F.E. Feeley Jr.'s Blog, page 21

Filtered Water (Poem)

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(Photo Izzy Gerosa)

I give my plants and dog filtered water

as i smoke a pack of Marlboro’s a day

i do yoga and eat pizza

and sometimes when i’m conscientious

I’ll have a salad with ranch

i love rock and roll, show tunes, and opera

and i sing with a voice that sounds like it’s

been put through a cheese grater. And it cracks and I laugh

and i embarrass myself when no one’s here.

I listen to live music in my car

a friend once said that he thought I liked the crowd cheering

at my driving skills

i have a big fucking mouth

that most people hate

but my husband loves, for several reasons

but I love it when people like me

and hate it when people don’t.

I have an ego the size of montana

that is fragile as your most expensive crystal

and booze and me get along real well

especially if I am around another friend who is Irish

who can’t remember fucking lyrics

its David not Daniel

and I know he’s going to read this because he stalks my page.

and I love him for it.

I am not someone to invite to your birthday party

but I am someone to talk to when you’re feeling out of sorts

and kinda low

I won’t remember your anniversary, but I’ll remember the important things like how you felt, your scent, and those kick ass boots you wore.

I’ve the heart of a man but the soul of a woman

and the mouth of a sailor.

but I cry at “How Great Thou Art’ in a four part harmony

that sometimes I hear in my head when I’m staring up and far away

I love art, and dogs, and cats, and flowers and I hate anything squishy

and the word, “moist”

Jesus Christ, that word.

That’s why I am a homosexual. An adversity to that word and anything that may be that word.

I am a comma whore, if you haven’t noticed and I write just like I think

and I like to lecture and think long thoughts that are sometimes shallow as one motherfucker once pointed out

(but he’s as deep as a teaspoon himself, so…)

I speak when no one is listening

but I can hear when no one says a word

and understand exactly what they mean

But I write just like I think and if you’re impressed with that, come live in my head for a little while

I hate religion but I love God

and I hate people but I love certain ones

and I hate my body

but I’ll let you touch my butt if you promise to buy me tacos

I really like tacos

so this is me, at least how I’ve been in the time it took to write this

but I’m an artist (deal with it, bitch)

and It’s all prone to change.

and change again

but my love for you never will. That…THAT!!…will always be the constant part of me that exists solely for you.

For If I love you, I will always love you, even though we may be years, and miles, and terrible words and feelings apart

for that is the lot of this wretched creature, to live in an unfiltered world

to bring to you a cool glass of water when I’m thirsty and dying for my art.

…because my lover’s lying there (poem)

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I believe in God when I see the sun crests over the horizon,


when the rain taps upon my window pane and the scent of sweet olive wafts sweet perfumes from it’s chalice


the sweet intoxication of it’s scent lingers invisibly upon the humid June morning air.


 


But it’s at night, and for far more mundane things have been done


when the carpet’s been vacuumed, and dinner put away


after the dog’s been walked, a show on Netflix watched and lovin’ had


I believe in God, not for some miraculous start of a day, because I see my lover lying there

Oh, but the trees in springtime (poem)

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(Photo by Kevin Young)

 

oh, but the trees in springtime

when the bud first opens and litters the ground with it’s remains

and the tender petals emerge, fresh and palest green

upon the face of a stately tree that bore the winter snow

with ease – slumbering, white powder on black branches

alighted occasionally by a visiting blue jay or cardinal, red

awakened by the golden kiss of heaven – all spring long it stretches itself upward and onward in a slow, luxurious yawn

drinking heavily from the sky turned black with terrible rumbles of thunder

the tender peddles flip to expose their bellies while the world and the cardinals shiver in fright

Oh, but the trees in springtime

when fat fisted children reach into the grass the fall before

and pull back two or three winged seeds

from Maple trees and scream in delight as they helicopter

to the ground

next to the trunk older than their mother’s mother

and just as watchful

now remembers why she loved those children as children of her own sprout up just outside the reach of her canopy

