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The Poems


🐺

The Reformed Gentleman

Sought he her naughtier,

but
Caught he her haughtier,

so
Bought he her Gautier,

and
Taught he her what to hear.

© 2005 Jon Holland

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🐺

Platitudes

Pithy remarks

when bottled up

and distributed wholesale

tend to spoil.


Fluid ideas

ferment well beyond elegance

the solid waste remaining

settles to the bottom as

pith in vinegar.

© 2004 Jon Holland

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🐺

Sculptor's Block

I whittled on the tree of life

till I got bored and I quit.

A friend said,

'Carve your life.'

And I did

Until my chisel broke

On the first knot.

© 2004 Jon Holland

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🐺

Gossip

Go,

Sip a cup of coffee

Socialize

With your friends.


Gossip,

A cup of coffee

Social lies

With your friends.

© 2004 Jon Holland

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🐺

Pustule of History

'I said,' said Thomas Jefferson,

'I think there is, I think there is one.'


'One what?' I said, 'There is one what?'

'Not what,' he said, 'but rather wen.'


'How when?' I said, 'I wot not when.'

He told me then:

'There is a wen in the corse of human events.'

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Glazier's Lament

Here I sit,

All brokenhearted.

Came to fit,

But only sharded.

© 2005 Jon Holland

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🐺

Spelling Rule 42:1

h-e-a-r-t or h-a-r-t

e before a

except

after the water brook

© 2005 Jon Holland

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🐺

Life's Syntax

Soul

is greater than

the parse of its hum.

© 2005 Jon Holland

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🐺

Recovery

While working through

my own set of personal issues

walking the walk

I met a woman

a victim's victim

speaking anguish

as a second languish

accent ague

accent grave

talking the talk.

© 2005 Jon Holland

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🐺

Commuted

salvation

pastor said


first a whisper

then a breeze

finally a gale

swept away the holy babble

and revealed his trance position

slavation

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Depletion

I see tomorrow

as a few

cheer the manic cry

Oil is lost!

We have no energy

to go on.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Domestic Xenophobia

peanut fanciers

fail to attain

cashew

with the nut lovers crowd

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Brittle

My door is ajar

with sweet expectations

of your return.

My heart is ajar

with hope.

Close it gently if you must

but please do not slam it shut

and shatter my dreams.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Cause, C'est Libre

If my friends and I

bitched and griped

for a noble and worthy cause

threw rocks

burned property

broke things

and looted stores

throwing a public tantrum

in the middle of the city

police and swat teams advancing

tv and news crews watching

their audiences looking on and crying

or cheering


Then we would have invoked

that universal social ideal

equal riots for all before the law.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

My Daddy Said

Everyone knows a person who . . .

We all remember a time when . . .

That always happens whenever I . . .


Personal observations

parlayed to conclusions

bearing the weighty credence

of common sense

our fathers' legacy

anchored in our past

the settled proof of the middle ages

running rampant in our world today

lacking curiosity

mocking rigor

dismissing science

never to change.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Long Lasting Love

Ulysses

returned in rags

after a long day at the office

to find his wife

stringing the beaus along.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Nightmare for Lazarus

aliens

immigrants

not enough fences

not enough detention camps


buildmo

gitmo

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Royal Stats

winsome

loosesome

some reigned out

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Virtual Burial

Criminitly!

plaintive scene

the light to truth

be calm


Cry my nightly plaint

I've seen the lie

to truth become


She laughed she cried she loved

she died

and the sign

on the cemetery gate says


CLOSED: Do Not Inter

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Minimum Rage

Morph for Them

i-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-t-s

i-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-t-a-n-t-s

i-n-c-o-m-e-p-i-t-t-a-n-c-e


Minimum wage is the

income pittance

promised by the rich

delivered by their lackeys

to the working poor.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Wickedness of a Candle

Waxing ideas

from sense and thought

rise through my mind

and burst into flame

illuminating my life,

perhaps yours.


The wick

is the vehicle.

All the rest is fuel.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Talk Radio

DMZ

Korea has one.

We could too

if we had troops on the border,

but we don't.

So

what M word could we use?


My God!

Will these people never quit?

