QUARANTINE 
"Stars!  What a beautiful system there! Especially the third world from its star."
Exclaimed the excited young starship traveler.
"Oh please. Oh Please. May we sojourn there?"
"No...
What do you see between Mars & Jupiter?" 
Clipped the intersystem elder
whose eyes flickered from upon its shoulder.
"A belt of planetary fragments and clutter...
Why?" Asked the youth of its teacher.
"It means none may come, or go, or intervene.
It means that this system is under quarantine."
Said the elder in a voice that seemed so mean.
"How unfortunate." Whined the sad-tinged teen.
"What smashed a world to make such a scene?"
"Who knows?"Shrunk the elder in resign.
 "For us it's a warning...   A very rare sign."
Copyright 1997 By Joe Morales
META-FORE-PLAY


 

I don't know much about poetry 

except what it means to me. 

Does the thought become "entity"? 

Does it matter if it's empty? 

Does it have it's own "integrity"? 

Does it speak to you and me? 

Is it a way to express "liberty"? 

If we used it instead of hostility 

what a wonderful world it would be. 

Copyright 1998 by Joe Morales

 
 As for that emptiness in you...
What a wonderful place to start!
Beginning the school year
carefully choosing
things to fill your heart. 
That's what I'm doing!
I'm empty and I like it.
I like filling myself up again.
Even if it's bullshit...
It's fresh bullshit. 
Even now I'm laying here contemplating
filling my emptiness with cigarette smoke.
But I don't... because now
I want to fill my emptiness 
with pregnant desire. 
Desire for cigarettes.
Desire for money.
Desire for Maria.
Desire for change.
Desire for you. 
HELP ME... I'm an emptiholic.
I want to bleed black words of emptiness
upon this page of white emptiness
desecrating its purity
with my desire and madness. 
I want to consume you with my emptiness.
I want to bathe myself in your emptiness.
I want to drink it until I'm drunk.
I want to violate your emptiness.
I want to strip you of your emptiness
until you are
truly naked.

Copyright 1996 by Joe Morales 
OTHER POEMS COPYRIGHTED BY JOE MORALES

FATHER...
I am a garden...
and your words are seeds.
What was said...
if I am but weeds.

MOM
You said you wanted to live atop a mountain.
For what it's worth... You are my mountain.
And from your proud courageous heights...
I can see forever.  
FOOLISH CENTAUR...
Hercules' wife you did steal.
You lied that your blood would give love new zeal.
Never did Hercules find death so real.

'A Bedda Calabresa.
Scylla, Scylla... thy justice is served.
Thy beauty is all tentacles all twisted and curved.

I'll just wait 
at the threshold of your body 
until you open your mind's doors.
I'll just wash repeatedly upon your abandoned shores
while you just lay there in your hiding place of whores.
 
IT'S A THROW AWAY WORLD 
Her breasts are empty.
Her thighs are ruined.
Forests balding badly.
IT'S A THROW AWAY WORLD 
Why restore her?
We no longer need her.
Happy just to bleed her.
IT'S A THROW AWAY WORLD 
She cries acid tears.
She cries and no one cares
to comfort her lonely years.
IT'S A THROW AWAY WORLD 
See her shroud?
That oily cloud.
Of this we're proud?
IT'S A THROW AWAY WORLD 
She gave us birth.
Our own Mother Earth.
What's our mother worth?
Copyright 1995 by Joe Morales 
The Darkening  
In the darkening of Autumn's light leaves break off and take flight.  
These wind tossed leaves that alight people rake with all their might.  Treating all of nature as a blight...  Stuffing plastic bags. Tying tight.  
Off to the dump and out of sight  
robs the soil of it's nurturing rite. Stripping nature gives such delight obsessed with what they think's right  
In the darkening of Reason's light. 
AMERICAN SON 
My father was a soldier. 

He served his country well. 
The country that he fought for  
became his personal hell. 

Now that I'm much older. 
I remember all too well. 
The money that he worked for 
barely fed us well. 

At work he hurt his shoulder. 
Our home we had to sell 
(he was fired from the company store). 
He left to find a job as far as I can tell. 


