A Question of Beingness

A poem sticks deep in my throat.
I cough and cough, yet
it will not rise.

I ask the poem, Why do you rebuff
the poet's embrace?

Comes the reply, Why do you not
disrobe and go naked as you are?

I say, Out of the question- I am a man of Earth
and depend on this body.

The poem, And insist on hugging a corpse
when a Universe is there to court?

Such is the enigma baffling
a poet humanoid- a question of beingness.

Vacant in a motion like wind,
set and established like time.

Intangible as love,
manifest as a sugar maple
spurting forth spring syrup
and consumed by sweet lickings,
each and every one.

Like sun, doling out alms for the needy.
Like a painting, guardian and trustee
of the artist's beauty.

But some only worship ugly,
and scoff at you who seek perfection.

They lack the truth which is
you are soul and sand,
a spirit WITH a body.

You are the light making sky
and the seer of skylight.

You are words making verse
and the poem making words.

The beams that fall ahead,
the shadows stretched behind,
each sealed by your signet.

Enough of this silly argument!
I come to my senses and wave the white flag.

The terms of surrender are,
indeed, benevolent.

The poem tust the pen with its whimsey.
The pen trust the poem to show the way.

The flood gates of consideration open wide,
freeing the living stream to run its natural course.

And I, resolved, as one again,
the boat and the guide.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

No Loitering

Perhaps
it was forgotten
you were once free,

and now calloused
by false hopes
and dreams

set
with that glue
to planet Earth routine.

No longer to give
notice to the signs that read:

"No Loitering"
(City Ordinance Title 03.6732 Sec. C).

Recession Blues.
Languishing 401Ks.
Home values upside down.
Credit lines slashed, and
tight money flows.

Laid off
from company downsizing
to find you are
too educated for the job market,
or condsidered by others
too "old".

And foreclosure looms.

Space is "For Rent"
and "For Sale",

but now you are
a beggar, and
have no means.

Better change gears-
better yet,
change direction-

dump
that old set of wheels
you've been carting round in
you call the body,

hop out and snatch up
a tall, sturdy ladder,
climb
to the tip top
of your favorite tree,

and read this sign:

"Loitering Welcome.
Muse Away The Day."
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

The Albatross

Life maker,
life taker,
towering phoenix on high,
magically over the oceans you cross
with powers no one can deny.

Alone at the bow
I stood there in awe-
bound by your imposing form,
rapt in uncertainty
as to what I saw
and feelings equally torn.

Dreaded serpent from Hades
whom ancient mariners did flee?
Or, Protector of the Seas
and beacon to guide me free?

Or, a child's dream, albatross-
imagination's pilot afar.
You deathfully sank
into the flaming sun
and divinely rose
as an evening star.

A heavenly kite in aerial bliss
playfully drawing the sun
as your tail,
when by your pluck
tacked to the wind
to give impetus
to your sail.

Then assumed another form:

The wind became your brush,
the seas and clouds your hues
and painted before my eyes
a rainbow through the skies.

Mage of ethereal being
girded with unflagging wings,
showing me more
than compass,
map or guide
to a universe as free
as the boundless
endless skies.

Immortal being,
artist and creator!

The seasons follow your stay
where the sea is your dominion
and the skies ever
your play.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization, The Conclusion

Globalization
is an idea.


An idea can be good or bad,
constructive or destructive.


There's a wide gap
between the two poles.


As the gap
between beauty and ugliness,
love and hate,
truth and falsehood.


As the gap between
round and flat worlds.


Where in one mountain peaks
reach the heavens,
while in the other
a levelling process ends
in oblivion.


Globalization
in and of itself
is not the curse.


The curse resides
in what makes the gap
where one end expands
into greater spheres of existence
and the other end contracts
into the "only one".


The former is Truth.
The latter is a lie.


And the lie is
the Reactive Mind.
~~


Chad went on to enroll in the Anatomy of Human Mind Course at the Dianetics Foundation.
The first lecture-"The Reactive Mind"-resolved remaining doubts he'd found the map.


What struck him most? Well, it goes back to those Psych courses he'd taken in school
and never believed their weight in paper and was left to wonder what the mind really was.
It seemed far fetched to Chad how thought and ability were controlled by chemical reactions. And how it was all chalked up to heredity and Pavlov's dogs and conditioning.


Mr. Hubbard's research proved the mathematical impossibility the "brain" could store the vast quantity of perceptic memory accumulated over one's lifetime, and in fact could only store about a single month's worth of data.


The truth was the brain is not the mind at all. The mind is something much, much more.


The Reactive Mind became real to Chad as he observed it in himself and others in doing the demonstrations and drills on the course. Armed with this true data, Chad realized the fields of Psychology and Psychiatry were mere dramatizations of the stimulus-response mechanism of the Reactive Mind. The same mechanism which called up the hidden voices Chad could not quiet, held in place the pain and sorrow of his life and exacted upon him the same ferocity of a wild predator attacking its prey. To wield unbridled power without his control and forcing unreasoned acts that he'd forever regret.


The same mechanism that was flattening a round world.


Chad realized at last it was the Reactive Mind's bidding behind all the turbulence and upheavel in the world.


But with the Map, Chad had regained not only control of his thoughts, but his self-determinism to act and play to the beat of his own drum. He remained in his hometown of Buffalo, pursuing the lost dream to live as the artist he was. And to help others in his town whose hopes had been dashed by the virus of Gobalization to find their way back to a round world as Pier Angelo had helped him set foot on the Road to Truth.


As far as regrets for Wall Street, Chad wrote in his diary:


"When I embarked on the road of self-discovery, I admit I was still out for myself. Wall Street was the "King of the Mountain" and that's what I had come to believe life was all about. It was material in all its aspects."


"Losing that quest to the vagaries of a flat world, I was devastated without a Map to lead me from danger. I had to suffer through the very darkness which I had allowed to obscure my vision, to face my fears and uncertainties and wrest away from the Reactive Mind that part of me it had enslaved."


"Before I knew of such a demon running my life, I had groped through darkness with a mere spark of me to light the way. But once on the road and sure-footed by the Map, that spark became a flame and then a fire. That tiny spark had been enough to lead me to a single man and his books, and to others who offered their hands to pull me up from the edge of the abyss."


"Who's to say what the outcome might have been had I not made the trip to the library that day."


"But what I do know is that I found myself again, the person who I am, and realized the beauty of life comes from living a complete life which includes all the Dynamics or Circles or Spheres or Urges of existence. And that is what fuels the fire to make it rage ever brighter, ever larger, to make the world we live in more true, more round."


