Monthly Archives: December 2017

The Christmas Spirit

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Christmas, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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Christmas Spirit

It’s what we make of the season
that matters, as we light the fire—

Memories to mean something,
the pagan wreath unmistakably

smelling pretty, us and the earth
connecting at Solstice, the Roman
nose and will bending to the love
of Jesus and his words, a birth
reminding us of ours and those we love.

God shines no matter what we do;
the rose as sweet no matter the name.

Christmas spirit in a song or in a game!

Fun with Dad, because he so believed.
Shining paths for those we raise, it’s
theirs this canvas to paint, but
the wreath…

The wreath is a pre-religion relic
of the un-named God.

We are infants once.  We look up,
explore the five senses developing a
ready sixth that celebrates Christmas.

The staunch Jewish temple bows
to fresh greenery and lights.  The warmth
of the fire driving away the cold of night!

The Muslim heart as full as mine as
we reduce the height and all of life
to now.

God, Jehovah, One truth and bright.

By any other name we find
Constantine’s invention of a birthday
party in the middle of winter fun
like a brisk wind’s flowing kite, or
a clown’s smile at the speed of the clock

ticking away at bodies while the spirit soars.

We cannot escape the wind or the rain;
the cold an annual dance to make
us cuddle toward the sun.

We place a red coat on our back, smile
and celebrate Christmas—

the wreath on the kite of the clown’s
winter mask, rolling toward eternity.

The only place age cannot bother me

They’re Animals

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poetry, Political

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Believe me.

Anyone not white and Trump receives
Trump’s distrust and spit—
his dentures about to hit

The screen wet with his slime, the
great mob line:

Believe me.

“Forget about it…”

So, I cheated to beat a woman,
I beat them all the time, except
I call it sex.

Sex with me is great—

Believe me.

***

On the other side, the Democrats
are holier than thou in another way,
touting clichés like “fighting for the
middle class so your kids can go
to college.”  Might as well bow down
to the false god, money, once and for
all.

Student debt?  National debt?

Samuel’s kings rear their heads again;
we kicked God out so many years ago,
it’s hard to remember or imagine what
it would be like to live day to day,
only God and/or Higher Power guiding
us.

We used to say “thanks” more, until we
decided we not God, were providing
everything…

Believe me.

***

I saw a man shitting on the sidewalk
yesterday.  Yes, I was in L.A.

I heard the mayor was at the Dodger
game, touting some art project, funding
parties with plenty of beer and more
money to western medicine’s grip
on “health” monopolies and of course
to the public zoo.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were
not saints.  But they tried.  What would they
say to illegal fireworks for the 4th of July?

What would they say to funding a zoo with
tax revenue?

What would they say to the government
paying doctors to inspect you for
areas to snip, tear and cut?

When was the last time a lawmaker looked
up the word “health” and/or defined
it themselves?

Wouldn’t that be a smart step before
neglecting infrastructure spending in
favor of one white coat definition?

Drugs, needles and scalpels cutting and
intruding on the body God gave me is
not health, by my standard.

I’m weird, I’m Christian Scientist—
a faith healer.  A true believer.

Most of the time!

Believe me!!!

***

Donald Trump ragged on an El
Salvadoran “gang” today—called them
all “animals!!”

He called a black NFL player who kneeled
in protest during the U.S. government
anthem a “son of a bitch.”

What’s Donald Trump?

Did he skip, like many professed Christians
the part in Jesus’ teaching about not
judging?

Did Adams, Jefferson and the rest do
so when they conceived of the judiciary
branch of government with all its
judges?

I am a Christian man living in a land
whose courts are Jewish.

Believe me!!

***

The CIA killed Oscar Romero, too?

Or did they just back the side that did
it?

They covered their tracks?

Are “secrets” something a democracy should
ever support?

Have you ever looked at the CIA mission?

Did you know they were officially
founded in 1947 at Truman’s White
House, in a ruse cloak and dagger
ceremony?

Was that supposed to be funny?

Have you looked at their Twitter bio
blurb?

Did you study the murder of Kennedy,
or did you decide to trust our government
because you didn’t have the time?

E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis of the CIA
led a group of pissed off skillful anti-Castro
Cubans and shooters from Miami to Dallas
in November of 1963, and killed our
president in front of his wife and millions
on Abraham Zapruder’s camera.

Believe me.

***

We litter land routinely in Los Angeles and
other American cities because we don’t care.

