Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Norberto Franco Cisneros

American Promise Denied

The beast lies because it must, but beware of his wrath

He spews venomous talk of subtle hatred and basks in his Caucasoid privilege

A Machiavellian attitude is one way to detect his alternative truths

Another is to hear his shills repeat the same lies

Living in splendor and abundance

He flaunts his birthright and asserts his superiority

Even in historical tomes untruths prevail

True history is not what is written and compassion ignored

The beast barks words of dissension, alienation and separation

bringing fear to people’s souls

Dishevelled old veterans stumble in an alley

Drinking and passing a bottle wrapped in a crinkled brown bag

The promised jobs did not materialize

disillusioned they drown their depression in alcohol

His contentious aggression chokes the civility of manners

The stagnant air created by their alternative truths stink

They consume honesty and integrity

leaving an empty moral hole in its place

The heartening hope of humanity is that

those who enjoy the abundance of material life not deny

The life necessities of the not so privileged people of the world

but remember that to give is charitable, but to share is Godly

Intelligent minds look for the keys to unlock the hatred in the beast’s heart

to erase the malice in his eyes to see the days of the American promise return for all

To Help The Deaf To Hear And The Blind To See

“Skepticism,” the poet told the woman,

“is contained in human reason and can never divorce itself from it,

because human reason contains the truth.”

The woman whispered, “And what does truth contain, sweet poet?”

“Truth contains doubt, my love

for without doubt the truth can never be revealed.

Truth is to be feared.

It brings disquiet to blind, ignorant minds,” the poet responds.

Sometimes the idiotic happenings going on around me

give me a feeling of fathomless, constant anger bordering on lunacy.

My mind swims erratically at the immensity of the fucked up-side-down universe that is my troubled country.

Unjust treatment of the destitute, the old and disabled

makes my heart bleed.

Peaceful, loving thoughts swirl in my spirit,

but bad dreams hang on grasping in this hypnotic trance I’m living.

Dogs bark at the moon late at night

Others howl at ambulances screaming by,

I am not concerned with approval or disapproval,

I write to amuse and inform those who read and can think critically.

Peace.

I bear no ill will towards you the innocent,

who toil endlessly and are forgotten,

but I talk to the moon late at night hoping to enlighten the blind and the deaf.

The moon responds with the silence that the covetously powerful possess.

The Stone-Walker: An End Time Elegy

The historical Stone Walker sings gravedigger, dearth songs.

A warning: the End Times are approaching and almost upon us.

In a land called the Monongahela across the river and down highway 10 west to the northern part of New Mexico, the Rocky Mountains end.

There, in that place, where midgets ride frail Dalmatian dogs and horses bray at pastel colored ghosts, the circus died.

The Walker laughs skipping from stone to stone never falling, he never falls.

Cockfights flourish here in New Mexico and in this lethal game, as in life, the cocks’ slash each other over and over until one dies.

Somewhere in the background John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ reverberates in the halls of worship.

Ronda Rousey, the Champion, bloodied and battered, loses her first fight. Her soul died that night.

Jews sing prayers in unison. In the synagogue where they pray, dancers dance the ‘Horah’ to a Jewish dance step

beguiling frogs in heat, stimulating all beasts to copulate simultaneously.

Phalluses of Cro-Magnon meat meander through hairless vulvas slithering from genital to genital enticing lesser minds into libidinous fervor.

Metal drones, on a dark landscape, obsessed with any target, do not have the spiritual values of their makers

who suspended them on the swastika of hope (their cross of nails).

These flying mechanical robots kill faultless people that die screaming in pain causing people’s perpetual state of fear.

It is said strange apparitions and false prophets will appear at the End Times; snow will fall in the desert;

rains and oceans will reach far and wide to swallow many lands; deformed people will be born and Evil with many deceiving, illogical, self-serving voices

will distort Nature’s dire distress with promises of God leading gullible followers to their destruction.

Gabriel’s silver trumpet will play the final note that the whole world will hear.

Take heed, you who worship profits and the Golden Calf,

do you think your wealth and comfort is assured forever?

Are you sure there’s a tomorrow when today’s tomorrow looks precarious?

The Stone Walker flits from stone to stone inscribing the Maya warning, “Beware of Tomorrow!”

If you detect Man’s folly in all of this, then prepare; the veil is being lifted.

The evil doers will be called out. The Apocalypse approaches quickly!

Norberto Franco Cisneros

My poems have been published in the following publications: Indiana University Journal Chiricu; Avocet Review (Avocet Press); Snow Jewel (Grey Sparrow Press); Ilumen (Mouthfeel Press/ Sam’s Dot Publishing) and several others, including e-zines, Black Petals, Ruhatish and have been a Featured Poet in Poetry Soup