POEMS OF THE ECUMENICAL HUMANIST CIRCLE
Copyright April 2003
Steven Hiller
1. May the Circle Be Unbroken
2. Reflection
3. On Women’s Liberation
4. The Dispossessed
5. The Healer
6. The Rook
7. “ Ode to Joy “
8. The Little People
9. Ocean Blue
10. Kind Fate
11. The Enlightenment
12. Teacher in Thought
13. The Teacher’s Dove
14. The Thinking Tree
15. Trees in Concourse
16. Blanket Appeal to the Estranged
17. Refugee Children in Africa
18. The Zebra
19. On the Surface
20. Antiphon
21. Men of War
22. The Strange Mother
23. The Bad Steward
24. Portrait of a Couple
25. Eden Wars
26. The Autistic Child
27. The Skunk
28. Angel of Peace
29. Viola Profunda
30. Flags of Nations
31. The Martinet
32. The Weeping Willow
33. The New Order
34. The White Seal
35. The Other Way
36. My Grandson
37. The New Folk
38. Evolutionist Discovered
39. The Kangaroo
40. The Evolutionist
41. The New Horizon
42. Gluttony
43. Prayer for Religious Tolerance
44. The Brilliant War
45. Wars as Human Slavishness
46. The Steward’s Plea
47. Prayer for Advocating Peace
48. Nooner the Chimp
49. The Ravaged City
50. The New Woman
POEMS OF THE ECUMENICAL HUMANIST CIRCLE
Steven Hiller
1. May the Circle Be Unbroken
We have done with all our thinking
casuistic-same-entrapping
in the fray and on the sidelines
while the Dance careens away.
There’s a flag-pole at each end-game
and the ones who didn’t make it
on the sand and on the tarmac
and the ever-loving clay.
There is torment in the asking
if we meant it, as we MEANT it,
all this truth-filled, tender carnage
we have heard of once before.
We arise as humans, deeper
in our grief that now does join us
for the great caprice of ages.
WE MUST PUT AN END TO WAR.
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2. Reflection
When I think that there is something
which makes Man seek out revenging,
I know we have all the makings
to return and turn about.
There is so much that can join us
in the common way of doing
for the sake of every moment
we can raise into a shout.
We are creatures of dominion
on this Earth that we would cherish,
bring it home to our new thinking
of what we might be as Men,
for we want to look for glory
in the stewardship we’re tending,
in the compact we’d be forging
in our trying yet again.
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3. On Women’s Liberation
Now the station of all women
is enjoined by state decree
in our keep so efficacious
it grants weakness its reprieve.
We delight in their perfection
their proficiency and aptness
but we fall beyond the wayside
when they say they want to leave.
Slavery in Earth’s great sojourn
is a habit long in forming
long in keeping and expending
even now, in this, our day.
Women take it as good tender
for a while of whiles in concert
never rasping or judgmental
till at length they go away.
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4. The Dispossessed
The scientist that lives to make
all that is human obsolete
will godless grasp the Universe
for his own simian playing-toy.
He’ll take It’s workings as he’d please
and order them to fit his ways
that give no thought to what may be
and what his pleasure might destroy.
And yet in beings of our kind
there is complexity unspent
to satisfy the mind that seeks
the scintillating and the rare.
We lose this thrilling recompense
when we turn all our thought away
from living Nature’s secret joys
like polished gems of no compare.
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5. The Healer
My own sweet Lord, who came to me
when I was in the vulture-hold
of pain beyond the final pale,
not understanding I might live,
your vision trained on fear so bright
it pierced my twitching, livid frame.
I saw the whiteness of your robe.
It was my only palliative.
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6. The Rook
He never wants to deal in numbers
with the injustice men go wreaking
upon those others whom misfortune
has weakened far beyond resistance.
He bears no pity for the furtive
dodging those like him, taut and portly,
their girth in self-preoccupation
stating removal from Man’s essence.
He is a floater on the ambiance
of the transactions round about him.
He is a rook to end all rooking.
He knows no other life at all.
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7. “Ode to Joy”
Making circles of redemption
that the Teacher showed his pupils
on the mission he decided
should develop into Life,
gives us reason to rejoice in
our own Mission for the taking
that we’re weaving into future
generations, Man-endowed.
It is obvious we are living
as he taught us in his glory.
Let us drink the cup together
to his holy human wisdom.