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Looking In

The sound

of my reflection

is the

mere roar

of my mnd

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Impediment

For five years

he was Uncle Woger

coming to visit

his damaged niece.


Now at seven

with focused attention

her lips and tongue just so

Uncle Roger is beaming with surprise.


In five years

when her muscle memory

has taken over

Uncle Roger will have forgotten

his mispronounced self.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Imperial Evangelism

Ambassadors

favor curry with the king.

Settlers

curry favor with the diplomats.


The natives

curtsy to their captors

and suffer their conversion.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Public Stand

Lemma Nayed

Bush Ferment

Sours

Decider

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Public Outcry

Lemma Nayed:

Bush Ferment Sours Decider

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Kudos for Commerce

Our neck of the woods

had a creek in it

three miles from the highway

pure, potable

proud and perfect.


Now the interstate crosses over

this drainage channel

abraded, bladed, and graded

dressed in concrete

fated to be a relic of my memory.


Our neck of the woods

has a crick in it.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Good Times

Double the first

You get the second

Double the second

You get the fourth

Double the fourth

You get eighth


Firsg and second

You get the third

Double the third

You get the sixth


Second and third

You get the fifth

Double the fifth

You get the tenth

Third and fourth

You get the seventh

Fourth and fifth

You get the ninth


Now you're finished

Now you're done

Good times have just begun

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

Prolific

His greatest desire

was to write

volumes and volumes and volumes

tantalizing sketches

illuminating glimpses

comprehensive biographies

replete with unimagined detail.


The sole review

of this dyslexic author's

only published work

credited him as

singularly profilic.

© 2006 Jon Holland

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🐺

...to Draw the Line

Raster is faster

but

Scalable is salable

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Floodgates

The floodgates of despair

pushed hard against

the rising tide of confidence

holding back

a creative storm surge

redolent with success

in honesty of expression

and competent execution


The floodgates have collapsed

releasing a vigorous

beckoning odor of hope

a spoonerism

of the mechanism of depression

the good flatus

a new beginning

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

View from the Back

an old woman

short cropped gray hair

hooded jacket and sneakers

in a wheelchair

at the next table


holding up her left hand

gnarled and twisted with arthritis

waving her fingers

at herself

as if exercising

staring at them

wondering?

what is happening?

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Survival

We needed them then

We need them now


protesters

those unkempt

free loving long haired

students calling for

free speech

love, peace, and community

no more war

dow shalt not kill

an end to napalm and agent orange


rejected by their parents

and some of their peers

for their

freedom of expression

outrageous demeanor

hair


uncommon often unruly

persistence and commitment

forced a change

from darkness to cloudy sunshine

a better day.


The skies are graying again

We need the free-wheeling spirit

of that age

their laughs

their libertines

their hirsute preppiness


We needed them then

We need them now

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

The Burden of Admonitions

I have no illusions

of our reality.

Yet you accuse me of dreaming

wishing

the impossible, the impractical

into our lives.


I consider existence

beyond our common ken

and live there a while

alone together

watching and remembering

as a child learns.


Yes, I am a wistful thinker.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Reptile Diction

In fantasies

of reptile diction

rattlesnakes

are fanger than 'striction.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Truce Denied

Diplomacy is dead:

their heels dug in .

daring one another to falter

neither listening nor yielding,

no common ground to

meet upon and embrace.

There's not a dime's worth

of deference

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Escapement

Old and dazed

he slides back into his past

seeking release from

bone pain, forgetfulness, and withering

to a time of

youthful vigor

mental clarity

and aching from hard work.


The olden days

a refuge

as the clock ticks along

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Connection

Thanks for calling,

keep it up.

Thanks for listening,

keep it open.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Anthropomorphic Guilt

Ferns and other

vegetative creatures

share asexual

special features

for which they suffer

shame and strife,

sporiety is the

vice of life.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Dimming, then Winking Out

Skeptic calls

of an angry wide-eyed populace

have brought into focus

crime, thuggery, and deceit

lurking in the shadows


This secretive administration

of our White House

bewilders Americans

embarrasses the nation

and darkens the glow

of our shining city on the hill.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Last Twill and Vestment

Take it to the chaplain

and they did:

shame, dishonor, lying, deceit, cheating,
demons, pain, and grief

streams of anguish

webs of dismay

clumps of hatred

floods of stress

punctuated by rays of insight

momentary glimpses of calm.


