False Prophet

King Trump's a materialist,
and there's no martyrdom 
in his vanity only emptiness
and the spreading vine of
hate.


- John Hardesty 

Theosophy

Rebirth, soul unattached
as an egg from a robin's nest,
erased memories of a past life,
enlightenment may come in 
the form of: 
A blade of grass,
A tree, 
An elephant,
An ant,
A bee,
A songbird,
A pig,
A snake,
A fish,
A lion
A flower,
A weed,
A king,
A queen,
A liar,
A saint,
But, never a god,
Never a god.

- John Hardesty 

The Last Goodbye

Now, today we laugh together,
Timeless almost, in this raveled sweater,
Spirits still greet in an ageless voice,
Temptations honor this helpless choice;
No exegesis of thy tilde sadness
That renders my heart's emptiness, 
We've fallen out like old dust,
Years worn and tattered rust,
Age and wisdom wrought this last sigh,
Shall our love live or shall it die? 

- John Hardesty 

Immolation

We live to gratify ourselves,
charming the hollow walls of conceitedness,
our crest of vanity
shields every insecurity we mask in
this constant charade;
a flitter of flesh and a grab bag of bones
all that we are, and all we'll ever be, 
this longevity of loneliness 
concludes us all, whatever
revolt or self-lamenting destroyer
we are lodging within ourselves
we must surrender them all for 
merciful endurance and solitude, 
only then the valorous of all great 
deeds shall be one oblation to this
giver of all infinite and majestic 
wisdom, our minds. 

- John Hardesty 

Ideology

If you hammer an idea into an empty skull
long enough, the pounded theory becomes
a nail, like an empirical anecdote or some gilded 
passage from an ancient scroll written by
neutered and expelled monks who left chiseled 
heresy to manifest among the mass that feasts 
upon this two-thousand-year-old carcass;
then suddenly, this golden whispered fable
powers through religious wars, famine, and the
everlasting deceit that rivals against science as some
idiotic truth versus some antiquated fairytale
that looms mankind into nihilism.
  The truth will always win through science,
and fallacy will forever roll off the lips of 
every fool. 


- John Hardesty 

Dismas, Gestas, and Jesus(Haiku)

A party of three 
hung upon crosses to view
inhumanity. 

- John Hardesty 

Beneath The Golden Lamp

Beneath the golden lamp,
Where men are all equal to the seasons,
Yet, up against an upheaval inequality ramp,
To find the many reasons,
Why we're their slaves in a world of greed,
The dim-lit golden lamp does not yield
Enough light to find or feed
The many reasons the glut they shield,
To suffice their avarice and power,
Men cannot be whipped into austerity 
While they gloat in their ivory towers,
We can only dream of prosperity,
Where all men are created equal,
Though, Oligarchs seize and rewrite our freedom,
While we rise to another menial sequel,
Yet, if we do nothing, we're complicit to treason. 

- John Hardesty 

Thopha Saccata(Haiku)

The sleeping choir rest
beneath the ground rehearsing
"All Hail to the Queen."

* Thopha Saccata- the loudest cicada
in the world.


- John Hardesty 

Pretenders(Haiku)

So many martyrs
have died for an unseen God
for a pagan's pay. 

So many sinners
frolic in their short seasons
waiting for judgment.

So few are caste
that deceives through a keyhole
of their wicked ways. 

- John Hardesty 

Plagiarism(Haiku)

When men paraphrase
an author's dissecting work
it's black plagiary. 

- John Hardesty 

Seppuku(Haiku)

The battle cries heard
kamikazes starboard side
woe banzai attacks.


- John Hardesty 

Epitaphs(Haiku)

Graves speak in silence
epithets scribe their short lives,
urns sit namelessly. 

- John Hardesty 

Mephitis(Haiku)

Woe death's rancid stench,
the earth takes back what it wrought,
all recede to dust.

- John Hardesty 

Lady Schizophrenia(Haiku)

She heard those voices
summoning her to battle
entered, Joan of Arc. 

- John Hardesty 

Conversations With the Insane(Haiku)

The voices she heard
and private soliloquies 
were ghosts she loved more.

- John Hardesty 

The Wrong Muse

Chase an intangible muse,
You'll become disoriented and confused,
Like religion and its golden calf,
Tales taller than the giant from Gath,
You'll soon find it's all a ruse,
And pause, for one long laugh.

