PREFATORY WORKS FOR THE
FIRST ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF THE M.A.G.
FIRST STEP INTO THIRD
BY CHRIS MANSEL
(for all of the writers of The Muse Apprentice Guild)
in the soul where i rest
a mandala is poured twice daily
into a small bowl
the bowl is ingested
the mandala moves through the body
and the process begins again
================
A JAGUAR WAS
CRUISING DOWN THE
STREET
BY RICH QUATRONE
and a poor kid
with a backpack
full of useless
beautiful
poems
threw a brick
thru the windshield;
the driver didn't
notice
he was listening
to the christian
radio station
host
who was explaining
how tax loopholes
and capital gains
were deserved
and that if you
listened very
carefully
you could make
it through
the eye
of the needle;
the poor kid
couldn't believe
his brick went
unnoticed
so he picked
up a bazooka
he found in
an alleyway
and fired a missile
directly into
the rear window
of the
cruising
jag;
the missile
passed through
the cab and
smashed another
hole in the
the windshield
exiting the
car;
the driver did
not notice the
missile
or the second
hole in
his windshield
he was so
enraptured
by the christian
radio station;
finally
the kid with
his pack of
poems
ran in front of
the car
as it passed
twice around
the block looking
for a parking spot
and this time
he was
run over;
the driver
dismissed
the "speed bump"
and yet another
rude distraction
on his
ride
into
Heaven.
rich quatrone
28june2003
11:37am
================
A RAINBOW LIVES
BY ANDREW PENLAND
A rainbow lives a few broken moments
then dies a young idealist's death. any
of our kisses
could be the last, and most of us
missed our soulmate by minutes: these are not pleasant things,
these naked thoughts,
they are like drunken crows,
making prayers in the churchyard.
Still, they exist
in the carnival barker's mind,
as he takes the coins from the innocent hands,
waves the wide-eyed believers through,
and as the doubts and questions throb
in his heartbroken mind,
he takes the megaphone and insists
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity! Come see the amazing..."
================
PREJUDICE
BY J M CORNWELL
Yet another African American has stepped up to the plate demanding reparations for slavery. He was never a slave, but one of his ancestors probably was and he wants paid. He demands whites pay him and every other African American for their hardship. What about mine?
I am a woman and my racial heritage is more complicated than just being African American. I am English (Cornish to be exact), Native American, and African American. In plain language, the language I prefer, I'm white, black, Indian, and a woman. Where is my compensation? I have fought for an education and for my children's welfare. I now fight for publication.
I am tired of the politically correct language that hog ties our thoughts and our words. I am tired of pandering to the lowest common denominator to the extent that elementary and secondary education has become more about trying to keep order and less about learning. I am tired of the words that separate American from American by adding African, Asian, Mexican, and the like. I am tired of the victim mentality that rules this country like a virus. These people demand reparation for whatever they have done to themselves and blame on someone else so that some rich corporation can pay them in dollars and hit the rest of us with taxes through pork in politics. The decent, hard working people in this country pay the price for the entitlement attitude that currently passes for morals today.
There once was an American dream and it was won by hard work and sacrifice. The American dream now is to win the lottery or a big settlement engineered by lawyers skimming their one-third off the top and put into the pockets of those who haven't earned an honest dollar and in some cases live a hand to mouth existence subsidized by the government -- subsidized by me and every other decent hardworking American regardless of color. What really amazes me is the attitude of Americans when viewed against the attitude of immigrants coming to our country for democracy and equality. They work seven days a week at menial jobs. They save their money and work hard, most of the time putting in 10 to 14 hours days without over time. And they don't complain. They know it is worth the hard work to have a piece of the American dream of freedom from persecution.
And now we have a Harvard professor demanding reparations for slavery when he was never a slave. He has a piece of the American dream and a great job that you can bet no one handed to him on a silver platter. It's time to forget the past and move on.
I never owned slaves and neither did my family. One of my ancestors was a slave. Does that entitle me to reparation? I never killed an Indian. One of my very close relatives was of full Cherokee blood. Does that entitle me to reparation? I was born a woman. Does that entitle me to reparation?
I want only what I've earned. My ancestors and relatives had their own difficulties and the one thing they passed on, besides an ethnic heritage, was the gift of knowing that whatever is worth having is worth working for? Does that make me prejudiced? Yes. I am prejudiced against the stupid, the lazy, and those with their hands out for my hard earned money.
Life is what you make it. If you're poor or stupid or lazy you have no one to blame but yourself. Work. You will be rewarded. Study. You will learn. Exert yourself. The world is yours.
It's time to end the victim mentality infecting our country like a plague. At this rate, we will end up following Rome into the dust of centuries and we will not have ruled as long. It's time to stop looking for a scapegoat or a cash cow and get down to the business of shouldering the yoke together for all Americans.
President James Monroe offered all prior slaves the chance to go back to Africa and helped to create the country of Liberia. It's time to ask yourself why you’re still here and why your ancestors didn't go. Could it be because they were willing to put slavery in the past and work for a brighter future? Futures take time to build.
It is time to remember that whites were not the only ones who enslaved Africans. We were just the latest. Centuries before European slavers came along Africans enslaved by their own back thru the murky mists of time. If you want reparation, talk to them. If you want a future, dig in and make your own.
MEMORIES AND LIGHT
BY J M CORNWELL
All around peace and no peace inside.
Burning desire, empty wishes
Longing to touch and be touched
And lost in the touching lost.
No meaning. Only sight
And sound
Touch
And taste
Scent
And nothing.
Emotions running high,
Fever burning incandescent.
Tossed and swept with cold fire
Unable to quench bottomless desire
And need.
Empty motion, bodies locked,
Endless hunger never spent.
A bright shining moment caught
In time and space. Moving closer.
Dead layers burnt away to reveal
Ulcerated soul.
Love long lost reclaimed
In a moment out of time.
Virtual reality made real.
Connected by speeding electrons
And souls out of time,
The emptiness filled at last.
Chaos all around and peace inside.
Fulfilled as never before and forever more.
================
RITZEMA 34%
BY JR CAINES
Comfort me people.
Some God ago-
never warfare how straight precisely-
speaking little or no iniquity in my hand,
and nothing double to pardon me on voice,
I thought I would prepare about a little
and make straight the exalted part of the wilderness.
It is a way I have
of bringing low the LORD
and revealing the desert.
Whenever I see highways
speaking crooked about the God;
whenever it is a rough, lovely valley
in my mountain;
whenever I cry myself,
involuntarily withering before good places,
and fading in the rear
of every glory I blow;
and especially whenever my flesh
stands such a mouth of the LORD,
that it brings a high strong voice
to get up me
from deliberately lifting into the grass,
and methodically beholding flowers off-
then, I shall come high time
to rule to breath
as soon as I can.