He heard it all

and gave them everything he had.

Now he lies here spent

loyal to his troops

faithful to his convictions

a quiet hero at rest.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Stewardship

Daddy Quail

came round the corner of the house

past the sculpture

scouting his path to the catclaw tree.

Mom followed looking

left, then right, left again and right,

checking on her four youngsters

not in tow as they were this last spring

but running well off the safe path

testing their youthful wills,

all headed for their family gathering

in the shade.


It's late July now, nearly August,

in September the hunters will arrive

and this family will become a covey.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

To the Well Meaning

How dire you project

the outcome of my plans!

Would that you turn to stone

petrifying your sappy

wooden-headedness

and leave me to pursue my dreams.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Confetti

Many of us

looking on the blight

sighed collectively

baffled by

rape, killing, conquest, and imperial plundering

blessed by medieval arrogance,

corporate branches

tightly bound

round the Crawford axe

shredding our constitution

cross cut


Paparazzi in The Hague

America in the perp walk

conviction certain

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

The Blade in the Bundle

Seek solace in your privy, Liege.

Keep up your merry talk and racy tales

of sin and redemption.

Celebrate your bigot revival

knowing it's hard,

hard to sustain the hot heat of hate,

simpler to let your warm anger ring

numbing the nation with that

innocuous drumming worldwide ringtone:

'The war will never die.'

while troops and citizens

shed their lives and fortunes

for your bottom line.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

U Logs

Great...Wonderful...Thoughtful...Kind...


We throw them on the funeral pyre

heaping the altar over with good words

well meaning praise for the dead

a vocal sacrifice

hoping to gain credit for our

beneficent caring after death.

Let us speak of the person's

acts and behavior

encouraging the eulogy to emerge

from the minds of the communicants

filling the sanctuary

with loving empathy and thanks

for a fellow life lived.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Presidential Empathy

Support the war!

Go shopping!

Fill our corporate coffers

with your hard earned dollars.

Sweep those shelves clean

with your war spending sacrifice.


Support the troops!

Shop till they drop

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Freed and Exposed

Profound expressions of enduring ideas

too often languish on the pages

of dusty volumes of poetry

shackled by rhyme, meter, and obscure vocabulary

an imagined badge of essential poetic skill.


The sense of the world

sent to us from great minds

undelivered, unopened, and unread

entombed in the forgettable past.


Today the course of poetry

lively and intense

has slammed into free verse

careening through generations

of young writers

speaking in the voice of the populace

exhuming the eternal thought of the ages

for a welcoming consuming audience.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Left? Center? Right?

The question persists

the arguments rage

Which side are you on?


Each burning issue of the day

is a common point of origin

on any of an infinite number of axes

of thought.


The outermost limit

the horizon

of this aggregation of rays

is uncertain and unstable

forever expanding and retreating.


So who can say

with confidence

with finality

where the center is?

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Historian and Scholar

Bent over old texts

and obscure source documents

sorting and thinking

he teases out a closer look

at the reality of the past

setting the current popular myth

on its ear,

only to be ridiculed and belittled

by mindless indoctrinated followers

of the old stories

believers in the immutability of history

learned from their fathers.


Those who pore we shall always

have with us

but why the angry?

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Evolution of Personal Faith

The pastors

preached their fire and brimstone sermons

expounded their sanctimonious chatter

chiding their congregations

for failing to

pray correctly, devoutly

testify publicly, often enough,

give generously of their pocketbooks,

their meager incomes.

They set themselves up

for a holy ride

their sacred duty

to shepherd flocks of wooly souls

through life's perils

to heavenly rewards.


The CEO of God Incorporated

watching for love

looked over his world

and finding fear

shed his puppeteers

his minions of madness

gone awry.

© 2007 Jon Holland

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🐺

Pelting Mots

We tell our children

America is a melting pot

a cauldron of simmering

cultures and faiths

softening our social edges

blending our moral values

rendering us all

more or less,

as one people

strengthened by the heat of

national unity.