Oh, but the trees in springtime

but the liveoak seems almost like a god of ancient times

with a base as wider than a man can embrace

with tree limbs stronger than the river flows

who – in the fall drops acorns faster than squirrels can gather

the spirits within you can hear snort with mirth – when one of their artillery happens to fall on someone’s head

they don’t call them Live Oak – for nothing

But oh, the trees in springtime

new leaves combined with the smell of the earth

new life as old creatures give away to new birth

promise a thousand days underneath the cool of their shade

is where I read my favorite book

and upon my shoulder and neck and side of my face

sunlight dappled touch kisses me every time the wind

run’s its fingers through the branches

 

Johnson Amendment and the Poverty Pimps

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Lyndon B. Johnson was a Texan. A southerner. A Senator and then President.

He was also the last damn souther politician, democrat or otherwise, who attempted to address the root of poverty.

Johnson’s Great Society was the largest leap forward in education and in wealth this country had ever seen.

Upon visiting the Appalachians and swamps of Louisiana, he couldn’t understand how the wealthiest nation in all the world had such abject poverty in these places.

He was also the author of the Johnson amendment which barred religious institutions and tax exempt organizations from interfering in politics.

Republicans have hated Johnson’s great society and love to point to Detroit as an example of it’s failure.

But what republicans won’t tell you – is after all of this was passed – they went behind it and while they didn’t repeal the law- they just took they legs out from underneath it – causing an inevitable collapse, causing it to fail.

Donal Trump’s EO today, is right out of the G.O.P’s handbook.

Johnson declared a war on poverty.

Republicans declared war on the poor.

See, wealth is supposed to be owned by an elite few. Them.

Anyone possessing any sort of wealth is an affront to them. Anyone besides a certain demographic having success or liberty or freedom, is an affront to them.

They love to blame democrats for ‘keeping people poor.’ Ben Carson likes to tell poor people, especially poor blacks, that they need to ‘get off the plantation’ and lament people ‘being on the government teet’.

And people agree with him.

But the bottom line is thus: The republicans have convinced the working poor that they are middle class.

If you’re not making at least 100,000 dollars a year you are the working poor.

If a catastrophic illness, legal entanglement, sudden death of a loved one – mainly the breadwinner – if you plan on using social security when you retire, if your company doesn’t provide you with a pension, if you are not independently wealthy to survive any or all of these things – you have NO BUSINESS supporting the republican party because they DO NOT support you. And you and what little money you have – are their biggest targets. They want it for themselves.

See republicans – the wealthy top- are hoarders. There is no trickle down anything. That’s the problem. Unlike most Americans they can afford to stash their money. They put it in off shore tax exempt accounts. They won’t even pay what you pay percentage wise in taxes.

Why should they when you work for scab wages with the added bonus of paying for their corporations’ tax shortfall? They have it made in the shade.

But today – like all good republicans do – Donald Trump used religion and the Johnson Amendment to feed into the narrative that the working poor’s religious rights will be treasured by them. So now, you can refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, sure. But you’re also going to be unable to provide for your posterity and the likelihood of you dying on your feet at your job just went up.

Yay – you!

The poverty pimps have won again, sucker.

Aries Born (poem)

 

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(Photo by Greg Rakozy)

 

Morning-born under the sign of the Ram

while my moon taught me to roar

fire chain whips rolling off my tongue

and pleasure from my fingertips

go away, come back

love me the way you want to

I’ll drink your water when my throat aches

and my heart needs to recover

then let me go to soar

far into the night sky and rage

as I chase away the dark

for those who’s signs are endowed with the earth and of the water and of the air

but tether my foot

and outstretch your strong arms

for when I need to cry from having darts

thrown into my soul

wrap me up then and take your demon home

should you do this

should you vow to do this

knowing I belong to the night

knowing it’s the air I need that makes me breathe

knowing it’s the earth that feeds me

knowing it’s the water that gives me the release I need

Should you do this

it’s your body alone that I will allow to possess me

when the morning comes and we come with it

and the sun takes my place in the sky

I’ll lay quietly in your loving arms

and fall asleep to bird song.

