Priorities

Paul Cezanne

Pyramid of Skulls

Priorities

Napalm, or bomb,

little hands and little feet,

(Or leave a land-mine behind

to do the job)

Spread a noxious cloud of gas to sear tender throats and lungs

or conscript the helpless ones

to use as fodder

Kill the urchins without pause

in pursuit of your cause

(in alliance or uni-lateral)

Send a stone-faced rambo to emolate a village

exfoliate and pillage

(the damage is only collatoral)

Or, teach young minds of hell,

which you know of so well

and wound without lifting a hand

Damn them before they are born

doom them to despair

As con-artist pols and ghouls without souls

rant from podiums everywhere,

loudly,

on how much they care

~ Pandora ~

My Papa’s Waltz

Paul Cezanne

Women with Coffeepot

My Papa’s Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

~ Theodore Roethke ~

Those Winter Sundays

Paul Cezanne

The Artist’s Father

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

~ Robert Hayden ~

For, Brother, What Are We?

Paul Cezanne

The Murder

For, Brother, What Are We?

For, brother, what are we?

We are the sons of our father.
Whose face we have never seen,
We are the sons of our father,
Whose voice we have never heard,
We are the sons of our father,
To whom we have cried for strength and comfort
In our agony,
We are the sons of our father,
Whose life like ours
Was lived in solitude and in the wilderness,
We are the sons of our father,
To whom we can only speak out
The strange, dark burden of our heart and spirit,
We are the sons of our father,
And we shall follow the print of his foot forever.

~ Thomas Wolfe ~

The Villian

Paul Cezanne

The Abduction

The Villian

While joy gave clouds the light of stars,

That beamed wher'er they looked;

And calves and lambs had tottering knees,

Excited, while they sucked;

While every bird enjoyed his song,

Without one thought of harm or wrong--

I turned my head and saw the wind,

Not far from where I stood,

Dragging the corn by her golden hair,

Into a dark and lonely wood.

~ W. H. Davies ~