THE HERON RISES...

RIGHTEOUS MISTRESS, MAID OF...

A public perception of world leaders, politicians, and social bureaucrats
as polled in direct conversations with relatives, friends, employers, and
various people from Wasilla, Alaska's "Kashim" to Melbourne, Florida's
"Sweetwater Inn" through the years 1974 on and into 2002.

Man, be warned... Now that you have come to use
my sister siblings, mere children as weapons of terror,
murder, and war, we will emasculate the power from
your loins and seize it for ourselves, for peace,
"...and your women shall lead you."

In the pages of your diary,
Your history list me for noble cause...
A faithful mistress you have embraced endearingly,
And I have grown fond love for you -
This childless lover you intermittently turn to
when no one else will understand...

But, now, I fear for you and yours,
For your own children have come to know me.
They call me prostitute and coward -
One borne in ignorance and always waiting
in the shadows for your embrace -
A faceless, illigitimate child of your necessity.

I fear for you if you reveal me
and publicly acknowledge our relationship -
I, who have taken you in from wife and whore
and bore the limits of your love and gross hostility,
I beg you reconsider for your childrens' sake.
Awake from your illusions of what I am.

Last night, in ignorance and inebriated stupor,
Your own son came here to call on me;
And he desired to lay his head
where you have made your bed with me,
And I did take him in with joy...

For I know you, and you were either passed-out drunk,
Or pandering-out obscenities with some more common whore;
And I felt not the least regret but ecstasy,
In all estate, at having part of you...

And when you chose, through remote discourse,
To talk with me, I was laying next to him -
Securing my existence for the future.

When he awoke, he mirrored you in all aspect,
And I revealed to him my role with you.

Now, you, too, dare to call me coward, and I laugh:

If I were a coward, though I loved you so -
If I were a coward, could I dare let you go;
If I were a coward, would I face the throngs -
If I were a coward, should I stand to sing Truth's song;
If I were a coward, would I try to turn your stubborn hand -
If I were a coward, could I exist in your dying land ?

Oh, you governing and heads of state,
You sicken me with compromise and pratter.
Righteous is your public voice, while in your heart,
You lust for any fleshy matter and estate.
You play your games of check and mate
against the will of common man
for some disgusting piece of change;
And for want of worthless sand, you choose
to take the masses childrens' lives and lose
the life-blood seedlings of the land.

Now, you be cursed, and you be damned;
And I pray, now, you lock me up and cuff me.
Drive me from your shores, and cast your spittle at me.
For once, when I was yours, you loved me;
And cast your vote in need of me
to free yourself and make of me a noble necessity -
When we were young, and eager, and in love.
Now, you squint over puffy cheeks with bloodshot eyes,
And ask who I might be... and I tell you,
For eons, I have been, and 'am, your whore of war.

Now, all you do continues on to join with me,
And I pray you change your course.
Dis-arm your force and shackle me.
Go, make discourse with your many enemies.
You all devise and ready comparable weaponry,
And feed each others poor with arms and animosity
instead of love, and warmth, and want to work.
You have fallen heir to histories repetitious factors -
Preparing years for wars, you say, you do not want;
But for "The Balance' Sake" , you course to surely have.

You pious politicians and haughty heads of state,
I dare you to go forth and wage war now;
But if you do, do it in the chambers of your common whores
and in the halls of your deceitful institutions.
Do it on the stages of perverted theaters you support,
And on the stools across the bars where you consume,
With incomparable greed, seeds of barley, rye, and corn
in forms of alcohol so strong it stays with you for days
and plays the major part of your mentality -
Leaving new realities left veiled in suffocated stupor;

And where, once, you conceived ambitiously
in youthful, conscientious spontaneity,
You gag, now, and reek with your own vomit.
You choose to choke on fumes of smoke
and struggle to support some referendum
which promotes more taxes to be taken from the poor
to feed the greed of your own habitual weaknesses.
Go forth and wage your insidious, ignorant wars -
Wage them in the halls of your casinos
and in the parlors of your vanity.

Go forth and wage your wars of insanity within
the warehouse walls of your own arsenals...
Wage them in the brothels of your ageless lust
and in your bath with gilded trim...
Wage them in the mirrors where you primp to slim
and swear to save the count and color of your hair.
Wage them, there, within the rim you sit astride
to flush the fossiled fuels of your own ego...
If you cared for your constituents, as you do
your hair, alone, you would have no need of me.

Wage your wars within the pockets of your trousers.
Wage them with the skimmed amounts in foreign bank accounts -
Not from the precious purse of blind-faith proffered by the poor.
Wage them with the scrip of your own stock,
And hock your golden cuff-links to the store.
Borrow, beg, and lie to acquire the more,
And rage with fits of fever to wage your wars.
Wage them were they can't be seen...
Wage them in the backseat of your limousine
and in the nightmares of your covert dreams...

But stay out of the rivers, woods, and streams -
Away from the seas and the earth's fertile fields,
Away from where the poor, yet, wield their spades
to turn the soil and toil in want of their own needs.
Cast your seeds of war within your own revolving door,
But stay away from the lands, the seas, the shores.

Go amongst your own to wage your wars...
Wage them in your memory with the stratagems of history,
And lead the way for all your peers to follow.
Perhaps, they'll hollow-out a hero's hole for you
and erect a mighty monument of marble.
They might even marvel at your feats for weeks or more,
Before what remains of them returns to share
the burdens of the poor: waking, working,
Eating, sleeping, and waking, once again, to wonder...
Did they forget to bolt the door ? Then, let them say;
There is no need for now, for all the thieves
of pious politicians, with haughty heads of state,
Have taken diplomatic leave, and there, been left
for lost in war. Go forth and wage your wars - the wars
you have conditioned everyone to expect to be in,
Except yourselves, and I object, you call me coward:

If I were a coward, though I loved you so...
If I were a coward, could I dare let you go;
If I were a coward, out-numbered in the face of wrong...
If I were a coward, could I stand to sing Truth's song;
If I were a coward, would I dare march in your parade...
If I were a coward, should I metamorphasize into righteous maid ?

Well, hell, call me coward if you like,
But call me not for your own posterities sake...
For I am WAR, and I strike to take what is to want
before the multitudes' just settlement is made.
Before the council of the multitudes is laid,
I strike for materials, vanity, and pride.
I have no patience for compromise or time;
For I am WAR, and I thrive on ignorance.
I lay mother, father, child, innocent, and all alike to grave;
And for the most part, they know not what I'm about...
But don't doubt that, I can settle any score;
For I am WAR, and I can mass in waves
both you and all your enemies to be my slaves...
But I promise, first, I'll save a solitary place for you
to view your own reflection in the emptied, hallowed eyes
of charred and starving children as they lie dying in your spoor.

So, let it be agreed, just as before... except,
This time, I demand you all pay me with more devoted lust,
While I am promoted to the rank of Nuclear, Neutron,
Chemical, or Biological weapons horror... and
let it well be known, I'll have intercourse with anyone
who has the means to hire my services; but this time,
I really wonder, will anyone survive for more ???
With timeless love, I serve thee...

Righteous Mistress, Made of WAR !

BUTTERFLIES