Son of Invictus

© 25 August 2005, The Griot Poet

I am Invictus!

"My head is bloody, yet unbowed."
Two years removed from the game by

Downsizing,
Rightsizing,
Outsourcing

Have only revealed that I AM the source
Of my reality;

I AM the cause of my destruction or salvation.

I don't have to look beyond my own faith to know "every need is met"

Because
I AM!

The Gunslinger

(For Cindy Sheehan)
© 12 August 2005, The Griot Poet

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Stephen King

And, her face was grim.
Fixing her chin like flint,
Her silent vigil
Appealing to tens,
Then hundreds, then thousands…

Sitting in a lawn chair
Can cause such despair
To one who birthed war
And, ironically afterbirth
Aborted the lives of many.

Is it any wonder?
He sends lackeys
To answer her questions
While KBR, Halliburton
And Carlyle
Plunder
With the thunder
Of “shock and awe”
And the "iron triangle"
Of the military-religious-industrial
Complex?

Answer her questions!
She is the mother of loss, Casey, every mother’s son.
She has not crossed nor betrayed patriotism.
Those who suggest it with derision have no comparative, equivalent experience.

His unscripted comments are vexed,
Only mentioning her name
And taking flight in Marine One
For her guns are more lethal than his:
Birthed from a mother's burning love
For one she knew nine month's longer
Than even her son's best friend.

Yes, Stephen King:

"The man in black fled across the desert," to off-site meetings, to the White House "and the gunslinger [still] followed" him.

Purgatory

© 30 July 2005, The Griot Poet

Eye am below Heaven and above hell
where familiar spirits dwell.

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

Oldies songs take me back to the seventies:
before sex;
before bills;
before marriage;
before responsibilities.

Eye remember
all eye ever wanted to do was to
make an honest living.

Somewhere in my story, eye discovered
[John] Milton's nine-level purgatory.

Vision... became lust;
"doing whatever it takes," violating sacred trusts.

If the soul is
the mind,
the will,
the imagination,
the emotions
and the intellect:
eye sold it!

When do visions become vain imaginations?
When does goal-setting lead to coveting?

Thrust into responsibilities before eye was trained and ready,

eye skipped down the "Primrose path" -- eye wide shut -- in "no mind,"
forgetting that
"action without thought"
takes prior planning
and much practice.

So, here am eye
at forty-three
feeling less like
Solomon
and more like
Ecclesiastes *

My prayers as the
vain repetition
of a heathen

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

*: Ecclesiastes 1: 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.