Poems of June and July 2019
- by Linn Barnes
The Carbon Vault
-Linn Barnes
The carbon vault beneath the cobalt blue
screams and shudders as the debate staggers.
Will it ever come into being the novel idea
that something must be done now and not
tomorrow when the shut down warming the
terminal fires to a blistering end screams to
all a weeping stuttering shouted final gasp.
The only real question which is abundantly clear:
Who will deal effectively with this reality beyond debate,
before time runs out, when the current show is swallowed
by its lies crimes blood guts dough and death.
For the sake of all find the one.
Good Luck
Drifting Down III
-Linn Barnes
When the sad wreck of a dark blues
tumbles into the maw of the grim news,
has splashed out on the bad luck
page, spread out on the not
so hot, but it must be so, tirade.
It’s then, with a turn that you begin
to figure you’re in the wrong
spot to navigate, even a bit,
whatever the river might bring up,
whether in song, love or death,
Where the tides are picking up,
and downstream looks just
like north, and the south you
imagine you’re sailing for
shrinks and shudders,
Wobbles and freezes the busted
compass somewhere between
yesterday and somehow soon,
you snap attention, kind of,
as your drift becomes a roar
To the now you’ve begun
falling into from which there can
be, finally, no other choice
but to sever the ancient cord,
now ruined, rotten and wasted,
That has bound all your days,
and you drop through the rushing
air and bulbous clouds to what’s left
of the once green earth below,
and the landing is not smooth.
Drifting Down II
-Linn Barnes
When the sad wreck of the blues
tumbles into the maw of the grim news
splashed out on the bad luck
page spread out on the not
so hot but it must be so tirade
it’s then that you begin
to figure you’re in the wrong
kind of place to navigate
whatever the river might bring
whether in song or death
where the tides begin to flow
and downstream looks just
like north and the south you
think you’re heading for
shrinks and shudders
wobbles and freezes the
compass somewhere between
yesterday and tomorrow
you pay attention kind of
until you begin to drift
to the now you’ve fallen into
from which there seems
to be no other choice
until you cut the cord
now rotten and wasted
that has forever bound
and you drop through the
air and bulbous clouds to
what’s left of the earth below
and the landing is not smooth.
-Linn Barnes
When the wreck of the blues
falls into the grim news
splashed out on the bad luck
page spread out on the not
so hot but it must be so
it’s then that you begin
to figure you’re in some kind of
wrong place to navigate
whatever the river might bring
whether song or death
when the tides begin to flow
and downstream looks just
like north and the south you
think you’re heading to
shrinks and shudders
wobbles and freezes the
compass somewhere between
yesterday and tomorrow
you pay attention kind of
until you begin to drift
to the now you’ve fallen into
from which there seems
to be no other choice
until you cut the cord
now rotten and wasted
that has forever bound
and you drop through the
air and bulbous clouds to
what’s left of the earth below
and the landing is not smooth.
For Faye on Her Sixth Birthday
-Linn Barnes
And so it shall come to pass,
as it always has,
that the unicorn shall serve
the day in magical ways
we may never fully know,
apart from the clear laughing,
knowing, when the pure heart
is singing and the song of the
divine child vibrates the earth
and brings time into being.
Validations
-Linn Barnes
Perhaps the most
significant single question
intellectual historians bandy about is
the 'how', 'why', and just plain 'huh'?
of Adolf Hitler and the
phenomenology of the Third Reich.
Good thinkers will posit reasonable ideas,
Albert Einstein, for instance, and then,
over time, seek to empirically
demonstrate their authenticity.
Rarely, very rarely, are we presented
with walking, talking, screaming, drooling
manifestations authenticating much of what was hypothesized
concerning Herr Hitler and his monstrous
gang of murderous fools.
Well, you can dog my cats,
but last night our president
and his villainous mob of
'murderous fools' pretty much, once again,
dressed out in regal robes of truth
most of the hypotheses
I have entertained about the nazi trash
over lo these many years.
Never forget that if HItler hadn't the mob,
the mob who loved and 'validated' him so profoundly,
he would have starved to death
in the filthy post WWI streets of
Vienna or Munich…
Hier stehe Ich...
