A long time coming

A long time coming
falls finally into night
in a room with pine needles
and a big cat sleeping
on the Turkish rug.

The caiperinha fuels
all hidden layers
with intent and meaning,
the radio doesn't make sense,
my fingers soar.

Dream on you noose makers
and perpetrators of fake democracy,
the time will come
when common human decree
will lay down the perimeters.

I am the dinosaur of the future,
awaiting global commonality,
understanding and plain decency
that will shape fickle sand
of what have to pass.

I take another sip,
the dog looks at me.
The radio is doing better now,
a Brazilian woman sings
a soft song of love and longing.

Saddam is dead, civil war
is cloaked in self destructive daggers
hanging over women and children
and all ordinary anti-sharia,
glimmering like a polished skull.

Why, I say, why must brothers
kill their own brothers,
their own brothers wives,
their brothers children and friends?
Who can truly be a judge?

The cat is asleep now,
no more fire crackers upsets the dog.
The radio plays cheap Arabic music,
too commercial for my taste,
no real drums...

So, Saddam is stiff, I am not glad,
although he was a killer,
just like Bush and whatever
colonial madman that runs Israel today.
Bethlehem belongs to the Arabs too.

What would Krishna say,
or Mohamed or Buddha or Jesus
or Gandhi or Truman or I,
at the face of this global collapse
where money is all that speaks?

I better turn off the lights
in the Christmas tree now,
turn of the radio
playing music from
somewhere in Cape Town.




Poetry by Bob
Read 567 times
Written on 2006-12-31 at 01:09

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Rob Graber
Hey, Bob, stanza 3 is a thing of beauty! A staunch liberal Democrat (who voted against Bush), I still think stanza 9 goes astray by seeming to equate Bush and Hussein. But hey, it's your poem, not mine, right?
2006-12-31