- John Hardesty 

Lofty Absolution

Beyond life's unforgiving chimera
this grapnel has no hold-way;
Hector sounds his harl,
my voice no longer sings, 
silent jobations resound within my conscience,
a saint's footsteps led thee to this place,
this turret chains me to its tenet, 
for all who follow, launder, and loiter
within this morose Hyle walk in
dead sleep; 
mansions and judicious horrid landscapes
canvas this glorious and dreadful place,
as death circumvents the hallways, ancient porticos, 
and Hellespont;
Will thy gods lift this curse from thy soul? 

- John Hardesty 

Truth Nonpareil

In quiet solemnity
away from binding voices
and ripped complaisance, 
her caustic scar drapes, 
like an unhemmed costume, 
her grail of disregard, 
mockeries from a crooked line of jesting crows
align an honorable judgment
that selfishly severs this silver chain
where finality's ghost now lingers
on spirit's broken wind;
pitch-black mazes and scattered routes
encompass each passage,
some wear disguising smiles,
some adorn cunning grace,
but most lie, 
some lie, 
all lie,
though, truth when broken
is a vulgar reminder 
that no one can redeem
that exalted and sacred breach
once trodden upon,
only expulsion for such 
an infringement, you cannot
undo crimes from 
a soulless and blacken heart. 

- John Hardesty 

The Crack of Reasoning

There's no remedial answer for stupidity,
and the only sufficient aid is education;
for we can militate over solutions
and ponder over eclectic propositions
about the barrier of illiteracy
engulfing the less fortunate;
yet, these classified individuals
are always expendable during wartime, 
while the ensemble of symboled elites gather 
courage from safe lofts far from the onslaught
of their intellectual ramparts;
their division is defined by cowardice
and shielded by powerful corruption
by those who make the laws to suit themselves
while disguising themselves as allies;
I do think it's time we stood up and denounce
these criminals who rob and oppress the blind
ignorant weak mass; because
when we are silent we are dead.

- John Hardesty 

Death Cometh To All

The mere madness, the thought,
An athetoid fit wrought,
Of our passing from this cold world,
Leaving behind this legacy of ashes and bone charcoal.

Between the fjords and firths,
And every closed sea and forlorn girth,
Lies the lost tales of a man,
Fabled wars and seized lands,
Sum the existence of man's worth.

In every nook and every corner,
From every high mountain,
From every pristine fountain,
And, every edged forgotten border...

No matter how wealthy, poor, big, or small,
Death Cometh To All.

- John Hardesty 

Noses

The nose knows best that smells better than all the rest,
A hound can scent a hare a mile away,
An east coast shark can smell blood from a west coast crest,
An Aardvark can snuff-out an ant at a distant formicary. 

Jimmy Durante sang through his fluted nozzle,
Poor Pinocchio spat lies that grew a wooden snout,
Hidden in the shadows of love, Cyrano de Bergerac's schnozzle,
W.C. Fields' gin-blossomed hooter did the runabout.

A bee's olfactory can globe to a field of nectar, 
A bear raids a garbage can miles from his lair, 
A blind bat feasts upon a swarm of Gypsy moths, an astounding trekker,
An ant can smell table sugar from Algiers.

The nose knows best that smells better than all the rest. 

- John Hardesty 

Cancer Victim

This unwanted visitor, 
with an unwarranted embarkation,
crept in unannounced, wrought
misery and malignancy-
metastasized body domain,
heralded by an oncologist:
categorized neoplasm,
cataloged astroblastoma;
and for his suffering, a soft lullaby, 
for whom administered a ridiculous
dying prayer to lift his spirits
away from any hope; 
adriamycin drips like ball-fires
running through his blacken veins;
he heads home to his sanctuary feeling
optimistic then loads his gun and 
surrenders there without a prayer.

-John Hardesty 

Espers(Haiku)

The clairvoyant peers
with an implausible reach
to lift your wallet.

-John Hardesty 

Karina

Once was an abased, egotistic, and narcissistic gal named Karina,
who loitered in from Russia,
for whom thought she was a golden apple from Greece,
but what she was, a contemptuous growl, unkept as her country, 
like some eloquent royalty,
in reality, a defect from an eyesore called Tverskaya Ulitsa, 
she comes across as sensuous and grateful,
but, what she is, a spiteful harpy,
filled with unwinking blankness,
stale and weakminded, 
her soul is colorless,
her heart black as her mortal ware,
no wonder America despises Russia,
if you meet this gal, exit politely, 
before you enter Satan's world,
she's as honest as a thief,
loving as a goat,
not much after that. 

- John Hardesty 

* I tend to never write about personal squabbles, but
this one was something atrocious! 

Arbeit Macht Frei(Haiku)

Concentration camps 
salted Nazi Germany
with atrocity. 