We kicked out the native people, who cared.

So maybe we should invite back the native
people, to help us care.

God, help us to care!!!

Believe in God!!!

***

My father winked to God before he
let his body die, I’m sure of it.

***

What if CIA just collected some
good information so that our leaders could
make good decisions?

What if our armies learned real Defense?

Sought more and more non-lethal approaches?

Took a page from the East, and learned the
Tao Te Ching and martial arts—meant not to kill
or be violent, but as a way of restoring peace
and balance when disrupted?

***

Honoring your parents is still a good
way to live a long time.  Try it!!

***

Remove the concrete and boards beneath
your feet, travel to a new place.

Remember our connection to Earth; each
other.  The animals…

MS-13 are animals, indeed, Mr. Trump.
As are you.  As I am—we, all of us,
fools while we think that it is
us the human, with the power—

Trump the king!

Believe me!!!

The fool needs a king to fool; the
king needs no one, so he thinks—

And Samuel scratches his head, wishing
he never made that trip for the people
to announce to God their defection.

Our defection.

We’re all animals!!!

Believe me.

Perfection

Violence by Disney on Christmas

18 Monday Dec 2017

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Someone must push back, even if
the push sounds violent, when the thing
against which you push is

Violence by Disney on Christmas.

The happiest place on earth got into
movies years ago; laughing, feeling,
we loved Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella

and the seven dwarfs!

But now, to make a quick buck, and to
move half-dead crowds in need of ministry
they come to us with Star WARS.

Lasers and swords, shooting bombs and
killing for your Christmas consideration.

Hey, it’s America, so have at it, Hoss!

But to the Christian I’ll say call yourself
one by turning the other cheek to violence,
bowing to God and loving your enemy.

We believe in One God, accept the metaphor
that is the Force, but couldn’t we celebrate
it and side stories after the New Year?

Constantine, the Eastern Romans and the
Catholic Church so cleverly gave us a
date during the Solstice to celebrate
Jesus’ birthday, so I’ll be doing that,
preparing gifts to leave at his feet, as the
wise men did—I think it’s neat!

But if you, instead of wreaths and aromatic
green, wish to glorify weapons of war,
say that one side won when standing over
death and destruction—

you have not read the Tao Te Ching.

Have not held the gospel to your heart.

You did not need it yet, so good for you
and God bless us in our ignorance!

Disney used to keep it family and sweet,
avoid extreme violence and killing.

Star Wars used to come out in May, allow
us to take a break from Summer heat
to see some crazy fantasy action…

Then one day they merged, blew up
Christmas—or have tried to—

All because an accountant somewhere
reported the returns would be great!

I’ve traveled long and far in my little
47 times around the sun, enough to know
that money is okay, but no other
currency yields better contented sleep
as Peace of Mind.

Peace.  Star Peace…

Hopefully, in theaters soon

Colors

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poetry

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And dreams and things.
Boom, the threshold, then…

There’s a signpost up ahead:
“All the things you used to dream”—
Break through!

Oh what a coup for you, this chance,
a dream returned, six senses sounding
and feeling and singing their properties
in noses of gold, roses behold!

Smells and sights, a dream in delight,
what supposes is and imagine that—

A fact!!

“The sweetest dream labor knows,” says
Frost, what a poet and indeed when visited
by rhyme and scheme sweet you know it!!

On this earth are arrangements perfect creating
choices to correct.  Yes, pick and choose, this one
for her this one for you, but choose wisely.

To choose “too much” is trouble, ask Willy
Wonka what happens to the greedy, six other
deadly sins keeping the white pearly gates of heaven
excellently white and pearly.

Good morning, Shirley!  Peanuts!  Strawberry!

To live every day as if it was your first!  To turn
a wreck of a day into a splendid hour, worth every
moment sour, just one minute to rejoice!  To
feel the ray of sunshine through the cloudy crack,
to spot the rainbow, the child’s smile, sparkle
apple pie, trees sharp—moon bright!!

Colors of spirit, perfect winning and growth where
winning’s a peace of mind and growth?

The kind we need’s what keeps us all
small as kids neat between sheets at bedtime:

grow in the mind.

Toward the child, more and more all the time

The Forgiveness Tree

08 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Forgiveness, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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Don’t load it up, it’s prone to
falling down, branches strong and true,
but even they wilt—

The song of childhood plays in the
ears of the Heaven-seeking; dream your
dreams, reach and achieve.