Let our happiness be clarion
in the Truth of this acclaim.
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8. The Little People
Children are sometimes Little People.
That’s when we need to dignify them
for their sweet aptness in responding
to gestures showing comprehension
of what they think and are inside.
Without such signal giving notice
that they do have some real awareness
of us as humans to be trusted,
approached, applied to and won over,
they will become as Little Creatures
retreating soon into the wild.
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9. Ocean Blue
There is no color more enticing
than Ocean Blue, my Ocean Blue.
It raises in me all the passion
of Earth-lover gone exploring
as white dove over churning waters,
that call to me with white-caps bright.
I fly transfixed by my elation,
in freedom keeping on my course,
and Ocean Blue is ever with me
until the heavens close above,
and I go homing to my nest-place.
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10. Kind Fate
My fate is kind. It gives to me
the issue of my greatest wish:
To be inclined in what I am
believing true to love all men.
I do what service is my share
for those whose plight has shaken me.
To them my efforts all belong
in freedom of my destiny.
There is no gain in my esteem
to pastimes rare or riches plied,
that drain the heart and mind of man.
I have my cripple’s recompense,
sweet tender joys of small avail,
to share with children and my mate.
That is the happiness I find
in this, my life, my own estate.
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11. The Enlightenment
We are still creatures of sheer habit
who won’t believe that they are meant
to change their thought to new endeavors
by virtue of the All in One.
It is true Light that comes from God
when men unite to learn their Way.
All power of the mind illumined
scales novel high ground to be won.
I would proclaim my new-found zeal
for all that happens in this world
when there is knowledge to be had
and our whole future leads me on.
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12. Teacher in Thought
Teacher, who knew the way of men
as suffering and dying soon
remembered always of their plight
and held in honor all their woe.
His pity led him to behold
their self-inflicted punishment
reflecting ill-considered truth
as the great curse upon the Race.
He loved them all in their default,
always upheld the very best
they had to offer on their own.
He wanted them to know his love.
His thoughts were ever of their fate.
He taught them everything he could.
He stayed with them to comfort them.
That was the tenor of his life.
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13. The Teacher’s Dove
The Teacher’s dove was purest white.
It flitted over sea and rock
wherever he was to be found
alone, and often with his Twelve.
It was a joyful, splendored bird
that could fly straight as arrows fly.
The Teacher knew it signaled Peace
and doted on it as his sign.
To us it still gleams as before
against a great and azure sky.
We make it hold the Olive Branch
for all Man’s hope we still would hold.
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14. The Thinking-Tree
The tree most ponderous in its might
holding aloft its great array
of green in crown so bountiful
and bark so studious of the past
invites me to my deepest thought
of what it is I might essay
by way of meaning I may share
with Men that have befriended me.
It’s under branches sifting light
that I arrive at all my best
while floating foliage gives me peace
to stay and find the strength I need.
I win this fortitude from joy
that lone reflective thought affords
before I seek the worlds I know
to face them with my new recourse.
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15. Trees in Concourse
There will be trees in every place
where Spirits gather to rejoice,
surrounding Them in heaven’s state
with jubilation ever new.
These trees will change their visage plied
of branches both in form and shape
thus pleasing those they would inspire
to raptured praise of All that Is.
Their leaves will take on hues sublime
which move the Spirits as they seek
to reach the highest of the Loves
that God bestows on What will Be.
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16. Blanket Appeal to the Estranged
It is not meet that we should be
concocting plots against our peers
for we are friends of what we have
to our great wisdom soon forgiven.
There may be days in our esteem
when we have spoiled for ready war,
reliving rage and rank revenge,
refuting reason past the pale.
But we are creatures of our Kind
destined to brave and tender joys
of comity in all we do
regardless of the flaws we bear.
It’s not for us to implement
such quickened loss to what we hold
as dearest and most crucial still
in our possession and esprit.
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17. Refugee Children in Africa
When I saw them on the picture
looking lost among the crowd
I thought that my heart was breaking
to receive them deep inside.
They were little, little children
boy of four and girl of three,
holding hands to help each other
climb into the wooden boat.
There was no one there to tend them,
parents or an older sibling.
They were careful, O so careful
to do everything just right.
May the God of Love protect them,
send them safely on their journey.
May good Men attend them daily
in this dire, woeful world.
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18. The Zebra
It’s a wonder of perfection
in its strange and holy beauty,
with its silken skin that shimmers
in the Serengeti light.