The myth persists

the melting pot

lingers on our lips

a comforting childhood protection

a defensive distraction from

the reality of senseless wild bigotry

sexual slurs

racial epithets

ethnic stereotypes

petrified words of hate

we hurl at our neighbors

crushing their love

destroying their community

demeaning our brotherhood, our sisterhood.


We are stoning ourselves

to civil and moral death

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

The And Bigots

We are programmed

by our parents, churches, and schools

to recognize ourselves

in the faces and behaviors

of others like us.


We are the world

We are the doers

We are the message


Those who don't fit

who don't match

our common sense of identity

they are the ampersands

surrounding us in vast meaningless numbers

all those others whose existence

carriy no weight

express no ideas

simply place holders for white space


We are the doers, the speakers

We are the message of the world

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Dear, Dear

Does deer hart

fawn

hind stag buck?

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Moral Erosion

The rutting of our parents

that animalistic act

conjugation

condemned by pastors and preachers

despised by the church

the sin of the flesh

constrained by marriage

relegated to procreative duty

eternal punishment for

original sin.


Train up a child

set him set her

on the proper path

mindlessly plodding

through life:

the rutting of your child's

mind and spirit

is assured.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Criticism 101

The critic's role

is not to shoo

but give a work

its rightful due.


So keep your wits

don't join the few

who chid off more

than they could boo.

:

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Homeless

A sea of human lives

broken and lost

forgotten but for

their damnable presence

silently sharing the same longings

unable to tell their stories

for the lack of an audience

the same loves

the same pain and anguish.

that the rest of us suffer.


We see only an ugly static world

of miscreants and misfits

lazy leeches and worthless wretches

always present

never seeming to change

a slum ocean view of humanity

to be spat upon.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Éteignez mon Âme

toute l'année

les quatre saisons

passé sans joie

mon coeur est cassé

peut-être mes pensées sombres

peuvent faire une brillance

dans ma vie

il n'y a aucun espoir

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Legacy

Was it the murder

or Cain's dissemblance

that sent him packing

wandering in the east

expelled and demeaned

but not disgraced

saved from a vengeful death

by that ironic divine mark?


Corporate retailers

clothe us in sweat soaked shirts

exploiting sick and dying children.

Corporate free traders

close factories and export our jobs

rendering whole communities idled and broken.

Corporate union busters

grind our workers into poverty

sending them scraping for sustenance.

Corporate labor sourcers

sell our neighbors into oblivion

shattering families and extinguishing hope.


Our soil is soaked with

children's sweat,

workers' idleness,

laborers' scratching,

vanishing ambition and dreams.


The mark of Cain

emblazoned on America's forehead

shines brightly in this nation

with impunity

begging that impertinent question

'Am I my brother's keeper?'

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Victor's Faith

That final thrust

The ultimate resolution

The Viking's trust

A Thor fought conclusion.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Existential Entropy

beset belittled bereft betimes

before betrothed betrayed bestead

beseemed besieged betwixt because

beloved beshrewed bestowed behoof

bethought belated bewildered bemired

beseeched betide besought behest

bestride between beleaguered belays


bereaved

besot

befogged

benign

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Writ of Mandate

We invited them

There was no answer

We requested their presence

There was no response

They ignored our subpoenas

Federal court ordered them

'Appear and produce the documents'

They replied in universal indifference

stellar erasure

a black whole

of redacted text.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Priority News LLC

TV's widescreen aspect

enhances the perceived depth

of their thousand word images

only to be obstructed

by a translucent banner

inciting prurient spectacle

beggaring our minds

with creeping crawling distractions

newsworthy distortions

impatient enticements

we just can't afford to miss.


The chyron disappears

when the commercial comes on.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Inured Offense

They promise to help

granting purchased assurances of trust

for a fee.


Their contracts

unregulated and unilateral

replete with ironclad detail

awash in parsed generalities

invite denial of claims

daring the buyers

to grovel and beg

for their rightful due.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Cross Culture Brunch

Pass them syrup tissues, Lee,

But be sly about it son.

I don't want no one to catch on

I'm not one of them, you see.