He was on the run. 
An American son. 
He was on the run. 

 He used to carry me on his shoulder. 
When I was sick he made me well. 
But the country that he fought for 
never taught him how to spell. 

I heard he died in Boulder. 
While fixing a roof he fell. 
And the money that he worked for 
would have barely fed us well. 

Now that I'm much older. 
I still can't break the spell. 
The country that he fought for 
became my personal hell. 


Now I'm on the run. 
An American son. 
Now I'm on the run. 
 Copyright 1995 by Joe Morales 


THE COINS OF DESTINY 

The earthling's nature was originally 
neither good nor bad but is a prodigy 
of a "tossing of the coins of destiny" 
in creating character and personality: 
1. is resolving primal necessity; 
2. is love of parents and family; 
3. are factors in one's heredity; 
4. is influence of one's company; 
5. is culture of one's residency; 
6. is degree of heavenly clarity. 
 Copyright 1995 by jmorales@orion.ramapo.edu

GOING AWAY 
Copyright 1995 by Joe Morales  
I saw Chris the other day... 
with trembling hand...  went on to say... 
"Something's gone all wrong...
I'll try not to take too long.
I'm going to go away...
To Colorado way...
before I fade away."
Krishna taught college for little pay. 
...Crippled by his wedding day... 
"Something's gone all wrong...
I'll try not to take too long.
I'm going to go away
to California...
before I rot away."
Wolf came back for a week's stay. 
We partied all night and next day. 
"Something's gone all wrong.
I'll try not to take too long.
I'm going to go away...
to Israel...
or fart my life away."
As for me... I'll write this song. 
I'll try not to take too long. 
There's no place you can go
where there is still pure snow
and trees not going away.
There is no snow in Colorado.
It melted all away...
from rain forests burned away... 
from destruction of James Bay. 
There's no sun in California
nor golden streets in L.A.
(If there was... I'd join ya.).
The rain came and washed away
the sandcastles of "adult play"
from rain forests burned away... 
from destruction of James Bay... 
the ozone layer is done away.
Fire from Heaven (as U.V. Ray)
denatures protein and D.N.A...
What are we doing here anyway?
Is there anyplace we can stay?
 
with the blood of dead men... 
New York's Governor Cuomo opposed License to Kill.
 
He was wrong in the sense that it was the voter's will. 
They voted him out of office.  Good bye.   Farewell. 
They want to drink to oblivion the blood of Kill. 
"to Hell with the elderly, the disabled, and the ill!" 
(Hiding behind their 'mask' of their budget bill). 
They weren't disturbed when the rich raided the S&L 
(All friends of Reagan, Bush and President Bill). 
We tell our children it's wrong to steal and kill 
(Yet books by and about murderers are no. 1 sell). 
It seems so very American.   We can't get our fill. 
It is our children who will have to pay this bill 
(but we won't invest in their education or skill). 
With the blood of dead men will lunch trays fill? 
 Copyright 1995 by Joe Morales
 
There stands an grand old oak tree 
that mom planted so long ago. 
We were still young and carefree 
as we played beneath it's bough
amid the moss and the blueberry 
as the oak tree watched us grow.

She put our trailer 'neath the tree
(as we had no place else to go). 
She kept her garden near the tree
(despite rocks she made it grow). 
Now her hands are week & shaky 
( with Parkinson's... you know).

Now the garden's gone all weedy 
(she's not there to make it grow). 
"There is so little left of me. 
Where can I rest my soul? 
How can I ever be free 
if I have no place to go?"

When the leaf falls from the tree 
(there is no place else it can go)
it alights right here before me 
(flushed with Autumn's glow). 
"You are a living legacy." 
It seems to want me to know.

"The only way to really be free 
is for you to learn to let go". 
So when we gather the family
beneath the full moon's glow 
and the grand oak... her legacy 
(laying ashes where roots grow).

What we learned from the old tree
that mom planted so long ago: "
Everything must rest eventually. 
All it takes is to just let go." 
We are her garden & loving legacy 
(we just want you & her to know).

When

the

oak

leaf

falls

from

the

tree. 
 
