The 31 Commandments Of Gaia
Deus sive Natura 1) Gaia is both a complex planetary ecological system and a Goddess. This may seem paradoxical even contradictory but it is not. It depends how you approach…
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…
Upon Hearing Of The Death Of Navalny
What were you thinking? Opening up your heartTo the Monster in the TowerOpening up your heartTo a people without power Could you fill the DemonWith fear? Could you fight the…
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…
In Memory Of Hind Rajab (Six Years Old)
"I'm so scared, please come"--Hind Rajab What have you done What have you done? I would askAnother time But I knowThat you know A little girlSix years old Pleading on…
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…
The Ten Essential Powers of Great Literature
What makes a work of literature great? Why, to name but a few, are Hamlet, The Iliad, The Divine Comedy, War and Peace, The Flowers of Evil, Don Quixote, Faust…
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…
Forgive Thyself and Others: Reparations Now!
The question of Reparations for the historical crime of slavery is not primarily about money. Rather it is about spiritual cleansing and healing. It is about recognizing the fact 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…
Thinking about the “Power of the Powerless”
“There are things which are worth suffering for” wrote the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka shortly before his death which was caused, in part, by the treatment he received from the…
On The Moral Graciousness of Fatalism
Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. Dylan Thomas “Fern Hill” Fate show thy force, ourselves we do not owe What is…
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…
Fearing Kantian Globalization, Democracy, and Migration
Globalization, Democracy, and Migration are themes which continually ignite both scholarly and non-scholarly debate. Not so surprisingly, none of this is new. In his own inimitable way, the German Enlightenment…
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”…
Epstein, Faction, and Neopatrimonialism
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…
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…
Last Men or New Men? Nietzsche in the Global Age
Does Nietzsche have anything important to say to us, we the current inhabitants of a global age? Nietzsche speaks of spiritual health as a result of the superabundance of the…
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…
The End of Anarchy and The Solidification of the Global Class
There once was a world where state actors operated in an anarchic international environment, where maximizing their overall power was their goal, and war was their means of achieving it.…
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…
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