- John Hardesty 

Arbeit Macht Frei(German slogan): Work sets you free.
The title or slogan hanged upon every entrance to these
evil concentration camps.

Extermination Camps(Over 5,000)

Auschwitz-Birkenau(Poland)- 1,000,000 out of 6,000,000 arrivals died.

Belzec(Poland)- 434,508 died.

Chelmno(Kulmhof Poland)- 152,000 died.

Jasenovac(Croatia)- 99,000 children died.

Sajmiste(Serbia)- 23,000- 47,000 died.

Sorbibor(Poland) - 200,000 died.

Treblinka(Poland)- 870,000 died. 

Hypocrisy

 We all have our lives to live among each other in this paradise, 
and we all have our intolerable death sentences;
our loyal priests, preachers, and curs
lecture about the afterlife, all condone sin,
yet, never forgive or forget a late contribution,
they'll expound their righteous writ
of sanctimony, calling you a sinner three-fold, 
while dispensing guilt, purging every misdeed,
dismantling your pride, indictment of conscience,
impeaching immorality, cathartic atonement,
all with one pretense of an empty promise: giving
your mortal skeleton an eternal afterlife, rewarding
your conscience with redemption, yet
thy sinner's recompense-an eternal fire,
therein lies the hypocrisy, scathing hypocrisy, 
either in Hell or Heaven,
we'll all have 
an eternal afterlife, regardless,
chutzpah. 

- John Hardesty 

The Death Knell

 The bell chimes in time
resonating an echo beyond life,
the year of jubilee and the seven Sabbaths,
broke the yoke of one young dreamer,
tore his uncircumcised soul from earth's mortal wares,
this scoundrel came alone-courier of death,
as the seventh clang resounds,
thus another begat lifeless being tallied;
to begrudge upon matters way too long,
will find an incapacitating embrace,
for we're born to fight and bred to die,
yet, still find respect in our enemies, 
while killing in vain for an unnamed cause
for cowards, the wicked way of
pawns in a king's world.

- John Hardesty 

Farceur(Haiku)

                                                 In a world filled with
                                                 ignaros and jibaros,
                                                 assholes beat them all. 


                                                 * ignaros- ignoramuses 
                                                 * jibaros - plowboys 
                                                 * farceur  - joker 


                                                     - John Hardesty 

Agent Provocateur

                    Those who shake the tree, seldom reap the fallen fruit.


                                            - John Hardesty 

Shitrael(Israel)

The oldest lie that was ever known to man: 

God created the divine race of Jews;

their elongated noses smell gold from 

across the Sea of Galilee to the Ivory Coast,

they mocked Mary as Pharisees scribed her

as a harlot for carpenters and poor Joesph

a silent invalid, and splayed poor Jesus

on a bare cross, and spiked his giving hands

and crowned him King Of Clowns,

Jewish Law subjects anything beyond their

greedy hands, they claim the Holy Land, yet

stole it from the Palestinians, Zionists walk

4 cubits of Israel, yet own the whole world

from a golden cupola, Jews profit the world

while losing their wretched avarice souls;

God watches their gold and America watches

the sheep, Islams want their meadows of

Al-Ard Al-Muqaddash(Holy Land) back,

and have paid a heavy price by deceiving 

Jewish propaganda and America keeps the 

torch burning through the wars. 

- John Hardesty 

   

The Empty Chair

The empty chair where you sat, now's vacant,
those chuckles, those laughs, now are voiceless,
for you left unexpectedly without telling me goodbye,
the pain and the torment of your ghost now resides silently;
they tell me, "you'll forget in time,"
that's absurd, I don't want to forget,
I cry silently behind the haze of memories,
how we thought we were extreme beings
hanging on to those pictures of yesteryear,
tanned and bronzed like exalted gods, 
eternal wine flowed, women came and went,
and the music was a transient courtesan,
you had the fastest car always dernier cri, 
people huddled around you like a chief 
around a campfire as you gave free advice, 
abundant guidance for all who listened in awe,
but, that memory now is frozen in a glacier of sorrow,
my mortal hands have but a limited reach, 
but my grieving mind has an eternal memory
of you, my dearest of all friends.

* ( To Donnie Cross, my dearest friend) 

- John Hardesty 

Things Unseen

A bee past the hour of light gathering nectar on a clover,

Green caterpillars defecating silk,

One rose to bloom late in December, 

Radio waves blasting confounded propaganda,

Salmon jumping upstream to their baptismal birth to die,

An eagle watching fish from a mile up in the clouds,

A man delivered unto death yet lives another life,

Blind fish swimming in circles in a dank dark cave,

An ant gathering grub never to live to see it eaten,

Or a man believing in his fellowmen are his brothers.