 

Copyright  
1998 by  
jmorales 
@orion. 
ramapo. 
edu

 
COOL BLUE  
 
I was born December 31, 1946. 
The air was still thick with the substance 
of the souls incinerated at Nagasaki... Auschwitz. 

I 
STOPPED 
BREATHING. 

Cold and blue...            A nurse found me. 
I'm told she panicked...         Grabbed me. 
Then she ran for help...        She saved me. 

The panic and jostling aroused me 
to return to this madworld around me. 
I heard she was fired for the impropriety. 

SO I'M STILL HERE... 
Still struggling... and now old. 
Yet I still can't fit your desperate earthly mold. 

So if you feel the need to judge me... 
TRY...  NOT...  BREATHING. 
You don't have to understand me. 

So take a deep breath... GET A LIFE. 
Until death comes to claim me... 
there is nothing you can do to change me. 

Then you can go back to your 
Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 
Deceptions and various "Shades of Inhumanity". 

FOR THAT IS YOUR WORLD. 
It is no part of me. 

Copyright 1997 by jmorales@orion.ramapo.edu 
 

 
 
LEST WE FORGET...
Is free speech only for those who have naught to say? 
Do you really think free spirits will just go away? 
It'd be easier for you to hold your breath for a day 
for Nature does not really work that way.
As stewards of Freedom... WE CAN ADAPT. 
Oppressors can't... It is they who are trapped. 
They would rather see Freedom scrapped 
for at passion, and love, they are not so adept.
As for us...   Our words are our children 
and we'll defend them with equal passion 
for we are of the comprehension: 
Greatness is forged on the Anvil of Oppression.
Any Questions? 
E-mail: givashit.com
 
HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE?    -Isaiah 20 

In the time of Sargon, king of Assyria 
God commanded his prophet Isaiah… 

“Loose the sackcloth from your hips” 
[Let my words pass through your lips]. 

A Prophet of God he was christened. 
“Prophesy naked”, he was commissioned. 

“As my servant was naked for 3 years” 
[Ye shall be naked to your worse fears]. 

In Egypt & Ethiopia you put your hopes. 
They taken as captives. Naked. In ropes. 

Put your hope in nations. God forsaked. 
Your hope will perish. You’ll be naked. 

Trust God’s word thru the lips of Isaiah: 
“Put your hope in the coming Messiah”. 
 

HISTORY
The only thing we have learned from history 
is that we have  learned nothing from history. 
It is only after we have truly learned from history  
that we can strike out in a benevolent new destiny. 
What we need an open and truthful society  
and the courage to face our demons.  The only 
other possible alternative is that we actually  
become our demons.  There is no other way. 


THE WORDS THAT DARKNESS DREADS 
Truth is the lighted path which wisdom treads. 
Faith is a fortress manned by knowledge. 
These are the words that darkness dreads. 

Actions:
It is only by results of one's actions: 
By the fruits of one's productions... 
Does one have the right to expectations.
 
So breathlessly beautiful, so delightfully innocent, is the delicate crystalline structure of the simple snowflake.  Who would think that the ocean of snowflakes blanketing our countryside contain a toxic cargo of dilute sulfuric battery acid that insidiously etches away at the very fabric of life itself?   Aging pollution maps show that Central New York has the highest concentrations of sulfur dioxide.   An Oneonta  State College study showed a direct correlation between concentrations of sulfur dioxide and the acidity of atmospheric deposition such as snow, rain, or fog. 

The shadow of the specter that wafted through the streets of London in the 1952 "Killer Smog" brings a quietly spreading death to these 'sleepy' communities.   The beautiful snowflake is no longer innocent as its toxic components leave the old and young breathless with cardiopulmonary inflammations and allergic reactions that mercilessly tax the heart. 

Little is said about the thousands of documented human fatalities that occurred around the middle of this century in Donora Pennsylvania, New York City and London due to the toxic component of acid rain where samples of sulfur dioxide in these killer smogs were six to twelve times the usual level. 