Pour Jean Paul
-Linn Barnes
Excuse me,
yes, you,
or, for that matter,
anybody,
really,
can you, please
point me to the exit?
you say, over there,
where over there?
or, up there,
but, where up there?
Would you mind leading me
to it?
What’s that, why did
you tell me to
forget about it?
Haven’t I read who?
Which French fellow is that?
Well, yeah, I guess I care,
I mean,
if he’s got the
directions,
but you say he
doesn’t...
Oh.
A Simple Question
-Linn Barnes
Why in the world does he do it,
what he must know is foolish,
what sad and demented anguish
orders him to strut out on that plank,
turn to the waiting horde, lean over the rail
and take the plunge to dishonor and disgrace.
It appears we are witnessing, in real time,
the manifestation of a decaying human being
shouting out for termination of the pain he never
imagined he would be saddled with.
There is reason for sadness here.
Jutland Again
for Seamus Heaney
-Linn Barnes
After looking for
signs of love among
the noble ancients,
you know, a carved femur,
a chiseled tattooed skull,
something more than
the hideous grins of
the strangled
in the death
pits of Jutland,
where they screamed
for a quick moment
as they sank into the bog
to the bottom of
the dire heap,
where the day they
trespassed now is
flayed open to the bone,
where with eyes shuttered tight
She will see no more,
only the rudeness of eternity,
and the false mockery of light.
Politics Aside
-Linn Barnes
High summer, after the solstice, has a way of
confusing you, bringing you down, changing your gait,
muffling the debris you raise as you slither down the line.
I mean, you thought you had some spring in your step,
until you tripped before noon, when the rains began to fall,
hard on your path, and the the storm crashed your gate,
Into the dark of the dead zone, between two and five,
when the hungry cannibals of the ruined day run amok
slaughtering all left floating in the sad sea of sucking mud.
Smoke and Flame
-Linn Barnes
When, long ago she took a look back at me
somewhere in a miserable dark corner,
bent over a guitar, sweat rolling down,
my face distorted in the heat and the night,
I floated for a confused moment in the thick air,
no longer near nor there, and drifted for a while
in her dark beauty and grace until the vision
collapsed and she vanished into the smoke.
I blinked twice, then twice again, until a heavy fog
rolled in and slammed closed the path she’d burned,
leaving me shoreless, cast out into that shinning night,
lights flashing hopelessly for what could never be rescued,
For a glimpse into that light, of what had vanished into the air,
on that lonely and forlorn night somewhere so very long ago,
when in an instant I knew that what had been revealed
would color the rest of my days with shadows and praise.
A Music Lesson
-Linn Barnes
Pummel the phrase
five thousand times,
then five thousand more,
work the scale a gram at a time
until you feel ground water
flowing beneath your hands,
and deep heat coursing well
into the will of it all.
The Deep Dark
-Linn Barnes
Sometimes late, watching the sky,
In the deep dark, we hear motion
not too far into the trees,
while we sit and listen,
a bit out of sorts,
as we bring to bear
the familiars, always there
for when things ring wrong,
be it any time, but mostly
in the depth of night,
when the unpredictable may deal
you a marginal hand and you’ve
no good hold card
but your solid will
and calm resolve,
in the deep dark,
where nothing can
really be known.
Then, finally, with a long breath,
we crease a shallow smile,
whistle a quick light tune
into the dark unknown where
more than you can imagine
swarms and stalks
most everything
including you.
Guitar In The Heat
-Linn Barnes
Alone, this afternoon,
in the growing shade,
I took a powerful amplifier,
to the deck in the woods,
the sun behind me in the west,
the heat, pulsing, but moderate,
a soft incidental breeze rising,
and plugged in the flamenco guitar,
and, after a moment or so of coy anticipation,
struck the instrument, hard, rattling the woods and,
I feel certain, engendering a tidal surge in the river,
where there can be none, but the shimmering water
seemed to laugh, shout back and, finally, cheer
one deafening rasquiado after another,
decorated with multiple improvised scales
slamming through the Spanish modalities,
until finally, with a deep breath, melting
into twelve bars of Mississippi delta blues
in the fading heat, until, as the sun began to set
beneath the western ridge, I pulled the plug
on a perfect moment deep in the woods,
still ringing, shuddering with the
last gasp of the miracle of music.