People, “brothers,” “sisters,” friends
who become better brothers and sisters
than blood bonds yield:

They snub you, cheat you, set you up and knock
you down.  Hurt, hit, hire or call on others
to hurt and hit.

You are on the ground and wonder as you
get stronger finally, “will I ever forgive
this transgression?”

Jesus said forgive your brother not seven
times but seven times seventy, or 490.  A lot of
times, but sometimes:

I wonder have I reached that threshold?
Do some hurts count as more, and so to
forgive them I get more credit?

I place it on the tree, forgiveness a great blessing
that can’t always happen overnight.  I water
that tree with prayer.

The best is still the one Jesus gave us, “Our
Father,” because it has so much forgiveness
in it.  “Forgive us, LORD, our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And sun on this tree might be our willingness
to listen to love, to truth, to a whispering wind
that visits in the night,

Sometimes coming to us in dreams.

I return to the tree over the years, for sometimes
the hurt of error has lasted this long.  I stay willing
as sure as the sun it shines,

Even behind clouds it shines, I swear it! “Do not
swear,” reminds Jesus, and pray the prayer—water
running into wells made at planting.

Fertilize the spot by talking to other people about
your pain; perhaps they’ll have a story to share
with you that can help.

Forgive us LORD, our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.  Seven times seventy,
or 490 times.  Don’t count;

St. Ignatius of Loyola reminds us not to count:
“to give and not to count the cost.”  To forgive…
divine, to err “human,”

Alexander Pope poetic over words to Shakespeare
and Frost prophetic, Longfellow the men read
and quoted by men,

As men and women, sisters and brothers, friends
and family who do God’s will try to amend and
work through another day.

Poems smile the pause that made Frost famous,
with him it was a sigh: Something true, firm and
spectacularly fallible reaches

up on the horizon of best intentions:

The forgiveness tree is in full bloom, the flower green
but dewed and so golden as we turn another cheek
in God’s time not ours.

To abuse I shall never bow down, but to forgiveness’
open door I shall never close and lock for I want
Heaven’s gate open as well.

As a child, hoping, believing and as forgiving
as moths trapped in a flame.  Perhaps it was my
fault, and if not:

Stay away next time

Flynn’s a Patriot Again

02 Saturday Dec 2017

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-by Bill Watkins 12/2/2017

***

Unreported so far to my knowledge around the December 1 Michael Flynn guilty plea, is the part of the Mueller deal that says:

“Michael, you get to become a patriot again.”

Powerful.

I blast this country’s government every other day.  Easy to do.

CIA has been clearly running it since November 22nd, 1963.  We killed off and ran out a native people that were one with the land—its caretakers.  We brought in the sin of slavery; abused a people because of the color of their skin; then gave “freedom,” forgetting to truly make amends for the sin.

But I am still a patriot.  More because I criticize the United States and fact check its leadership, than because I carried a gun or shot people.

I love the First Amendment of the Constitution, some others of our Bill of Rights—and I generally love the land, as the native people did.   Am sad by our noise, trash, metal and concrete, believe helicopters to be the devil, but I have hope.

***

General Michael Flynn turned his back on the United States after being fired by President Barack Obama in 2014.  Fell for the trap of easy gains, got himself into debt, Russians perhaps using anger, resentment or another way to blackmail him into loyalty to them.

To him…  Vladimir Putin, the KGB spymaster autocrat in chief of another land rich in potential and history.

A slippery slope of relations fell into place—Flynn moving on to accept other shady deals with an autocratic Turkey.  He seems in every way to have been not just an “unregistered agent” of Turkish interests while in the employ of Donald Trump and the United States.  He looks to have been an outright treasonous spy.

On December 1, 2017, Bob Mueller of the Special DOJ investigation into Russian tampering with the 2016 American election, possible coordination in that tampering with Trump and/or his campaign, and Trump’s possible obstruction of federal investigations:

gave Michael Flynn not just a deal to cooperate with him for a lesser plea, but…

Bob Mueller gave Michael Flynn a second chance to become an American.  A patriot.

Welcome back, Michael.  It’s a mess here, and there are lots of problems, I’d say.  But here we are, and we do our best where we are born.

Welcome back to the fight to make our flag mean something good.  Donald Trump disgraces us every day, on 11/27 using “Pocahontas” as a racial slur against a political opponent in front of veteran Navajo World War II code-talkers.

Now you have a chance to convert Trump into a patriot, too!