In its stripes it looks so graphic
like a purposeful Creation
of an artist who loves drawing
symmetry in pen and ink.
It is quiet, calm and peaceful,
and it kills no living creature.
It lives nobly with its equals
of the same amazing stripe.
May we always give it freedom
to range to its satisfaction.
May it feel it has safe-haven
on a green and loving Earth.
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19. On the Surface
There are men who will indulge
in the sloth to let things be
at the elemental level
where real depth of thought is meet.
They will go through life inured
to the driven and inane
never using their cognition
in the way it’s meant to serve.
They miss all the hidden joys
of a living synthesis
which asks existential questions
to be answered on their way.
They miss every nuance felt
by the sentient and the keen
who become aware of Life
giving to it every praise.
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20. Antiphon
Hail, O Lord who in the heavens
and on Earth enhances Men.
Who reveals to them his wonders
in the Spirit of true Love.
May we always groping find him
on the paths of Life he gave us,
seeking after his discernment
in our real complexity.
We are scions of his wisdom,
of the Mind that lasts for ever.
We are Sons of his Own Being
who does bring us all together.
We arise to pay him homage,
Highest and Eternal God.
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21. Men of War
They are the men who in their need
for what is never payment due
will always stay beneath the mark
of all that’s Mankind’s enterprise.
Their whole proclivity is based
on a refusal to comply
with that which human Law denies:
the right to take another’s life.
They have been staking other claims
than those contained in Sacred Writ
wherein there is immense foundation
for holding Life as sanctified.
They will not stand for this great Claim:
“ We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these Rights are Life.....”
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22. The Strange Mother
He was a child that cried in vain
raising his hands so very high,
a little boy who wanted to
have his own mother
hold him tight
within her arms to comfort him
and make the strangeness go away.
She stood,
as powerless as statues
beside herself within her pain.
She wanted to rush toward him,
but knew herself to be deranged,
and couldn’t tell what she might do.
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23. The Bad Steward
He is not keen to do the work
of exercising his awareness
on everything that might be making
his plans short-sighted and naive.
He does not try to have broad insight
into the way the whole domain
Earth-wide affects his stewardship
at this, a time when all men’s ventures
are getting everywhere connected.
His isolation and his hubris
turn him contemptuous and mean.
Those still around him hope and pray
he won’t importune them again.
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24. Portrait of a Couple
A man and wife of true accord
who live to hail each other’s thought
and verify each other’s strength
as their own sacred stewardship,
will have much happiness to share
in what they might together do
for all the others in their ken
who need their succor when in straits
of want and dire circumstance.
Their children are a happy lot,
begot and reared in ready love,
which they pass on to their coevals
as steadfast friendship, cheerful help,
and frequent laughter.
Such real devotion to their own
and to the life that they have built
is our couple’s legacy
and source of lasting, fruitful joy.
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25. Eden Wars
The Earth was once a haven for
those who believed in godly ways,
relinquished what was not their own
to take from all the common good.
Then men came ravening to seize
what their own merit would not bear
and all the balance was destroyed.
They blamed their plight on the occult.
The women, who believed men did
what they were always bound to do,
did not expect them to behave
and lost all power to protest.
.
We are still exiles from that world
usurped by boundless avarice.
We often think that we’ll prevail
with gestures of a paltry sort.
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26. The Autistic Girl
She is a wan autistic child
who cannot speak at age of four.
Her sweetness lies in all the trust
she has for those that tend to her,
although she would prefer aloneness,
and no eye contact with her peers.
Her small, pale hands make arcane signs.
Sometimes she parrots what is said.
Mostly she likes to sit and play
with objects which she swings or twirls.
She is obedient at her school
unless the order of her things
becomes disturbed. She always stays
aloof, devoid of overt feelings,
a Little Alien among men.
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27. The Skunk
The skunk has great luxuriant eyes
gleaming like onyx cabochons,
a coat that’s royal white on black
and a most graceful shape to boot.
It knows its power of defense
being both agile and unhurried.
When it unfurls its splendid tail
it’s time to let it have its way.
It is, in spite of this detail
doubtless among the most attractive
of forest creatures known to man.
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28. Angel of Peace
Angel of God, come shining white
into my hazy darksome lair.
Bring me your trumpet with its sound
to rally men against all war.
I am a cripple who would shake
all the foundations of Mankind
announcing Peace to every man.