"I was asked by a friend if I ever regretted not pursuing Wall Street, regretted missing out on the billions made during the "BIG BUBBLE"?


"Pausing in contemplation and looking very stoic, I replied, But didn't you here, the bubble burst?"


THE END
~~


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part IX

What makes gleaming eyes
opened to the beauty of the world
shrivel closed and beauty fade
like wilting flowers?

The world seen as ideal
as though it were
the only realm
to become
cynical retort.

What perverts
free imagination
into a fixed idea,
a single map,
unchartered and
misguided?

And what should distill
the eight urges of life
into the "only one".

And how does a world,
spherical and round,
grow flat?
~~

Chad had to know more.
"A new Slant On Life" was
answering many questions,
but he found himself asking
more and nore questions.

He logged onto the Net
and found the Dianetics Site
which listed more
of Mr. Hubbard's books.
The one that really indicated-
"The Dynamics of Life"-
he promply ordered.

Chad was rife with anticipation.
There remained, however,
a restive, nullifying voice saying,
"It's too good to be true."

Chad tossed and turned
each sleepless night
waiting for the book,
praying to himself
he'd found the map,
that he wasn't chasing
an illusion, while
fending off echoing barbs
of the hidden voice,
the unrelenting cynicism
of a flat world.
~~

Chad met the postman
at the door to retrieve
the mail and was handed
a brown envelope.
"Ah!" sighed Chad,
"It must be my book."

Not waiting to traverse
the creaky flight of stairs,
Chad broke open the package
and removed the book.

A smaller envelope fell
to the floor as he slid
out the book-
an invitation it appeared,
handwritten in calligraphy-

It read:

ANATOMY OF HUMAN COURSE
DIANETICS SELF-IMPROVEMENT CENTER
836 MAIN ST.
BUFFALO, NY

INTRO-LECTURE: "WHAT IS STRESS
AND HOW TO REVENT IT"

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009, 7:30 PM
ADMISSION FREE

GUEST LECTURER PIER ANGELO, NOTED ITALIAN ARTIST,
MUSICIAN AND LECTURER AND ORIGINATOR AND HOST
OF ANATOMY OF HUMAN MIND LECTURE SERIES FOR ITALIAN TV.

RSVP
716-856-3910
~~

"Man, the stress has been
getting to me", Chad thought
as he finished reading
the invitation.

"The loss of my Wall Street job,
the struggle to pay school loans
on server's tips
in a spend-less-economy,
depression that lingers
through anxious days and
sleepless nights."

Just as Chad's eyes had opened
to the world about him,
so, too, he felt its pain.

"My goals are shattered.
I have no direction,
no future."

"I've been living a sham
in a world of slippery slopes.

Chad clasped
the invitation tightly
in his hand.

"If only the map
is here."

When somewhere
out of the deep spoke
the hidden voice,
"How do you know
you won't be betrayed?"

"Shut up, damn you!"
Chad screaming
at the craven voice
hiding its face.

"Enough of you saying
I'm a marked man."

But somehow,
Chad mustered
enough courage and will
and RSVP'd
for the lecture.
~~

Chad was taken
from the start
with the speaker,
an Italian artist
named Pier,
whose smile seemed
to stretch from one end
of the room to the other,
absorbing and taking in
every listener as though
he was standing right
next to you-
a presence about him
that wriggled its way
under your skin.

What cares Chad came with
seemed to melt
into the night.

Every word,
despite his accent,
was clear with simple meaning
but profound impact.

Chad had sat through
many lectures as a student
and had always had the feeling
of being talked down to,
or talked at-
but this was different.

It was hard to explain,
the sensation of being
talked to and included
in the speaker's world
as though he was saying
each of us was valuable.

"And so, stress," said Pier,
"Is merely unbalanced effort."

Chad lit up like a light bulb:
"Wrong goals for wrong reasons
could only end in confusion",
he realized.

Pier continued,
"And so you think you are a king,
but you act like a begger."

Chad felt like he'd been lifted
out of his chair,
and the room was brighter
and he could feel
a smile undulating
across his face
dor the first time
in many months.

"I see. I was pretending
goals while knowing
I had compromised
for money, and set out
to garner a career
on Wall Street
rather than living
my passion for art."

"And every since,
I only grew colder,
uncaring and arrogant
so as to shield myself
from my own disdain,
all the while living
a naked existence
to propitiate to everyone
and everything who mattered
in my life."
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Globalization Part VIII

"Now this bell tolling
softly for another
says to me,
'Thou must die''.

Perchance
he for whom this bell tolls
may be do ill
as that he knows not
it tolls for him.

And perchance
I may think myself
so much better
than I am
as that they
who are about me,
and see my state,
may have caused
it to toll for me,
and I know not that...

No man is an island
entire of itself.
Every man is a piece
of the continent,
a part of the main.

If a clod be washed
away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as
if a promontory were,
as well as
if a manor of thy friend's
or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me
because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore
never send to know
for whom the bell tolls,
it tolls for thee."

John Donne (1572-1631). From "Meditation XVII".
~~

Awakened by sirens-
an ambulence, police cars
and firemen-
each with special duties
to mend the unraveling fabric
of a flat world,
Chad raised his head
which lay cradled
between chapters of the book,
eyes opened wide
from the routine signals
that commence the start
of another day.

"A New Slant On Life"-
for Chad had become
a new beginning.

Despite the sirens heralding
mischief and troubles
of the town, it was
a nice morning
bright with sun,
the air bracing, invigorating,
a sharp contrast to the summers
Chad spent in Chicago
when going to school.

Maybe from the endless stretch
of concrete and steel towering
above the shores of Lake Michigan
and insulating the city
from balmy lake breezes,
or sheer numbers of cars and trucks
extruding CO2 into sinking air,
making it thick and heavy
and giving the sensation
of too little oxygen,
it always felt hotter
than the weathermen said.

Chad realized how much
he'd missed the summers
of Buffalo, the yards ablaze
from spring to fall,
and dreamy times spent
beneath wooded canopies
of Delaware Park.

Not knowing why,
it was different now,
his home town,
since the time first coming
to Chicago and was bowled over
by its glitz and money,
how he vowed to never return
to a bedraggled factory town
like Buffalo to live.

It was as though
he was seeing his hometown
for the first time through
his own eyes.

There seemed to be
a deeper meaning
to everything.

More than a place
to make money,
attain possessions
or live in "style".

from expansive parks
to wide, lazy boulevards
split into by grassy medians
to the Old World architecture
of churches and houses
and public squares,
Chad heard the quiet voices
of masons and carpenters,
draftsmen and engineers,
playing in a timeless recording
of brick and mortar:
"This is who we are."
~~

Chad no sooner had finished
his coffee than he was back
to the book, picking up
where he'd left off.