- John Hardesty 

Death's Thread(Haiku)

Will death remember
life's fragile unfurling thread
spooled away time's skein? 

- John Hardesty 

Unforgiving Pain

The repine of trodden guilt
bounds thee with groping blame,
an open scar was worn in familiarity
like some helpless victim,
direful affliction awaits thee
whilst midnight summons
thine own melancholy,
visaged this moment where viridity
raptured every endured godly moan,
and every inch of your opaline skin
moistened with subdued  kisses
as you christened every sheet
with your unforgiving ceaseless love;
yes, the news brought me to tears
the day you went away to the vastness
of the unknown, for we love and
then we depart. 

- John Hardesty 

Neo-Fascism

They wear their Fascist bands
around their lipoma arms,
their maladroit allegiance
and haggard breath of beer
and faulty emblem screams 
death to freedom;
they march in ill-smelling packs
of all white combative Anglo-Saxon,
they speak of one flagitous union
and flickering weak flame,
they threaten with pogrom, genocide,
and carnage, their insurrection of lost
fables and quelled causes only display
strife, discord, and heretic unrest,
they push out the weak and
steal from the righteous, they're resolute
with gaud patronage and only show
obedience to a dead Austrian monster
who's immortalized through 
modern insurgency;
yet, neglected in spirit, our fallen
WWII soldiers who page and index 
the brutality of Fascism, and
God bless every forgotten 
hero who obliterated Fascism. 

- John Hardesty 

Battle Of The Minds

For years great minds have toiled with philosophy,
Fabled stories, fabled lies, and fabled apostasy,
Nietzsche played with the atheist card,
The God-fearing card was played by Kierkegaard,
A lasting battle of wits and hypocrisy. 

- John Hardesty 

Savior

On a shelter-sun afternoon,
swimming alone in a pool;
the calm water was refreshing
and soothing, the air raft
had no compass, wandering
ghostly to-and-fro.

Observant, I glanced down at 
this miserable swarthy bug
who was drowning right before
my eyes and I called upon myself,
'Ah, it's just a useless bug!' 
But, I was transfixed or obsessed 
with this meaningless bug for whom
flew too close to the water's edge just
like Icarus into the sun, but away I 
turned, no aid to its calling, just
another sacrificial swallowed bug.

However, fate intervened, and
all at once bestowed humanity,
within my cusp hand as I sprung
this little bug from its baptismal 
terror and anointed this voiceless
pest, away, up and away from my
saving palm as its tiny wings 
lifted up to the sun. 

- John Hardesty 

Freedom's Gettysburg( from Trice Told Tales)

A Yankee pesades his horse
  As an imperial soldier
Who finds no remorse
  For the Confederate who hides behind a boulder
On the wayside of Gettysburg's course.

The casus belli
  Betokens the battle:
A soldier yells
  From his rebel saddle,
As a Dixie flag bloodily hails.

The Confederates lay on the ridge Seminary,
  Steadily taking aim;
The Union lay on the ridge Cemetery
  Casting gun-site on the blame
And each with their own dignitary. 

The bloodiest battle of all took place,
  Gunsmoke poured from every gun,
Bullets riddled, lamed, and held each other's fate,
  From whence this fight began,
Not one soldier stood firmly in victory's face.

Countless bodies were strewn across the battlefield divide,  
  Guns and swords laid sprawled upon the ground,
Generals and captains assessed the damage to each side,
  As every cannon shot glory through a thundering sound,
Hallow now, where the brave and valiant once collide. 

Where the limbers and caissons immemorially led,
  Toward the sanguine grate,
And, stumble upon the echelon of the dead,
  Who have met their abiding fate,
With cold partisan lead. 

- John Hardesty 

Matchless

Through the cessation of a woman's womb holds our God,
A God of perfection and love unresolved,
Man's unaccompanied with sorrowful superiority,
Discovers in quiet lassitude, self-unmatched inferiority. 

- John Hardesty 

Addiction

Nymphs cradle in seas of sex,
Gamblers find thrills in a card deck,
Holy deacons seek fulfillment through a shadowed deity,
Thieves prowl in the flashlight of iniquity,
Heroin users prick the needle of death,
Politicians scourge through the aftermath,
Actors celebrate in fraud idolatry,
Unfaithful spouses discredit sacred oaths in adultery, 
Novelists delve through the heart of words,
Poets worship the musing voice unheard,
Shamans pewter fearlessly through the mysterious,
Doctors miraculously cure as beholden eyes are curious,
Police wear morality authorized in bronze,
Felons live shortly in the arms of the abscond, 
Lawyers prune their lives in liability,
A judge's sentence seldom ends in tranquility, 
O the loser has no addiction,
Fetal-borne lies upon his own affliction. 

