Augustus Young       light verse, poetry and prose
a regular webzine of new and unpublished work

MORAL GROUNDS

Extinction by Human Error

Life is a dream.   Life is a scream.
Can it end in   the end of being?

How did it begin  Original sin?
No. The Big Bang   detoned a Man
in early form   a sort of worm.
False starts galore   gave life to lower
animals that   alas fell flat
until one stood   up, and made good.
So over time   and space, mankind
evolved into   what's me and you.

Cosmic chaos   was the first base.
Our own's our homer.   We have blown
the high moral   ground, made horror
normal, and war   against nature
and on ourselves.  Our private hells
at best, I think,  will become extinct.

Was the Big Boot   in its cahoot
with stupid Fate   the reprobate
power that got   it wrong, in not
accounting for   human error?
Or did it kick   start the wicked
Endgame, like we   accurately
stamp an ant out   without a thought?

Next

Two thousand and nine.
Bombing and shopping
will now be stopping.
No one will be buying.

I put my trust in
a better climate.
A decline in hate.

What is promising.

A world much calmer.
No Dow Jones or cars,
sale of arms for wars. 
Thank you, Obama.

I know you're thinking
what a fool am I.
You reach for the sky,
and get a Clinton.

A Cap'tal Year

The fireworks this year are a public display
of capitalism farting. Moloch ate too much.
It is shameless. The Lions Club leaves the table
to watch the shit flying, and the waiters dig in.
There's a mountain of food erupting from the town,
and the mouths of the hungry hang open,
but not a crumb drops in. The system never fails
to deliver its surplusage to the wrong people.
When the businessmen come back they're ready
for the cheese and the pudding and the brandy.
A cloud rises above how-it-is and it stinks.
The sewers and the heavens have changed places.
So the good citizens put up their umbrellas,
but the damn things won't open. They're going to hell.  

Money

The man with the belted raincoat talks across the shop assistant to another customer while being served bagels. He is holding up a twenty pound note, and has the other hand open to receive the change. She repeats, 'If you have a pound, sir…' The interlocutors are talking business. I hear, 'How's your money?' The assistant gives up, and fills the begging palm with small change. It overflows. Two businessmen are down on the floor picking up the cascade. The brown paper bag of bagels on the counter smiles open.   

Johnny U Assay

I'm rather violent these days.
All around me broken blossom.
Going crazy is my latest craze.
You can't fool me playing possum.

I hit out at the slightest slight.
The blows I land are force eight. Puff.
You deserved that for being right.
That's all for now. I've had enough,

and have decided to be good
and kind, and pick up the pieces,
a paragon of what I should
be. I need to know what peace is.

Requiem for a Metaphor

'Money the root of all evil,  and religion the flower?' Still
the tree of life was intended  to be good and truly grounded
in the virtuous earth, and grow  to its fruition. Nature says so.

But in the present climate those  metaphors are best left foreclosed.
History has not changed a bit.  The human being is wicked.
Roots at war with flowers have led to  an awful lot of deadwood.

'The evil men do' flourishes.  It needs the dosh to furnish it
with killing machines, and the prayers  to keep the home front happy. Wars
must have their bankers, and gods too  to feed the dogs. That's me and you.

But we're barking up the wrong tree.  It's time to try a simile.
Money is God. No metaphor  could beat that in my deep heart's core.
It could be the other way round.  Does that mean that it is profound?

I swear to speak up with straight talk.  When I try I can only squawk.
Sincerity is to echo  what everybody surely knows
already. So I stick to morse code.  SOS. It's the end of the road.

Happy Ending

Madam is home
from the clinic,
after the knife.

She cannot walk
anymore, but sits
on a throne

and talks
with pleasure
about the well known.

Not just to herself.
She has friends,
dead and alive.

Even the ghosts
sometimes visit
to exchange gossip

from the past.
That is, I suppose
how ends meet.