When came the chapter:
"The Eight Dynamics".

It was as if a tsunami
hit the Erie shore
with cataclysmic change
to reconstitute the landscape
of a flat world.

"I've been asleep all the while.
Disconnected from life.
My life a pretense of existence
as the 'only one',"
Chad chattered aloud.

But he wasn't the "only one".
Chad realized this to be
a lie of the flat world.

He'd penetrated its veil
that masks to hide
the truth from us all,
that forces its will to see
the world for material gain
and drags us into the deep.

To live for family,
community and nation,
the races of mankind,
the animals of the lands
and birds of the skies
and fishes of the seas,
the material being of Earth,
for all of spiritual existence
and God or Infinity.

And life and living meant
to exist and be
as each and every
one.

The idea of a perfect world
between the lines
of the pages
of the book.

Like imagination
when Chad was a child
and beauty commonplace
to everything, and all was bright
and shiny and free
like the stars in the skies,
like his endless dreams.

On day the world turned sour,
as the fruit rots on the tree,
and the stars no longer shone
and forgotten were the dreams.
~~

A flat world
has an ending.

It ends
at a far away cliff
or sudden drop
into the abyss.

Like a tsunami
when the shores are
calm and tranquill
and all are casual
about their way.

In a flat world
the map ends
in oblivion.

But in a true world,
the world which is lived
on self-determined truths,
there is no ending.

The true world
is round,
a sphere.

And the Eight Dynamics-
or circles or spheres-
when life breathes into them
can only
expand.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All rights reserved.

Globalization Part VII

A flat world
forwards agreement
towards naked existence.

Its institutions-
secular and sacred-effect
the leveling process of contagion
on the wings of false data.

Existence reduced
to "me".
~~

It was well past midnight.
Chad had lost track
of time.

The evening lay still and quiet
uncharacteristically absent
the comings and goings
from the coffeehouse
below Chad's flat.

The smell of hollyhocks, planted
along the sidewalk, loitered
in the heavy, summernight's air,
also having lost track of time
to curiously waft its way
through the open panes
of Chad's window.

Oddly enough,
Chad had not noticed.

Outside it was pitch black,
the moon off on furlough
and streetlights still out
having not been replaces
because of budget cuts
from the recession.

Chad sat at the small table
next to the window,
spellbound to the book,
squinting into focus each line
from too little light given off
by the energy-saving bulb
of the table lamp
he'd disrobed
of its shade.

Yet, Chad couldn't
put down the book.
Realization after realization
to unanswered questions
popped to view.

They were simple answers,
but nonetheless suppressed.

A passage read,
"If it's true for you,
it's true."

Suddenly, the words
grew bigger and brighter,
as if the moon had returned,
or the streetlights were changed,
or the nightmare had ended.

Chad felt different, lighter,
as when a burden's lifted
from the shoulders.

The lyrics of a song
of freedom flashed
to mind: "See me! Feel me!
Touch me!"

He realized he was
his own Truth.

Uncontrollably,
tears streamed
from his eyes.

He felt enthuiasm
not known since
his youth.

Lost dreams cascaded
before his eyes,
the ones he'd compromised
to a flat world-
the purpose to help others
supplanted by greed
for self, buried
beneath the mire
of cynicism.

"How perverted I'd become",
he said aloud as if to beckon
forgiveness that the moon
might shine its light
through the opened panes,
and the scent of hollyhocks
he'd now come to smell
would feel welcomed
to while away
in the darkness
of his flat.

Chad braced himself
against self-abasement
for his arrogance,
for turning his back
on the person he was
to become niggardly
and fawning
to a flat world.
~~

A flat world
is robotic.

In a flat world
we do not miss
the moon.

We do not see,
nor do we smell
lonesome hollyhocks.

We live without streetlights
to light the way
through eternal
darkness.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Globalization Part VI

A flat world

works as a

hidden influence".

It's only power lies
in others

not knowing.

In a flat world

data is presumed true,

not evaluated.

~~

Without a map,

without direction,

his learning a sham,

Chad reconciled

himself he'd been living
a lie.

Assuming the things
he'd been taught as truth,
only to see
their "dead ends".

"Where is Truth?"

he mulled to himself.

"It's up to me to sift

through the chaos,

the debris left

from destruction,

to find my direction."

"My fault for not broadening

my horizons with courses

in Liberal Arts?"

"Might philosophy have given

the insights into life

I soarly lack?"

Chad rolled back

to college days and disabused

himself of such notions:

Plato- an hour of drudgery

where the professor expounded

Platonian reality

in differential calculus.

In one painful equation

after another, grating streaks

of chalk from a mad professor

who had gotten up

too late to dress

or neglected his laundry duties,

and moseyed in

in cut-offs frayed at the hems,

his shirt tails hanging

to the knees and wearing

flip-flops.

To Chad philosophy offered

little practical use and was

a waste of time and money.

There was endless study

of one great thinker refuting another

which did little more than sell

textbooks and contribute

to one's neurosis.

"Should I have taken

more Psychology courses?

Maybe I would have seen

the manic traits of Wall Street

in time to act?"

But all through school

Chad kept a quiet resentment

towards Psychology, taking

the minimum credits

for graduation.

It all started in high school-

or maybe before-

with a teacher

he couldn't stand.

A Ms. Grimes who was

an authoritarian and Chad

to avoid confrontation would sit

to the rear where he pretended

to pay attention, feeling safe

at not getting caught.

Chad confessed,

"Well, there was stuff

I didn't understand that made

me spinny and not want

to take more Psych courses."

Even so, Chad felt proud

he had compromised himself,

not swallowed hook, line

and sinker. Refused to agree

that man was a dog or accept

barbaric treatments of electric-shock

and lobotomy as valid therapies

of the mind.

As if with a thunder clap,

Chad flashed back to church,

the Sunday School classes

he stopped attending.

"Oh, no!" he thought,

"I strayed from faith

and lost my way

which is my undoing?"

But Chad recalled

one Sunday he had taken

a girlfriend to church-

a Spanish girl and Catholic-

and endured embarrasment

beyond belief as the preacher

delivered a scathing sermon

demonizing Catholicism.

And other preacher-

different church- absconded

with church funds

never to be seen

again.

~~

A flat world
has no barriers.
No windbreaks.

Its virus spreads
with wild abandon:
failing lives,
failing towns,
failing nations.

