Seeking Solace behind Writer’s Mask

Sayonara The Year of Beginning a Century of Buffoons and Devils

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gum tree outside
spasmatic limbs
roots reaching sky
great blue heron squadrons
above filigree tips
agate sheen murder
crows by a dozen
espying me watch

powder blue, fog, rain,
monsoon, electric
sunrise, I hear tidal churn down
road, closed-tight window
hermetic darting beta
at fingertips, clacking away
words flow staccato breathing

‘have typewriter, will travel’
2020 world stagnated
viral fear like storm
troopers, 24-7 virus
TV, social media
rotting from top
down, mercenaries
one and all
shekels by nanosecond
magic of the markets
evil more than Dante’s
evil dredging fear
Goebbels and Mengele
half-woman/half-elephant
carnival actors, bloated
faces of racists
geriatric Brooks Brothers
criminals, laughing KIA

a distant foghorn
helicopter scanning
Pacific king tides
sneaker waves
conjunctions of sun
moon Jupiter
Saturn solstice
guiding double star
galvanizing superstitious
boys and girls
lining up for a billion
jabs, Gates & Company
devils limp-wristed
richest criminals worldwide

Anna hummer
dissipates forbidden
thoughts momentarily
drawing air on silhouetted
gum tree barren
more depth of being
against the millions
of Eichmann’s setting
death schedules
school children hijacked
stuck to Lazy Boy middle
managers, while Black
Lives Matter, fieldhands
speaking mother tongues
choppers, butchering
their own lives
as Rachel Maddow
Lot’s are stench detritus
gesticulating multi-millionaire
commentary, press-titutes
by another name

shine on, Pacific yews
dawn dews, word
is lynx is wandering
Bay Side streets
black bears dance too
Anna hummingbirds dive
bombing for fun, elk the
only reindeer in sight

the locust gum tree
traps winter lamentations
buds ready for springing
into hollowed light
I write seeking
dissipated destiny
barely hinted at
peregrine greeted me
at bridge arch
I’ll take any sign
the Gregorian calendar
forever wrong
thirteen moons
blue moon

Wolf Moon
Snow Moon
Worm Moon
Pink Moon
Flower Moon
Strawberry Moon
Buck Moon
Sturgeon Moon
Corn Moon
Hunters Moon
Beaver Moon
Cold Moon

I’ll watch gum tree
moons passing
give me Indian
names, so I forever
erase the deadly
viruses of Capitalism
our reckoning
with bat viruses
cooked up
in the devils’ labs.

Dec. 13, 2020, Waldport, Oregon*
*Land of Alsea — Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (see https://native-land.ca/ where you live)

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Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.