There is a gratitude we tender
to everyone who brings us Peace.
Remember us in all your glory
and come to help us, helpless men.
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29. Viola Profunda
Pansies are a race apart
though their faces seem familiar.
They remember who we are
as attested by expression.
We invite their air superior
based on velvet pulchritude.
They do not encroach at all
on each other’s territory,
nod in concert when the wind
sends them dancing to and fro.
They are paragons of stylishness.
We admire their elan.
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30. Flags of Nations
The flags of nations stand aloft,
a brave and hopeful panoply.
Their colors mix and catch the gaze
of all of us who seek this hope.
We are the men and women that
are now committed to Mankind
in its most varicolored form,
for every nation has its value,
its contributions, dignity
and promise for its future years.
We are as one, but still distinct,
the citizens of our World.
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31. The Martinet
He is a man of hidden frailty.
To keep a soldier’s discipline
he is constantly exerting
great inner pressure on himself
being at all times most inflexible
and prone to sudden wrath that’s furibund.
His men avoid like plague
his indescribable demeanor,
his drastic military posturing,
his total lack of justice and concern
for their well-being.
At home he has a child of twelve,
a boy, whom he abuses
physically and verbally
to “make him indomitable” .
The child accepts the
blows to face and back, the jibes,
sensing his weakness.
He knows his Pa is sick inside.
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32. The Weeping Willow
I love the truth a willow gives
to other trees with upward branches.
Its color is so captivating.
It is so maidenly and loving,
so youthful even when full-grown.
I am reminded when I see it
of the medieval festivals,
of revelers gaily passing under
bridges of its uplifted boughs.
I think of Chaucer’s escapades.
I therefore never would regard it
as weeping or as mystical.
To me it signifies good times:
It is my lovely dancing-tree.
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33. The New Order
We are a grouping of New Men
who would become a union for
the reign of Peace upon the Earth,
by virtue of a great arousal.
We want to make all men to be
accustomed to the ways of Peace,
seeking a novel kind of state
in which war is a hateful crime.
We want to write the Law of Peace
into the Codicil of Earthly Writ
for all the future times to come.
We pledge us to uphold this Law.
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34. The White Seal
The baby harp seal is a thing of beauty,
so endearing in its cream-white coat, gamboling
on the snow or blue-gray ice.
It looks so gentle and bemused
when in repose, particularly
when its mother is near.
Soon, however, it turns dark,
seeming both powerful
and purposive, its body quick,
sleek and graceful
in the Arctic sound.
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35. The Other Way
The other way to pose a truth
is to engender many lies
and make it stand out all alone
against this background.
Such is the method we have chosen
for holding up the truth of war
for we don’t ever cease to lie
about that which it is in fact.
There never will be total Peace
if we keep lying as we do
that war is necessary evil
or honorable, heroic state.
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36. My Grandson
My little grandson is my only treasure
of the kind that makes me weep for joy.
He laughs in his sleep, such a merry laugh.
He plays with his toys so emphatically
and comically. He tries to walk
so bravely and decidedly. He coos and he gurgles
when I speak to him. I think he will be
a handsome and sensible boy.
We always have good times together.
He never makes me feel I’m old.
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37. The New Folk
There are new folk in our connection
who seem to be so very taken
by gainful employ of the kind
that makes of life a constant striving
without a thought to human toll
which this might take on them,
on their dependents and their peers,
that we can only watch in awe
and in alarm at what they sacrifice
each day they get sequestered more
in their deplorable predicament.
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38. Evolutionist Discovered
Mine is a very small endeavor in the main.
I cannot make the trees and grasses grow
and there is little I can accomplish
to empower men and beasts.
The only thing I know to do is sing a song
about people who would try being good and kind,
not overpowering others.
This song I sing is for everyone to know
and to keep in their hearts as promise
for when times get hard
and hope of progress looks dim.
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39. The Kangaroo
The kangaroo looks very mild
and amicable. It has a gentle face
and eyes. Its giant haunches and
feet somehow go well with its
upper body. Its movements
are ungainly and rather slow.
Who would believe that it is
an expert kick-boxer of
outlandish power?
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40. The Evolutionist
Being a pragmatist he has certain reasons
for planning a concerted move.
He sees that even the smallest instance
which is conducive to our progress
is to be noted as of use and made
occasion for directed act.
