KNOCK AND TALK

Rather than permit him his day in court
and running the risk of exposing
the highly probable imposture
of the knock and talk procedure,
did the police let the paraplegic,
who was heavily sedated and confined
to a hospital bed, be induced into hanging himself,
while they sat in the next room guarding the prisoner?

Never would any awkward questions
come to light in a trial.
How condensation on a window meant
someone was growing marijuana;
beware, anyone who has condensation
in the middle of Winter on their windows.

Or, how could they have smelled
through two closed doors and a burning fire
plants growing- I bet you could have placed a jury
on that doorstep lit a cigar in the room in question
and not one of them would have been the wiser.

How did they know,
if not by illegal electronic surveillance- conducted by whom?
And, how did they obtain this illegal information?
How could they then use this type of tainted information
without having it justifiably thrown out of court-
if not for a contrived policy like knock and talk?

Who was it that told them
about all the other places
these human blood hounds
just happened to show up at
and knocked and talked
and supposedly smelled, too?
Embarrassing questions!!!

How could they smell a fire's exhaust
two stories up and identify the source
from several houses closely crowded
together in the immediate vicinity? All mind you within a few minutes.

And what about the claim that a warrant
was supposedly issued impossibly fast?
How were they ever going to
explain away all of that?

And then the door bashed down-
I guess they forgot to knock and talk-
met by a hail of gun fire from
a startled, hard of hearing, occupant
who picked up a gun with such horrible tragic results:

a police officer gunned down in the line of duty:
a citizen shot down and crippled!
And all these awkward questions
and potential overturned convictions,

culminating in a heavily sedated paraplegic
hanging himself, while under guard
in a hospital bed!!!!!!!
They got him all right.
He was released.

But the policy remains-
people are still set up with knock and talk.
His young violent death is a symbol
of the terrible price of tyranny.

Let him be a beacon
that keeps blazing-
acktung, acktung, acktung!
A reminder and a cry in the dark
to carry on-

Never give up our struggle
to be free! A terrifying prospect
to the corrupt Courts, where people
are bled and then persecuted.
This time they screwed up,
but they cheated him- again.

SORROW

Sorrow is our neighborhood
where the green flames flicker
darkly in the new year's nursery,
as it has been our great misfortune
to be embraced by
the cruel cold fires
of Winter mists.

For thirteen bitter years
I've been caste as Laocoon.
The fruit trees stand shivering
their black naked forms
are exposed chard lines
embedded in the fog.

Shrieks ring out pursued by
steps tumbling down
a flight of stairs,
and a chiaroscuro swirling
in a thousand tiny tears;
but, the grief in my heart
is stronger than the night,
where lie the four torn corpses
a pregnant woman and two companions
brutally stabbed to death
by a subliminally induced murderer-

what a heinous way to try
to coerce a peaceful community
into establishing a police force
at great public expense-

for formerly the yule tide camelia's
red blossoms were my joy
but now they remind me of the horror
and I turn away trying to forget.

Today my wife said
that the bulbs were sprouting
by the hedge next to the street.
I wish I were able
to lay among them
and merge my flesh
back into the Earth.

BETWEEN

Between our two houses was planted
trees, bushes and a hedge
that grew filling in the open space
blocking the way between our two houses.

There they stayed buried beneath
their avalanche of shadows
as the barricade of green grew
and I wondered at the widening rift of mutual mistrust.

ANOTHER VIRTUAL SUICIDE PACK: GENOCIDE

All mankind
under the blind Sun
hurtling black coagulated blood,
guilt in the back of a pick-up.

Only in the last loving embrace
comes eternal sleep
the tearless refuge
for another loving couple
man-wife, discretely driven
suicide: genocide,
following the last blazing bullet to desire
catapulting out of this barrel of days-

But here
resides nothing but semiology
that scratch the irises surface
but became worthless wisdom teeth
grinding ground glass
fossils of freedoms passed on.

But now
the frost fingers
unloosen the morning
breeze -- four winds blow
not to cut a Christmas tree
in the mountains of echoing thunder
but to blare Gabriel's trumpet plaintively
at the dark
for certainty is a chimera
in the falling snow turned rock;
and, only the blizzard
a whirling crown
falling everywhere-
points to the decent of the World.

LIKE A PATIENT

Like a patient
coming out from anesthesia
dawn awakes and
applies white dressing
to the fresh wound
in whose heart
I live.

JUST LOOK, AT ALL THE LEAVES

Just see, how they cover the ground
in a carpet or a sea tossing waves
over my hair, my hands, my face;
brown leaves, yellow leaves, red leaves,
leaves so transparent they've no color at all.

The trees toss handfuls of leaves
into the air that's filled with leaves,
they cover roof tops and roadways
all sharp edges grow soft under
their mantle, become warm and humane.
And still the leaves keep falling.