Fatigue
-Linn Barnes
I am tired of sadness in our land
so weepingly bent by the toxic rifts
carving into our sacred but scarred souls,
so fed up with the endless bullshit
we are told to hold close
and suffer endlessly
in the name of something
muttered about a greater good,
maybe, but finally collapsing
to loose change jangling
before empty dead eyes.
The Halberd
-Linn Barnes
When the candy crumbles
along the road to sorrow,
and the pretty faces flash
sad grainless shallow grins
before the hills of weeping
children savaged and brought
to the dens of vicious men
lying among the leftovers
of not a goddamned thing
worth even a moment of
gloomy consideration,
it is then that we take up
the halberd and draw a deep breath
before bringing it crashing
down on the empty skulls,
drooling before the scales
of justice which have finally found
and fledged a full set of righteous wings.
Fading Nightmare
-Linn Barnes
I’ve got it, took a while, but here it is:
We think we are witnessing reality,
bizarre entities cavorting on the stage,
before vanishing only to re-appear,
a driver in one hand and a speech
in the other, dancing and screaming,
grabbing and goosing one another,
until the probabilities explode,
and the whole exercise collapses,
bringing down what no one thought
possible until it lay sprawling
and shattered on the kitchen floor,
components flying away from each other
at warp speed, where the mustard
explodes into the light and the leftovers
dance a rubric rhumba as the dawn
begins to shine, shutting the fading
nightmare down, which soon crumbles to
a swarm of what may have been
to a cloud of past and future dust.
Forlorn Symmetries
-Linn Barnes
A shadow has drifted into view,
where the eagle and the falcon
once flew in a deeply chilled wind,
now blowing wet and too warm,
fogging the walls and the rims,
diving and rising before
the tempest begins,
sounding ill-fated notes,
out of place, in an unknown major key,
yielding to sad rumors of a minor mode,
an aeolian grumble thrown from crumbling clay,
bringing no respite or light,
no harmonic redemption,
only crippled cadences,
wandering in and out of
an open pallet of myth and illusion,
blurring the forlorn symmetries
of antique time that will not cease.
to bring life to bear upon the most hopeless heart,
but not this tart, oh no, this one stays within the fold,
with camembert and glorious calvados to feast the day'...
-Linn Barnes
-Linn Barnes
It is July two, two days until the fourth,
two days until tanks will roll in Washington,
and the weeping and crying of lost children
starving and living in filth, in heat, will be drowned
out by the roar of machinery and stamping boots,
the roar of explosives, planes overhead, after dark,
after we are fêted to the political lies,
hyperbole and nonsense of the least
patriotic among us, a man who shames
all of us at home and abroad,
bragging of deals, where none are made,
cavorting with middle eastern potentates,
who eat their own and murder and dismember ours,
falling prey to a ruthless asian dictator who tricks him,
us, into moronic nuclear appeasement,
joking blithely with a sad russian murderer,
who successfully ensured his elevation
to the highest office in the land,
which should have gone to another,
a brave soul who now keeps Her peace,
and, like the rest of us, is now
looking for some payback.
-Linn Barnes
The door is closing on 75, three quarters of a century,
the remaining yaw of 25 years to the century
displays itself in block print and fading colors
before my clear, at the moment, but no doubt
soon to be fading eyes, dulling tastes,
confused mind, vanishing glamour,
most of which has already fled, and,
most of all, bewilderment at the notion
of it all, as it picks up to even greater speed,
rocketing forward to the sure
destiny looming at the dawn of each
and every noble and perfect day.
And, then I begin to play, and
the limits melt as I engage eternity.
War
-Linn Barnes
Full alert,
do you copy?
The proof is boiling over,
the stew is overdone,
drop your satchel,
grab your spear,
meet me at the shield wall
for buttercups and beer.
