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Wind Chime

Wind Chime

Cement corridors
cracked with the weight of
unfulfilled expectations
crammed into old
discarded
Duane Reade plastic bags
and toxic water bottles
lined up in perfect disarray
like some half crazed
chorus line.

Glazed eyes wrapped in saran
keep out the cold
housed in grey and
lifeless skins,
which scurry from a yesterday
desperately
into a hope of a tomorrow
with silly putty promises
made of cheap Styrofoam
lies.

Satan’s fracking auction
held on every back street
and
alley way,
closing out estates of the soul
and suffering children
with a “what am I bid for that?”
bought and sold politicians
with two faces carved into
either side of their
head
promising everything,
while bargains are made with a devil
who never gives anything
for free.

Alice in wonderland
how serenely and solidly you sit
while a bloody grassland
framed in filth and chemical poison
lies at your feet.
ice caps crying,
boiling and melting
into a
no-man’s land.
bees in a disappearing act
form hideaways
that become
burial grounds.

Play your music you pied pipers
dancing down your
cast iron roadways.
play for all you are worth
because your fireplaces are burning
and your faces are turning to rags
and when your crying children tire
of their pacifiers,
they will strike the set
and pull the curtain
and the next thing you know…
dinosaurs and loincloths…

So take notice
and brace yourself…
the change is coming!
and if you do not rise up
all will have vanished
leaving no trace of what was
except for perhaps
some old Duane Reade plastic
bags
blowing somewhere softly in the wind
around some old rotting huge
landfill spaces.

A wry reminder of the price
of things
to come.

by Cynthia Adler

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Holding Pattern For 9/11

Holding Pattern
For 9/11

I am awakened
To the silent scent of
Ash
Paper ideologies
Drifting gently to the ground
In balletic surrender.

That morning,
The crystal morning,
That battered illusion
And ripped the remnant
Of a perceived safety
Has made us
One skin,
One nervous system,
Moving in molecular prayer
To transform the
Ancient rage
That shaped itself into
Taut missiles
And hurled itself into the looking glass,
When no one was looking.

We are a light show
Hyping the wattage
To force-feed the
Future,
While a band of soldiers plays with
Explosives and
Spores
And our surrogate fathers
Carry to term
A master plan
As we lay in their hands
Coiled in
Suspended meditation.

We are a nation of
Conditional beauty
And naive grace,
Shaken courage
And stunned silence
Kept at bay
With the deep distraction
Of techno toys
And tinker toys
And celebrity sightings
And the agendas of
Media management.

I am glued to the present,
Moving through crowds
With compassionate trepidation
And a deep love
For
My fellow traveler,
Bargaining and bartering
With the saints
To prevail
In this sea of unpredictable
Events.

I am hoping to stay
Balanced,
On the wall,
Not to crack,
Not to fall,
As I watch the heart
Try to repair
Economic lines,
Religious rancor
and self-obsession,
While the touching of colors in hands
And eyes
Move to the strains of
God bless America
And I wonder at
The irony
And why
It takes this,

To get here.

Cynthia Adler
November, Two-thousand and One

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Occupation

Occupation

Intensified collective
rising up.
A sea of oppressed
soul marchers
making way onto the
encrusted infrastructure
of a diseased corporate
takeover.

Pulling to task
the empty heartbeats and frozen veins
that have served
death warrants
onto the very lifelines of
a nation.

A slam bang chess game
played out
in secret halls,
on fattened hills
and greed-fueled exchanges,
using humans as
pawns and guinea pigs
while spinning
empty promises
leading up to a fast
and blindsided
checkmate.

The crowds will expand
in volume,
in voice,
and in controlled rage.
This frozen sand pile will never move
unless drowned
in its own underlying
whirlpool
wrenched from
its posts
pulled from its locked down
moorings
and stripped of its
power.

The voices are growing
and they will shake
the demonic giants
who have planted poison,
raped, pillaged, gagged
and cut the flow of
human dignity.

The people are collecting
muscle,
mass,
infusing the
airwaves
and
holding fast
for an end
to
this endless
nightmare.

 

But what will they do
as winter’s air rushes in,
as encampments freeze
and long for shelter.

The mad dogs are waiting…
waiting
for the mass retreat,
the slinky back down,
for the faceless ones
to finally
go home.

So the people must move…
into second phase
stronger,
more daring,
shaking the foundation,
roaring into the ears
of the lions and bulls
that change is here…
game over.

by Cynthia Adler

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