America,
We Stand Not Waiting for You
Human progress never rolls in on wheels
of inevitability.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Why
We Can't Wait
Oh America,
your beauty tinged with rust and ware,
your mighty ideals corrupted lay bleeding,
your oaths of sacred laws for the people
and by the people
are nothing now but hypocritical mockings,
your bold leaders retreat under fire and
bend beneath
the paperworks and bow low to creeping pressures,
your people ignorant and confused by lies
and fed deceit
their daily diet manipulated by the idiot
box,
your will is crushed by markets and greed
as gold,
not Democracy, becomes your only currency.
Oh America,
your beauty tinged with rust and ware
and we who still strive and care feel the
lack,
so we strike back, and hold the mirror to
our fallen hope,
and move progressively forward with or without
you.
Oh America do you not see
those you've disappointed?
Your children, the men and
women 6 days a week to meet the rent
and satisfy all needs on minimum wage;
Your children, the workers thrown out, downsized,
forgotten,
mistreated, bought and sold like chattel;
Your children on public assistance, social
security, welfare,
and family services who see the hollow hand
of help;
Your children on the streets without address
or home, without
welcome who wander day by day;
Your children the youths criminalized for
being young,
indulging in their petty crimes and pleasures;
Your children the prisoners locked down
without appeal
who crossed the line in anger, in selfishness,
in ignorance, in need;
Your children harassed and humiliated, taken
advantage of, used,
discriminated against, mocked, insulted;
Your children abused by a father's heavy
hand or a husband's hard heart,
scared to the depths of their being;
Your children wronged, railroaded, run-out,
willfully cheated
by a cluttered and corrupt legality of words;
Your children who see the hypocrisies, inferiorities,
misplaced priorities,
and abused authority of governmental heads;
Your children beaten, bullied, denied, profiled,
pushed around,
pointed at, and poked by power-hungry police;
Your children displaced by shoddy educational
edicts
whose humanity gets taken and replaced by
test scores;
Your children who know it so hard to try,
to get by,
to wake up day to day, to find a meaning
to live.
America your failure abounds
without redress, and why?
Because of the pretty folks
of privilege and pleasure
who walk around their streets of denial,
safe
in walled communities and high rise flats,
in suburbs behind locked gates and green
lawns.
America your failure abounds
without redress, and why?
Because of the pretty folks,
the shallow folks,
who suck like whores the precious resources
dry
and flaunt their wares and cares and bank
accounts,
who pimp themselves to the highest bidder
and sell their souls and bodies and minds
for material gain.
America
you are a madam of a house of whores, you
are a pimp
protecting your property, you are a pawnbroker
exploiting
the weakness and needs of others, you are
a bookie selling
fat chances and long shots, you are an extortionist
cheating
and beating, you are a brutal beast devouring
your young,
all this behind the masks of pretty folks,
the shallow folks,
the bureaucratic followers, the conservatives,
those who've bought in
those who've sold out
to you America.
Oh America,
your beauty tinged with rust and ware,
your mighty ideals corrupted lay bleeding,
your oaths of sacred laws for the people
and by the people
are nothing now but hypocritical mockings,
your bold leaders retreat under fire and
bend beneath
the paperworks and bow low to creeping pressures,
your people ignorant and confused by lies
and fed deceit
their daily diet manipulated by the idiot
box,
your will is crushed by markets and greed
as gold,
not Democracy, becomes your only currency.
Oh America,
will you ever be clean again?
will your will be free again?
will the free again defend your honor?
will you admit your shame?
will you confess?
will you shout your sins and clear your
name?
America,
we stand not waiting for you, but move
to dress your wounds and heal our hurt.
America,
will you recover and regain our faith?
or do we kiss your terminal illness goodbye
and look away?
Oh America,
your beauty tinged with rust and ware
and we who still strive and care feel the
lack,
so we strike back, and hold the mirror to
our fallen hope,
and move progressively forward with or without
you.
America,
we stand not waiting for you.
if you will not, may another rise forth.
America,
we stand and move not waiting for you.
- josh m. beach
Beatnik
Proverb
"Where did it get countercultural?"
-Allen Ginsberg;
"Newt Gingrich Declares War on ‘McGovernik
Counterculture"
It
isn’t, it ain’t what you write
Or what you say
That matters now.
In the midnight marching
Of the Dead Parade
Repeated anthems
Get lost in all the screams.
So to do things differently,
To say the way you write things differently,
To write the way you say things differently,
Will be all that really matters.
