Photo: pieter pastoor
Praying Presidents
I guess certain prayers do work
Today only born again candidates want to be president.
Many have actually talked with you.
Tell me god,
Did you whisper in their ears to forget the homeless.
Did you send a heavenly email to call real sinners gay.
Did they get a note “from the desk of god” to ignore the poor.
Why are you sleeping with the rich, didn’t your son despise them?
Oh I see – its for the cause – cause ya love us.
†
Names
Give them names
The hungry, the homeless, the beaten
Give them names
The dissenters, migrants and war weary mothers
Josh
Mohammed
Jessica
Jose
Yolanda
Give them names
The jobless, the jailed, the fanatics
Give them names
The orphans, the dying, the poor
Carol
Mark
Yusuf
Susanne
Teresa
Give them support
a home, dignity, work
Give them a reason
Share your humanity, your voice, your talents
Jesse
Rebecca
Hans
Nora
Dominic
Give them your vote
Your activism, your government
Give them peace
Oppose wars, discrimination and greed
Mia
Elijah
Leah
Jake
Samantha
Give them a name
==
Disarray
The judge sentenced him
Like a wolf in a storm he stood alone
Now knowing he was the hunted
While in school
He navigated the dismay
In buildings that manifest the disarray
The community center’s padlocks
Expose a broken pledge
Yet the wolf knew where to play
Broken families manifest the disarray
He enters prison, modern and new
Guards salaries twice teachers’ pay
His prison family accepts him as prey
Society now stands in front of the judge
While leader packs look away
Feeding on those with green in their claws
And prisons manifest the disarray
*******
A Reason for the Season
The holiday season is unique
Lively living with lights and laughter
Much to do about giving and love
I must add for me it’s a banquet of life
A celebration of family and friends
Even strangers become a delight
Memories are also part of this meal
Favorite gifts are ones not bought
Childhood thoughts are like dessert
sweet and sprinkled with melancholy
Things are missed this time of year
Wishing lost loved ones where once again here
Also missed is someone once held dear
Someone I talked to through out the year
For you see this season there is no Christ
Only stories and fables created by a few
He can not hear those sitting in a pew
We alone create this season of love
This helps me understand
A reason for the season
So be of good cheer
It’s amazing what stardust has made
In billions of years
The Grill
I’m grilling tonight, the essence, so sweet.
Gently blowing the scent to my neighbors.
I wonder if she smells those puffs of dragon air.
I wonder if she cares.
Sometimes my other neighbors grill.
I smell the aroma in the air.
Instantly hungry, almost like a bear.
Tonight I wonder why none of us share.
Untittled by Lilly Fenichel
Victor Jara
Positioned in front of an abstract.
An empty museum full of artists.
The treasure before me has a story.
The abstract lines ask me,
ask me, for interpretation.
Soiled yellow covers the canvas.
Lines and spatters of black.
Gobs of paint still sit where the artist placed them.
Rifts of red like flashing lights of lunacy.
Disturbing wretchedness gallops at me.
The young man who created this is gone.
Now I stand where he stood.
I am in the place where he held a brush and made a touch.
In a past decade, these oils developed a declaration.
Abstract forms are revealing a struggle.
I sense tears dripping on the painters palette.
Fear jerks my hand, I want to escape.
The decade of the 60’s was not all love and not all free.
That decade gave us 10 years of
– war, a senseless one.
10 years of
– American leaders gunned down.
10 years of
– so many deaths of our own black kin.
10 years of
– cities burning with bomb shelters to hide from our own man made sins.
How can abstract lines relay thought, struggle and pain?
I am aware of the artist’s arousing aversion.
It was just those emotions that guided his brush.
The yellow of war
The black of death and despair
The red, a call for all to react.
The canvas now shows a torso – mutilated by minds of madness.
Reminding us of Victor Jara
Singing his song with shattered hands and splintered ribs.
Murdered by his own government, let me add, all supported by the CIA.
His death now in full display through other onus hands holding a brush
This colorful canvas coaxes us to continue.
Broken guitar strings make an appearance.
Twisted and curled incapable of producing sound.
Phil Ochs, like other troubadours, also silenced, his songs no longer sought to be sung.
Prophets of the present world show deeds that are a nations weeds.
Yes this display is a declaration of danger,
in company with other conceptions of art.
If you stand up for your conscience then beware.
Entire governments may be mobilized.
Your body and mind broken beyond repair
I touch the painting trembling as I sense the past
The rough rope reeks around my neck – this is how the artist left his spot in life.
My feet sense the floor but that painting has no door.
I understand why his tears wet my soul.
He was trapped in his term of truth.
Artists today exude similar emotions.
Emotions we all live with in our moment in time. 1
–
Trenches of truth
Moonlight softens my face
Reflecting in a puddle of tears
Touching trembling trees
I ramble, not alone, in a forest, now ravaged.
Searching for a trench of truth
Where are the scouts to lead us
The rivers of righteousness are lost
The Potomac is poisoned
Once it nurtured a great forest
Now moonlight exposes greed, destruction and despair.
Occupy the forests, stake your tents, replace the stewards of our trees
Cleanse the Potomac
Let it once again baptize.
.
Starbucks and Me.
I fancy Starbucks.
Such an enchanted place,
full of civil people.
Cooperative staff act as butlers.
A grande skinny cappuccino with 1/2 pack of raw sugar and a light sprinkle of chocolate powder doesn’t raise an eye brow.
The coffee is good.
Not great – but good.
Starbucks informs me of hunger in Africa
I like to buy coffee there because it’s helps those people.
Starbucks is green.
Every cup is made from some thing recycled.
Every cup asks me to recycle.
Clientele cradle their cups while debating in delicate dialog.
Laptops glow with enlightenment to the wi fi set.
Yes, I order my brew while mingling with intellectuals.
You walk away feeling honorable.
A good potion,
guiltless deeds
and all the while sustaining the earth.
I do derive pleasure from Starbucks.
And then,
then I go on with life,
gratified I saved the earth.
Gratified I helped the hungry.
Yet, no one notices
the beggar at the curb.
Why not recycle his life with gentle words and deeds?
Yes, Starbucks is an honorable experience,
but the beggar begs to differ.
Don’t be fooled.
Starbucks caters to the ME in us, not the WE in us.
Blind
.
How do you clarify colors to the blind.
.
E x a m i n e . t h a t . i n t e l l e c t u a l . a c t i v i t y.
.
What
are
you
blind
to?
.
.
Pieter's Poetry and Images 
Political Conventions 2012
Political Conventions 2012
Republican
I saw a desert
Like the sands of Arizona
Driven by the winds
The winds of talk radio
Middle aged white folks
Driven by the winds of hatred
Against an American of color
Democrat
I saw a quilt
A quilt of color
I saw tears
Tears to create an oasis
Young and old
Expressing the joy of compassion
A rainbow of acceptance
I saw America