Dan Corjescu

Bride of Palestine

It was hardTo lift PoetryOut of the grave It was so veryHeavy It was difficult to findUnderneath the rubbleUnderneath the lies Its lips of ironIts hair of plutonium So stillIn…

A Felon In The Matrix

RespectNo one SpitIn the judge'sFace Give the fingerTo the police SlapThe president MistrustThe doctor Tell the lawyerTo shut up And the priestTo stop lying No figureOf authorityIs what they seem…

Keep Your Eyes Open

Pay attentionTo what you see You see a peopleBeing murdered You see a landBeing blotted You see a dreamBeing slaughtered You see thisAnd you believe In your presidentsAnd your chancellorsAnd…

Two Beasts

There is a paradoxIn the heart of the world There are two beastsThat contend for dominion One is ferocious and bloodyAnd knows no pityOnly vengeance The other is magicalOf infinite…

Ecce Homo!

If EvilHas carefully stolen youFrom the World If EvilHas gripped your heartAnd will never let go If EvilHas imprisoned youIn deepest Hell If EvilHolds you mockingly in its armsWhispering its…

Love Is King

I have a sad secret to tell you:Love does not conquer all Only Power can do that Love is:That much is true But it can breakAnd be stolenMuch more easilyThan…

Come To Gaza

You want to seeThe empty faceOf God? Come to Gaza You want to seeThe true RulerOf the world? Come to Gaza You want to seeThe filthy lieOf Freedom Come to…

Abandoned

AngelsWill not touchThis land God will notWave His hand Over this landHe will not point Or give direction Silence is this land The men prayThe women screechAnd the children quickly…

Witness

I've seen the ugliness I've felt the pain I've lived the rage I've watched the mothers I've counted the children I've mourned the men Evil has heated my bloodEvil has…

My country

My countryIs of pain My countryIs of sorrow My countryIs a chorusOf wildness My countryIs the songOf tribulations My countryHas been whippedBy torture My countryHas been deniedThe light My countryWeeps…

Weapon of Love

Make this poemInto fire Mould itInto a bomb Launch itOver theHigh wallOf murdering lies Make each lineA bullet of justiceA jab of the Divine Sing itIn front of torture Sing…

Palestine Beloved

Do you see Do you see, my friend? The dead want to kiss you They want to breathe through you They want to dance with your feet They want to…

Cursed

You don't everWant to be hauntedBy children By the childrenYou've killed But you will be I hope they comeIn their millions I hope they suffocateI hope they strangulateI hope they…

We Are Here!

You cameFrom the gas chambersWith HistoryTattooedOn your arms You cameFor justiceFor freedomYou said But we were hereWithout knowingWe were waitingTo be toldThat we were notPart of History'sOr God's plan We…

Gaza

You come at meWith hate You come at meWith acid argument You come at meSo as to erase me But I'm still here Breathing the smokeStaring into the fireListening to…

Breadcrumb

For millennia Truth was the supreme task Beauty was mere consequence But what if the first is impossible? Should we, therefore, discard the second? Beauty is felt not proven It…

Tolstoy’s Dilemma

Art It is the tiny pink rose Behind the ear of God I place mine there Not because I rage against death I a short interval between the not yet…

My Yellowed Loves

Yellowed loves Come The punctured gutters of God Open The veins of silent gold In the lazy mouths of mocking youth Fountains overflowing with first sun A flock of oaths…

Dinner Guest

Death Sits at the dinner table with me He has Impeccable manners Never touches anything Never talks out of turn Truly A somewhat amiable chap Except He has the nasty…

Arrival

I searched long for You In the infinite fields Of Being I followed the myth Of your laughter I composed What I thought Was the heart Of Your Song I…

In Memory of Harold Bloom

How shall I climb When the ladder Is not mine? How shall I reach Thine ear When such is not my speech? How shall I engender Words When diction, close,…

Dark Mystery

The Flesh on the Cross It is a great meditation It is a great Truth Of the World The nails of our traitors Slowly bore into us As we call…

Papillon

They chained you Made you know Inside and out What it is like To be rock They taught you The secret hardnesses of time The Gorgon Face Of the clock…

Las Vegas

The Gangsters were all waiting for me Their uninvited guest Their cigarettes were all lighted Their black ties were all straight I owed them without knowing And now had to…

In Memory of Leonard Cohen

Do you think that love is waiting Do you think that someone's there There are only the hounds retreating There is only a ghost going up the stairs Now all…

