Budding Zin*
  • Historical Truth
  • Insight Blog

To be hopeful in bad times....Howard Zinn

*A website of social, political, and spiritual concern,
…casting hell out of human-unkind

Picture
*H. Zinn--"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness… And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
​
*"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not."—e.e. cummings

Poems judging tragic news and poems heralding good news


Gazing on Gaza

Like Samuel, Vonnegut gets called up from the grave
to say--

Judge for yourself,
No one’s got eyes

To see, no one with a Kingly, Martin sort of vision/dream;
Only strident martinets

Now heaving/hurling—ethically sick,
While UN diplomats ‘jawbone’ us to death

With nice resolutions; Samsonlite…

Where has their gaze gone?
(I mean gaza)

Samson’s at it again
Bringing the building down

Because he’s lost his gaze or gaza;
Only covered women (and children)

Walking wounded,
Or buried, burned, abandoned

Like the 4 youths (3 versus 1), and a few thousand,
Got cornered

Boxed and shipped,
Or cowering, smoking from past rockets

In Tel Aviv or Gaza City

No Delilah here;
Just Philistines rage on and Samson’s might holds

And many less hairs or heirs
Till Sheol…

Judges 15-16

First pub. in Contemporary American Voices

by Daniel Wilcox
--





Walls

“American didn’t bring democracy. It brought walls.” Yousif al-Timimi in National Geographic July 2011

There’s something in man, uh human
‘That loves a wall’…
Jerusalem
China
Istanbul
Hadrian
Mellah
Venice
Pale
Richmond…well,
An upside-down
Walled trench;

Speaking of
‘Somme’
Others…
Warsaw
Berlin
Panmunjom
Ben Hai…a river wall,
Selma
BelfastKashmir
Baghdad
Gaza
Yuma…ah finally a rime,

Alleppo,
El Pas--
‘Add’ nauseam
And
Two kinds of mortars
Bricks ‘unmortified’

Mortgaging tomorrow for yesterday;
Good ‘fencing’, uh yes, 'know'…


First pub. in The New Verse News
in different form

by Daniel Wilcox
--



Monks Brawl in Holy Sepulcher

Riot police enter the pewed rows
In Jerusalem, the city of pieces
On earth
Where faiths forever conflict;
Armenians and Greeks monk it out,
Separate those reversed for love
Filled with uncyclical violence;
Splinters of the cross nail So and So again,
No keys to Heaven to open the door,
But plenty of blessed brawling,
'Holey' vestments,
Vermin, and invested vice
So universal.

First pub. in The New Verse News

by Daniel Wilcox

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.