My messiah (Poem)

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(Photo: Simon Wijers)

There isn’t a place I’ve been that I’ve not run from

When midnight struck the clock on the wall

And late became the hour

And like the damned in fairy-tale legends

Morning set my feet to flee before the sun crest over the horizon upon the 

very next day

When ashes all settled from the bridges I’ve burnt

Whose broken bodies lay limp over yawning 

Deep canyons

With my fingers smelling once again of gasoline and tear drops

I bore the Weight of myriad transgressions on ever bent neck and sloping shoulders

My feet once tender had turned to stone 

My face once fat had become lean

Sweet smiles lines became deep set and turned to frown lines 

At the corners of my mouth

With ragged and raging and fearful soul

I turned my back on heaven and the son and my home

I was the prodigal son unwilling to beg forgiveness

For made up sins wrapped neatly in heavenly torment

I was Jonah who’d conquered that whale with simple reason

I was Paul and Silas bound beaten and bloody

Who instead of praying, fucked my way out of that jail

And like the damned and unrepentant third man on the cross

I thought forever my poor soul would roam

Burning bridges and abandoning beds before sun up

Unable to call any place, any house, my home

But twisted fate is always twisted and it twisted me once more 

As it Bound me over naked and afraid

Unrepentant vagabond born again hedonist 

Begging for an early grave

But then with tenderness you spoke in my ear

And upon your feet I spilled my hearts discontent

I let you know among which shadows I danced within

And repeated back to you all I learned about religion 

With Grace’s supernatural understanding

You took the can of gasoline from my left hand

The Zippo lighter right out of my left

You bathed the dust from off my feet with sweet oils

And for the first time, made love to me that night

You blue eyed angel with dark hair and tender faith

You’ve restored and take care of my soul

And when you love me you love all of me 

All of who and where and what I’ve been

And now that the clock is winding steadily to midnight

I lay my head upon your chest, little Messiah, and wonder at the mysteries of God.

Help Prevent an LGBT Holocaust (Paranormal Romance Guild)

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572-1631)

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 We have just bore witness, as a world, the 72nd Anniversary of the Liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau by  the 42nd and 45th Infantry Division as well as the 20th Armored Division of the United States Army. There were 67,665 registered individuals of which 43 thousand were political dissidents, 22 thousand were Jews, and the rest fell into various sub categories. Of the almost 68 thousand people registered at Dachau – only 32 thousand of them were liberated. Almost half were dead in mass graves or in various stages of decomposition in railroad cars stretched alongside the camp. https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/liberation-of-dachau

While there remain four death camps that most are familiar with, thanks be to our grandparents who served in World War 2 as well as the History Channel, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Treblinka were just four of over 900 other sub camps in and around Germany that participated in not only the murder of over six million Jews but also the murder of political dissidents, Roma (otherwise known as Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, and LGBTQ people. Anywhere between 15 and 20 million people suffered and died at the hands of the German SS. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/how-many-concentration-camps

Many of us, growing up, learned of these atrocities in school. Some of us even remember reading that Ike Eisenhower (who would later go on to serve as the 34th President of the United States) would order his troops to recored and document what they’d witnessed at each and every death camp he personally visited toward the end of World War Two. 80 thousand feet of moving film as well as still images were taken and would later on be used by Thomas Dodd the Chief Prosecutor of Nazi War Crimes at the Nuremberg trials. https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/EISENHOWER-S-PROOF-Holocaust-Evidence

However, seventeen years into the 21st Century – with advances in medicine, with advances in technology, advances in space exploration, our ability to map DNA, expanses in Civil Rights concerning LGBTQ people, and our collective ability to communicate instantaneously with people all over the world – this time in our history feels like a shadow. A dark, lonely, horrific time when a rogue government under the cover of a much bigger world than the one we live in now was capable of such great and terrible things as the mass genocide of those they deemed inferior.  It seems impossible that something like that could happen today. It seems unfathomable, that a nation like Russia – who helped liberate many death-camps themselves including Auschwitz, would be complicit in participating or turning a blind eye to what is happening to LGBTQ people in Chechnya and the resurrection of death camps.