His own volition is augmented by that of
others who with him are trying
to advance the development
of our global sphere.
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41. The New Horizon
The new horizon looms afar,
its noble state a great creation
achieved by efforts of New Men.
It is a lofty and a peaceful edifice.
No child here perishes of famine.
No one here dies of epidemic,
or of ill-treatment.
It is whole. It is our own,
it is our home and stronghold
if we but would become New Men.
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42. Gluttony
There are two kinds of gluttony.
The porcine kind that takes gross food
and, avid, turns it into glut
without awareness or restraint.
The other kind is the gourmand
who also can absorb in excess,
but squanders sums extravagant
on preciously appointed fare
which takes great industry and time.
Both of these feed on our estate
where millions live in desperate hunger
and cannot even make protest.
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43. Prayer for Religious Tolerance.
God, who created one and all
of every wise and every creed
bring us together in our common
desire to uplift our lot.
.
May we occasion in our faith
to have respect for all that do
see God as different from our own
or who refrain from all belief.
Don’t let rank hatred between men
who worship differently give cause
to what is worst within our kind:
war, terror and avowed revenge.
God, save us from such deadly scourge
and let Peace come upon your realm.
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44. The Brilliant War
This war, so brilliant and so intricate,
is no improvement to our evolution
toward a real and constant Peace.
We delude ourselves it isn’t so.
The human mind, when led astray
into the regions of false premise
becomes enmeshed in casuistic
elaborations, escalating.
Yet we are scions of our Reason
who know the basic truths of living.
We can retract these failed constructions
thereby returning to Home Base.
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45. Wars as Human Slavishness
Picture the vengeance of pitiless
circumstance upon those visited
by deadly wrath attributed to ages.
Picture the soldiers, the civilians.
They are the minions of all wars,
perforce obeisant to their dictates,
unable to oppose or question
that which is imposed upon them:
They have no say in what will happen.
They have no right to their own lives.
They are bereft of defense in law.
They have no status that might help them.
They are the slaves of rampant war.
They are the slaves, but no one holds them captive
except themselves.
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46. The Steward’s Plea
Great God of all that live and breathe
give us your succor in our plight
so that we might be vindicated
for what we do to your estate.
Our own protection of our kind
becomes a tragic travesty.
Give us the strength for saving us
from all that threatens life and limb.
Great God, we languish without rest
while war and famine still despoil.
Our Earth domain goes unattended
in ways that leave its future bleak.
We don’t unite as sapient men
who want to best fulfill their promise.
There is scant merit in our task
of tending to our stewardship.
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47. Prayer for Advocating Peace
God, who does give us all we need
to right our pathways in this day,
let us remember that we have
the strength, the courage of your
mighty Love.
Let us now counter all those who
stray by warmongering designs.
Let us recall that they will devise
to weaken the steadfastness
of our resolve.
Let all man’s Justice be our guide
in what we do to give the Truth
to them in each of their distortions
of what is real: The right to
Earthly Peace.
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48. Nooner the Chimp
1
I am a chimp of some renown
in my entire entourage,
it being small and spare, all told
without elan and savoir faire.
What we do have is great eclat
of wheels of fortune, fireworks,
gambling casinos out on boats,
and other capital effects.
Our Mecca is called Vegas-Town
where we admire the decor:
the Royal Roar in shiny gold
and all the other famous Pomp.
2
I am an arbiter of sorts
because I always wear top hats
with tinsel all around the crown.
My diaper’s red with silver trim.
The other chimps admire me
for yelping, turning somersaults,
for making a terrific noise
and for my jumping up and down.
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49. The Ravaged City
A city ravaged by a war
has all estate undone and spent,
like a good woman who’s defiled
with all that’s precious wrecked and raped.
Its wounds gape everywhere around
from the incursion’s overthrow
of its established right to be
as honored human artifact.
It sprawls in disarray as if
it knew the harm that has been done,
the time that it must thus endure
until it’s healed and live again.
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50. The New Woman
The new woman came to town
never suspecting she would be
molested and ravished by
the soldiers in the winning force.
Later they took her to a pleasure
palace for men of every kind,
never suspecting she was base.
They drank, used opiates, smoked weed.
She took their money willingly
and willingly gave of herself.
Then, with a knife, before they saw
what was afoot, she cut their flesh
and hers, to mingle all the blood.
She wanted to be doubly sure
she was infecting them with AIDS.
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