Reactions from  environmental  organizations  resulted  in  their  respective governments to coerce industry sources of the pollutants to filter out the neutralizing ash and build super-tall smoke stacks and superheat these toxic acid forming emissions so that they would be carried far from their mid west sources to our own back yards changing the nature of the problem from easily proved manifestations to more insidious and more chronic circumstances. 

In the Spring of 1988 New York State Attorney General's Office along with several other eastern states and Minnesota brought a class action suite against the U.S. Government to enforce laws that would reduce the emissions that cause acid rain.  The suits were thrown out because of insufficient evidence.  YET THE BODY OF EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING.  THE BODIES ARE OVER WHELMING! 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHEMICAL WARFARE… 
 

  • Prior to 732 B. C. Jerusalem's "Gate of Ash Heaps" opened to the south onto the eastern extremity of the "Valley of Hinnom" which was a place of incineration of garbage and carcasses.  The perpetual fire of this dumpsite was stoked by the addition of brimstone (sulfur).   The Hebrew word "Geh Hinnom" appears twelve times in the Christian Greek Scriptures as Gehenna" which later translators changed to the word "Hell".
In 732 B. C. a great Assyrian force under King Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem until an "Angel of Death" went out among the king's forces one night causing panic and death as they fled from this "unseen protector of Jerusalem" (RE: 2 Kings 19:35).  How else would these ancient writers describe a "pollution event" brought on by the nearby sulfur fires of Gehenna?  Isaiah aptly anticipated this by writing: "The breath of Jehovah, like a torrent of sulfur, is burning against Assyria".
  • A  Dr. Haller wrote in October 1990  New York State Journal of Medicine that the HISTORY OF CHEMICAL WARFARE began with the wars between Athens and Sparta (431-404 B. C.) where the Spartans set up brimstone burns on mounds above the city walls so that the winds could carry the sulfurous fumes to the enemy.
Dr. Haller goes on in his History: With the outbreak of the Crimean War British Admiral Lord Dundonald proposed the use of sulfur fumes to drive the Russians out of Sebastopol.  The British War Committee considered the effects so horrendous that no honorable combatant could use them.
I lobbied the State of New York to implement a standardized acid rain monitoring program (that should have been done 40 years ago) so that we could compile the necessary evidence of "hot spots", trends and mortalities. Colleges and cities already have the standardized equipment in place to do the job.  You would think they would do it out of concern, educational interest or professional pride… but they don't in spite of the fact that they are all being funded by the very people affected.  Political representatives have told me that Acid Rain is a dead issue and as long as their constituents don't care they are not going to touch it because all it would do is make powerful people angry.  "They know of more than one way to destroy a person." 
INDEED THEY DO. 
After all the cards are in their boxes 
And the boys are put to bed… 
The snow muffles the Sandman's footsteps. 
Like love it covers our mistakes 
And softens the winds of change. 
But one lonely wind… it sighs. 
And my heart… it cries.

IN MEMORIUM of Duke Johnsson, 17, who died of a heart attack in the small Central New York community of Oneonta on November 12, 1997, and David Burlisson, 16, who died of a heart attack in neighboring Norwich November 12, 1997. 

Jmorales@orion.ramapo.edu
 
The Person Within: 
A character that is vain and thin 
may grace the beard on one's chin. 
But what about the person within?
 Need
  is the father of deed
 Scarcity
  is the mother of efficiency.

The power of efficiency
  creates beauty and grit
compensating what one lacks
  with inner spirit.

 
The chains that bind you
The walls confining you
The bars that hold you
Are the one's inside you.
Put hangups behind you.
Let Heaven guide you.
CHAINS
 
 
CHARACTER
Growing thru barrier,
Though not a hurrier,
Thus,   the superior
is devoted in character.
 
 Proverbs 4:20-24:
> Keep my words within your heart
> for they are words for those who find delight.
> Guard the wellspring of your life: your heart.
> Keep perversity from your lips: shut them tight.
 
Our Nation's Destiny:
> When money and power are treated specially,
> When crime and violence threaten liberty,
> Bringing looming clouds of legal reformity:
> We must never forget our nation's destiny...
> Forfeiting access to justice...  Equally...
> For what will be left to us but tyranny.
 
  0000">Now I'm on the run.