Temporal Displacement Syndrome
by Carey Lenehan
Was I born at the wrong time,
unwanted, ill-fitting and out of place as I am,
in a world that doesn’t get me and which
I simply don’t understand,
Where death and cruelty stalk unchecked and I,
emotionally bludgened by endless injustice,
scream soundlessly,
surrounded by a herd
with such different ideas,
consistently flocking the other way
whilst I stay,
perplexed, on the open plain,
watching them go and wondering
why they want to?
Was I born too early,
meant instead for some distant era in the far future,
to a world grown well beyond the age of true enlightenment,
when peace is actuality
and common sense of the logical kind
is at last harnessed to a shining morality
of second nature to all, no matter
what colour their skin or shape their bible,
when respect for ALL life is a given,
and malice once and for ever banished from our
Oh so human hearts?
Because to me, anything but this belongs only
to a barbarous species
of which I want no part.
Was I born too late,
meant instead for a time of chivalry and valour
when the Gods and half Gods drew their places in history
on the edge of a sword blade,
eye to eye,
face to face,
not covertly through a long distance sight,
killing reduced to recoil
by dispassionless cowards incapable
of honest courage,
merely drone killers for a soulless elite
delivering death from the shadows
no longer heroes lining up
for an honest battlefield?
I dream of a time of real equality
with no differentiation between X and Y,
no rules seperating rich from poor that do not give
equal penalties and rewards to all.
Where starving children are a historical horror,
when profiteering and abject greed are no longer
our primary goal
When champions do not aspire
to base desires of material enrichment
but work towards the common good, unfailingly.
When we all do.
This is the world I was meant for.
Was I born at the wrong time?
Were you?
American Martyr or Terrorist Nutjob?
and a poem, of course…
Okay, well whilst I’m in no way advocating the actions of Joe Stack in Austin, Texas recently, I did take the time to read his ‘manifesto’ (suicide note) which you can find widely on line.
It made me wonder, what it really takes for an ordinary guy to lose it so completely? His letter, if you believe any of it, clearly shows you why. Of course he will now be vilified by the media and deemed a terrorist by society, but I challenge you to find five things in his reasoning that you disagree with. Everything he wrote I’m hearing said a lot by Americans these days. He reached the point where his life was not worth continuing and seems to have been attempting to do something to make change happen. So what does it take to step over the line, and how many more Joe Stacks are we going to see over the months to come?
Is he a martyr for the dying American dream, or a nutjob with a grudge?
You tell me.
Rolling ‘Isms by Carey Lenehan
Inspiration, expressionism,
as slippery as an oiled rope
or an iced eel,
as elusive as an alien encounter
and
equally inexplicable,
febrile and fluctuating,
so that every attempt
to clutch and secure it for nourishment,
admonition,
or rescue
is nullified
and fluttering fingertips,
stroke only the merest hint of creativity
before encountering,
empty space…
Idealism, as ephemeral as a notion
held in the head of an opium poppy,
or couched in the eye
of an insurgent child,
paraded in the hopes and dreams
of proud patriots,
trampled beneath burgeoning immorality,
no more now,
than a momentary glimmer
of human possibility,
eroded by reality
and the benefit of experience,
clouded by daily misery
or a sense that
no one is listening any more,
any effort to bring it into the light
fracturing the fragile fabric of conviction
before converting it to doubt.
Socialism, a downtrodden concept
of community,
embracing consideration and communal responsibilty,
derided and long undervalued
by a first world that refuses to diet
even though it is dying of obesity.
Sullying a sytem of sharing
egalitarian values,
demonised for suggesting,
that what’s yours,
might also be mine…and everyone elses.
God Forbid!
From this we scatter fearful,
and all the useful definitions in between
become blurred to insignificance
as we sink into a sea of greed,
or an ocean of self servingness
in its abject rejection
Capitalism, an ever turning wheel of torturous dispossession
carving a rut
through the fettered fabric of humanity
disavowing our intent
to do good
leading us astray with devilish temptations
Promises of endless richesse
beyond our wildest dreams
yet,
with surgical precision,
whilst we look the other way,
slicing and dicing the herd
determining who floats and who falls
by counting the zeros on a ledger
and saying
not only
that Greed is Good
but
that Greed is All
Nihilism, a moment of insanity,
a seismic fracture, sinking through mental structure
and a need to be noticed,
no matter what
because all that might once have been of value
has become meaningless,
and democracy
has failed.
The cost?
Broken dreams and shattered expectations
flying into the sun,
blinked out in a blaze of inglory,
rolling a fiery ‘Ism through the clouds,
towards the source of a pain that will never end,
sinking angry teeth into a world
that does not care
Desperate to be heard,
dying silenced.
