George McKay
Independence Day Poem
for Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and others
Have I, too,
withdrawn, into the
hidden garden
hortus obscurus?
I see the print, Cyril's,
see lush vegetation, as if in close-up, see the
obscured baroque order of the place
viewed as if thru night vision goggles
The fountain like an oversized cup
placed on a saucer –
our trees are memories of tomorrow
clad by searchlights that beam into the night
they turn white and lilac, who knows
Green, still, I mean:
Green, living green
the baroque garden of the bishop –
reflection of the absolute quest for control
a dead order, a dead order I say
it survives, in our time
like the skeletons of fossiles survive
Our tribute to culture &
(they claim), RECREATION
IF YOU CAN SPARE FIVE MINUTES
AND A QUICK GLANCE
But the contemporary mirror
of such mirrors of order
invented & then, fetishized by men
grows in Bluffdale, Utah –
What a bluff!
I know it's
just a cheap joke & I can't
laugh anymore, the
throat too dry,
trouble, now, swallowing
swallowing the splinters
of piecemeal “truth”
OR WHAT WE TAKE FOR IT, MY FRIEND
A HIDDEN GARDEN: ONCE A PARADISE
old story, that in modern times
rephrased a dream
No –: dreams
For many are the ways to read
the difference
between what is
and what might be
if it can be, at all
BUT WHO CAN TELL?
A hidden place,
of peace and rest
regressive dream
you say
who are not tired
of this world, its business
and crooked games
and power plays and jargon that
cooks up geostrategic pawns
and a rehash of Hitler's smart
attempt to make himself,
& his club-footed Aryan aide
the fittest that survive
in the Fuhrer's bunker
Hidden garden –
always, always, the longing to escape, to withdraw?
in quest of peace, a calm heart, PERHAPS
No superfluous gadgets
no torrent of irrelevant news
that hide what they pretent to reveal
(by their sheer mass,
the chaotic rumbling jumble
that reverberates in the brain)
fed up with the dutiful exercise of loaned power
the educated,
erudite poets perhaps,
withdrew to the mountains
a cabin in the Tatra, shortly after the war
to be away from Stalin's shadow
it was like a stamp on the forehead of bureaucrats
watchdogs who knew they were
pampered and watched:
the canaille
of the self-censuring press
and 1200 years or so ago
another stalwart of the emperor
sought peace of mind
in the shadow of Tian Shan
a real poet, he was, and always
a reluctant servant
do we search the deus absconditus
in hidden places
like Moses on Mount Sinai
overlooking the desert, then
fascinated by the fire
the burning bush
The sane perhaps, the psychologist said
are indeed not shielded as such
against visions, all sorts of them.
CALL THEM HALLU
CINATIONS
the citations, lacking of course
citations like those the poetess cited
as she listened to voices from below
next to the sulphuorous spring
steam rose from the depth of the
sun-burnt earth
The omphalos. Just another center
of a hidden garden –
How many hours, for the wanderer
from Delphi to Arcadia
passing the warehouses of the merchants
at Korinthos, the cyclopic gate
of the fortress, at Mykene?
In the post-war years that followed the fall of
white suprematist hate that had accumulated
in the crowds enraptured by the dark-haired, little Pfc
with the shrill voice
and the chip on his shoulder
(because he had never seen real action in World War I)
they all believed in progress, the text books say.
The text books, in was called the East, and the textbooks in the
West which of course was America (the U.S.A., mind you)
and its colonies
And the little old step mother of America, Britain
sent 30,000 little orphans to Her
Yes, Sir, Her Majesty's colonies
to beef up the presence of Aryan blood
and West Germany sent orphans
to the Boers for sexual exploitation
and as unpaid child laborers
and to increase the stock of “good white blood”
in the Free State
that had no freedom ready for sale
to Africans (IT HAD TO BE
FOUGHT FOR)
But the fathers of many of the exported kids
had been men in black uniforms
killed in action or shot on the spot
(for good reason)
when captured by Allied soldiers
We like to forget all of that
Our memories a hidden garden deep in our
breathing bodies / Freud said
subconsciousness
why not subterranean river-system ?
currents that stream and vanish and resurface
strangely under the skin
The skin of today
this very minute this second
that hides so much
thine, o lord
is the greatness,
and the power and the glory
the biblical poet sang
was it 3,000 years ago
was it?
THE NAZARENE ECHOED IT LATER
he too turning to a
hidden god
a god that does not intervene
but still he called out to him,
cornered as he was,
by the empire and its quislings,
in that secluded
garden on Mount Olive
he called, in hope and despair
the unknown, the hidden god
and ascribed to him all power all glory
ascribed to him
the only real,
only relevant empire
that exists –
How ridiculous, then, you are
Imperium
with your soldiers in leather boots
with your war machinery
your tax system, and your law books
How weak, in the end
as we confront you
We / who are still in the garden
and we, who step out, into the public arena
loyal only, in our searching, questioning way
to conscience –
the empire in us that lets us do
what we sense is right
July 4th, 2013
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