Name: Jim Dunlap 
Country: USA
Jim Dunlap is a widely published poet. He is a true master of classical verse and one of our favorite poets, we know you will enjoy the following works - Editors
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"It's time to wake up and take notice. The Sudan is exploding in bloodshed"

Death Stalks Across Africa (2)

In Darfur, in the Sudan,
Islamic militias rape and kill.
Monsters in uniform
loot and burn at will.
Muslim madmen murder
men and rape their wives,
in a scorched earth genocide
that destroys thousands of lives.
Daughters are raped
before their fathers’’ eyes,
by scum that the whole world
should quite despise and ostracize.
The West ignores the holocaust
since the victims are poor and black.
They have no oilfields or gold
and that’’s a fatal lack.
What’’s wrong with America’’s worldview?
This has been going on for years.
Why have these peoples’’ dying cries
Fallen on such deaf ears?

Open your eyes, America!
Your conscience should drip tears.
Why have you failed these people?
Why have you stopped your ears?






CREATION'S FIRE:  BLAST FURNACE OF THE SOUL

Although just human, great poets and writers
Through sublime thoughts and images sing.
Unsavory habits or warped intentions
Don't detract from the message they bring.
What matter if Jefferson diddled his slaves,
Or if Benjamin Franklin was often obscene?
Their messages still resonate with great truths,
And furnish our minds an exquisite cuisine.
Dylan Thomas was really a derelict-drunk,
Yet he wrote the world's premier villanelle.
Hemingway proved an irascible lout,
But his words weave a very real magical spell.
It's said, "By their works ye shall know them;"
The foibles of every lifetime will pass.
Was Walt Whitman less a literary giant
For patting some hunky young man on the ass?
We each have amassed a good store of bad habits,
And the famous and infamous do so as well.
Though doubtful our words will ring down the ages,
Despite our bad habits, only long years will tell.


(Dedicated to David Barnes and his eternal quest for
truth.)





HUBRIS AND HAMARTIA

Nearly every human being shares
The approximate same human form.
Trunk, legs, arms and head
Seem the basic,  accepted norm.

Eyes, nose, mouth and working brain
Are common attributes of most.
Yet constant search for differences
Allows the small of mind to boast.

Some claim to be superior
Based on race, or social standing.
This perverse and ugly viewpoint
Seems constantly expanding.

It's scarey and unfortunate
And no credit to our race 
No one's worth can be decided
By flag, foreskin, or face.

People are wolves who pretend to be dogs,
But carnivorous impulses reign 
We could help, if we'd only endeavor
To cause other people less pain.

In truth, we can't escape the facts:
Reality's cold lights illumine
Our shared denominator 
We're no more, nor less, than human.




OCCAM'S RAZOR...OR WHO SHAVED THE BARBER?

We think our civilization
Is a wonder, without peer --
Sandwiched between ice ages,
We're lucky to be here.

In all the world's long history,
There've not been many times
When the race of man could have evolved
In such beneficial climes.

Do you think it was an accident
That things worked out this way;
And luck that man did not appear
When dinosaurs held sway?

I'd like to think that there's a point,
Or some thing accomplished here --
But we truly just despoil and burn...
My, how the Gods must leer!

And when the ice age comes again,
Will we be here to see it;
Or will we simply self-destruct
In a misanthropic fit?


MOBIUS, Fall/Winter, 1994




VOX POPULI

Could Nostrademus only see
How much our world has changed,
Would he applaud, or wonder
If the whole race were deranged?
His direst prophecies of doom
Seem destined to occur --
You have to wonder just how much
Old Earth must still endure.
The Apocalypse seems imminent;
The horsemen thunder by...
Famine, pestilence and war
Force many ways for men to die.
We pollute the very oceans
And denude the land of trees --
Couldn't we have found a better way
To discharge our energies?
If we would unreel the future,
Yet can't rewind the past,
Where does that leave tomorrow?
Will Armageddon come at last?
The world is on our doorstep --
There's no way to shut it out.
Our strategic, slow retreat
Could become a bitter rout.
Our prolific, fecund billions
Pollute and slash and burn.
Like the dodo and the dinosaur,
Will we vanish in our turn?
Though reality's a bitter pill,
It's time to take a stand...
Or the ending of man's story
Won't read QUITE the way he'd planned.





ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

A new  killer virus  was found in Brazil 
A lethal new rain forest  treasure .
Church folks likely won't say  It s God s will  
You don't get it in ways that give pleasure.
Yet the world's population's so mobile
That a virus in far jungle bowers
Can be transformed from local to global
In a time-frame of twenty-four hours.
AIDS wasn't sent to kill those we don t like 
But the warning is still loud and clear.
If an airborne, lethal virus should strike,
The whole human race could just disappear.
Should science discover a way to destroy
Man's existence, likely we'd ban it.
But Nature could crush us like some child's toy,
Though we think we're the Lords of the planet.
The oxygen breathed by Earth's teeming billions
Comes mostly from plankton and trees.
As we cut and burn Nature's wooded pavilions,
We're likewise polluting the oceans and seas.
It s time to pull back .. and quit tempting fate.
Who knows what those jungles might hold?
A cure?  Get real!  What virus would wait.
There s been no cure yet for the common cold.