A failing world.

In a flat world
the hidden influence
insidiously resides
in institutions of learning
and temples of worship.

Contagion at the core
of civilization.
~~

Chad saw the trap.
Why he had falsely vested
hope in Wall Street.

To look out for "number one",
to live for money was
all that remained
in a flat world.
~~

Chad was needing to escape.
He searched at the library
for a book to whisk
him away.

After all the introspection,
there was still no map,
no solution.

Only where it was not.

He recalled reading
a fantasy novel-
"Battlefield Earth",
by an author named Hubbard.
The parallels between
the book and the world
he now saw were
hauntingly similar.

Scrolling the catalog,
Chad saw another
of Hubbard's novels-
"Mission Earth".

"Great! I'll check
that one out."

In the listing
another entry seized
his searching eyes.
It sounded nothing
like fantasy.

Chad continued scrolling,
but the odd title
kept calling him back
like an unfinished dream.

He rolled back
to the curious entry, staring
at the screen
in disbelief.

Chad blinked and squinted,
refocusing the words
before his eyes, still unsure
at what he read:

"A New Slant On Life".

"Can this be?" he thought,
pulling back his enthusiasm
still cynical and suspect
such thing existed.

But he had to find out
for himself.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part V

"A culture is not a collection of relics or ornaments,
but a practical necessity, and its corruption invokes calamity.
A healthy culture is a communal order of memory...
It reveals the human necessities and the human limits.
It clarifies our inescapable bonds to the earth and to each other."


Wendell Berry
~~


A flat world
is a chaos of clones.


In a flat world
all is homogeneous
and servile
to its agreements.


The maxim of survival
is adapt, lest
ye shall succumb.


Thus follows
unreasoned acts
by man.


Ages past the notion
of a flat world
out of ignorance
or postulate,
was used to suppress
and control.


In a flat world
group agreement trumps
the individual, no matter
how learned or competent.


But even
in a flat world
there comes to be
one who rises
above the chaos
with opened eyes
sees the actual world.
~~


It had been another
sleepless night for Chad,
tossing and turning
between inner screams,
while stewing in agony
the same question-
"How could things go so wrong?"


A voice finally answered,
"Just wait it out. You'll get
what you want once the bulls
retake the market."


Chad was vulnerable,
afraid things would
only get worse.
He desperately wanted
to believe the hidden voice.


It seemed much easier
to compromise. Just pick up
where he'd left off, continuing
to wait tables until
Wall Street rebounded
and all would be
as he'd dreamed.


But, alas, he knew
the map had been wrong,
not only for himself
but so many others.


Chad had learned one lesson
in a flat world-
there's no guarantees
save the moment.


There was no turning back.
to trust the evil
that knows not
the meaning of trust.


"I've come too far,
seen your degradation
and felt your pain and despair!"
Chad blasted back at the voice.


Suddenly,
the lump in the throat
and the nausea
in his stomach blew.


There was a shift
in Chad's beingness
he didn't understand
just yet.


But something changed.


A throwing off of chains
and shackles, no longer
fettered by fear, lifted
from sinking mire
of shifting sands
to walk straight and tall
one's chosen path,
a free, determined
man.


Demand for improvement
welled up inside of Chad
fomenting as if ready
to gush from his pores
like a volcano poised
to change forever
the face
of Earth.
~~


A flat world
is a fixed and
false idea.

It is a lie.

As all lies
it vanishes
in the light
of Truth.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part IV

Chad awoke from restless sleep.
"Was I dreaming?" he asked himself.
The tall weeds
of the vacant steel plant
flashing before his eyes
as if the homeless ghosts
had followed him home.


The ruins of Bethlehem Steel
were just as much
his ruin.


Neither the lump
in his throat,
nor the nausea
in his stomach
would go away.


A feeling akin
to being run over
and knocked unconscious
with slight glimpses
of reality that seemed
to float in and out
like a wild dream.


Being lost
in a scorching desert
dumfounded by phantasms
real but surreal,
or suddenly finding yourself
in a place unknown, unsure
of your identity.


Or retribution
for having lived
with closed eyes
and the only being left
while all else is cast asunder,
the only heart left beating,
the last lungs breathing,
and made to watch
as the world perishes
before the eyes.


Made to witness every death,
feel every pain,
suffer every sorrow.


Unable to change
what was or had been.
Unable to escape
the sufferings so wicked
and so indescribable
that only Hell could be
its likeness.


Realizing,
though seeming too late
and not knowing where to turn,
Chad realized he was
unwitting effect
of the vicissitudes
of a flat world.


And by his own agreements
was left to stew
in its fiery juices.


The total effect
of ruined existence.
~~


A flat world
has no mountaintops
to touch the Heavens.


It is a
one-terminal
universe.


In a flat world
there's only
Hell.
~~


Chad was at his wits end.
"My God!" he thought aloud.
"How in heavens could
things get worse?"


No sooner the thought,
Chad felt the vice-grip
of fear closing in
round his throat.


His pulse quickened
to the pounding
of his wearied heart.


There was no plan
to make things different.
No road map to guide
him away from the maw
of the abyss.


All that he'd counted on
was useless to him now,
for the stable datums
with which he had aligned
his life were but
shadows and decoys
and bobby traps designed
to further contagion
of a flat world.


Chad's mind screamed out
for an answer.
But none came.


He screamed louder and louder
as if possessed
by the homeless demons
or the very Devil himself.


Chad shut his eyes tight
as if to wish away
the agony and freight.


But it grew stonger
as all viruses do,
ever changing,
ever adapting
to reach its ends.


"A thousand times better", he thought
just to give up the ghost
than to endure the fear
of fearing to meet
oblivion.


Chad was consumed
by the throes
of worsening.
~~


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part III

The sprawling ruins
of Bethlehem Steel
hugged the Erie shoreline,
deserted with the haunting air
of a conquered fortress.


Smokestacks silent and clogged
with rust, glass windows shattered
by the lake's unrelenting winds
and tall weeds the only occupants
to be found behind
the barbed fences.


Chad stood dazed outside
the rusty gates.
Growing up in Buffalo
he recalled half his family working
at the abandoned plant.
There was even a time
he thought he would too.


But the plant closed leaving
thousands of Buffalonians
out of jobs.
And others followed suit
until this part of Erie shoreline
(Lackawanna it is called)
was left to homeless ghosts.


In many ways
the desolate factories
and Chad were the same:


Both victims
of broken promises.
Both nullified
by othere determinisms.
Both robbed
of their dreams.
Both survivors
in body.


In a flat world
the casualties of war
are seldom counted
in body bags.


