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Diogenes Once Sighted Must Go Blind
| Open Poetry #34 |
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Diogenes Once Sighted Must Go Blind |
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RSWells Member Elite
since 2001-06-17
Posts 2533
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"I’m committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." -Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc (manufacturers of voting machines) 2003 . . . . I pass, like a wind shears hasty tour of a ruined abbey, through empty rooms with nothing more to give evicted in a night move without a word exchanged, I knew when I awoke you must be gone no promising upholstery, no warming woody grains. I do not need a lamp to see the naked walls before I paint these vacant rooms I’ll make a final note of the solar tracings of the crucifix, rectangle where once blazed an image of your white Jesus lording over us all these years Since 1963 I’ve shone a searching beam into the eyes of all encountered and now I find the warm reflections I’d so generously marked were my own intentions mirrored from the black eyes of a beast As you tease the blue soufflé like a house of cards in its delicate balance atop your righteous head and the keys you stab and twist into the Towncar for a deliverance fueled by a faith of hate………. As your spouse, in his pose as pious usher, alternates his unrhymed steps between the proper pewing of the pecking order and the giddy gooseflesh of gossip….. Know that I finally see you The fist-faced of your pulpits are now fistulas, air brushed from the landscape of the last supper, and all the dinner guests are named Iscariot Tax freed lynch mobs Incited to pray then prey; "Hosanna to the biased Piece to men with good bills Heaven’s on earth when filled with our quarry Hosanna to the biased" That a Semitic-brown Jesus asked that you render unto Caesar only that which is Caesars…… or a color blind Constitution separates a church, it’s hate from state……….. couldn’t stop you gathering in broad daylight, territorial snarls and the fear that Black men might actually attempt to share the only true moment of equality in this country….. or the sheeple’s crusade against Islam might halt…. or the gays might pass for human….. The fix was in but you made sure Good Christian and where you had a soul is only hate All these years looking for the truth, all those faces searched When at last my sight revealed it I could only pluck out mine eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "In Columbia, a letter on fake NAACP stationery claimed that anyone with an outstanding parking ticket or unpaid child support would be arrested, and said voters must bring two forms of photo identification, a recent credit check and a handwriting sample in order to cast their votes. —Reuters" ‘‘If anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything, you can’t vote in the presidential election,’’ the flyer read. ‘‘If you violate any of these laws, you can get 10 years in prison and your children will get taken away from you.’’ "In Wisconsin, flyers from the non-existent Milwaukee Black Voters League offered some ‘‘warnings for election time’’, including the false claim that anyone who voted in a primary election could not vote again the general election" • OHIO: Two federal judges yesterday barred political-party challengers from questioning voters' registrations at the polls. Republicans last night were appealing the ruling, which came in response to a GOP plan - similar to one in Philadelphia and elsewhere - to base challenges on letters that were undeliverable to the new voters' addresses. • FLORIDA: Six members of Congress recently called on Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate the use of plainclothes officers from a state election agency to question elderly black voters in the Orlando area about voting irregularities in that city's March 2003 mayoral election. Critics charge that these tactics have intimidated black voters. etc etc etc |
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| © Copyright 2004 Richard S. Wells jr. - All Rights Reserved | |||
Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
you bring sir.. the air of accountability into poetry.. and with your well said and passioned write... shame me for the trivial things I choose to write..or that choose to write me... always a great deal of respect in me when I read or reply to your offerings.. and always, even if I do not fully agree at times with the perspective a thank you for bringing that perspective to us in a way that shows not only the convictions you have but the talent you have in how you speak them |
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Aenimal Member Rara Avis
since 2002-11-18
Posts 7350the ass-end of space |
thank you |
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Kethry Member Rara Avis
since 2000-07-29
Posts 9082Victoria Australia |
This was wonderful, full of dark brooding thoughts and while I don't understand the American political system I do understand the context of your words. Very well done. Here in the midst of my lonely abyss, a single joy I find...your presence in my mind. Unknown |
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ice Member Elite
since 2003-05-17
Posts 3404Pennsylvania |
Applause and hosannas to you, Mr. Wells. Complex subject and complex wording adding up to clarity of poetic intent...what more could a reader want? --------ice ><> |
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RSWells Member Elite
since 2001-06-17
Posts 2533 |
March 5, 2004 "Asked recently about the importance of Ohio in this year's presidential campaign, one veteran of Buckeye State politics told Salon, "Ohio is the Florida of 2004." That label sounds ominously accurate to the many who are skeptical of computerized voting. ......And they wonder why state officials seem so unconcerned by the fact that the two companies in line to sell touch-screen voting machines to Ohio have deep and continuing ties to the Republican Party" Walden "Wally" O'Dell, the chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold has given generously to Republican candidates. Last September, he held a packed $1,000-per-head GOP fundraiser at his 10,800-square-foot mansion. He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. One of the longest-serving Diebold directors is W.R. "Tim" Timken. Like O'Dell, Timken is a Republican loyalist and a major contributor to GOP candidates. Since 1991 the Timken Company and members of the Timken family have contributed more than a million dollars to the Republican Party and to GOP presidential candidates such as George W. Bush" "While Diebold has received the most attention, it actually isn't the biggest maker of computerized election machines. That honor goes to Omaha-based ES&S, and its Republican roots may be even stronger than Diebold's. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel's Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that. A little less than eight months after stepping down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html "Nearly one-third of voters nationwide cast their ballots on electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail" NYTimes 11/4 |
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