The savages are at the gate,
where dark blood swarms the air,
where blinking back tears
has become the order of the day,
where high crimes and scandal
are the rule of the day,
where the rulers are reveling
in the slick sick lust of
the murderous fray,
where the clarion call
to war rings out as the
slim gamble for peace
is being stomped, crunched
and split upon the altar
of failed implorations and lies
where the assembly
of the macabre machine
clangs, bangs and rattles
in the solemn darkness
of the melancholy night.
Dylan
-Linn Barnes
When Daphne taught us the tides
we came and we went, water all around,
the shore slipping beneath our souls,
as we righted the morning and the day,
with barely a thought of tomorrow,
until the meta-fabric of a new dawn spread
a gravelly false torc across the collective
throat, bringing to a collapse what
had shuddered into being, one time
when we were young and strong,
a pure harmonious truth
that seemed to have no end.
And this is why we listen to Dylan.
Beach time
-Linn Barnes
The sea is calm
Birds are flying
People are walking
North and south
The wind is cool
Steady with gusts
Up to...
Don’t need
A weatherman to
Know which way
The wind is...
I’m thinking about flamenco
Chills and thrills on the guitar
My new cyprus and spruce
Flamenco guitar a wonder of
Light woods and clear air
Reminds me of a perfect day
On a lonely beach when colors
Are shouting in every key
Doubling falling into one another
While I buckle up put on the picks
And bring more than light
To what’s left of this world
On The Strand
-Linn Barnes
By the raw windy strand,
I stand disheveled and
Staggered to the bone,
With an ugly, heated wind
Burning my flesh, driving
Home the sure knowledge
That this sad day is but
A random toss upon
A shrinking bit of sand,
Whirling out of control,
Blowing up into a grim wind,
Hellbent for some far horizon,
Finally vanishing, passing into
Something like hope for tomorrow.
But the sky has yet to clear.
Normandy
-Linn Barnes
When you walk the beach,
most of the shells are broken,
shattered by the waves,
ground to near dust by the sand,
devoid of any organic rewards
for the crabs or the birds
in their never ending search
for anything that may be, or,
for a brief moment was, a
spell ago, in the torrent of waves,
an organic possibility, suitable
for slaughter and consumption.
When you walk the beach,
for the most part, you stave off
the notion that you are walking
among the dead and dying,
as the living struggle to
devour what is left of the rest,
in an impossible tableau,
suggesting the hopes,
prayers and fears of the lost
rains down and drops you
to your knees where the soaking
sand, which time can never forget,
crushes you to tears and lamentations
of the horror born by those who
suffered, sacrificed and died
to pave your way into the world.
Buckingham
-Linn Barnes
Willing to let the British monarchy be what it is,
I guess, a path to antiquity, a way from then to when,
just plain old one of those wonderful, sort of, things
which serve the present, kind of, as well as the past.
But is this really the case? Are we, British or otherwise,
being served by those who stand and wait,
while they welcome, and I can’t imagine why,
some of the worst examples of the species to the realm?
The depressing vision of Queen Elizabeth II
welcoming Trump to Buckingham, guns and all,
was enough to turn any sane person
into a bloodthirsty bolshevik in a sad wink of the eye.
Heroes
-Linn Barnes
Could a blessing actually be invoked,
I say blessèd be the slaves to reason,
the untiring mostly ridiculed and reviled
cadres of dreamers and scholars
who somehow imagine they
can have an effect upon
the shameless devastation
wrought upon our amazing diverse
pluralistic and unique society
by frauds, liars, schemers and traitors.
Beached
-Linn Barnes
One night when things
were not so good,
I dreamed a sad moment
when they were worse,
which shotgunned me to
the surface of the sea,
breaching the shore bound waves,
slamming me into the sandy surf,
where I lay stunned and breathless
until I gagged my way to the surface
only to be struck again, dragged down
and tided out to sea, this time for good.
Or, so it may have appeared to the
casual passerby, sucking a soda,
choking on burgers and fries,
lighting up another lucky,
but it was not to be so,
since the gates were shut
for this callous unbeliever.
But I crawled my way
out of the ripping crush
barely in the nick of time
to wallow in the wash
until I was, dead fish-like,
half buried on the shore,
food for the crabs and birds,
crawling, screeching for a taste
of the waste so fortuitously
shot up, filleted and presented,
on a bed of seaweed and baby clams.