- John Hardesty 

Geronimo: The Great Eagle

 

Many years ago, Apaches sojourned the desert,

Now, a requiem for whom born near the Gila river,

A proud warrior whisk as a lizard,

Armed in stolen carbine, arrows, and quiver.

The tragedy behind the smile,

Who was named Goy-ah-kla(the man who yawns), 

Where historians have named marauder and guile,

And, for whom the sad face the artist has drawn.

Mexican troops slaughtered your loving family,

While away trading in a Chihuahua town,

Butchered were his beautiful wife Alope, and children of three,

Now, newly named Geronimo would forever frown.

He was ambushed and caught

Only once, yet surrendered three,

San Carlos, where your freedom was bought,

But, escaped with the smallest army.

Across southern Arizona and New Mexico,

You ravished the unwinking night,

Stealing horses, whiskey, and gold

Before morning's light. 

The final surrender to General Miles,

Who promised of a new land,

The swamps of Florida your exile,

To rusticate in the sand.

As I stare at the cactus and chuckwalla,

Where the white eagle ascends,

I will always think of you, O Great Goyahkla,

While the desert night descends.

  - John Hardesty 

The Funeral

Time's travel swoons too fast,
Mortal's wings made of glass,
The subject willed for public gawk,
Oh, pallid pompous slumber's mock,
Viewing from embarking eyes,
Judging of what once, yet, now lies,
Dead now, though memory lives,
This resurrected visage intently gives,
Long pass faded light,
Gently lure into sight,
Tales of revel and wit,
How often they came and went,
Now, gentle reprieving eyes look down,
Who gaze upon for whom they thought was a clown,
O art thou amused,
And gallantly confused?
For in living, we are soon dead,
You fool, you lived for yourself instead. 

- John Hardesty(From Trice Told Tales)

Killing Weapons Of Choice

The Romans used the wooden debarred crucifix, 
The French used the coupe de grace guillotine, 
The English used the procrustean rack,
The Americans used the haltering gallows,
The Germans used pot-less gas chambers,
The Iraqis used bullet-less poisoned vapors,
The Mexicans used the old fashion firing squad, 
The Saudis used the economical beheading sword,
The American Indians used the stone-throwing gauntlet, 
The Spanish used the well-starched garrote, 
The Chinese used the ancient mind torture,
The Russians used bullet roulette, 
And, God uses mind self-mutilation.  

- John Hardesty 

Jerusalem Lost

Holy City, golden dawn Messiah_
  ancient flax, bloodstained marvel,
    fabled pogroms, gone as forgotten
        rotten figs.

Holy City, the melancholy of caftan_ 
  desecrated scrolls tucked away in 
    a Rabbi's skullcap.  

Herod's ghost looms_
  and, baby Jesus star-strewn across time,
    confounded camel spits out proverbs
          in mercy. 

Hallow, the causeway of hatred to one
  refulgent breed, diaspora shepherds,
        the myth of Bethlehem.

The harlot of Rahab spared the rod of Joshua...
     seven ram trumpets blew the gates off
      Jericho's Kingdom, while earth spins
              her mythical yarn.

Far beyond the thousandth millennium of
  Moses' Yahrzeit, man will question scribes,
   the proof shall burden man into endless
     wars and endless lives shall be relinquished
         for a Ghost. 

The prophets shall ask for repentance
  for vengeance to those who maim 
    the Deliverer of Eternal Life.

- John Hardesty 
      
  

Relics

A crystal ball of peer,
The ace of spades of fear;

A golden coin of blessing,
A tarot car of guessing;

An Ankh of trust,
The spear of destiny of thrust;

A talisman of defiance,
A golden cross of reliance;

A horseshoe nailed upon the door of chance,
Pair of ruby slippers held Dorothy's fateful dance;

An Aggie whose shot holds true,
A leather glove that turns two;

Alas, fortuity, a four-leaf clover's bequeathed,
And, glory hangs the death wreath.

- John Hardesty 

Efflux Of Grief

Loam once filled the earth,
Millions of years precede her birth,
Evolution spirits a cocoon,
The Chrysalis waits to bloom,
Swaying, the pendulous Chrysalis descends,
Away from the novice gaud it defends,
Now, the fluttering butterfly warms in the scattered sun,
Far from its silky spun,
Dancing on a welcomed warm summer field,
Though, its precious existence sealed,
Half-lived, the meandering butterfly,
Yet, just as we, brief, it shall also die. 

John Hardesty