- josh m. beach
On
the Futility of Academic Poets
Vision
dance canonized
Dream ditty analyzed
Tuition paid, patronized
All the rich kids with money eyes,
Old daddy never wished his son a seer,
Thank God he’s not clever
Not with words never
Cannot read experience, yet
Absurd small screen teacher
Cashes paycheck,
Plays duty bound and baby-sits,
Spoon feeding
Graduates
Until literate,
But no poet, not even close.
- josh m. beach
Unto
the Least of These
-for the 27 million 21st century slaves
Do
you imagine your ease
of property wealth and goods
a mysterious process of demand
but who supplies your satisfaction
who toils in your stead?
The least of these are millions
in slavery beaten and tortured
brick by heavy brick
some backs are broken
torn, more than resources are raped.
Not content, only buying and selling
flesh and victims policy impoverish
whole countries exploited
and the least of these must run
coyotes howling, from fire to fire devoured.
In desperation no small price is turned
away in the dark to die but live
vulnerable, and who is damned
descendants bartered and sold
these even Jesus could not save.
Everything and everyone for sale
the natural religion
and who but the least of these
outside, left not to dream
come calling, crashing to steal a peace?
- josh m. beach
Vates
The
pretensions of a prophet like an inconvenience
Prick at the pride of the righteous, the
comfortable
Jeers of the satisfied do more than mock
the dreamer;
Vanity kills, the very fiber of reform endangered
with a glare.
Would rather a hail of bullets or the strong
hands secretly
To silence than the scoffing vainglory of
the moral majority;
Would rather the conflict of opposition
than nothing,
Being ignored, a peculiar tragedy beyond
all violence,
The terrible incomprehension of the idiot
staring blankly.
Oh the misdeeds of the foolish fumbling
through life a danger,
The fool who imagines himself wise and punishes
When in power all dignity, the cost of ignorance
too much to bear.
To say a prophet cannot breathe without
choking on injustice
Is not a lie nor spoken lightly, the vatic
voice a necessary burden
Determined as a curse to punish the wicked.
But why not remain comfortably anonymous,
disgusted, dreaming
Of peace and promised lands? Compelled the
misery to preach
Because of the misery to live where people
compelled by tyranny,
When the only impossible outcome
to be seriously disposed of
is justice for all.
- josh m. beach
Burning
the Future to Keep Warm
Staring
down the trees that took centuries
To build a forest floor of root berry and
brush,
Home to deer trout and thrush, and human
Footprints only visit these active halls,
so foreign
In tranquility and good-natured community.
Seems such a shame this woodland retreat
is temporary,
And home is nowhere close to feel at place,
farther
A life time journey to dwell as part, turning
back
Civilization where habitation is less
Than certain, needs sometimes met, sometimes
The food is rationed, care is scarce, plowshares
are rifles
And blood is spilled for foolishness, in
these times
The cold is kept at bay by chopping down
the patient
Forests we cannot really grasp come crashing,
Spilling oil into rivers, stomping berries,
clearing brush
Uprooting foreign calm for violence we breed.
Oak by oak and pine a pile accumulates
And those who go without must steal
A piece of the carnage, exploiting each
other
Burning the future to keep warm.
- josh m. beach
Ambiguity
Unlike
the other always we approach
A scattered fear of strangeness
To touch the unknown quality
Without words to take inside
We hide in our rejections
Never sure, but sure enough
At arms length alone and safe
Never, the other always enters in
Even in our dreams the foreign spaces
The language we don't speak, don't see
The other internal, moving
Another's eyes, another's skin
What a new sensation it can be
To let the other dwelling in
Ambiguity.
- josh m. beach
Voltaire,
It Is Not So Simple
Across
the tended garden flowers bloom
Pruned, watered with care by his hands
He makes a wish upon each new growth and
Weeds and weeds to see his stalks grow strong
Fenced in with a stone path, isolated perfection
Etched into the unknown terrible outside
The gate, a squeaky hinge but no lock
He trusts enough for it to protect
He waits and waits to see his garden bloom
Against the vermin crows bulldozers angry
men
Moving endlessly in the distance coming
closer
Petal by petal blade by blade his heart
colors
Porous seeps the sweetness, a fragrance
Almost brings a smile to his closed eyes
If he were not choking on the looming air,
Oh Voltaire, how impossible it has become.
- josh m. beach
Anti-Christ
In whose vision of god
Is the anti-christ and
Through what torn veil
Does his power creep?
Many the mighty
In single-handed violence,
Nails in the flesh, policies
Of presidents
Equally turn the rack, break
The bones and
Empty stomachs, punished
More than just the guilty.
