In our recognition of all unholy alliances
Green Ooze
(with regard to that most notable
of the political murders
in Guatemala)
I know a nightmare and
I weep for you
sleepy city in the South,
rooted in your own
Catholic flowers and poverty
amid the vegetation.
We all weep for you
...for your enlightenment
however lonely and obtuse
about the rain-forests falling
to abuse ...we weep
for each
environmental niche
at noble salad lunches.
Our congressmen! Their tears profuse
with laughter like a carnival
...over champagne marinates,
weep
over truffles and steamed goose
...you are the crown of sorrow
over splitting headaches
and their days
made of fifty-dollar plates
and more
...the book we read
...we try to finish before we fall asleep! and weep
trying not to be disturbed
by little family feuds and feasts
and all their permutation
...knowing that a priest
and a noble man
could once again
like a common criminal, down there,
like all the poor and god forsaken peasants
among the many other
factotums of the myth of God
that murmurs tired phrases
about a man and how
he ought to be a brother...oh that you should know!
Down there
...till we're bored enough to sleep, we weep
and worship little relics
pure enough to keep
and if we cheat
...we chew the dreary meat
and give the dog his bone.
And we will bleed green ooze
and will weep and weep
until the nightmare
is our own...
In our disgust for deeply seated bigotry
Democracy In The South
The crows have taken
a vacation
in the shadows
where the mental
image ducked.
Among the trailers and the swamps,
where land is dredged,
the bottled beer is sucked,
dark highways
proceed
in their deliverance
of the virgin spirit
to the dry and anguished deed
confessing to the cop
in a baptism of blood and wood,
until the charge is finally dropped
...and evil
is made good
or good enough to stop
aspiring to justice,
when progress is the overwhelming
issue in the law.
The computers just get brighter!,
the malls become the place to shop.
And once again "truth"
is never spoken
...merely understood
"Equality is nice, but"
the crow shall hunt the mouse!
lucky to live as mice
by virtue
of the mercy
of a claw.
In our hope for a genuine prosperity doctrine, not the fundamentalist abomination . . .
Riches
"People get
what they deserve"
...that Karma
of the cosmic pie!
"But only in California
and only if pie
is what 'they' eat
while others labor
at their feet
at the peak
of this statistic's curve,
and a lot of pie
not just a bit"
And "if only others loved the Lord
and had the faith of a mustard seed
they could pray themselves a home and car
and get off welfare
...yes! indeed!
"and pickup call girls bound for Hell
and screw them in that car's back seat
and keep them useful with a lie
that only the pure in Jesus tell
and 'satisfy their every need.'"
And when God's kingdom comes to Earth,
falls from the sky and crashes there,
and Africa is filthy rich,
the Chinese, smug, in all of their wealth,
and all that God's children can afford
are peanuts in the packaged care
of dark skinned people when they bleed
...why even I, will stand amazed!,
at the unsung justice in this curve
and think
"Why Jesus, God, be praised!
…'they' really do," "People,
however full of shit
really get
what they deserve."
Silva was an army brat who spent time in England, Puerto Rico, and many other countries. His politics are partially influenced by first hand knowledge of mentally ruined veterans. He tells of special missions and soldier towns. Love Between Commercial Breaks begins with "It is amazing how the phantom of film has transferred that dense human grip that people would normally keep in the most savage, desperate, and cold-blooded acts of life." In The Whores he tells the story of three American soldiers doing reconnaissance and surveillance near Maguey, Columbia where the US enlisted the aid of Vincente, a Panamanian, because they didn't trust the locals. Vincente wanted to join the US army and eventually gain citizenship, but the mission wasn't going well. The helicopter gunships would turn up nothing; some of the choppers were shot down; and there were rumors that American servicemen had been clipped or captured . The local 'militias' were more successful; however, their methods were an increasing 'embarrassment' to our State Department.
. . . and in our disdain for soiled loyalties
What's Left To Do
[...]
no one cares for freedom,
nor love, nor faith, nor purity
except, and in as much, they pay
green for green with spiteful sneer
whose game of spite
is its own bliss,
the price of such an empire
that calls itself "Democracy,"
and lewd rewards in Heaven
for the soldier
in every distant war.
