Re-shifting in Reverse
Alas, I fear the world has fallen prey
To well-conceived and ill-intended evil;
An armageddon; shattered Tao; decay;
A shadow play, primeval, medieval.
Society re-shifting in reverse
Where anarchy is called democracy.
An AI rule-of-lawless-universe;
The vanguard of a new plutocracy.
For hidden deep behind the demonstrations
Are puppet masters paying by the hour
Whose aim in stirring up these protestations
Is not protecting immigrants, but power.
It isn’t ICE at all, it’s all pretend;
A scheming means to an insurgent end.
Another Day in NYC
A blind-side, hair-pulled, cold-cocked, back-crushed blow;
Assaulted by a heartless unhinged guy.
Knocked down before she had a chance to know
The who or what, and still not knowing why.
A student on her way to NYU.
A Broadway sidewalk, earphones on her head.
He snuck up from behind just out of view.
A hit and run that could have left her dead.
A hard core-carnivore, a predator
Impelled compelled to be yet not to be.
He’d done it several times before and more,
Oft caught, arraigned, but being deranged, set free.
No moral here, just amorality.
Our deconstructed new normality.
James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and four collections of poetry including Sidekicks, Mostly Sonnets, and Laughing Matters, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in both print and online media. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.
Fabulous poems, James: really powerful – the rhyming is exquisite in its range and sense of being unforced; and the line “A blind-side, hair-pulled, cold-cocked, back-crushed blow;” is simply fabulous in its concentrated use of spondees. Quite brilliant work – and if it’s any consolation the UK is going the same way.
excellent poetry and true but unfortunate commentary about the ever more visible dark side of our society
Two great sonnets, James, with excellent concluding couplets. I’m familiar with the facts of the second poem. It’s always the same combination of factors – “social justice” warriors, lenient lawyers, judges, the dismantled institutions that once housed the criminally insane and schizophrenics.
Both poems so very true and beautifully expressed.
I feel I have to share a poem from years ago (not at
all up to SPC’s standards) which shares an almost
identical title:
Another New York Moment
The vagaries of circumstance fill
our bus to capacity.
We will be a flash-mob swaying
and lurching as one to traffic’s
compositions. The lady seems
an apparition in transportation’s
trenches. Plaited blonde hair frames
her face and a tortoise-shell comb
pulls its crown smooth. Audrey
Hepburn eye-glasses, sun-dark
and secretive, thinness draped
in leopard print and stripes. In her right
hand, a red and white cane.
Her knees grazing those of an adolescent
seated under the handicapped sign, she asks,
“Are you disabled?”…“No.”
“Are you feeling ill?”… “No.”
“Are you over sixty-five?”…“No.”
“Then get up this instant!”
Barely audible under the burst
of fellow travelers clapping,
we hear his mother ask him,
“Do you want to sit on my lap?”
Both poems are excellent, James. The subject matter is infuriating but must be seen clearly. Thank you for that.
Appropirately hard-hitting commentary with incisive detail on the present decline of our society!
James, I hope that both of these powerful poems are read by many who need to understand the truths they express so skillfully. Seems like those who do understand invariably pass on the propaganda pumped non-stop through “legacy” media.
“Re-Shifting” is profoundly prophetic. I am so glad you used the phrase, “ill-intended evil”, since I am really tired of people talking about “unintended consequences”; I think they are indeed intended (at least by the “puppet-masters paying by the hour”). “Rule-of-lawless universe” is a marvelous phrase, calling antinomians for what they are. I think you’re right that being anti-ICE is just “a scheming means to an insurgent end”.
Your speed in writing “NYC” so promptly after the horrific event, is impressive.
I’m sorry that the author had to write these, but that’s the state of today’s world. Tweedie must be one of the sanest persons still breathing in this world, and my own understanding of this world is syntonic with his. Alas, indeed!
C.B. So, we are “syntonic!” A new word for me to chew on, swallow and digest a bit. In the meantime I shall venture a guess that it means our world views share much in common. Assuming you are reasonably sane, I shall also assume this is not necessarily a bad (or catastrophic) thing to be. Perhaps.
“Another Day” could have been written about any other city – like Chicago, where a freshman college student was just murdered by an illegal while going out to see the northern lights. Both poems, truly capture the spirit of the age, alas!
Although I do take some exception to the use of “medieval” as a pejorative. It was the age of faith, that produced the great beauty of Europe’s cathedrals.
Adam, somewhat agreed but instead of arguing my medieval caveats, I will state the obvious, that, like entropy, when the complex systems that sustain a society or civilization become moribund or begin to unravel, then it will swiftly degrade to either disfunction or disintegration. With the exception of technology and wealth, western civilization has created little or nothing of value for nearly 150 years. We are like a dead whale washed up on a beach. “See how it is growing!” we say, while failing to notice that the so-called growth may be nothing more than the carcass bloating from inner decay.
Delightful poems about the darkest subjects!
You tap into the wicked world of today creatively and unflinchingly. The heartbreaking and spot-on observation in the closing couplet of “Another Day in NYC” sums up the savagery that all who value humanity should be calling out NOW!. James, thank you for doing just that, beautifully!