniscious,

While seeking some kind of peace judicious

To acknowledge and yet shorten

Fear’s power to be the injudicious

Truth that sudden Death’s no phenomenon.

 

By writing, I try to remake

A time which was not openly flagitious,

When ‘brutal’ was a sometimes-ache,

Unlike the world now where it’s ambitious

To govern sound minds with the seditious

Notion horror’s daily again,

Shaking awake with the repetitious

Truth that sudden Death’s no phenomenon.

 

Envoi:

 

But you, you monster so inauspicious,

You took their lives at night, and then

Re-kill the day with the conspicuous

Truth that sudden Death’s no phenomenon.

 

 

 

Aftermath^[4]

 

On June 12th,

The day of the attack,

Parts of the world unfriendly to

Gay Politics and advancement of equal rights

Lit up with earned stripes

Of the rainbow flag.

 

On June 12th,

Adam Lambert and Queen

Performed Brian May’s operatic song

Who Wants to Live Forever, about the only moment

Worthy to be human for,

The opportunity to love.

 

On June 12th,

Almost as reaction to the affront

Of the sickly ‘Pulse Deniers’ themselves,

A switch flipped on, and rainbows glowed

On formerly hostile monuments to our liberty

And our choice to be free.

 

And on that day,

Three years ago, some stood with us;

Some pretended what they liked about the tragedy;

But we, we stood as one around the world

And counted our dead so we could

Memorialize them in love.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

 

 

 

---