A World of Hungry Caterpillars
The greedy men are eating the world,
one bite at a time,
chomp, chomp, chomp,
like a horde of Very Hungry Caterpillars
who can never get enough,
watch them go
through the book of the world,
where every page
now has a bigger hole.
They have demolished liberty,
polished off equality
and are making their way through morality,
soon the earth will be hollow,
sucked out and wasted away,
the forests will be destitute,
the seas will be bankrupt
and even the air,
will be in debt
to the Fed Reserve
and Goldman Sachs
The money men are eating the world,
one bite at a time
chomp, chomp, chomp
like a plague of gambling locusts who can never play enough,
Russian roulette,
they have chewed up justice,
regurgitated honesty
and with their unsustainable appetites,
soon the living forests will be consumed,
the rocky mountains masticated,
the riverbeds sucked dry
and all those hatching, multicoloured butterflies
will have nothing to left to eat.
The insatiable bankers are stealing the world,
robbing the fields of oil,
selling the deserts to the deepest digger,
short-trading the oceans,
disembowelling the forests
and when they are done,
all those gilded butterflies with nothing left to eat
will dry out their wings beneath an unrelenting sun
take to the sky
and find other worlds to devour
Kiss My Shoes Mr Bush by Carey Lenehan
See these shoes, Mr Bush,
these worn brown loafers
I hurl
with disdain,
at your head?
They represent how I feel about you,
about your self-induced war against me
and my kind.
In throwing them,
I spit on your lies
and the all encompassing arrogance
with which you rob us
of our right to govern ourselves
as we choose.
See these shoes, Mr Bush?
I want to walk in these shoes,
across the military arena
of your face
but only
once I have walked long and far
through the shattered streets of Baghdad
and covered the soles of these shoes
in the blood, shit and death
which is all that is left there
With these shoes,
I want to stamp out the stain
of your Presidency,
pound, curse, rub your dust
into the unkind ground
of the sterile Eden you created
and contracted out to your friends
Where once Gods walked
now the Empress of time lies ruined,
raped, crucified and prostrate
before your God called Greed
See these shoes Mr Bush?
In these shoes
I have followed your path of chaos
around the globe.
Everywhere your hand has touched,
lives are ruined
Every story you make up
to keep
the sheep
asleep,
takes peace and freedom from others
and crushes them
beneath American jackboots.
In these shoes,
I have lost friends, relatives
faith and hope
following the tangled web of lies you spew
of Al Quaida, of Bin Laden, and how Iraq
is just part of the problem
you were ordained to solve
In these shoes Mr Bush,
I listen to the way you change the words of peace
and turn them into threats
how you label every A-Rab a raghead
without knowing how our histories are shared
how our religions mirror each other
and how much more I believe, than you do
See these shoes Mr Bush
Inschallah, the next pair may well
blow up in your face
and we will be able to wipe you up
as I have wiped up children, parents,
daughters and sons
from the streets of my world,
in a war, created by you
to enrich yourself further
while impoverishing them
These shoes cost me much,
and I shall lose much more in the throwing
But what you don’t see, is how much I gain,
for, where I come from,
this demonstrates
that I think less of you
than the dirt beneath my feet.
For you have borne us into a world of pain
and we shall be a long time
in the suffering
See these shoes Mr Bush?
Keep them.
Start walking.
Poles Apart
© Carey Lenehan
We ran in the same streets, but we walk in different worlds
You and I,
poles apart, thinking, not thinking about understanding each other,
no chance of ever, seeing eye to eye
Equality unequally distributed, you see you
at the top of the food chain,
whereas I,
a mere reflection of yourself,
am somewhere down deep in the pond
Skin, stature, sex, sin, sisterhood,
you will never see what I see, only
the walls of the world
that fence you in to conformity
with me
on the outside because I,
dressed in the threads of exception,
find conformity too straight a jacket
You see the world numerical, divisible, distributable,
Whereas I,
who came from the earth and never left,
perceive symbiosis, unity, the absolute
art of the whole,
that radiant goddess
from whom you cut chunks
and pretend there flows no blood
You cannot make us alike, because of a deed,
a slash of pen on paper
You drown in misconceptions as we circle each other
swimming in different waters
bound only by a name,
same same, but different
You have lost the real world as you count profits
and study the Nasdaq,
allergic to green grass and fresh air
but I am still living there,
treading the wet earth between my toes,
watching the seasons change,
listening to the fading heartbeat of your cash cow
My earth will take me back when I am done
but where will you go to my brother?
Will you be divisible too?
Will your company count your profit and loss
and the trees
mourn your passing?
Will the pipelines shed a tear, will your office be refilled with
a clone of you?
Will we be equal?
Can you ever, be my equal?