Chad now saw
in the cracked red bricks
the scars left
from wounds inflicted,
amputeed soldiers bound
to their fates
with little hope beyond
the rusty gates.


"How could I have not seen this"?
he upbraided himself.
"All the times I looked the other way!
All the times I thought
of only myself and my
University of Chicago degree,
as if my "security" was
the only security that mattered."


Chad felt desperation exuding
from the red-bricked walls,
as if the ghosts were begging
for his help.
It echoed his own despair
of giving up his robes-
no different from thousands
who had punched their
last time cards.


Not to know where
the next meals would come,
the next month's rent
or children's clothes, nor
for what the future holds.
Like Chad there was
no job to pay
for school loans.


Chad swallowed hard
trying to get by
the lump lodged
in his throat,
to quell the nausea
deep in his gut.


It was too much to bear.
Too much to understand.
How so mant dreams
could go awry,
so many futures
abruptly end.


What lack of care?
What lack of reason?
What breed of scurrilous greed?


In a flat world
there's no guarantees
beyond the moment.


Chad was starting
to understand.


It had become
all too personal.
As though fate
had led him
to the precipice
that he might see
the maw of the abyss:


The abondoned factories left
to rot and decay,
the displaced and jobless,
homes broken
from financial collapse,
less revenues for wherewithal
to educate the next class,
Lake Erie too polluted
to drink or bathe,
the smoggy air
he once breathed
and never once objected.


In a flat world
it's easier to live
with closed eyes.
To pretend all is well.


But there's always
a leveling process.


Always a virus
ever changing,
ever mutating.


And so contaigon spreads.


Strangely,
Chad sensed relief
he wasn't among the weeds
trapped in oblivion.


Though wounded
and to the brink of defeat,
he nonetheless stood free
beyond the rusted gates
of the conquered fortress.
~~


A flat world
depends for its survival
upon contaigon.


In a flat world
there must be agreement;
agreement to be,
to do and to have
as agreement dictates.


Thus contaigon spreads
to make the world
ever flatter.


A flat world
is neither natural
or native.


It is learned.
~~


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part II

A flat world
has no borders.
It defines the seasons.

That conquest
remains incomplete.
~~

The long awaited summer
had finally come.
The stage was set
with many of the props
just as Chad imagined.

A perfect day in Chicago
as the weather goes-
bright and sunny, the air
crisp and bracing.

At once an adieu to Spring
and fair welcome to Summer.

Chad stood motionless,
fixed to the mirror.
His image the end
of a long journey.
One which had taken
most of his life
he could remember.

Long, black robes eddied
about his arms and torso.
The black, tasseled cap
jauntily cocked
as if to say,
"We've arrived."

Chad hesitated.
He couldn't let go
of this picture
for him complete.

And thinking to himself,
painfully all the while,
"Where did I go wrong"?

It was Graduation Day.
The culmination of many
small wins upon larger wins
to be the biggest win
of his dreams.

But in all his diligent,
Chad had not learned
about the consequences
of a flat world.

In a flat world
there are no barriers.
No windbreaks to buffer
the storms of recession.

Chad's dreams, pinned
to an economics degree
from University of Chicago,
lay shattered in shards
of broken glass
strewn across the highway
of a flat world.

Promise of "security".
Internship to lead
to a career on Wall Street.

That promise of position
now rescinded.

All that was left
was in the glass.
This moment.
This reflection.
~~

A flat world
influences beyond
topography.

In a flat world
a virus takes
many forms,
ever changing,
ever adapting,
insidious to its ends.

In a flat world
there's always
a leveling process.

Nothing is sacred
or immune.
~~

Chad couldn't bring himself
to move from the mirror.
Uncertainty had corralled
his strength of resolve.
His heart bleeding tears
he could not cry.

The ending of the ceremony
the final blow. The thought
of giving up the robes.

For the first
in his life,
Chad was scared
and alone.

For the first time
without direction.
"Had the map
been misprinted,
or was it the wrong map"?
a voice deep in his thoughts
asked over and over.

Chad was overwhelmed
by sorrow of loss,
knowing the day's end
would mark his defeat.

He stared into the mirror
as if to steel
the glass in time,
his last best hope
the glass reveal
beyond its image
a world that was round.
~~

A flat world
is ubiquitous.
It is uniform.

In a flat world
without barriers
contagion spreads.

The mores
of society engulfed,
obscured to sameness,
a single datum,
a single map,
a cap and robes.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part 1

A flat world
has no barriers.
But equally no identity.

It has no windbreaks
or sheltered valleys
or deciduous dells
of refuge.

A flat world
made with people
inextricably joined
yet distant and alone.

There's no need
to see each other-
eyes or smile or face-
in tears or in joy
no need of embrace.

A flat world
with instant messaging
but uncontrollable winds
and floods and drought
and pestilence and storms.

A flat world
makes us toe a thin line
with scant chance to falter-
dwindling glaciers,
vanishing rainforests,
diminishing topsoils
and spiraling CO2.

Where traditional craft is traded
like trinkets for a grab bag.
And acquired skill defunct
by something better
so we are told.

Factories once a testament
to industry and vigor
lie abandoned and tumbled-down,
optimism turned weeds overrun-
a blight from which the eyes
can safely shy away
to aid a nulling mind.

The family table
once the convivial hub
for shared fortunes of the day
now, too often, for Daddy to tell
with trembling voice
and held-back tears,
"They're taking my job away".

But in a flat world
there is by necessity
a levelling process.

But as jobs grow fewer
corporations grow fatter
so as to own
the water,
energy and medicine
and food and seed.

Forgetting
these things were ours.

When we husbanded the soil
to its natural trait having
no use for chemicals,
planting seeds we saved
and not Monsanto genetics.

In that day we were content
to be Nature's shepherd
not her arrogant master.

To feed ourselves and neighbors
with abundance beyond food-
nourishing the spirit
on meaning of community-
each depending on the other,
each surviving as the other survived
and from our labors
rejoiced in celebration
to be so blessed.

But the family farm
must as well surrender
to the levelling process.

In a flat world
we must accept
a different measure of success.
Materialism of houses and cars
and degrees and promotions
and 401Ks.
Never mind
such shiny things are tenuous
and first we must assume
the status as debtors
before the game begins.

But to closed eyes
all is well.
So we pretend.

While scarcely a nod
to our neighbor.
Loners isolated in condo-boxes
with little need to know
beyond our quarter,
too timid to step
across the line, cowed
by feared consequences.

Never reflecting:
"For whom the bell tolls".
Never protesting
greater corporate control.