Eternal Command

Stand at attention All you dogs And make fire for me Do not take the white branches From under the sea Leave me the Winter's song On my tired breast…

No Poet

I'm not really a poet I'm anti-gravity I'm stale mashed potatoes and gravy I'm what's left out After your last pay check I'm the last words your wife says Before…

For M.M. 1992/2022

Stretching into love again After a hiatus of years Lips need old lips To see past new tears Our hands hung In Time's hammock Patiently waiting For a rose Moon…

Democracy

All the chicken heads Are hung against the wall And in invisible velvet rooms Choice chokes on power And the stupid dance Of commanded wraiths Processes its time Declares victors'…

You are not a great poet

You are not a great poet The swan does not stir No flower bends No mouth opens for more breath The universe remains steadily in place All the clocks tick…

Medea in Hell

A Short Philosophical One-Act Play The Place: Hades (World of Shadows) Medea: In that eye within which I saw a world reduced I engendered a treacly venom so strong that…

Environmental Ethics 

I   A Kingly creature; now creatureless King An Empire out of breath while breathless doing Air, water, land all three commanded to remain in place and serve They wilt…

 Will the Real Aliens Please Stand Up!

At the beginning of this year, I wrote an article for Counterpunch arguing that UFO sightings were a new kind of quasi-religion based on the cultural peculiarities of modern post-war America: technologism,…

Environmental Ethics II

The Peculiar Human Gnaw has overtaken all of life Or was it always to be so? In more Halcyon days Every hunger was checked by another Until Consumption reduced nature's…

Environmental Ethics

A Kingly creature; now creatureless King An Empire out of breath while breathless doing Air, water, land all three commanded to remain in place and serve They wilt under the…

Reason, Sociability, and Ethics

  Aristotle famously said that man was a social animal: ζῷον πολιτικόν. He also strongly implied that what distinguished man from all other animals was his rationality. Today this description…

Stabbed in the Back—Again

After more than a century, yet another Stabbed in the Back Myth (Dolchstoßlegende ) is being born, this time in America. As is well known, Trump has never shied away…

An Incautious Defense of Optimism

(Optimistically dedicated to Steven Pinker) In a world suffering from a global pandemic, it would be both easy and understandable to be morosely pessimistic. Yet, even here, midst frantic calls…

To Be A Dissident

What does it mean to be a dissident? At its simplest, it means to critically engage with and seek to change the material and the ideological structures of the society…

 Of Friendship and of Politics

Although it is somewhat banal to say, it should never be forgotten how the First World War traumatized the political and cultural life of Europe, especially in the German speaking…

A Totalitarian Republic?

Faction: A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse…

Alien Invaders and the Ethic of the Earth

Imagine this rather typical SF scenario: alien invaders arrive on Earth. They are vastly superior in intelligence, technology, and most importantly, ethics. They quickly perceive that Earthlings are a dire…

On Democracy: 10 Unpalatable Reminders

1) Democracies often behave like little children: reluctant to take their medicine—unless irrationally coerced. 2) A democracy's great weakness is its vanity. The people's vanity. A mortally dangerous tendency that…

On the Persistence of Religion

We feel that even if all possible sci entific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all --Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Recently I received an…

The Metaphysics of Revolution

Socrates was the first revolutionary. He opened up with a legendary oracular search the inner space from which the individual, as we understand him today, would eventually emerge. His “daemon”…

 The End of History: Thirty Years Later

Fukuyama’s book is a profound book and as a profound book it is profoundly misleading. A mixture of Platonic and Hegelian psychology/historical teleology as well as offering a good explanation…

If These Be Men…

Considerate se questo è un uomo Che lavora nel fango Che non conosce pace Consider if this be a man Who works in the mud Who knows no peace --Primo…

A Green Global Party?

Following the lead of the late Ulrich Beck in works such as Risk Society and Power in the Modern Age the time has now come to ask ourselves whether or…

 Message from ET: Leave Me Alone!!

Here’s a thought: What if alien civilizations want to be left completely alone? Listed below are some of the unspoken presumptions underlying our nascent interstellar expansionism: We know what “universal…

Enlightenment How?

  This democracy  makes possible prosperity  without freedom. -- Jürgen Habermas Constantly we are collapsing. Constantly we are fixing. -- Vaclav Smil I define modernism as any attempt by modern…

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