© 2008 Jon Holland

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🐺

Facile Fossil

Should you ever consider

calling Longfellow

a dinosaur of poets

given to ancient flights of fancy,

reread Evangeline

and listen to him tear a dactyl

from the pages of Acadian history.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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🐺

Commitment, Not Glory

Be done with those

proud and pompous orators

self righteous celebrants

of war and destruction

proud parents of dying and suffering children

sacrificed in the name of Honor

enshrined in a pageant of flags and parades

the romance of war

masking brutal savagery.


Think of those

who risked their lives and fortunes

for a new beginning

apart from the crown

bound only to freedom

the rights of mankind

and destined for war


Read their words

feel the urgency

sense the threat

meditate beyond reason

quietly breathe in the heavy air of decision

and weep for them

while they sign their death warrant


One fledgling nation of rebels

throwing down an American glove

before the king.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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🐺

Sacrificial Duty

Honor

a feather in your cap

dearly purchased public citations

the accumulated capital of personal greed

declaimed before the congregants

by the pharisee

in arrogance


Honor

devoid of humility

the bottom line

of corporatized worship

© 2009 Jon Holland

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🐺

News Cycle

down in the basement

beyond the stacks

just past arch 4e

that's where we keep

all that old stuff

that nobody ever wants

until the skeletons rattle

waking from the forgetfulness

of a dead public

brought to life on a whim

by a fledgling reporter

scratching the dirt of the past

spindly legs soon to be

fleshed out and toned

running furtively through the night

breaking forth at dawn

glaring in the sunlight

flooding some misguided crooked figure

with light, recognition, and scorn

for a day

before dragging him down to the basement

beyond the stacks

just past arch 4e

to be forgotten like all the others

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Réponse pour le Petit Tyran

D'abord

je battrais

l'Âme de l'Âne,

avec la lame de mon âme,

pointu et coupant,

dans le service de justice.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Past Glory

it was on a whim

visiting

sitting in on a local gop meeting

in small town usa

fast and furious

vehement at times

the talk

no

put up a wall against everything they want

the modern spear is a missile with a warhead

remember the serpent's clever promise

of the fruits of the tree of knowledge

listen

fan the winds of change

ignoring the future

dreaming of the past

the return of the lynching rope

bearing its ugly burden

on the tree of ideology


pillars of the community

blinded by faith

loyal to their fathers

they saw only parts

of the elephant in the room

© 2009 Jon Holland

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A Sprouted Seed

she said

he said

don't use that tone of voice with me

and mostly I didn't

except now and then

when I paid the price for it

later, much later

unaware

I hurt others with my words

of scorn and anger

condescension and patronizing

a lifetime of bewilderment and puzzlement

alone with acquaintances, not friends


but I never used that tone of voice

with them again

it was too late

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Cast Your Lot

Capitalists

roll dice and prey.


Humanitarians

dole rice and stay.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Time Will Tell

History

is the ally of progress

Nostalgia

is its enemy

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Reverie

We dream of

gibbetry

and trust us

for all who thwart our efforts

you will be left behind

dangling, swinging wildly

suspended in your

hellish altruism

the failure of hope.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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No Longer Silent

They have changed

jeans, not skirts

suits, not frocks

standing firm in their own might

taking their place in the world

rightfully determined to bring

fairness and equality

into our lives

breaking free speaking out

no longer submissive

no longer crying uncle

to their husbands

they have found their voice.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Standing

Revenue

flowing into the coffers

payments, premiums, deposits, fees

fuel for greed

heaped on the asset sheets

the corporate altar

to be leveraged by the gods

on their imaginary fulcrum


Risk

the arrogance of the market

flaunting its ignorance

unsure of its footing

declaims with impunity

the boast of Archimedes

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Warning Label

Warning

If you are repugnant

or expect to be repugnant

during the course of this treatment,

tell your doctor.

Unexpected terminations of repugnancy

have been reported

resulting in

free thinking

clarity of mind

and feelings of acceptance

with friends, coworkers, and acquaintances.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Preparedness

Seven devout Christian disciples

gathered outside the supermarket

late one night

after the evening service

a prayer and thanks vigil

seeking sustenance and life's blessings

following God's Word.

They crawled into their sleeping bags

safe and secure

in the promises of the Lord

awaiting the opening hour

in the morning.


God had spoken to them that night

through the words of their pastor

a retired navy chaplain,

'Lay by a store of groceries'

that you may be nourished

in your time of need.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Our Guide

The miracle of birth

on American soil

thrusts us all

by our parents' proxy

into the role of signatories

to that special social contract

the Constitution of the United States.