But it isn’t impossible. The atrocities of 72 years ago were committed by human beings. As Terence a former slave set free by his master ,who was astonished at his ability to learn and reason, around 150 B.C. once put Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto or “I am human. Nothing human can be alien to me.”  Depending on the variables in and around our lives – it is imperative to understand that everyone is capable of anything, anywhere, all of the time. The same goes for the good mankind is capable of as well as the wickedness hidden inside his heart.  This time, however, that long shadow of fascism and destruction does not hover over Germany. This time it’s long shadow is cast further to the east.

Right now in Chechnya gay and bisexual men and women and being rounded up and put into concentration camps. Speaking to the Mail Online, Svetlana Zakharova from the Russian LGBT Network said, “Gay people have been detained and rounded up and we are working to evacuate people from teh camps and some have now left the region. Those who have escaped said they are detained in the same room and people are kept altogether, around 30 or 40. They are tortured with electrical currents and heavily beaten, sometimes to death.” It is thought that these people are being held in Argun or somewhere outside that city. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...

The Independent Newspaper also cites that there are “…at least six detention centres are being used to house men abducted on suspicion of being gay, with two identified so far in Argun and Zozin-Jurt.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chechnya-gay-men-russian-reporter-hiding-detention-torture-elena-milashina-novaya-gazeta-100-men-a7703471.html

“People are telling us they are being kept in these detention centers where there are hardly any other criminals other than those suspected of being (gay),” said Tatyana Vinnichenko, who chairs the Russian LGBT Network. “We Know of two such detention centers – in (the Chechen towns of ) Argun and Tsotsi-Yurt. People are finding it hard to believe that something like this is happening in a country with a constitution, in the 21st Century, but it is. ” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...

  But it is.

We here at The Paranormal Romance Guild, being of multiple races, classes, religious backgrounds, and sexual orientations have heard these cries from our Chechen brothers and sisters and are resolved to stand in the way of those who would once again wish to murder the ‘other’ regardless of who they are or how they love. One of the tag lines used when information goes out about The Holocaust is ‘Never Again.’  Despite your personal stance on lgbtq rights – all of our lives are interconnected. Lutheran Minister Martin Niemöller , one of the founders of the Lutheran ‘Confessing Church’ along side famed Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, put it poetically and succinctly this way:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Over the next several days writers from the Gay Romance Genres and others have united to help those in Chechnya escape certain death. We as an organization will be participating in this event by bringing it to your attention and spreading the word. Authors, readers, we ask that you spread this blog along your social media outlets.  Even if you cannot give of your own pocket, or donate books – spreading the world of this real world current atrocity being committed, as well as contacting your local politicians, you can help put pressure on them to cease the torture and murder of other human beings.

For more information follow this link here. https://readersandwritersforlgbtchechens.wordpress.com

Never Again – We were made ready to deal with this when the time came. That time – is now.

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To our Brothers and Sisters in Chechnya and all over the world suffering under the shadow of fascism, We stand with you.

From all of us at Paranormal Romance Guild,  We thank you.

Vice President,

F.E. Feeley Jr

Masquerade!!! (Poem)

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(Photo by: Christal Yuen)

 

 

I hear the swell of the orchestra

But I cannot dance with you.

The music that once was sublime is now raucous and shrill

And my body is worn and my soul is tired

I see the finery

Men in long tails with trimmed fingernails

And women with jewels in their hair

Both wearing masks to hide their true expressions

With ever vigilant gazes as the speak behind fancy paper fans

Peackcock feathers and gloves made of leather

And wine glasses of clear cut crystal

And I, the pauper, beggar, the show stopper

Not welcome to the masquerade ball

It’s dangerous in here

When men have daggers for eyes

And pistols are clutched tight in women’s hand bags

The air is thick with anticipation

For one slight misstep, misspoken absent remark

And someone is murdered right out in plain sight

And the music stops for a second, for the conductor to look fashionably surprised before the music strikes up once again

No, no, we can’t have this

This isn’t beautiful or lovely or glorious

As the body is drug away

And the blood runs red on the dance floor

And in shock and wonder I look down at my feet

And see that I am no better than the rest

Tired as I may be, as bitter as I am

I feel the blade in my own sharp gaze

So I might as well dance, and spin with all my might

Because I too, wear crimson red shoes.

Trump, Andrew Jackson, Civil War, and White People. Jumping Jesus Christ deliver us from stupid!

 

 

 

Bleeding Kansas

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Slavery – moral issues (Thanks to Uncle Tom’s Cabin which exposed how slaves were treated/living/ dying) as well as economic issues (free labor).

Dred Scot v Sanford

Lincoln winning all the northern states

South threatened to succeed since beginning of union – no one believed their threats anymore because the’d cried wolf so often.

These are the reasons why The Civil War could not be stopped you ignorant fuck.

And Andrew Jackson – twenty dollar bills y’all – was a mass murdering fuckhead of Native American peoples and someone who ignored the Constitution of the United States as well as a Supreme Court Case written by Chief Justice John Marshall which led Jackson to being a mass murdering fuckhead when he said, “They made the ruling now let them enforce it.”

The end result: The Trail of Tears. [image error]

Whites are not superior because of their skin color. There is no inevitableness of white superiority. No great world religion has been founded by them, including Christianity. Whites HAVE been great – no doubt – but greatness does not denote goodness as HITLER was in fact, GREAT, but got himself and his entire country punched in their babymakers because they believed in their superiority and the rest of the world explained to them – in great detail – how full of shit they were.

But it wasn’t just whites in Germany who thought that whites were all that and a bag of chips.

Here in America we supported Eugenics – great figures like Henry Ford supported the sterilization of peoples whom he thought ‘inferior’.

We practiced eugenics up until a court case called Skinner v Oklahoma.

And for all of you out there who think the slaves need to ‘get over’ 400 years of bondage and maltreatment by their white peers – should probably ‘get over’ the fact that you got your ASS KICKED in the Civil War.

Which, by the way, granted your retarded asses access to the 1st Ten amendments you wouldn’t have otherwise had access to before the passing of the 14th Amendment because of it’s Due Process Clause. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments being called “THE CIVIL WAR” amendments.

See, you would know that if your teachers taught you History and Government instead of your mommy and daddy trying to put prayer and bibles back in school.

But they don’t that either – not really – because Jesus would sound like a Socialist. All that feeding the poor, taking care of the weakest among you, healing the sick. We ignore that Jesus so’s The Saved of the Saved can sit on their dead asses and collect on the religious equivalent of a welfare check.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to this as CHEAP GRACE – and did so for a reason.

The problem with our world today is not Christianity not being taught in school – the problem today is Christianity IS NOT TAUGHT IN CHURCH!

Shame no shame (poem)

 

 

(Photo: Tim Marshall)

I’m not sorry

for the way my body reacts to his touch

the way the fire ignites in my groin

and licks its way up to my smile

Wicked boy, nasty boy, reveling in man flesh.

Can’t help myself it feels so good

as my eyes roll back and I shake swearing allegiance to all that is needy and lovely.

Things that should be left unspoken if only I could stop calling out his name.

I’m not sorry to the ladies

for taking this one off the market

throwing a wrench in the Adam and Eve argument

For being woman enough to take him on and man enough to hold him here.

I throw deuces to what should be and embrace the yin and yang

I am, I really am not sorry

but I ashamed for a split second that I couldn’t last longer.

That when I can’t be stronger.

To tame that hunger

when he gives me that come get me smile

I am not sorry

even if there is to be hell to pay

one sad day when this is over

when the man in the red car

takes me away

I’ll always imagine my lover’s

twelve gauge shotgun

powerful enough to blow away my fear

my loathing, my …..mind