It seems as if in this life of ours
we are leaves caught in a maelstrom
that buffets us about and with each
change in direction we declare free will,
but I wonder, beneath it all
is a driving force that is constant
like the trees, like the mountains, like the stars.

And here among the drowsy streets
beneath the leaves the mountains turn purple
and the sky a rose colored haze
more leaves which are invisible to others
covers your nose, your face and your gentle eyes.

POPLARS

Golden poplars, trembling under an autumn sun;
the long trunked, aristocratic trees,
make a dazzling display, beneath a cold shock of blue;

I have known you bending before Winter storms,
and sprouting translucent buds in Spring;
I have heard you whispering secrets with the wind,
and laughing, at the riotous antics, of the joyful sky larks,
who were nesting behind your screens of green.

An ugly concrete overpass, now squats,
where your graceful spires once pointed
up toward the silent heavens;
I remember, when they felled those magnificent trees;
what a din it made, and then they trucked them off,
each huge dump truck carrying one dead stump,
with its severed roots dangling
like so many partially amputated limbs.
The common throats complained,
at the delays in the traffic,
and then relapsed into their habits of silence.

Slate grey skies threatened to rain, but didn’t.
My grief cut me more deeply than a knife;
it seemed they were taking away part of my life.

Tonight, feeling lost in this labyrinth of minutes,
I drive down the dimly lit street;
a few sprinkles promise to turn into Winter’s first rain, but doesn’t.
I pass by what once was,
and try to comprehend the nothing now there;
it makes me feel so utterly alone,
that everything is so terrible useless-
very soon, I too, will be gone.

TO THINE OWN SELF

Leave me alone,
and let me think.
All the clouds of stars have surrendered,
and been marched away into the vast distances of space;
our dreams have been stolen from us,
and herded to a crater on the moon.
The tumultuous sunset,
with its silent frozen sky, has departed;
even as the silent frozen night is departing,
forever slipping over the edge of reality and,
like the memory of a loved one's face,
fading into infinity....

So what does it matter,
if my young son should be deliberately set up,
to receive a beating - again -
in front of his father and mother,
in a high school wrestling match?
If confronted the coaches would lie;
or, if checked up on, temporarily put on
an antiseptisized show- oh how virtuous we are(n't).
So what, if he was first cheated
out of a chance to participate;
and, then only allowed to compete,
by wrestling up 15lbs. against select opponents, i.e. ringers,
who were supposed to physically beat the hell out of him.
And why? Was this too, for the sake of children?
He is but a boy himself.

One might ask, "Why let him compete,
if its only a cheat?"
A good question that.

But, if this is how society is run:
where that which is supposed to be good is a lie and a cheat
and those in authority dishonor and disgrace themselves;
where events, even J.V. High School athletic contests,
are a carefully orchestrated fraud, and empty show
put on by brutal and bigoted people
so that others will become like them;
and where, self-esteem is an empty illusion
based upon a contrived hypocritical lie-
then let him learn it now!

Let him learn its essential to question everything,
so that he may cultivate a healthy skepticism,
when his perception has grown
and he penetrates the surface of reality,
where many fools reside content in deceit.
Let him learn to delve deeply into the nature of things,
so that he may discover where discernment and wisdom are found.
And, let him learn the importance of living a moderate life
based on courage, integrity, decency and self-respect;
and, he will learn to recognize truth, and to walk with honor,
and to be both wise and strong.

THE MAKER OF TRUTH

I am not the maker of truth,
I am merely its recorder. And,
even though there are bitter truths,
which anger people when spoken-
still they don't mind doing the acts,
or being the things they loath to hear.

Thus we are confronted with a paradox
between speaking the truth or
suppressing it that is to say lying!

These are arguments better suited
for theologians or angels,
but theologians are out of style
and the supposed angels we have here
are fallen to such a lowly state,
as to hate having the truth spoken!

These truths flay open poor souls misfortunes,
either those who participate in them,

or those who witness them, or those
who address them. For some these are obviously
not good things to tell. Expediency first
and whatever it takes,
is the radical right wing creed.

The radical right fanatics have never
been much on their own martyrdom.
But neither do they believe in confession
at least their own,
their pride prevents them from feeling
the penitents desire for humiliation;
and, about those awkward truths,
which they find so embarrassing,
they absolutely think,
to be discrete is the best policy.

This is all very practical,
but now we arrive at that paradox:
if God is truth that is to say
God is not a lie:
how can we be good Christians
and suppress these truths,
which are dangerous to tell
and disagreeable to hear,
what is left to talk about-
the lie?!?

There is no third way
not even for children!
Let us be brutally frank
no truth then becomes
good to tell, and no one
becomes Christians!!!