How in all that’s holy held
Cherished, beauty and love,
Does hell deface and torture,
In whose name?
Under whose authority
Are the least of these discarded
Used, expendable for power
Political cunning, perversity
Private gain?
Does the bomb drop
Do the armies march
On purpose?
Do the lines across the map
Across the beaten back
Flooding hordes of refugees
Waiting thousands for bread
Swollen and sleepless eyes
Cannot blink but condemnation
A calculated gain? Who weighs
The target, who confers nobility?
O yes, god’s death has come
To pass entombed and sealed
In mass graves, fallout
Severed limbs, broken spirits
Where behind closed doors
The anit-christ immune
Remote, controlling
The carnage only images
To spin,
Another day in blood
Another turn of the globe
For oil.
Unto
the least of these,
Some children, some with promise
Wasted, darker visions of god
Grow angry, bitter the wounds
Swell beyond healing prayers of any touch
—
The second coming will reckon
Imperfectly and reveal less than justice,
But death.
- josh m. beach
Memorial
Day 2003
Salute
the brave, the foolish men motives pure
And poisoned, men who fought killed died
For ribbons glory and a song, of freedom
Found or lost in marshaled hall of arms,
Of streets supporting or dissenting sanctioned
And suppressed, in memory imperfectly
Remembered are the dead…
In whose name, in God's do horrors sleep
In peace? The innocents, the casualties,
The children and the lame? Do we pray
Or salute the murdered masses on this day?
Or do the inequalities of bombs imperfect,
Soldiers mean officially to forget?
Some dead do not seem to matter…
Salute the flags, the beaten stripes the
bars
Entombed, the stars we cannot see, guarded
This land of liberty if you agree
Stand, salute the brave, the foolish men
For governments fought and killed
Believe, until another round of war
Shall take your sons and all your stars
away…
- josh m. beach
Creeping
Shadows
How naïvely he believed
In tales told by bedside
Nights of wonder, of light
And darkness, of overcoming
Evil with good, of right
And wrong.
But when the story ended
The light went out and
Darkness descended
With all the force of fate;
Creeping shadows by the moon's glow
Sowing the seeds of doubt:
Fear
in the wake of stories closing
Not knowing what happens next.
In the absence of light
Wanders through the corners of the covers
Feeling for words of comfort,
Praying "if I die before I wake…"
For the sake of filling the void:
The story's spell is broken.
He will rise from fallen words and empty
In the night, shattered nerves still shivering
Knowing without light this present darkness,
A darkness not easily overcome.
- josh m. beach
The
Ultimate Ground
She
climbs a tree to see if she can't see God
face to face.
Limb by limb her assent is not so tough
a scratch or two.
Sweat and odor cling and mat her hair
sticky sweetness.
The flesh a tangled movement and a will
she calls it spirit.
Past the spider webs and thickets body squeezes
a bite begins to swell.
The stability of the lower trunk gives way
tree top sways.
She holds on tight ever up she glances
God must be there.
As high as she can go but not on top
the view is heaven.
A gust of northern wind her body breaks
the branch
the fall she swears intended.
She waits with baited breath a hand to save
her
but flesh and will are torn.
Limb by limb broken and dismembered
she lies in peaceful slumber.
- josh m. beach
She
Dances
In the silence between the
distance
She hears her name,
It is cold and unforgiving, foreign,
Seems not to fit.
Her hand grabs the hanging syllables
Tearing sound from sound her name
Apart, it is a destroying art
To clear the space
In
preparation for the work ahead.
Step by step her life becomes
More a way to cope than anything,
A broken window, smashed hand,
The petty violences done between
The moon and rising sun,
Endured, her character is armor,
Her strength to keep on walking
The promise of chance encounter.
She hopes to work some magic
Out of sleight of hand, chicanery,
A little make believe
Until a pattern forms, a purpose.
And when the movements back and forth
Become measured by the determined
Beats of her heart, then she will find
Her way: a life will be her art
A music all her own.
- josh m. beach
El
Salvador
-In memory of Oscar Romero
How
easily expendable are the least of these:
How without mercy their bones are crushed
How without appeal bullets break the flesh.
These as Jesus wept are persecuted with
silence
By the murderous population of privileged
souls
Who in sacrilegious outrage, impunity, sell
The world for profit, money-making delight
While dead bodies tortured planet fouled
injustice;
A monumental crucifixion of hope.
- josh m. beach
Of
Love
The
greatest of dreams is love,
But it cannot move mountains
Unless with strong hands and wills,
The hills of doubt can fall
Out of nothing can being spring,
But defeating the dream is taking more
To stock and store while others go without.
