Tag Archives: Walt Whitman

I SING OF THE BODY DISSECTED. A Poem By R.M. Engelhardt

art*poem by r.m. Engelhardt ©2022

I SING OF THE BODY DISSECTED

So let us now all
Sing or if you believe

Pray

Not of these golden days
But in this dead choir of reprieve
Of anguish of suffering of days

Let us all sing of the 21st century
Of all our failures & the false
Triumphs & of the true progress
Of men

Unmade

Undone

Unseen

Watch &
See how we
So easily destroy

Ignore

Incite

Our own defeat

And on repeat
Like a bad news story
Like history
Still worship greed
And money
The holy dollar
And all the fat politicians
On all sides taking
Away what we once
Called ” Freedom”

As a quaint, dismembered idea

As wars are still waged
Poverty still a slave
We post all our success
Stories

But never our shame

As a dead earth
No longer of beauty
But of a violence unimagined
And obscene

Disgusting.

Weapons
Unimagined & unseen
The end of everything
The end

And the tragedy
The murder of all days

Like all the animals dying &
Loosing space

Oh how inconvenient

How 1980s
And Green

Our voices & our
Votes now all dead and
Useless worthless things

Without any real power for
Truth or change

Countries & governments
In decline still crumbling
And arguing, fighting
Killing over race

And over oil

A disgrace

A disfigurement a
World burning
Forests dying
No gods answering
No gods listening
No god here

Because
No god cares
Or listens
Anymore

This planet
This rock
Used up &
Separated

Dysfunctional
Diseased

Destroyed

With hate
With rage

Peace
Now just
Another trendy word

Forgotten

So for thee I Sing
Of this body
Dissected

Damaged by
Monsters & corrupt men
Fake patriots & grifters
Looking for trophies
And hiding behind a flag

And blaming
All other living beings
For everything
They’ve done

More convenience
More sorrow
More lies
The scapegoat
Followed by the
Image of the Tower card

Falling

As the seasons change
The leaves remain
But we never change

And never will

So for thee I Sing – Scream

For the impoverished
Families and their children starving
I Sing for the ignored
And uneducated the unemployed
And for all those
Guilty of being
Human beings

With hope
With dreams
With love
With faith

I sing for humanity
I sing for change

For Black lives
For all lives
For Suicides
And for all those buried
Beneath us in unmarked graves of
Unrest & genocide
And for all those who
Believe in a Jesus Christ

( Or not )

I Sing for
The Great Spirit
That once roamed
This land now a mere
Figment of imagination
Lost in the blood of
My ancestors

The flags all at half mast
Concealing the sadness
The truth

Of a nation
Once called America

Ashamed

I Sing of the body
The whole of the soul
Dissected

Diseased

Where Walt Whitman
Would now if alive
Weep over it’s reality
And in it’s sorrow
Walk away

Where Lincoln would
Crawl up into a ball
And simply

Choose to die

I Sing of A Nation of the
Body dissected

By cannibals
Who’ve erased all of
It’s glory

And where there
Is no honor, spark of
Democracy, decency
Or even electricity

Left

~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2022

I Hear America Screaming

I Hear America Screaming
(Inspired by Walt Whitman)

I hear America screaming, the varied lies I daily hear,

Those of politicians, each one singing their own tune   for each and themselves alone,

And in the background;

The soldier crying  as the doctor measures his amputee  leg,

The businessman singing  as he makes his fortune off others misfortunes and then sails off & away to the Bahamas,

The single mother asking what she shall feed her starving children, praying every night

The  old dying man mumbling, sleeping on the park bench, with no place left to go

The last animals dying as they breathe in the toxic fumes as they fall from the trees and wires

The union man’s song, the blue collar worker on his way in the morning,
Just to find the factory closed down

The beautiful singing of the daughter, or of the young wife taking care of her mother in her final days because she couldn’t afford a hospital at home

Each American singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, and never believing in sharing

For this day is what belongs to the day—the night always another beginning

Truth screaming with open mouths against an America in it’s very last glories and days

~ R.M.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RIP UNCLE WALT

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

waltwhitman

 

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

Where are you now?

Uncle?

Poet?

Walt?

Old man, child of the Long Island

Free verse son of America,

Teacher & government work-man?

“Human – Being”

Citizen

Man… Mind of the spirit

Spirit, in the flesh

Where have you gone?

Disappeared

Now a ghost

Among the leaves,

The rest.

Uncle,

I see your name written in

School books and upon the wind

And within the rain,

And I still hear your songs fill the air

In the forests & the city streets

Body … Electric.

But father?

Uncle?

Where are you now?

Where have you been?

Gone, gone away from

What you loved most, the land

Yet buried beneath the green

Green meadows, valleys & time

Of ages.

Meditating within the oldest of trees

Silent thru out new ages.

For a book is merely paper

But a voice must ask or say

Invoke yea and awaken others from

The vast darkness & the gray

For uncle, poetic father,

Your America has sadly changed.

No longer the free land

Of promise, no longer do we

Dream like you once dreamt

We still fight wars and without hope

Falter & lose ourselves,

Souls within the damned dark & dense.

So uncle, father.

Return and sit here for a while

And bring some comfort the dying of poets, poetry &

The young boys, and now women…soldiers,

Decimated in faraway lands

You never mentioned in your poems

Or ever heard of.

For it rumored

That you are dead.

And yet?

The 21st century & centuries to come

May yet remember thee still,

And write your verse upon some wall in yet

Another revolution coming.