Our mutual pledge to one another

obligates us to a

profound social responsibility

to bring to ourselves and our posterity

justice, tranquility, defense, welfare, and liberty

in a perfect union of the people.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Concerto for Kazoo

Found

after a childhood

of parental remonstrance, proscriptions, and insults

after years of drill and rote

devoid of purpose

uninspired and shallow teachers

after a lifetime of

quiet study and thought alone

writing and composing

in the shadows

the silent maestro

meets the misunderstood virtuoso

the long sought hummer.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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The Lawyer's Neighbor

Good job, friends, insurance

middle class until

I was beaten and raped

left alone used and discarded

my church responded with sympathy and prayers

not empathy

snap out of it

put it behind you.

and then the dreaded lump

insurance took my livelihood

the bank took my home

bankruptcy led the way

to poverty, minimum wage

starving my children

challenging my will to survive.


Did you see me?

Am I your neighbor?

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Blind and Deaf

Why

when that still small voice of God

bellowed out over the flood and raging water

Get in! Over here!

did you refuse?

And the helicopter

did you know

that God would answer your prayer

so you sent it away?

Are you listening to the health care debate

fearful of change

but trusting in the power of prayer?

Are you shouting down

that still small voice of God?


Is He

answering the prayers

of his poor sick and dying children?

Are they listening?

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Two Venues

She embraces her violin

caressing the fingerboard

and bows.


He grabs his fiddle

picking his nodes

and saws.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Grand Old Pomposity

life is precious

If you can't afford

to pay the price

to care for it

let it wither away

you don't deserve it

you lose

© 2009 Jon Holland

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🐺

Tack No More

Furl the storm sails,

Set the main and top.

Scuttle the starboard watch

off to Davy Jones

and come about to port

before the winds of change.

Our destination

is drawing nigh.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Catch and Release

If

{

You were offended;

by my remarks;

}

then

{

I am sorry;

}

else

{

I don't give a damn;

}

END

// End of discussion

© 2009 Jon Holland

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🐺

Write Off Habeas Corpus

Accusation, indictment, and suspicion

prove guilt.


There are some who say that . . .

This just in, it was reported by an unnamed source . . .

A highly placed official has confirmed . . .


An ad hoc jury appears

in the court of public opinion

peopled by followers of

'Judge not lest ye be judged.'

Hypocrites in their rush

to pass sentence based on

rumor, bias, lies, distortion

and vituperative rage

call for vengeance,

point fingers, and hurl invectives

at their cherry picked defendant

in absentia


What passes for news

wears a mask of hysteria.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Created Equal

Jefferson penned that ideal

in intellectual honesty

only to be quoted glibly ever since

by thoughtless, mindless pundits

ironic apologists

for a national meritocracy

celebrants of rightful arrogance

the gift of station, wealth, and connections

in utter dismissal of those less fortunate souls

struggling with the day to day

vagaries of their existence


Self evident truths

high minded words

linguistic philanthropy

recited from couches of privilege

emollients

for the poor, the not so well off

to soothe a rash of life's inequities

rent, food, power, water, health,

gas, jobs, college, transportation,

survival

momentary relief until the daily mail

brings their creditors' persistent entreaties

pathos

bills

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Polar Bear

The traders were eager and confident

that morning

corporate spirits flowed freely

as prices rose

straight up past record highs

for the year

fast and loose casino players

trusting risk

a version of their forward thinking

mindful of profits

but ignorant of loss potential

their mindless dismissal of public cautions

led them to sneer at the prophets.

everyone's up

vix is down

vixens humming

bigger and bigger

profiteeers coming


The largest selloff in history

came too that afternoon

too big to fail did

leading to

massive shrinkage in the market.

© 2009 Jon Holland

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Forum over Substance

We talk to one another

and our voices rise and fall

tremble and laugh

cry and scream

or settle into calm assuring tones

as our minds

mutually wrap around the ideas we express.

Our faces project our mood

pain, joy, displeasure, anger, sadness, sheeer ecstasy

sometimes shouting or whispering

sober, sombre, subdued, and stammering

all governed by the import

of our thoughts

translated into words.