The fragility of happiness
Rests on equal shoulders,
For whose soul can be completely
Free when inequality keeps chained
The hungry multitudes?
Stare into the eyes of emptiness,
Find the basic needs unsatisfied,
Testify unto your stomach filled
The grief of wanting bread
Before the dreaming door can open.
Only in the dawn before the dream
Does the daring responsibility
Of love descend into the world
Of human lack a human hand can fill;
Give to another what you would have
Do not dream, but deliver unto the need
The only hope to feed the hungry first,
To give water to those who thirst,
To heal broken bones, to mortar stones
Until a foundation the future, we wait for
love.
- josh m. beach
Poisoned
Home
A
span of the globe quickly turns
Thought as fast as planetary travel,
Each border crossed transgression
A sin into borderless sky but mind
Forged manacles still enchain,
Some are slaves more than mental
The skin is broken, violated, scarred.
Placeless yet rooted injustice
The least of these cry out, silent
Misery unheard golden cities
Sometimes can care, preoccupied
In traveling imagined distances
Progress where some do progress,
Point insignificant fingers starry dream
Ethereal, yet hope well fed and proud.
But do not look down, fall from grace
The faceless horror underneath teeming
Masses like creatures from another planet,
Toiling to create the conditions of freedom
A terror ignored, as Earth and men feed
factories
Billowing putrid smoke death traveling
Planetary distance,
poisoned home.
- josh m. beach
What
Creeping Power Slouches
What
presence, what creeping power slouches
A solemn lust entombed in lies, smiling
Its naked horror robed in doctrinaire nobility
And all pretend to see no emperor but heroic,
superior
Sometimes opportune the stature never bent
Yes the court applauds when supplicants
are broken
Never mean however brutal official policy
What prince before us in simple peasant
vogue
Ignorant the son of kings plays grandeur
And for hidden sums will legislate
Or martial arms in holy anthems not true
Yet truly awe-inspiring as the elements
tremble
Stability or chaos violate republican virtue
Trading freedom or pilfered for what promise
Trumpets proclaim an imperial scale
Yet silently,
oh so silently
the pillared foundation
erodes
- josh m. beach
The
Futility of Rachel Corrie
I feel like I’m witnessing the systematic
destruction of a people’s ability
to survive. It’s horrifying…I
realize there is a massive military machine
surrounding us, trying to kill the people
I’m having dinner with.
-Rachel Corrie
What
foolishness is this dear girl?
What naive eager faith did you possess?
Sit not with sinners and outcasts
Hungry, cowering a target for stray bullets
They are marked and you with them.
On what holy ground did you stray
With foreign optimism, brave stupidity?
You lived the dream of desperate action
But you slipped
Between real politic and poor souls’
misery
You fell crushed by forces no one protest
Could stop, for only the voice of millions
Beyond violence will cry an end to oppression,
But where was the indignation when you fell
Another torn body amidst a land of terror?
Who cares to speak of it?
Too many tears too much blood for one American
girl
Does not seem to matter in this madness
Death becomes you where destruction reigns,
Another broken child on the bloody alter
of dreams.
- josh m. beach
Assessing
the Cost
Not evil, but longing for that which is
better, more often direct
the steps of the erring…Oh, blind
strivings of the human heart!
-Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
We
consume our sources of energy
In bodily motion, erect, physical.
Civilized structures rise from the earth
Pining for the highest reaches of heaven,
Past the sweat of brows and bruised hands,
Aspiring beyond the labor it takes to erect
These proud pictures of monumental strength.
But what is hidden behind the grandeurs,
The human lines of elemental expenditure:
The vast sweat and smell exhausted in the
push and pull
Of blood extended over small breakages of
flesh,
Of the pain it takes to nail, bolt, weld
the iron joints.
The infrastructure of reaching spires
Comes at no small cost.
Who is responsible for the planned greatness
Of the imagination put from paper to plaster?
Who is responsible for the reality
Of bearing dreams into actuality?
Who built the Pyramids, the Great Wall,
Who hauled the blocks, cut and chipped the
stone,
Measured the force it would take to create,
Measured the amount of time, the attrition
rate,
Measured which resources were essential,
Measured which were expendable?
Is a carved or assembled edifice a noble
beauty
Worth more than the hands that fashioned
it?
Is the project planned in all its greatness
Worth more than those who labor it?
Who has decided,
As far as it goes?
How much is the pinnacle worth?
Who pays the cost?
- josh m. beach |