A flat world
homegeneous and unquestioning
faceless
from deprivation
of tradition and culture.

So marks the epitaph
of dead civilization.

A flat world
with no mountaintops
to touch the heavens.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Phoenicia

Phoenicia-
Just uttering your name
and hearing the sound-
("Phoenicia").

Dreams brazen in my blood
dark red like your skin,
your swarthy hair,
your twilight eyes.

Memories trenchant as glass,
unfading and unrending
that keep your love burning
an undying candle.

Like the desert phoenix
who lives alone
for whom beauty
there is no equal.

Phoenicia-
Forgive me if I am selfish.
Fortunate as I have been
to breathe amongst your tall cedars,
traipse your blue Mediterranean shores
and sail your fast ships of adventure.

Granted as I was the gift
to script your fame
in legend and verse
and paint your august beauty
in crystal.

Though onerous as it may seem,
I can think of harsher burdens
than to live as I must
with your unflagging memory,
which sorely teached me
the void
of need
and want.

Phoenicia-
I carry the torch that is you,
that burns by the glory
of your art and craft
and substance of commerce.
To what lands shall we now go,
what oceans to cross
or mountains to traverse-
to what worlds
or planets
or stars?

As the phoenix rises from its ash
to live and die again and again,
I must bear your destiny.
Waiting
for that solemn day
you return,
when I shall voice
the verses of our triumphs,
etch the colors of your beauty
for the world
and relish forever after
our tour de force.

Phoenicia!
Phoenicia!
Phoenicia!

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Painting Clouds

No Starbucks.
No e-mail in-box.
No I-Pod downloads.

From a secluded corner
of a neighborhood park
with nothing but easel and canvas
between me and sky,
I took refuge beneath a canopy
of flowering chestnuts.

And painted clouds.

Bunches.
In towering columns
and billowing masses.

And renegades,
such as myself,
defecting from the horde.
Some to go alone vanishing
into the heavens.
Others hooking up together
as new tufts
of tumbleweed.

While the world kept rushing
to sign Facebook and My Space.

As I painted,
I took on faces
of the clouds.
Trailers from the past
rolling
by my eyes,
restless to move on-
people, places, dreams
left behind.

Eavesdroppers encroached.
One then a second,
enough flutter jarring thoughts
back to my computer
impatiently waiting
for its next command.

Annoyed,
I knit my brow
putting on indifference,
ignoring the intruders.

The skies mirrored
the tide of fortune,
the clouds themselves
guised as augurs:
a horn of plenty spilled over
with succulent flowers and fruits;
ancient ruins the Acroplis lay
wasted on a hill;
a mocking harlequin
laughing
in sequins and mask;
Father Time
waving
the ominous scythe
and hourglass.

Vignette fading to vignette.

Portent or whimsy?
The craft of these shape-shifters
shuffling
between life and death like
wandering troupes of theapians
lost between worlds.

And then came the jolt.
Besieged by what was now
a gaggle of eavesdroppers,
eyes riveted to the mutating
panorama of my canvass.

My heart sank.
( "Damn it!" I cursed to myself,
Was there no sancity left
on this planet?)

But my hands
kept on painting
as if having discovered
another purpose
than clicking icons.

With tranquill colors,
smell of chestnut blooms
and divinations tunneled deep
in my tissues,
I took my ease.

To notice the gaggle and I
seemed to paint as one
like the defecting clouds
drifting apart
to rejoin again,
each finding something
that was lost.

I realized
they were no different
than I-
needing to escape
the self-imposed cubicles
running our lives-
synthetic spheres wired
by some other-determined web.

Needing
to be like the clouds,
wanderers
in our own worlds.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Stimmung

(Author's Note: "Stimmung" from the German which means "the Essential Spirit" of Nature and is inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual In Art". Kandinsky (1866-1944) is regarded as the father of Modern Abstact Expressionism.)



Air and Sky
Cloud and Rain
Fire and Earth
Line and Plane


Color with Light
Form with Space
Star with Night
Moon with Face


To Be to Feel
To Feel to See
To See to Dream
To Dream to Be


Truth is Whole
Part by Part
Of the Soul
Elf of Art


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Seasons of Bonaire

( Author's note: Haiku or Haikus, from Japanese "hai", amusement, from Middle Chinese and Japanese "ku", sentence, also from Middle Chinese. A Japanese lyric verse traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.)


Albatross in flight
to and fro the Summer shores
directing the show.


Fall colors arrive
when playgoers from huge ships
haunt the cabaret.


Shorter days prevail.
The sun acts disinterested
in Winter sketches.


Hint of humid air
cues thespians of the reefs
for Spring rehersals.


Balmy Summer breeze
serenades the august heart
of the albatross.


The island cacti
discreetly pass their spent blooms
into Autumn's womb.


Where's the iguana
who Winter cloisters in caves
wary of strangers?


With dawn's Spring colors
flamingoes pose on the slough
pretending roses.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Ode to Innere Notwendigkeit

( Author's Note: The English translation of the title to this poem is:
"The Inner Need". Its inspiration is derived from Wassily Kandinsky's
"Concerning the Spiritual In Art". Kandinsky is considered the father
of Modern Abstract Expressionism.)




At the shadows of twilight
when the cadmium sphere is washed by the sea,
the cerulean band which shone like crystal,
bright as lapis lazuli-
translucent to endless heavens-
I sit and watch its golden layers flee
like frightened vapors scattering in air,
trailing away , ever fainter, ever weaker,
as the azure mirrors laid stretched across the sea.
When arrives the mystic moment of dream-silence
where the solitude of night awakens
colors the ears have not heard,
sounds the eyes not seen.


And with the dim of evening air
descends a world of contracting florescence.
Impinging its sacrilege, the vesperal invader
spares no image
untouched.
From the blurred horizon to the moon's height
plays the waning dirge.
Departed, the iridescent shades of day
scraped from Nature's canvas
as with a scapel, leaving
heaven's blue dome
vaulted,
void,
glazed.

The tones of day no longer seen,
its sounds as quiet as dead.


The monotone of cicada song
soothes my eyes with blue.
My ears ring with murmur
of the violet wind.
Ivory moonbeams cool
the burnt umbered earth, echoing
the sound of rumbling waves
as the night owl cast his vigilence
like the ocher rays of day.
I hear the rainbow play
its colored xylophone,
see the bat's sharp call
in the deep it flies alone.
And the clouds upon their sailing rack
dance the minuet above
the garden bloom of roses
pink,
white
and red.
The sounds of the night,
the colors of the day;
the sounds of day,
the colors of night.