GROTESQUE, NIGHTMARE

They're dead, even before
being pinned down by a phrase
from the tip of my pin,

with smashed skulls
like over ripe mangled melons
that were

swallowed up by their screams,
and the blind eyes
vacantly staring - GENOCIDE!

together in death
as in life, modest shirt,
a favorite blouse, comfortable slippers,

broken glasses
GENOCIDE!
the husband starting to rise

in horror
over what once
was his bride

the young son-
and yet, still another,
this is again

statistically impossible:
do they all have to use coke
and then go out on a spree,

don't any of them
even try to
get away!?! -

subliminally driven
to wield
the hammer

(must all these children
have to wield conveniently
placed hammers or knives

at elderly parents
whose parenting skills
others don't approve)-

until they
brutally murder
us all!

sending him sprawling
down on top
of her prostrate corpse

with the mashed pulp,
blood stained face:
another bounty

in their tax-free
asset hidden accounts,
just another T.V. adventure,

to cure the ennui
of brutal
hit squads!

We are now told, we must not monitor efforts to launder money; because, they say, it will erode confidence in our banks? How? Why? What do they have to hide? Is it a fact that the radical right are back to importing a large percent of the drugs that find their way into our country and they don't want people to find out who is getting what and how much- just like when the C.I.A., during the Reagan/Bush administration, was importing so much of the coke during the crack epidemic in the early 1980's? Why has monitering money laundry efforts to find drug dealers been considered O.K.; but, now is suddenly not alright to find, either income tax evaders, or drug dealers!?!


Sneaky New Surveillance Law Threatens Every American's Privacy

H.R. 3694, the Intelligence Authorization Act Conference Report, authorizes YOUR phone to be wiretapped, in secret and without court review, simply if a suspect happens to be nearby! "This is the worst sneak-attack on American privacy in three generations." - Stanton McCandlish, EFF Program Director Latest News

This legislation passed both Houses and was signed into law by President Clinton. Legal challenge will be difficult, and the best tactic will be to work to have this measure repealed. Many legislators are not pleased with it, as it was introduced and passed deceptively, without hearings and without any oversight. See "Act Now" section below. (Dec. 6, 1998)

Previous News

Controversial "roving wiretap" language has been added to H.R. 3694, the Intelligence Authorization Act Conference Report, by a joint House/Senate Conference Committee, behind closed doors and with no hearings, to give the FBI and other U.S. police agencies frightening new surveillance powers reminiscent of the Soviet KGB. In fact, Congress explicitly rejected these provisions several years ago in open debate, as a too-invasive threat to privacy, and neither the House nor Senate versions of this bill contained these provisions when they passed each respective half of Congress. The conferrees, a handful of legislators, decided on their own in an anti-democratic maneuver to ignore a clear message from Congress representing the will of the people, and added major points from an FBI "wish list" to the bill with no debate, no notice, no recorded vote - no accountability.

Unfortunately, the House has rubber-stamped this sneakily-amended legislation, and it only remains for the Senate to consider the final bill. Unless concerned Americans speak out immediately, this legislation is certain to pass into law. (Oct. 8, 1998).

ACT NOW!

Urgent action is needed NOW. Call/fax your Representative, Senators and the President and demand that this sinister, KGB-like legislation be repealed immediately in 1999. This See http://www.vote-smart.org/ce/ to look up contact info for your Senators and Representative (and the President). Urge your elected Congresspersons to work to REPEAL the new wiretapping provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Authorization Conference Report, and urge the President to support and sign the repeal. Some talking points: Remind them that Congress already rejected this legislation twice, when it was introduced openly, and adding it into the Conference Report was sneaky and anti-democratic "Roving wiretaps" threaten privacy - anyone could be wiretapped, KGB-style, simply because a suspect in an investigation happened to be nearby Secret ex-parte subpoena and wiretapping powers have no place in a democracy and undermine the bare-bones protections afforded by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Background

Wiretapping law permits a particular entity's phone to be tapped, at the discretion of a judge, based on evidence that criminal activity is likely to be taking place and that the investigators need the surveillance authority to tap that specific phone. The new H.R. 3694 language would expand police wiretapping powers in the following ways: any phone used by a suspect can be tapped, no matter whose it is, with no need to seek a new warrant; any phone "proximate to" (near) a suspect can be tapped, no matter whose it is, with no need to seek a new warrant; any person can be compelled to produce documents or can be subjected to wiretapping (and related pen register and trap-and-trace surveillance), in secret and without judicial scrutiny, if the Attorney General claims that revealing the investigation would affect national security; this prevents the adversary judicial process from protecting the public such as by eliminating obvious errors, constitutional violations, or overreaching on the part of the government; this new "secret national security wiretap/subpoena/pen-register" authority completely bypasses the minimal safeguards of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

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