And with sympathy or empathy

we understand.


Method actors and their coaches

have learned to reproduce

this natural intimacy of conversation.

Words, phrases, emotions

facial and other body language

transmitted directly into our friend's minds and souls.

The exchange is the meaning

and if we spoke poetry naturally

we would be as one

bonded

sharing and understanding.


But slamming in the clubs,

big audiences applauding

falling all over themselves

with oohing and aahing

for bombastic drivel

and mindless doggerel

the performance center stage

content obscured by theatrics,

it's the frame in the gallery

getting the accolades

while the painting goes unnoticed.

© 2010 Jon Holland

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Stumper Bickering

Back in the day

candidates opposed one another

on soap boxes and tree stumps.

Heated exchanges produced

clever quips and catchy phrases

that lingered on the lips

of audience members for a while

after returning home,

reviving the debate

over pool tables

around office water coolers

in smoke filled rooms after Sunday dinner.


Whole arguments

weighty considerations

living thoughts

their sense and meaning

their original passion

squeezed out

reduced to empty slogans

or funneled into single words

devoid of life.

Political ammunition

to be hurled by true believers

at one another from their

soap boxes and tree stumps.

sharing and understanding.

© 2010 Jon Holland

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Carry On!

Is it

a ravenous hunger

an overweening taste

for shriveled rotting flesh

bones to be picked clean

from corpses of middle class dignity

run over and left to die

behind corporate raiders

on an unregulated economic freeway?


Agreed.

© 2010 Jon Holland

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The Phony Pundit

rants

then repeats

sham pooh pooh

© 2010 Jon Holland

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Stuck

Chicken Little

freely roams

from here to there

between two homes

first clucking wildly

fear the hordes

then cackling, gaggling

ban the swords.


Her work goes on

never done

neither side

has ever won.

© 2010 Jon Holland

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Artist's First Loss

Watch me

the child said

Look at what I've done

and some of us did look and watch

but a few saw and understood

or at least tried

to grasp at the message

that child expressed

in a limited vocabulary

unhindered by proper education

an honest exciting perception of reality

proffered freely yet hardly celebrated

lingering for a while

before the ignorant

who sneered and crushed it

© 2010 Jon Holland

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House Science & Technology 112

climate change

is winding down on us

it'll blow over

© 2010 Jon Holland

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Irony

Poetry that celebrates

the joy of learning

the beauty of truth

the love of humanity

the worth of life

the pleasure of sharing

wisdom that flows

from sound reason and thought

revealing the foolishness

of hypocrisy and false witness

brings from the depths of our souls

profound social understanding

and is not averse to attacking ignorance.

© 2010 Jon Holland

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I Rise Today . . .

The next time you hear

of a fine up and coming

young legislator

visualize

what he may be doing

and to whom

or who may be giving him a hand


Just understand

he will soon shrink back

into himself

only to rise and fall

again and again

with his stimulating friends

for us.

© 2012 Jon Holland

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Light of Hatred, Salt of Despair

Matthew reported

Jesus said

You are salt and light

Let's decide


Centuries of believers and skeptics

have borne witness to the preservation

of the Gospel

millions of faithful souls

shining forth from their humble heights

in innocent trust of that Word.


Now we see

hatred

bigotrry

lying

Renard blinding us from

satellites

cell towers

cable systems

Renard poisoning our vision

with false witness

doubt and worry


Truth has spoiled

the salt has lost its essence

we are lost

© 2012 Jon Holland

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🐺

Conversative Business Plan

Three hours:

• Simple minded host

• False premise

• Common sense

• Obvious conclusion

* [Need jerk reaction here]

• Repeat

© 2012 Jon Holland

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It's Biblical

Wholly writ by

generations of ancients.

Promises of prophets

bestowed on true believers.

An eternal endowment of

blessings for the faithful.

An eternity of pain and suffering

for others.


A compendium of

stand alone verses

suitable for plucking

from the sacred text

as premises for

syllogistic exercises.


The ultimate authority

on science.

The true instruction book

for life


Twenty-first century armchair scholastics

the premise keepers

battling the world's progress

with their medieval logic,

the proof of the ages.

© 2013 Jon Holland

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