For it is the same world that

Faces us today Walt Whitman,

One of a new slavery & lack of, death of spirit

That you would not begin to comprehend

Where the poor are now

The slaves of corporation & debt

And prejudice

Still runs rampant…yet hidden

Behind best intentions.

So would you,

Father, Uncle Walt

Still stand insolent? Defiant?

Would you, Walt Whitman

Still stand up & among the

Working class?

But alas,

It is no longer your time here

But your heart & soul remain,

For we, the poets who still struggle

Must create our own new voices & names,

Speak, of what is now & not of the past

To audiences not of one land, but many.

So, Uncle? I owe you an apology.

For you, Walt Whitman are dead.

A timeless friend

And a memory

That we must let rest

To create a new vision.

That one day brings your spirit,

Your uncorrupted vision

“Back”

For if we miss you in one place?

We shall search for you

In another.

__________________

~ R.M. ENGELHARDT 

 

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

waltwhitman

Whitman died on this day in 1892; aged 72. A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; more than one thousand people visited in three hours and Whitman’s oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him. Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden.

_______________

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

Where are you now?

Uncle?

Poet?

Walt?

Old man, child of the Long Island

Free verse son of America,

Teacher & government work-man?

“Human – Being”

Citizen

Man… Mind of the spirit

Spirit, in the flesh

Where have you gone?

Disappeared

Now a ghost

Among the leaves,

The rest.

Uncle,

I see your name written in

School books and upon the wind

And within the rain,

And I still hear your songs fill the air

In the forests & the city streets

Body … Electric.

But father?

Uncle?

Where are you now?

Where have you been?

Gone, gone away from

What you loved most, the land

Yet buried beneath the green

Green meadows, valleys & time

Of ages.

Meditating within the oldest of trees

Silent thru out new ages.

For a book is merely paper

But a voice must ask or say

Invoke yea and awaken others from

The vast darkness & the gray

For uncle, poetic father,

Your America has sadly changed.

No longer the free land

Of promise, no longer do we

Dream like you once dreamt

We still fight wars and without hope

Falter & lose ourselves,

Souls within the damned dark & dense.

So uncle, father.

Return and sit here for a while

And bring some comfort the dying of poets, poetry &

The young boys, and now women…soldiers,

Decimated in faraway lands

You never mentioned in your poems

Or ever heard of.

For it rumored

That you are dead.

And yet?

The 21st century & centuries to come

May yet remember thee still,

And write your verse upon some wall in yet

Another revolution coming.

For it is the same world that

Faces us today Walt Whitman,

One of a new slavery & lack of, death of spirit

That you would not begin to comprehend

Where the poor are now

The slaves of corporation & debt

And prejudice

Still runs rampant…yet hidden

Behind best intentions.

So would you,

Father, Uncle Walt

Still stand insolent? Defiant?

Would you, Walt Whitman

Still stand up & among the

Working class?

But alas,

It is no longer your time here

But your heart & soul remain,

For we, the poets who still struggle

Must create our own new voices & names,

Speak, of what is now & not of the past

To audiences not of one land, but many.

So, Uncle? I owe you an apology.

For you, Walt Whitman are dead.

A timeless friend

And a memory

That we must let rest

To create a new vision.

That one day brings your spirit,

Your uncorrupted vision

“Back”

For if we miss you in one place?

We shall search for you

In another.

__________________

~ R.M. ENGELHARDT 

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD By R.M. Engelhardt

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

Where are you now?

Uncle?

Poet?

Walt?

Old man, child of the Long Island

Free verse son of America,

Teacher & government work-man?

“Human – Being”

Citizen

Man… Mind of the spirit

Spirit, in the flesh

Where have you gone?

Disappeared

Now a ghost

Among the leaves,

The rest.

Uncle,

I see your name written in

School books and upon the wind

And within the rain,

And I still hear your songs fill the air

In the forests & the city streets

Body … Electric.

But father?

Uncle?

Where are you now?

Where have you been?

Gone, gone away from

What you loved most, the land

Yet buried beneath the green

Green meadows, valleys & time

Of ages.

Meditating within the oldest of trees

Silent thru out new ages.

For a book is merely paper

But a voice must ask or say

Invoke yea and awaken others from

The vast darkness & the gray

For uncle, poetic father,

Your America has sadly changed.

No longer the free land

Of promise, no longer do we

Dream like you once dreamt

We still fight wars and without hope

Falter & lose ourselves,

Souls within the damned dark & dense.

So uncle, father.

Return and sit here for a while

And bring some comfort the dying of poets, poetry &

The young boys, and now women…soldiers,

Decimated in faraway lands

You never mentioned in your poems

Or ever heard of.

For it rumored

That you are dead.

And yet?

The 21st century & centuries to come

May yet remember thee still,

And write your verse upon some wall in yet

Another revolution coming.

For it is the same world that

Faces us today Walt Whitman,

One of a new slavery & lack of, death of spirit

That you would not begin to comprehend

Where the poor are now

The slaves of corporation & debt

And prejudice

Still runs rampant…yet hidden

Behind best intentions.

So would you,

Father, Uncle Walt

Still stand insolent? Defiant?

Would you, Walt Whitman

Still stand up & among the

Working class?

But alas,

It is no longer your time here

But your heart & soul remain,

For we, the poets who still struggle

Must create our own new voices & names,

Speak, of what is now & not of the past

To audiences not of one land, but many.

So, Uncle? I owe you an apology.

For you, Walt Whitman are dead.

A timeless friend

And a memory

That we must let rest

To create a new vision.

That one day brings your spirit,

Your uncorrupted vision

“Back”

For if we miss you in one place?

We shall search for you

In another.

__________________

R.M. ENGELHARDT 2011