Friday, September 28, 2001

Juliana Sidra - Welcome to the Planet!

CELEBRATION!
Special Edition Bulletin - for September 12, 2001
 - Published by Soliloquy Press - Franklin, NC 28734, USA - 
Juliana Sidra
September 28, 2001.
St. Cloud, MN
Welcome to our planet Juliana Sidra, you’re going to like it here.  it’s really just a great big busy box, and you will feel at home if you can learn to push and twist and pull and toot just enough.  Congratulations on your choice of parents!  You have selected two of our most advanced models. They run well and are capable of much wear and tear.  Should you encounter any problem with your parents please call the following numbers 472-6666 or 472- 6323 (that’s GRA-NMOM or GRA-NDAD).  Should a sleepy voice answer your call, please hang up and return to your parents until mid morning.

Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Wrap'd

Once again the stories arise about the practices of American slaughterhouses that are raising quotas so fast that they don’t allow time for the animals that are used for food here to die before being cut apart. This last article I saw was in the Washington Post Weekly in June, 2001. Reporters do a horrible but necessary service to the world to bring such practices to the world’s attention and then it becomes a universal imperative that requires response from every person on the planet, every animal, every bird and insect, every plant, tree and bush, every rock must cry out against this ultimate insult of greed. Here is one of my responses in a poem:

WRAP'D

With clanking chain and shrieking rumble
and the cows that bellow loud
Oh the pigs do squeal
and they both cry tears
as they move on down the line
cut apart
while still alive
cut apart
before they died
eyeballs rolling, tongues out-thrashing
squealing, crying as they’re cut apart
alive so quotas can be met
and terror fills the air

Shopping carts that squeal and rumble
as they move on down the line
with corn flakes here, orange juice there
and cow remains all tightly wrap’d
in plastic, neat with feces, dirt
and terror also caught
and tightly wrap’d,
fancy and convenient,
so easy to take home

Expensive tires squish through the rain
and move on down the line they
carry home the nation’s bounty
Food for commerce, food for children,
but seldom ever food for thought
Harried mothers unwrap plastic,
cooking cow-parts for their family
setting on their kitchen counter
meat that’s filled with unseen terror
and feed their children silent screams.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, March 22, 2001

Craven Gap, NC

Late in the afternoon of the last day of winter, warm sunshine lay on the side of the mountain. Its pleasant light brightened the branches of sleeping trees, and reassured a lone hiker that winter was finally over.
But then the sun fell quickly from the sky and a breeze swept across the trail stirring leaves and raising a surprising chill out of the earth. A strong gust slipped through the hikerÂ’s jacket and under her blouse.
Uneasily, she zipped her jacket, reached for her cap and gloves and turned to head for her car.
The shadows on the trail quickly darkened. A ferocious wind raced up the pathway, hiding it and hurling leaves into her face. The wind began a low howl as it rose into the tree tops, and the hiker suddenly knew that her jacket would be no match for this cold night. She began desperately running for her car, still half a mile away.

As the trail and forest grew dark, bitterly cold air rushed out of the frozen earth, devouring those soft breezes which had occupied the mountain for the past two days. The icy wind roared up out of the frozen rocks, slashing and twisting and bending the trees, whipping their tops and sending leaves and needles swirling headlong, stinging the frozen skin and numbing the mind with its vastness and intensity. Great frozen strength penetrated the universe. Winter had come again, reclaiming its mountain kingdom - reigning again - ruthlessly, righteously, implacably, eternally sovereign - never to leave again! Then it was no longer just the wind which was howling and roaring, but all the creatures and trees, the rocks and hills, the entire world was screaming and crying with shock and agony on this, the last night of winter, 1991.


Morning finally comes and the hiker returns to the mountain with the sunrise, to find that winter has burst - like a soap bubble - still clinging as a fine film, scattered here and there on icy ledges and in snow-speckled hollows.
Whistles, peeps, croaks and the song of birds gently float along with the smell of earth and water on moist, gentle breezes while the cold starlight of those long winter nights bids farewell to the mountain, glinting and sparkling as it fades away under the trees and shrubs.
It is morning - the first day of spring.

©John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved