Fruits Of Our Labors

In 1947, Mihail Timofeevič Kalašnikov designed the AK-47,
Which, by 1949, was the official Soviet military rifle.
How many balalaikas serenaded his glory, honoring him?
Kalašnikov is on FaceBook - have you seen him?
He's 91 now, so he doesn't really post...

In 1955, the Kremlin ordered Konstantin Lyasnikov to fly his TU-16
toward mushroom clouds in the wake of A-bombs he'd dropped.
He said, "The plane shook so hard the controls kept slipping out of my hands.
The heat was so intense I could hardly breathe," lamenting he wouldn't
Have wished that ordeal on his worst enemy. It didn't happen once.
He ran 178 tests, until 1962, when nuclear testing went underground.

Lyasnikov couldn't tell his wife until 1992 when the SU was no more.
Many comrades, fellow pilots and airmen, were disfigured, several died,
some after years of suffering. At the scene, "The earth was scorched.
I saw sheep and horses without skin and eyes, shredded trees," the pilot
Recounted. Radiation poisoning must be for the loyal.

What wanton disregard for humanity makes a chess game of human lives,
Pitting Soviet power against Western authority? I have my suspicions
Men comfortably enshrouded in heavily tinted, armored Rolls Royces
Don't understand diplomacy. The Ukraine has a parliamentary government
The U.S. Department of State watches with interest.
You know there's oil between the coast and them there hills.

Vines grow in the southern Crimean Peninsula, so thick and verdant
That the highlands barely reflect, from the zenith of Tchatir Dagh
To the lush valley of Soudagh, what travesty and injustice
Razed it barren during a time call the Cold War.
Hops and clematis drape luxuriantly over branches bearing
The most delicious fruits the world has ever tasted.

~Ann R Cantu, 12/20/2010

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

Starry's Tale

Starry's a yare nymph
Who lives in wild shadows
Her mother Moonlight casts
Within a restless midnight
Glenn, where shades transmute
From cloudy to translucent,
Where tiny sounds of sadness creep
Into the land of Tir na nOg.

In a place where sunshine is famous
Starry sleeps beneath a golden chanterelle,
Until at last the darkness falls to wake her,
And little sprinkles of her namesake whisper
Freedom verses in her ear, while wee fae
Lift the veil of dreaming from her face.

Starry's a yare nymph
Who longs to travel but knows
Her place is home in Tir na nOg,
Within the darkling valley,
Unseen by most yet not unknown.
For in a cloud, behind a shadow,
Silent slippers scurry to and fro,
Wildly casting what-ifs everywhere she goes.

~ARCantu

All Hail

A persuasive slip of the tongue
Lingers on unpainted lips.
The invitation resounds clearly.
I shudder and scan the perimeter.

Reasons murky, feeling uneasy.
Disassociated with this barren landscape,
It is impossible to comprehend one tiny
Gleaming hope beyond paraphrases of tonight.

Your phrasing is impeccable, as always.
Your crown has not slipped one micron.
Within, halls gleam in palatial splendor.
For this I fear the wonder lying in wait.

What lurks behind these silver doors,
Cool to the touch, a white hot promise
Half spoken, half implied, in a world
Where I am an alien and all is foreign?

Gliding along the corridor, a surrender,
Sliding into a chamber filled with dark,
Hackles raised, a soothing breath evokes
A glorious release, time fades, peace.

~ARCantu, 09/25/10

Dancing with Orion

Clouds wisped away by firefly breeze
commune via galaxies afar
dancing with Orion
he never drops his guard
Taurus watches nightly
swishing his Pleiades tail
Ignore Libra's glare, wind away
quickly on an early spring trill
summoning all Jupiter's moons
it's time for the Gallow Hill Reel
carrying sheaves like a warrior
shielded by a furrowed brow
there will be no tomorrow, no stories
so tonight we must listen well




http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/613077/a_cherokee_myth_of_the_pleiades_and.html

Daily Ablutions

Shards of last night
echo what was on TV
barely noticed but embedded
somewhere in the psyche
where threads rub upon fibers
a neuron calls a synapse and says
Hey, did you hear the one about the croc
that ate yo mama...or was that Obama
what's the point of cream without sugar
distilled is fine, diluted should be rejected
less said, less rehashed later

Children and grandchildren
nieces, nephews and cousins
will remember, not thoughts nor dreams
how could they ever have known them
but interactions by their own definition
things we do on impulse with a quick laugh
instinct is thicker than intention
it blends better if you pour milk in first
swirl the sugar before even considering coffee
too many have come and gone before

Reviewing homework from last night
you teach them to count, about money
what do you say about juggling bills
nothing when a dumb screen beckons
opening deluded avenues for escape
oh daughter, oh son, from what do you run
why are you my déjà vu
where was I when you called me
there--only partly, mostly far far
off in some allusion to karma
reality slobbering at my heels

Tighten the laces and drive due south

* ARCantu * 2010 *

Double Edge of the Rapier

..."you experience a story within yourself from its beginning, from the distant point up to the approaching locomotive of steel, coal and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it." -Franz Kafka, from "The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1913."

I could say I'm better off without, believing it a lie
Does that we once were green together
in the same shared slip upon some time
ever haunt your re-formed mind?
Consumed by fruits of your labor, you grind
I wither along hallowed shores of the Nile
Anubis and Osiris bid me come
Tell me I have a pharaoh's smile
I have been the ideal
Patron of nature, magician, friend of sinners
I hear petitions of the downtrodden
Will you yet confess, yield your harvest here?
Daughter of the sacred earth, I resurrect
your dying pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus)
flank his naked wings, habituate your
deserts and arroyos, westwardly piercing -
rasping cries echoing off crisped, sere canyons
Every rhetorical climax of Poe could apply here
self-perpetuating, developing, insisting
so long as these same conditions prevail
Parry no more - fold into this knight's caress
I will only welcome, but I travel West no more.

~ARCantu * 2010 *