And I revolving
midst this panorama
that I create as with a click!
a camera that needs no light, no day
to frame the image of my illusions,
nor sanctioned as to time or place,
for my eyes may hear
and my ears may see
what the heart desires to feel-
every hue,
every sound,
every dream which exist-
all are of the spirit
which is free,
which is me.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Island

The fog thickened
over the island
like soup.

Was it still evening,
or had morning risen?
Silence can be an artful teacher,
but just now it leaves me lost.

Somewhere from the catalogue
of my dreams I've neatly filed
in moments of time and place
the hope to arrive,
somewhere,
like the crest of the Matterhorn,
or strands once strolled
along wind-swept seas who speak
in tongues of vanished lands.

Now, the dream's renewed,
and I, anxious to repair,
when this time, this chance will prove
to be the long awaited Bodhi,
or Nirvana
or Promised Land.

So many times the hope,
the dream-

And I, confused by this dimension
whereupon the surface lacks
a map, address or name,
yet utters the depths of my being,
echoing in the den of memory,
rippling in deep chasms of the heart.

Copywright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Romance

Let me be your fire.
When passions grow cold
whose faces stare with despair,
I will warm your senses
like colors of new-born spring
from sweet buds blossoming in air-
or song from the nightingale's romance-
to dreams oozing from your still eyes
before dark night is dead.

Shifting shadows, lost loves appear.
How they tease the mind,
impale a fragile heart.
But I your jinni-
as ubiquitous gods saved ancient day,
shall cloak you in the mysteries of my might
and by my duty keep
vigil at your side
until omninous night is safe.

Make me your harp,
even as the ocean sighs.
What if my waves are crashing
like its own?
The passion of our tone will wash
harmonies so sweet upon the shore
that lost stars be seen
and forsaken winds wail no more.

The seas of gloom,
dark antipathies flee,
and love reborn
out of the dying eve.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Ode To Birth

( A grim darkness blanketed all of Eire.
During battle the noble king, Nuada, lost
his hand and thus his reign.
To power rose the evil will of tyranny,
and suppressed all the while,
the People of Danu languished
across the land.
Being true to his creed,
the great healer, Dianceht, summoned
his powers to fit the mangled wrist of Nuada
with a silver hand, while Miach, his son, infused
it with human motion and feeling.
Grasping his Sword of Light, Nuada fought
his people free,
and Eire and the Tuatha D`e Danaan
flourished once again. )


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My love is solemn never to be alloyed,
tainted or colored, weakened and thus destroyed.
It is my nature from which all things abound,
phantasms of creation for worlds I found.
It is the holy spirit that which I am
as everlasting waters. I am the dam
that feeds the rippling stream and caring shoal
whereupon the burdened lie when journey's old.

And as with the dawn, I rise above the bank
annointing the fragrant lime about the shore,
to nourish the seeds of nectar from which I drank
and seal our rite together for evermore.

And knealing beneath my alter of the Earth,
I conjure with sacred verse which is my birth.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Enlightenment

( Author's Note: The following text is inspired
by the philosophical works of L. Ron Hubbard,
to whom I am eternally grateful.)

I am touched by your aura
as with magical music and mystical wind.
Thousands of miles are but a grain of sand.

So it is you who make the seasons,
the earth which flows
from the mouth of the sea
to a perfect rose and majestic peaks.

( Even these words I write
are words written with a beauty
which is your hand. )

Spirit of Wine
with bouquet so sweet
the senses faint nearing it,
flood fragrant essence
in the air of my vine
and my limbs droop
limp with sweet drunkeness.

Creator of time without moment,
maker of space without place,
former of all things without form,
yet I feel your presence stirring
in the air like rays of sunlight soothing
my face.

Teacher of love and light,
by your example show the way
to the life of the eight circles, or dynamics,
which live in you.

To see
the harmony of the Universe
first begins with me.

Make me your comrade
to traverse the seas and shores
and help restore the light
to all the eyes of Earth:

The love and care for self,
for spouse and child
and friends and countrymen,
the Caucasian, the Negro and Mongol,
the flowering plants and budding trees,
animals, birds and the fishes of the seas,
for the planet on which we depend called Earth,
and beauty of all the beings of creation-
to journey upon the road of Infinity,
when we own again our godlike stature,
and live the grandeur
of Immortality.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Whispers of Kokopelli

In the distance a panorama of mystic buttes
standing vigilant like watchtowers over the mesa-
monuments to Mother Earth's sacred birth.
It is a place of harmony and peace,
its earthen tones of sepia and rust,
as with a painter's brush, mingles
with the golden hues of sun,
to blaze the tablelands with scarlet skies.


( The magic lands of the Anasazi. )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The sun shines more with each passing day.
Sheets of ice blanketing the earth have melted away.
The reckless winds having raged
with wild abandon seem contented now
to whisper through the lands.

With hands still haunting of winter chill,
cheeks raw and numb,
(though shelters in the ground
a bit warmer now)
and baskets dwindling fast
to last of winter stores,
I've come to know the meaning of joy.

The whispering winds grow louder
with inextricable tone,
different than winter's sharp cries of despair,
there's a resonance that touches the heart,
quickens the spirit to lift it up
where it belongs.

Might it be the Great Spirit Creator-
the hope that wrest from winter frost
the makings of youthful Spring?

Or, a spirit ancestor
pledged by his code to share
his infinite benevolence.

But, oh!
It's Kokopelli with his flute!
Dancing to the magic notes he plays
while upon his hunched back brings
the seeds of Life,
the songs of Spring,
and despite his heavy burden makes
a lasting plenitude.

His music and merriment
a testament to our aegis,
infusing whatever hardship be borne,
is, a mere pittance to pay
for the joy to create.

And I gathered up my cedar flute,
lips and fingers numb,
and to the whispers of Kokopelli,
I played.

Copywright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

When I Am a Poet

One day when I am a poet
I shall sing to you a song.
A song that tells the secret love
in words I cannot say.


One day when I am a poet
I will share with you the dreams
I dream of you each day-
dreams which stay unspoken.


Love-a word which is so small
but means so much
that I'm embarrased to say.
For my feelings for you so overflow
my senses, that all the books ever written
could not tell the story.


How do I say
that one day without you
is a lifetime lost;
how do I tell you
that life without you
is a flower despoiled of bloom,
a bird with withered song.


How do I tell you with words?


One day when I am a poet.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Harmony

("...Let reason, the gift divine, be thy highest guide.
Then should you be separated from the body,
you will be imperishable, a divinity, a mortal no more."
Pythagoras, The Golden Verses)



Look around you!
There's music in everything we see.
The sky with its lofty tones resounding
from a rainbow harp.
The forest its violins
whose quivering strings sweetly plucked
by bows of the wind,
serenade a sleepy earth
like songbirds singing hymns.


And there is play.
And love.


Why not change residencies for a day?
Permit yourself to slip past
the barricades of time and space,
to venture free from the trodden path
into the open fields of worlds unclaimed.


Life is a flower.
Let its petals unfurl and bloom
into the magic colors of its fate.
Forever nourish the roots
from which it sprang,
to blossom forth that vital sweetness
which makes all in your magic garden
wax with the music of love.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Piano

From your piano
the golden notes that sing
the sounds of life and love
more pure and real than earthly things,
migrating us back to places and times
buried in tombs marked
by solemn epitaph the final ending.
To know ourselves from times before
that stretch to now the written legacy,
to carry forth the dreams of yore
into a new beginning.

One continuous stream of light,
brighter than brightest rays of day,
softer than quiet glimmers of night,
speak to us and point the way
we have long forgotten.

Without you life of beauty is lost;
without you life lived is grim;
without you our dreams slowly fade
to empty material whim.

Speak piano, forever speak
the golden tones we cannot say,
with your magic wand of flitter cast
the future for us to make.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Tickling the Moon's Feet

Why have we come to hide our hearts,
Why are we here to stealth our souls,
Why do we waste away our precious gift.

Today when I looked into your eyes
you did not see me.

You and I, let's tread away
the silly charade and fly
about the clouds until
our hearts and minds go
crazy with raging love. Mocking
earth's solid clocks and rules,
we'll dance the night to dawn,
even tickle the moon's feet
for a mischievous laugh or two.

So when looking into your eyes,
the world becomes a magic garden,
with colors so bright I shield
my eyes to see. Touching
your hand a river of peace courses
through my veins to make
me drunk with sweet ecstasy.

Now that we are here, it is
as if we're one with infinity:
with reason to live to share
our infinite love,
with reason to love to make
ourselves complete.
Or why would we have come
so far.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

The Passing Of A Songbird ~ A Satire

(Author's Note: Satire, taken from Latin satira, earlier form satura, a poetic medley. A poem ridiculing present vices or follies.
CAUTION: Not recommended for the readership which strictly prefers uplifting verse. Especially deleterious to the psychopedantic brood of academe.)


There should be no music in this poem.
It is a tale about the time I was
a songbird and lost my wings.
What good is it to sing
to a forest empty and cold
where smug violets refuse to bloom
and the air's jaundiced with hate.


At last I can make sense of it.
It all began one day at school. I, recalling
vividly, a lecture by my psychology professor
( an intellectual poseur with stern visage
and adroit command of the lectern)
authoritatively saying: "Man is just an animal
and to survive one learns to adapt."
( Street Translation: "Life's a jungle to kill
or be killed."


Not by any stretch could
I be deemed religious,
yet have always seen myself
as something more than
primordial "instincts" and form of animal.
Never could I imagine
the likes of Socrates, Michelangelo,
Shakespeare, or Mozart,
nor Moses, Jesus, Mohammed
or Gautama in such vain.
Nor to suggest I've worn a halo,
but I've never felt ameliorated
by the prospects of living
at another's demise.


To lighten the air and lessen
the tiresomeness of lecture,
I cloaked myself within the poems of Shelley.
Music flowing off lips of the lyric muse
hidden inside the lines,
throbbed with one unbroken rhyme, until
as if by incantation, I was charmed.
From the mundane realm of human body
I sallied back to provenance- the being that I am.
To see the world with bright, encouraging hue,
feel its palpable beauty at every glance:
the voiceless air with duet of passerines,
a weathered barn snug in its cloche of snow,
fields with sleeping rootchildren dreaming
of coming spring.
Rife with free illusion,
possesed with native goal,
I sprung into the lofty quest
with gladsome heart and soul.
And with the subtle hint of verse,
it was as if I were:
a cloud!
the wind!
a spirit!
a bird!



Such things are hard to put to words-
to express the feelings.
Just let me say
a sense of calm and clarity,
freedom and wonder,
all wrapped up as one.
In an instant I could be
whatever I wished-
as with a snap of the fingers it was done.


Love for lyric and free expression
always was my core,
with affection for the winsome serenades
of songbirds.
( You might say it was natural for me to be a bird.)
And there I was,
newly fledged wings,
soaring about the clouds,
above the woods below,
heart drenched in blitheful song,
without care for time
or concept of wrong.


Quite the contrast to years growing up,
enduring the pains of pedantic schooling,
finally, to be what you've yearned to be.
How wonderful, I thought,
for all of us to share this happy fate-
to live out that special something
which makes us who we are.


When it happened without invitation,
a crudeness impinged upon my sense.
Slight at first which grew ever stronger,
like the loathsome curse of a thorn lodged
beneath the flesh.
It heavied the air and coarsened the spirit-
inklings of that baser side of life.


Soon the sweetness of my singing soured.
Filtering through preverted air came
first the sounds then images morphed
out of the past: "Hundreds of Palestinians
have been killed in Israeli air attacks!"-
vis-a-vis "Kill or be killed".


( Like a child alien and defenseless in the world,
a being exposed is easily maimed.)


Scanning the classroom, I watched
as fellow classmates pliantly nodded
to the professor's precept,
when one stood up to give a deduction:
"War is merely man's natural adaptation
to survival threats by man."
( Street Translation: "We'll stay in Iraq
a hundred years if that's what it takes.")
Suddenly, without thought to consequence,
I shouted aloud: "No! No! No!
"That's not the way life works!"
Besieged by an array of censoring eyes,
I pinched myself to see had I been dreaming,
only to find, I'd already lost my feathers,
no longer was I a joyful songbird
to adorn the world with graceful hymns,
but like the others a "man" of Earth.


Thus was the passing of a songbird.


There will be those who decry
my account heretical.
To some, set aside as fool's paradise, tagged
"frivolous waste of the reader's time".
While others cast the gorge at my arrogance
that I would try and be so different.
My professor swear to my insanity,
even order my isolation for fear
were such contaigon to spread,
it would spell the doom
to his own survival.


Judge it for yourself.


But if only the world would be better for it,
when there's one less songbird who sings.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

We Meet Again

In the concourse of our lives,
Whenever the two shall meet,
If you recognize my face
Your heart will feel mine beat.


On the boulevard of time,
Cross aeons of memory behind,
To a place our vibrations rhyme
We meet again in heart and mind.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels