it happens

you set out -with your door and mind and heart open
and a storm blows in.You batten down the hatches
ride her out/seek safe harbor.Watch the wilde winds.
When calm is restored,you count the damaged.Only one or two lost
Crew still solid,smiling,ready to row on.Silence and focus the only casualties
There is always more to every voyage.We do not wish to rock the boat
nor deny the right of storms to exist.We only wish they might blow somewhere else
We seek peace and tranquility in a storm trooper world.We are @peace
best when in the company of fellow adventurers.We listen to stories
because they extend us.We challenge each other to come up with better
All that is life is a journey.We are on it and in it and for it and all of it is new
Every time we rise to the door and enter-we invite wasp and bee,bird and butterfly
bRoken and beautiful to accept themselves and we who make the night journey
dream by day of the next night's calling!

LIKE LARKIN'S LETTERS

Spalding Gray's journals share a skinless text-
how he struggled with multiple identities-9 in fact-
world traveler,film actor,Zen monk,Woody Allen WASP,suicide victim
and succeeded in most if not all of these multiple identities
I remember him best as storyteller/enchanter/chanticleer-
he sat @a table in the Universal Theater,Fitzroy,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia for 2 hours
and shared his experiences filming Francis Ford Coppola's epic APOCALYPSE NOW!
I recall most his being stoned in the South China Sea,not seeing land anywhere
and reconciling to a random lost death via drowning.Chance saved him Zen
and his story salutory even now,continues to evoke ,provoke and resonate.
Mark Twain storysharer,Charles Dicken's touring circuit,Jack Kerouac's adventuring-
his private life of drugs,booze,rage and pain anhedonia max
His"talking cure" ,his crafted conversations,his interviews with the audience
marked him as a public figure of wit and spontaneity,adaptive yet structured for max effect
"A connoisseur of ambivalence".A "lifeplayer who played life" He often wondered
what he would do without an audience or for one.Offstage often an embarrassment
Severely depressed,sexually confused ("I had to marry her to leave her")
It was a car accident that led to several suicide attempts-the final successful one
and only his filmed works and private journals to remind us what we have lost in his leaving.

"he broke my life"(Svetlana Stalin)

Under the fist of dark powers,one's life in the hands of others
Stockholm Syndrome makes you love your captor.
You are not allowed to love the one you care for
You have a son (Iosif)with your first husband
You have a daughter(Yekaterina) with your second
When the power in your life dies,you search for new meaning
You marry an American(apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright)
You try to embrace the American myth,but the love of your children
brings you back to Russia,where you denounce America
When your privileges end,you return to America and denounce your denunciations
I read LETTERS TO A FRIEND but not ONLY ONE YEAR
You lost the millions these earned you,and died in poverty
All your life was never yours-everyone asking -"What was your father REALLY like?"
As if his actions could be contradicted by a child
Your life was never yours.Your father's shadow stole your light
Perhaps ,if you believed in reincarnation-you may gain a new one
in your next defection.

SOUND,MUSIC,FURY

Growing up with Ken Russell(who loved J M Barrie so much
because he just would never grow up.We love him for TOMMY
or WOMEN IN LOVE-but his failures distinguished him more than others.
He comprehended Muses-Greig,Delius,Mahler,Liszt,Elgar-and hated Strauss!
He loved D H Lawrence-filming Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Rainbow
Musically,filmically adept and able to adapt literature boldly
(from THE DEVILS to BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN)
he made films of passion like CRIME OF PASSION and ALTERED STATES
I enjoyed the censored jump cuts as much as the R certificate bravery
and often wish we could see his full versions of visions re-issued
Right to the end,he was making movies(for the Internet)
as independent a film maker as any student at first base.
He lived life like Zorba-and shared his adolescent fantasies
for all of us growing in to relationships.His actors were Oscar worthy,
his own acting more than passable,and his creations quite unique
Once the 60's and 70s were eclipsed,we lost him.
Only his body departed this week.His spirit left us long ago..

"Wen ge hao ba?"(Ai WEIWEI)

This time is different. Scripted via Gene Sharp's
"The Politics of Non -Violent Action" and Srdja Popovic's CANVAS
filtered through TWITTER ,FACEBOOK and Google
visually mentored via ADBUSTERS and Al Jazzeera
Alternative paradigms are evolving from Color Revolutions through Arab Springs to OCCUPY
Agents of change already moving from commentariat to Jinnah Institutes
Tunisia has TUNILEAKS and the Nawaat Group Blog
Rached Ghannouchi and Khairat El Shater
Egypt Mohamed Elbarahei and Wael Ghonim
Syria Ali Ferzat and Razan Zaitouneh
Saudi Arabia Eman Al Nafjan ,Manal Al-Shamf
Yemen Tawakkol Karman,China He Weifang,Yu Keping
Poetry and prophecy in metaphor media
announcing Palestine and philanthrocapitalism simultaneously
You are on the front lines every where you are
Your actions and thoughts informed at large
as dictatorships fall,new economies rise
Epic sagas written on your streets and walls

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN TANDEM BIRDS?

What is left of Nature still teaches
our tutorial of the skies.Watching birds
we envy flight-glide,add engines,fly
with jetpacks and a parachute.Dive
into the very air we breathe
as if it were an ocean/see
our world as if we had wings-
Art of imitation
When will we learn that harmony
is also part of creation?
Force and rocket power
cede to feathered flight -
mind glide on!

when a stone or a coin is thrown like bread upon waters

it may skip and dance until the gravity of the situation sinks in
it will then drop all pretensions to wings
and reassess the distance between sky,sea,land and sand
and how far one can live between loves
In the leaving of one hand (to another outstretched
hugs and smiles ,welcome and warm
a land of candles and blankets
Illusion alone-cold brittle bone
in the reaching out is the coming in
aligned energies parallel with infinities
Whether breathing water or air,
it is the between loves no man's land
where the hand outstretched is a bridge
and you can walk towards and within
Here is the welcome hand -your two combined
Let land and sea and air merge lovingly/elementally
Let stones and coins release their weighted thoughts
so feathers may fall with ease ,comfort and joy

"EVEN IN UTOPIA,THERE'S MYOPIA"(Doonesbury)

Once upon a time,hundreds of thousands of human beings
would risk life and limb to cross our borders-to live and work here
Whether legally or no-that flow was also a de facto form of commerce
especially in Border towns welcoming students for Spring Breaks
Paradise has become Inferno-Dante and Milton combine with Stephen King
to make murder and mayhem,mutilation monstrous and compounding.
Once upon a time,we made products-cars,computers,things we sold to the world
We sought out Third World bases to economize,and now offshored,we subsist on service industries
Once upon a time,our dollar was the world's currency-trade denoted in dollars universally
Now Euro and Yuan compete with our dollar in the streets and they just keep printing more
Once upon a time we had leaders of vision and bravery-Jefferson,Franklin,Washington,Eisenhower
It is hard to separate scandals from the candidates who seek our vote
who have no record of individual achievement
Once upon a time was triumphalism,Manifest Destiny,exceptionalism-
all those myths that sustain flags,sport ,wars,Empires and tourism.Now all we seek
is a Happy Meal(ending)

"correlation is not causation"(Dilbert)

Despite Plotinus(seek certainty according to the subject matter)
we numb down and dumb down like Syd Barrett
when herpes complex has no cure/we 0 or 1 digitalize
so codes are reduced to bare bones.News=3 items.Weather-Worse
There are certain cultural barometers whose publications
become as significant as auguries.Stephen King for dark visions,
Umberto Eco for historical insights,Stephen Hawking for popular science.
Novels are rarely read-but mysteries remain
Book tours tout authors as New Celebrities/talk shows make gods of chefs
The Cult of Personality displaces content.Personalize,sensationalize,dramatize/media lies.
What is said flavors what is written.Interviews become storytelling art forms
Add"raconteur"to your CV if you wish to sell your blog.
TOP 10 for music,books,art finds common currency in star status.
Buy the new Leonard Cohen which is called "Old Beliefs"
Soon the talking heads will dictate style and content
Then we will no longer have to read
READERS DIGEST and TIME will have editorialized Cliff's Notes
and we will dream far away,fade and forget...
watching YOUTUBE,searching GOOGLE,trading brand names
like baseball cards or Dungeons &Dragons..

sovereignty as central

Definition of a viable political entity?
"One that can defend its defined borders"
Millions of illegals within us,billions of cross-Border drug deals
Now we drone in Afghanistan,sabotage Iran,spy everywhere
Even"friendly"allies have our bases armed,locked,loaded
missiles pointed towards less "friendly"allies
"Friendly fire"has become both cliche and oxymoron
When Karzai demands we stop night raids and killing civilians
we then bomb Pakistani military positions
When Italy,Spain and Portugal appear to default on debt
somehow their leaders get changed -easier than Libya,Tunisia,Egypt..
We are still the Number #1 arms dealer in the world
and have been known to arm both sides of quarreling states.
Mexico points out the weapons that kill in Mexico come from us
and the drugs that come through her are meant for us
TSA,NSA,CIA,FBI and Customs Border Patrols
still fail to intercept much of the contraband flowing through us
Borders fell in Eurozones,but guards returned to police illegal migrants
Sovereignty is violated more often than we know
This email has been monitored for content
and a non-redacted version is available on Google.

to walk in to the waters

not walk upon the waters
to sink like a stone
with stones in your pockets
to weigh down with gravity-
this is heavy water/deep thoughts

i will stay in the shallows
watch waves from a distance
see Icarus fall on TiVo replay
a wave away,a world away

for posthumous fame does not dictate
what worlds will take you in to the deep

RAGE OF CAGES

Anger is a cage,as is fear
Loss is a cage,despair another
Anything that limits or makes smaller
Like the wrong end of a telescope
or a giant under a microscope
(everything is a matter of perspective)
"are birds free from the chains of the skyways?"
If freedom means the right to move
you have that ability at all times
unlike disabled or wheelchairbound
If freedom means freedom of speech
you have that in every line
If freedom means freedom of assembly
open mikes call out every night
like birds for their supper
Where is this cage that enrages so much?
Do you blame all your cage on another?

i lost nostalgia

in the dust of west texas
where that lonesome wind
brings grit and dirt into every daily doing
i could not look back
when i saw real cowboys
thin as a fence rail
Spanish speaking
with big white hats
and stovepipe jeans
when the slow became so slow
midday heat became siesta
and there was nowhere to go
nothing to do
closed shops in a closed down town
so i sang a song
about the "good ole days"
of the Depression
and Woody
got depressed,too

DARK DEVOTIONALS

There is a god who hides in winter
You see him in your dark night of the soul
There is a goddess of the night(Nut/Nuit)
who bends the Egyptian sky with stars
There is a goddess for despair and death
has grim reapers on black overtime
Gods of war (Mars,Jove)and pain(Kali,Shakti)
more for learning and adventure like Odysseus
By now you see all gods and goddesses as extensions
of the common consciousness projected from we
who weave gods into our daily doings,
to make a star chart from random light
and when stars fall,we make an icarus or lucifer
and when they rise?

HEALING FOR ONE

starts with the desire
to cleanse and cry and grow
aligned with all that is beauty
(this is the Beauty Way-
to love Harmony and Happiness
and seek to follow the way
rivers run and woods walk
and deer stare -that way-
natural and brave,wilde in joy
The way all living creatures
claim as their space
to be more than what happens
to be a cause of happiness

2
PARADISE PARADOXES

is it not funny
that as soon as you heal
other ill birds flop at your doorstop?

as soon as you become Zen
the broken seek healing
somehow knowing inside them
you have wisdom

perhaps it is a test of integrity
that we must be tested before we
can ever even pretend to be of use and service

or maybe we are all healing
by with for and despite each other
and the next moment is always .....

this is not about me

i read a lot of biographies
i see it as an art
like life
not a failed art
like poetry
just an art-to be,to breathe,
to get up each day knowing
only the unknown
to advance willingly
with this uncertainty
and when you finally fail
to have someone else write your story.

"When a glass is broken,it becomes sharper"
yet it may cut the hand of its owner
and is useless for its appointed task
a glass may hold both wine or water
when shattered,it is no use to anyone
like a gun with no bullets/or a threat of words
wisest to stick to original purpose

dark,cold,chill,thin

little lights strung up like outlaws
to ward off deep dark night cool chill winds
scour souls and spirits heart fires
season of dark departures,absences
chattering goosepimpling,shiver we
in company homeless,dispossessed
occupying space and time enough
to beam our tiny candle eyes
among the broken and the weak
Hold lanterns high and watch the bleak
thin light flicker flames ,shiver then release
We burn like wood to ash and memory
forgets our names.Stone is cold
We are red blood hearts beating flames.

i am not yours(not even mine!

i have fogotten more
than awakefulness
altered states have meant
i am now in Texas
truth in geomancy-fancy that!
all creatures great and small
running jumping,standing still
forget the wolf and bison prairies
happy in their fences
Happy Meals for McDonalds
served up to meat eaters
who are themselves meat
they forget ancestors bones beneath
and thighs between seem kisses stars
when light turns winter in the dark spaces between
the legs of motion and the breeding part.
Cycles,seasons,blankets ,dreams,smiles-
you are yours and will always be so!
At the core of all is

you can not be one with the murderers

No bird sings in a battlefield.This temporary pause in hostilities
to carry the buried from ruins.New faces (the jury of living witnesses
who see how the dead and dying/were made that way by the will of war criminals
To blockade is collective punishment.To assassinate is simple murder
To close borders kills business.To bomb schools is a war crime.
as is the killing of women and children.We need a new Geneva Convention
a new Bill of Rights.A new Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal
Total War needs be totally banned.This must never happen again
No one has any defense from bomb,gun,artillery,rockets
projected upon their only homes.There is nowhere else to go.
This is our only planet,so..what you do next is important
Peace and Prosperity -our only alternatives..

EZRA POUND & MARIANNE MOORE

They knew each other(at a distance for 20 years.Both editors
Pound's "MAKE IT NEW!"clashed with Moore's formalism
Both were original,unique,fashionable-both remembered more for their editing skills
than for their original poems.Moore rejected Joyce.Pound's polemics irrational.
"What is loved remains.The rest is dross"

WINDS,CHANGE,WARM

Outside blue skies but cold winds
sweep the streets like APD
shaking down any structure
that tries to stand up to it
If you believed the weather
you might trust to blue
Cold would slice you to skin truth
It is trying to be both cold and dark
Falling in to Winter trough of lack of Light
Bright sun wants both worlds-we in both
stay indoors if we wish warm
go out only well wrapped gifts
To give is the season
This is what we get...

INDICA

Third teat,moles or lumps,dreams in which fantasy
becomes presented as reality.From witches to rich folk
pedophile priests ,politicians-projected fantasies
form a basis for the "WE ARE THE 99%"
Pogroms against Jews mentioned occult practices
Accusations against hippies mentioned moral turpitude
Allegedly repressed memories conveniently emerge in expensive therapy
ruining parents,academics,political careers.Dare I mention Clinton? Herman Cain?
Witch hunts against Bahai and Sufis in Iran.Accusations against Clarence Thomas.
Always no eye witnesses.Always little proof.Semen on that Blue Monica Lewinsky dress.
J Edgar Hoover as a homosexual cross dresser.LBJ and Kennedy as serial adulterers.
Gossip becomes slander when denial is not credible.
Repressed memories from childhood accuse beyond Statutes of Limitation
Smearing of World Bank figures and French and Italian Presidents
become a Trial By Media.Headlines decapitate heads.
Damage is done via Twitter and Facebook.Teenage Suicides ,Adult Rehab.
Witch hunts continue.Public figures pilloried.Gaddafi molested,shot.
Pope forced to defend priests from sexual abuse claims by saying
"this is a fault of society,not just priests"And the Young Nazi is right.
Now check him for indica...

STORY SHARINGS

From womb,we are sung to-stories,songs,poems
Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes with hidden messages
Fables via Aesop and La Fontaine to intrigue us
Disney pre-dated by spells,parables,enchantments
We absorb stories like grandfather time
Align ourselves with heroes like Odysseus,
Superman,Johnny Appleseed,Paul Bunyan-
all of whom walked in other times and spaces
sharing their deeds with lost generations.
In our day,we are different-human,not heroes
No Greek Gods make us Immortal-we have vampire weddings
Twilight sagas,horror movies and B grade fantasies
We have sex shops and drug deals,pubs and TV
All spill stories like beer over us,getting us wet for adventures
Spielberg Boys Own or Scorsese adult Boardwalk Empires
Pirates still resold as Johnny Depp and Keith Richards
Sagas told us via lovers,wives,friends,companions,enemies
All of which we forget and must relearn every day
Which is why we meditate in to mornings
awakened by the sound of more stories
being cooked in our very own kitchens...

REPRESENTATIONAL NON-REALITY

These words are separate to this page,as is the "ink"you see
Meaning is relational(a secret shared like a code between us)
It is also social,and changes like spelling over time
Our relationships are an agreed "reality"which is also non-representational
You can have words without meaning,and with multiple meanings
Poetry at its best has multiple dimensions of interpretation
Philosophy posits conundrums,paradoxes,and plausible impossibilities
Science investigates ,based upon empirical data
Mathematics defines its own relationships/and between numbers
we have worlds that exist below,above,within and outside representational "realities"
Spaces define us more than mass and volume.Divorces more than marriages
Geneologies in Bibles connote incest as well as bride rape and theft
Morality is non-mathematical.We violate rules more than follow
Crime is not defined as non-law-just flouting of existing laws
"Natural"law has divergent meanings in cannibal societies
Revolutions change both laws and the selective policing of same
There is no rational basis for law.Nor for philosophies.
This allows propositions like the above to masquerade as "free"verse
whereas Rousseau is stillborn in chains./Thoreau in Nature
Voltaire in "the best of all possible worlds".All divergent/all different/ALL RISE!

LOVE IS OTHER PEOPLE

Because i am worth less
Because i need love
Because others do not see me
I home in on them

I ask them "where is love?"
I listen to them expound
I walk them as they walk away
To another home

I will return ,and learn
what love is like(to lose)
It never was mine to give
Just mine to lose

This pattern will repeat
until i can see/love is me.

you

to Marc Carver

when young
i read comics
THE PHANTOM
DONALD DUCK
i loved the cheerfulness and art
over time,.i liked Blake
and Durer,Monet,Turner
Cartoons by Warhol and Lichenstein
Even later- Banksy,graphic novels
Movies based upon these
still fill my widescreen imagination
Disney is dead- PIXAR replaced
and i still watch
as fantasies engage
but now they are made
by poets,musicians ,artists-alive,loving,fresh,urgent
unframed and fiercely smiling

HAPPY LAND

Bertrand Russell wrote THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS

but happiness is not a mountain to be conquered.

America was founded upon the pursuit of"life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

but happiness was not meant to be pursued like a bear@ a picnic

Buddha promised an end to suffering-but this does not mean "happiness"per se

Suffering makes some martyrs happy and fulfilled

and some people are actually paid to inflict pain (Sadists,executioners,soldiers)

Pain is pursued with spiritual determination by mystics,road warriors,adventurers ,masochists

and is no indicator of spiritual worth.Flagellation and stress positions their own reward.

Happiness for some is economic satiety,emotional tranquility,peace domestically

For others it is more dynamic ,resulting from success in business or projects 

President Carter is happy doing HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

Ghandi was happy seeking independence for his people

Happiness may be both process and journey-to be calibrated individually

over various stages of one's life."When i was a child,i was happy with toys-

now i have guns and bombs and men and drones"

Happiness may be a dubious faux virtue-gained at the expense of others

One' mans happiness is another's sorrow.It may also be a false god.

Mars is happy with war-like Jove,Jupiter,Kali,Shakti.

Mammon is happy in shopping Malls and seasonal distractions

Some are happy with Black Friday strip 3D HD TVS

What you want/what you need/-or is it what you give/makes you happy?

Buddha smiles-but is that Fat Buddha?or Thin?

IN ELITE MODUS

EU posits States Rights,US corporate rights

Only people have rights.Identity means more than a legal fiction

Ask every refugee(economic or otherwise)seeking right to work status

Immigration welcoming is an index of economic health and rationality

"Functional and systematic imperatives collide"when sovereignty is violated

and the rights,obligations and privileges of citizenship are reliant upon marketry wizardry

Leaders change in Italy,Spain,Portugal-but not because of people power

Live stream OCCUPY movements engage in continuing conversations

Their lack of leaders and specific demands is horizontal democracy

Each city decides which actions,tactics and strategies are appropriate

And the validity of those ideas is contested in continuous meetings

OCCUPY occupies space in temporal time and attention

comes via media focus upon abuse and conflict and violence

rather than the issues of economic malalignment

1% versus the 99% means more than a slogan

it is the real reason governments are falling like dollars

and both EU and US regard the economy means more than elections

 

CONNYCATCHERS&COZENERS

Elizabethan and Jacobean England was a hotbed of brothels and dramas

Folk were aware of the politics of the day/London was awash 

with plots and criminalities/nothing has changed much(except cameras) to this day.

Plays were performed often collaboratively written

Folios produced often differed from scripts

Actors were gifted @improvisation

They might earn simple fame and acclaim via this.

Little is known of Marlowe and Jonson

except their short and shortened lives

Media did not inspire such curiosities

as are the hallmark of our London Times.

Much we do not know/more is conjecture

Plays that survive have divergent scripts

Poems with codes for patrons and lovers

were never meant to be published

I go to the cinema to be stimulated

I like the idea of ANONYMOUS

The question  not-who wrote these?

It is -how much of these scripts have we lost?

POETRY LAND

swaddled in words/washed in emotions
we package our poor psyches
sell babies in marketplace
No body adopts-they all have children of their own
They say-we are FULL of poems
Make something NEW!We will buy film scripts
or advertising,or politicians speeches
but not these ragged orphans parading in lines
in the slave market of our crimes
Sell us silences and meditations
Rocks in our rivers so we can chant
and believe in connections
Not these rambling drunken Rumis
Mystic dervish contemporaries
If i hear another singer-songwriter
I shall finish this poem!

A response to this article.

BRINICLE

we have all been to poetry workshops-
sometimes the criticism is so toxic
it freezes the warm arts of creators
They sink,exhausted to the floor of Despair
never to make more.i have learned
when folk ask me"what do you think of my poetry?"
to respond that i only have energies to love what is
and be grateful for what may be. Little fish
need not fear TITANIC icebergs-
but we are always at risk from brinicles...

EDITED VERSION

Most of my deep is redacted
TOP SECRET
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Reading the poems is like Shakespeare
It only makes sense when performed
If you get too close
you might just suffer
the DIRECTOR's CUT!

RICHMOND AVENUE(in the rain)

last night,after prayers and poems petitioning
and songs celebrating liquid wetness
rain dropped in as a welcome guest
He walked around the block and looked at all
and each and every.He changed via observation
the very Nature of things.He documented how energies added
create a new process,and how each moment
is a squadron of raindrops/to land where most needed
and to make new green all that drought hearts gulp

there are people(many,often

with whom one dare not engage in conversation
they are volcanoes underwater
if the water table shrinks,they spew lava
hot and molten in to the room

as i get older,i still make mistakes
by assuming equality of listening

some people are guns about to go off
cocked and loaded,bombs in their eyes
deliberately seeking collateral damage

you and i are civilians in a free fire zone
mad world! in flames world!bomb world!
where the fuse of a gentle exchange
becomes an IED instead of an IUD

sex and violence/entertainment
censorship occupies my mind.

"DEATH IS A TRICKSTER!"

born in to a life sentence/not knowing when
our USE BY date will be terminated
Heart beats unaware .Pulse flows .Habits continue
Perhaps a hiccup of health as forward warning
Yet one breath will be your last.One day death.
There are those who are already going-
whether they know or not.Some smoke their fires,
some drink oceans,some dig the holes beneath their feet
"You know neither the day nor the hour.."Endings
neither define nor limit us-we are alive to the last moment
even when disabilities or distractions deny death her full attention.
She will sneak in by night and take one of us
We will never again see them alive.This is why we treasure each other
Gaps between us shadow memories inadequate to touch-
phantoms and visions ,spirits and ghosts who Houdini trick us
in to believing there are voices beyond the grave.Only silence
Which is why we sing so loud and often
as if we wish to wake the dead...

SFUMATO SALVATOR MUNDI(Art Autopsy)

Body of work-to be dissected posthumously.
No more creating means indepth investigating
Objective correlatives vindicate critics over creator
Vision must cede to versions/art to attack
What is done is hung as if a capital crime
Value as ascribed crucifixation or resurrection?
Do we need Ludovicos more than Leonardos?
Patrons more than prophets,poets,painters?
Visionaries compartmentalized/departmentalized/categorized.
for the purposes of Galleries and Exhibitions
never envisioned by either patron or painter
Assembly of a life's work constitutes a new art-
collage/montage/commentary/guidebook-
all utilize divergent judgements to present
and represent a tapestry rather than one frame
Cartoons,sketches,apprentice work,juvenalia
all jigsaw pieces/a vision of a visionary-
we will never know him or her(posthumously
Maybe Shakespeare was Anonymous
Maybe Mona Lisa was her creator's self -portrait
We do not know.We will never know.
Every line is conjecture -just like his or hers
Just like these..

I WORKED THE WHARVES(when i was young

when ships still were seen
as a way of getting around
i scraped the rust from the bottom of each hulk
slave labor/we were galley slaves
deep in the dark of ships
i scraped a living when young
Now ships are stories /ghost ships gone
Cruise ships travel the world for a song
They still dump waste into the deep
i still scrape a living from stories like these

GODOT REFLECTS

all my life(waiting
to grow/to know/to be more/to learn/to earn
enough to settle down and become art
Art is more than life-it is my dreams each night
that always promises more/than my daily doors will fit
So when a dream enters/i must always ask-
are you large enough to enlarge my universe?
Will you be my vision that seeds visions?
Harmony and feng shui agree-elements must co-exist
even when we cannot.Space and time also concur
Within our framed lives and houses we want more
All we can digest is what fits.Every first precious
Every second more so.Every minute counts.
May all your dreams fit within your frame
so you may lift off and levitate
rise above your selves
and never come down to earth again...

REPUTATION INFLATION

You buy art?You buy names!
Auteur theory for visions-especially posthumous ones!
Diego Rivera a muralist -huge as Mussolini
Ardent populist sponsored by Rockefeller
Now Art Names have Corporate Sponsors
All Traveling Exhibitions sponsored-
like patronage of ballet,opera
It is seen as advertising.It is seen as investment.
It will not bite the hand that pets .It will not bark.
Safe Art.For office walls or safes.Price Tag art.
People look for emerging names.Promote pets.
House train the new Basquiats.Move taggers indoors.
There is no art you can not buy.Revolution?
ON SALE @THE GIFT SHOP.(a la Banksy)
(Buy postcards if you cannot afford prints)
Originals are for millionaires.To make in to billionaires.
The future is in futures.Ride the gold train.
Bull market for bullion art.If you cannot follow a trend
Buy one.

BLACK FRIDAY SAGAS

Once upon a time,we would FRYS and BEST BUY
(when they said BUY!-we bought!-up before dawn
joining a long line outside big box franchise stores
in trust for elusive early bird bargains.It was a lark!
We would laugh in the cold and the rain
and we would sometimes be given doughnuts and coffee..
Now Dragon says PURCHASE! and we demur
we do not want a HD 3D TV,nor a Blu-Ray DVD
our needs are meek.We want stories ,poems,joy!
WALMART opened @10pm last night,and a fight broke out
A woman saw an empty shopping basket,so she placed her baby in it
GET YOUR BABY OUT OF MY BASKET! came the voice of Angry Shopper
At midnight,the police had to break up a fight.What is worth such anger?
Objects of Mammon stacked for anonymous hands?
We settled for STAPLES and HALF PRICE
rich in poetry books and CDRs for poetry shows
Laughing in the dawn as Black Friday turns to Shopping Saturday
and every body forgets what fools they were for Toys r Us last night!

part of something(bigger than ourselves

i guess that is why the Tower of Babel
and rich tickets on TITANIC
and why i share poems @OCCUPY
and why you chant
the name of someone else

is this also the why of patriotism?
football chants and fanatical loyalties?
Wall Street occupiers and ADBUSTERS?
The why of wikileaks and wikipedia?

when we submerge our identities
into something larger than ourselves
something smaller than our best
becomes a turkey @Thanksgiving...

i watch Egypt on television-
Iran,Russia,Lebanon and Palestine...

media saturated (satieted)

tried to reach you
earphones in ears
nodding to a blind beat
car crash.

listened to you
speaking rivers
you drank them
drowned ,forgetting

we try to meet
but the drugs,the drink
they are jealous of us

used to believe/neutrality
no morality can avoid
drugs ,drink,death

in the beginning,you are given

a sack of flesh and senses
as a toolkit to explore with
trespass upon all other worlds with
worlds of wonder and of witness
With these tools you make mistakes
human errors /every day/another scratch pad for fleas
These are the counted clocks of pulse and beat
that limit eternity to burial plots/ashes
of fires once seen/are now pilgrimage
where younger feet trespass/in trust
for induced wisdom and wonder
if the passage is worth it.No Fatima,Lourdes-
more bars and Hasek,coffee shops and dog eared paperbacks
We gain our learning from each other-those departed
leave us artifacts but no truths/other wise they would still be here
among the penitents and petitioners,pilgrims and potted poets
whose provisional portents are ignored like weather reports
when you can open the window and see the new sky
for yourselves.

your child addicted to computer games?

sees a naked swan and asks"are you Irish?
A Scottish Loch Ness Monster sees Bigfoot and gets jealous
A Native American asks for his land back
An airline pilot gets drunk and becomes a surgeon
The President of A&M goes to UT
A baby is left on your doorstep
During an earthquake,tourists ask for their money back
A whale elopes with a dolphin for photo opportunities
This monkey steals the key to Paradise and calls it evolution
A buddhist walks into Zen and orders strawberry yoga
Salvador Dali resurrects as an advertising intern/deep sea diver(with the bends
James Cameron remakes TITANIC in 3D but changes to a happy ending
All the water you will ever drink is recycled

a bar walks in to a nun

sees a naked swan and asks"are you Irish?
A Scottish Loch Ness Monster sees Bigfoot and gets jealous
A Native American asks for his land back
An airline pilot gets drunk and becomes a surgeon
The President of A&M goes to UT
A baby is left on your doorstep
During an earthquake,tourists ask for their money back
A whale elopes with a dolphin for photo opportunities
This monkey steals the key to Paradise and calls it evolution
A buddhist walks into Zen and orders strawberry yoga
Salvador Dali resurrects as an advertising intern/deep sea diver(with the bends
James Cameron remakes TITANIC in 3D but changes to a happy ending
All the water you will ever drink is recycled

correction

i am sorry,but all cluster bombs are specifically outlawed
Palestine is acknowledged by the United Nations
Jerusalem is a dual capitol ,and Gaza blockade illegal
Those walls have come down,so people can live together
West Bank shared and peace declared.
Now we can get on with prosperity!No need for tunnels from Egypt
Cement is pouring for foundations of small businesses
Schools and roads and sewage systems
Water resources shared so agriculture can grow
IDF becomes a Peace Corps.
No more nuclear weapons.Inspections universal.
Swords beaten in to ploughshares
Crops rise in deserts of Palestine
Refugees return,to their only Holy Lands
Peace and her people have returned again.
No more Wailing Walls-more singing/dancing!
(for Naomi Shihab Nye)

You can have your father's olive tree

with his teardrops watering it eternally
you can have the ground you have walked upon
where you family's family have lived until violent eviction
you can have your family home back
your right of return is assured
the good earth welcomes you back
you can sit in peace with your family and friends
and never fear bombs and guns and politics
you can write poems of petition and great beauty
you can praise the ways of peace and harmony
you can bright smile with integrity
your father smiles from eternity
he can connect to the land of his fathers
validating his life as poet,journalist
all is golden in Palestine November 2011
(for Naomi Shihab Nye)

your life as witness

Palestine 1948 to 2011 United Nation reasons
only the poets of olive trees mowed via bulldozers
young men arrested development.Children harassed
Occupation does not mean work .If you look
you will see Palestinians in refugee camps,blockaded
Look closer and see how many confined,restricted
Freedom of speech,assembly and movement curtailed
Taxes collected and withheld from their elected government
Only the poet sees human beings/imprisoned
Only the artist draws and photographs Palestinian refugees
9 killed for bringing aid.More killed every day via drones/bombs/planes
Sitting ducks in their own Holy Land.Walking targets for snipers
Rachel Corrie .Women/children.Discrimination in their own land.
Before you look for atomic weapons in Iran-ask Israel
how many hundreds she is hiding,and why they imprison truthtellers
Only the poet inside you dares ask to see all the wounded
Phosphorus bombs in civilian areas.Cluster bombs in Lebanon
If you know this,how can you be so silent?
Palestine is waiting for the world to acknowledge
This is your life.You are a witness @the birth.
SPEAK!(for Naomi Shihab Nye)

MY HEART CHOOSEN TO BLESS YOU.

Every day,another stranger lays
their heart upon my portal
She does not know me(the Internet is a Net you see
I know that i am willing

not to be another fish heart speared
by Nigerian scamsters in Amsterdam
So i respond in poetry (this is not what they want you see!
and watch just what will happen

Sometimes,they respond in trust
i am naive as children
They may have reached out over distance
I am not so certain

For scams define the times we live within
Assumed identities may be man,woman,or alien
Every day,we all receive SPAM petitioning
I trust your wallet will not be lightened

Do not trust me/for identity is random
Scams and spam define every email petition!

WITHIN THE WALLS OF WAL-MART

He squandered his family 's inheritance
got a gun and shot himself
behind the walls of WALMART

He fell down and hit his head
How long was he unconscious?
They just withdrew his life support
He rests now in hospice

Every day,beggars camp
at the WALMART entrance
I do not mind their food and drink tax
Do they have to mention Jesus?

The gas is cheapest in this town
The only attraction i may have
to drag me down to WALMART Town
where corpses rest like graveyards

Every little town all round the world
regrets their big box intrusions
Tell me then,in their construction-
is WALMART just a coffin?

emergency

body catches,breaks,sprains,bleeds-
join the rest of humanity/waiting ,waiting

priority of suffering/even in leaving=pecking order
wounds have both name and number

wallet ready?steady as you fill in lines
system calls you one more time

only hours before admission that a bed might not be waiting
so many broken,so few healing/this is why EMERGENCY

prosaic,dull,read a tattered magazine,watch the television screen
you can snore,but you cannot dream(that you are not in this scene

rite of passage?universal pain?or just waiting time again
steady is the hand that fills the form that waits the night till dawn

release will come with observation and report,response ,treatment
release will follow with prescription,bandage,advice,payment

walk past all those waiting for their time/to be stolen
in this Sargasso,where the broken ships must go

for healing harbors are as rare as silences
EMERGENCY lights blink/we arm our personal defenses...

where the wild ones are

Wolf,crocodile,shark,spider,snake,stingray-
all that can bite and snap,devour,destroy and devastate
This is where fear limits our passage-in case
some large creature of imagined powers might kill us
as we kill without compunction.Whales of tales slapping boats
Harpoons in fact destroy their huge.Sharks hunted to extinction.
Snakes summarily executed.Tigers for their teeth(as rhinoceri
Elephants for their ivory.Every where the wild is dying
So mythmakers like Spielberg pose dinosaurs Jurassic
imaginary monsters so our fears can be justified
to kill off all that is not us/and then kill all that is..
Moby Dick ,Loch Ness Monster,Bigfoot-all lies
Like vampires,mutants,clones,replicants,robot powers
Nature must cleanse us with hurricane and Tsunami
for all her wild creatures are killed -or in captivity

solitary non-confinement

to be released from prison,
one experiences rich and golden
the very air of freedom,a world without walls
steps that lead both to and from others
Time to sit,wait,watch,observe-
choice whether to relate or no
and energy to flow inclinations,so
you are in solitary non-confinement
Your world belongs to you in every moment

skin lick sunshine day sky juice

to be a friend is good-
to spin ,independent and brave-an ally
is to add to the orbits of all,each,every
to accelerate evolutionary happiness
by being trust worthy,lively,trusting and trusted
Friendship is a mutual bond
that restores each to a peace primal
For words are bridges ,actions hugs
to hold and release-unconditional love..

TRANS FORM IN

we change-clothes,habits,homes,lovers
we mutate-age,decline,lose memories,mind
we carry a suitcase of all we have touched
shoplifted emotions,ransacked bodies-
inventories of incidents ,bleeding Bibles

Storms change us-arguments,losses,disappointments
Even gold must become tooth for usefulness
then posthumous jewelry.We cannot outlive ourselves
Where we are is not where we will be

Love links us to what we love,disdain,like and fear
It calls magnets within  to attract and repel
No one can deny the glow of attraction
as well as the half-life of marriage divorces

We are in this skin for a reason
Gold shell brittle wing dragon fly
Short our dream life flight this evening
When we return,we will have changed (again!

between /within worlds

wherever we are is changing
dynamic as dancing partners
we move in time and spaces
mutate within our presence

when we are gone/all changes
persist without our presence
this is the beauty of forevers-
a process of unfolding flowers

SHELL TERING

Inside every seashell is an ocean
You can hear it when you listen
It sweeps in tides when moons come
calling all the Sirens
Waves from deeper oceans
drift in to your dreaming
Beaches of forever
driftwood of your dreams
Here is where you came from
littoral edge of ever
more is always waiting
when you decide for deeper
Most stick to safety/will not linger
longer where the deep calls out in voices
Mother Ocean calling! Are you falling in to Forevers?

DRUNKEN GYPSY FAIRIES

got happy on moon juice
forgot Santas and elves and sleighs
shared mushroom tea happily
and giggled their way to breakfast
Their miniature worlds largely unseen
by prying eyes in others' dreams
like aliens hiding behind clouds
and Sacred Mountains and pilgrimage
even to talk of fairies magick gardens
made Prose World angry
@tiny poetry

you are you-

and words just follow like ducks
do not confuse
the bones with the dust
You are more than what you make
words are seashells
oceans live in them
but they are not oceans


(to David Knape)

still on the road

i would walk
but distances are too far
i have a bicycle
but the cars are dangerous
so i drive
in a second hand fashion
on second hand roads
with second hand drivers
if there were choice
i would take it
as it is,democracy is driving
always someone else
dictating choices

CURRENCY AFFAIRS

Pound is in love with the dollar
but having a Euro affair
does not wish to be committed
but the relationship is there
Yuan is in love with the Third World
invests in capital infrastructure
Local currencies do not stand a chance
while undervaluing trading partners
Some say the pound is too heavy
Some say the dollar too weak
It is not love of relationships we speak
More the way we must share markets
Make Empires with love not guns
For when all currencies devalue
No body is having any fun!

FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE(Documentaries)

Used to be HULU addicted to-until they started to charge for content
Shifted to FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE-especially documentaries
Here comes Kennedy-shot over and over by three in slow motion triangulation
Here the Branch Davidians- gased then shot and burned to death in their only church
Here is fluoride and fracking -enemies in our only water supply
Here a faked moon landing.Here a lost tribe(violated
Each visual insight a war wearied litany of lies
exposed to all who make time to open their eyes
and devote time to exposing those differences between
what was said and what actually happened.
No weapons of mass destruction.
No atomic weapons.No chemical weapons.
Just hate propaganda planted in the papers
believed like Kool-Aid until truth is dug up like corpses
and the DNA exposes who is innocent
and who is left to be mourned
in posthumous expose documentaries..

ME/MOIR

Coalface,digging.Black shadows dislodge,falling downs syndrome.
Under the lines,a spirit level.Yellow canary warnings-CAUTION!
To spill the wine of truth,one needs clearing fluid.Drink to me!
Self-sedation or sobriety?Magickal thinking ,primitive emotions.
Life and art splendor in the grass huts burning on paper.
When the Muse allows ,every target is yourselves.
Slice a random personality ,spill secrets on every stage
Plays and scripts are made of this(self-revelatory rage
Anger clouds into black lines /crowds peck at stories
Seeding rumors(how much is true?)among the gossip columns
For you have sliced your days in bread,and served all hungry
Loaves and fishes might temporarily satisfy,yet miracles have pricetags
The first is belief,the second trust,the third expectation
To meet these @midnight crossroads,one must sacrifice a child
Usually your inner one will do-yet,if greater needs prevail
What you write will be how you failed.

on the road 2011

roads go ever on-we are on them
distances between stretch as we get in a car and drive
it is the journey ,less the details,that attracts
long distances between shadows and the light
day and night throw dice between us
all the beaten ghosts they call our names
once,they were the front line action
that was fifty years ago-their claim to fame
whatever words attract us honey to the ants
one by one we come,cafe coffee or an open mike
we know our ancestors opened up their minds
but we are messengers of stranger times
what happens next for us to find
the highway calls-what you will remember
are these spells,enchantments,stories
spilled in to our free verse rhymes...

FINDING THE FUTURE

Libraries are lovers-they need to let in art,and stories
Even characters ,homeless,with hats and hoodies
and ipods and ipads,open to whatever tech whiz stirs
Embrace community!Theater in the side rooms!
Performances as live as raconteurs/playing with text
to better reach an audience starved of wonder
Our local Twin Oaks is pro-active-welcoming all to meet and greet
Shelves of FREE outside community meeting rooms
designed to gather every drop of rain and inspirational text
Native gardens,shrubs and plants.Adaptive to sharp budget cuts
thriving on the energy of need.Community has resonance here
every time and chance each get the right to meet
And art is more than walls-and speech is more than talks
Each story shared is bliss participants
Theater here!and love of literature!
ebooks,ipods,computers.Adaptation is all-
our future calls in modes we market each to each
When we embrace,the love of all is learned
and is the obvious lesson we can share and teach.

SING FINNEGAN! STAY A WAKE!

1965 black and white /with Irish brogue and English puns
post-atomic dialogue spoken and sung/lines around his coffin
stories of and by him/like the Liffey/elemental/Dublin's fair sons
drink and fight and sex with Catholic gusto/Joyce rejoices
in the Britalking/ stalking Irish melancholics with linguistic loyalties
We are never so awake as when we are dead to the world
Candles around coffin/conversations and drunken dialogues
Souls can listen as well as speak/hear them leap from the lines on his pages
demanding Irish attention in Englishspeak.Jokes and jocularities
rick-racket junk alphabetters together in a common class consciousness
trooped upon a black and white page coffin for contents
will never be limited in lines-they spill like sunshine
upon the Liffey waters of Guiness,by beer bards
who beat wives and are beaten by shrewishness
Resolving contra/dictions is linguistic Irish Independence
All served up in book and film -to be sold to a British market!

HAPPY THOUGHTS(HAPPY MEALS)

McDonalds franchised and copyrighted both the idea and the reality of selling happiness
Bright plastic and primary colors defined both wrapping and contents
All over the MCWorld,folk bought the CONCEPT of eating an emotion
trooping in and paying for warmth in the form of fast food.  THINK!
Happiness as a commodity on the Stock Market!
McHappiness inventories levitating in value due to scarcity!
Folk could sue if they get depressed post-mastication!
This could be an antidote to The Great Depression!
Think of the equation..CONSUMPTION=HAPPINESS!
Shopping Malls ring with subliminal Happy Muzak
Bright Circus Colors at all Fast Food outlets
Clowns as emblems/symbols/totems of child like trusting customers
Kentucky Fried Colonels bucketing happily slaughtered free range chickens
not like those suppliers of Egg McMuffins-they were NOT happy campers!
Monty Python made HAPPYLAND where if you are not positively happy
you would be happily dispatched to the next life.THINK POSITIVE!
Start a New Age Cult of Happiness-and watch as your Aura Shines!
HAPPINESS IS A WARM SLOGAN!BE HAPPY -OR DIE!

the difference is

we are here(and others are not
every diamond moment becomes precious
we will not return.be aware of where you are.
there may not be time to ..so we do not
float through rather than resist.cannot waste
what we do not have.water time.earth time.clock time.breath
i did not want to mention that terrorist death
no respecter of age,wisdom,achievement,children
grabs them up in his grubby greed and kidnaps them
We mourn our lost(they are part of us-bur death means loss
and death will not negotiate.Speak to the living!
(even when they ,too,are compromised-
weakness,health,time..all pale over age ,wilt and wither like flowers
Lines on your face in the mirror.Broken image reflector.
Meditate upon consequences of lapsed attention
Once gone,never again.

GRAND MOTHER'S HANDKERCHIEF

She weaved among the grieving  with a tray in her open arms
On it were handkerchiefs of her grand mothers
One by one,each picked up beauty in their hands
and wiped away the tears that re-appeared again

Antique as kindnesses shared like loss
She turned a crowd in to individuals
Each one holding kindness in their hands
Life comes like tears ,then flows away again

Each came up to the microphone
shared memories,loves,incidents one by one
holding grand mother's handkerchiefs in hands
to wipe away those tears that will appear again

For grief is made of water and salt tears
It is never far away /we fear its insistence/seek relief
Soaked in grand mother's wisdom antique handkerchiefs
Our time here is brief..

I LIKE THE SMELL OF GARLIC IN THE MORNINGS

Onions in a frying pan
warmth and heat and
morning 's egg awakening
one step closer to masticating!

NOTHING IS TOO MUCH

it fills up space
and time,and vacuums
it stretches between points
and creates distance
it will outlive and outlast all of us
so i would rather have something
than nothing-i would settle for less
so long as something exists-dreams,love,poetry,Muse
these bridge us through the abyss when nothing else works
art is life and virtue is verse
and it is always more
than nothing
ness

RIGHT PLACE,RIGHT TIME,RIGHT PEOPLE

Wherever you are,you are in the right space
in the right time,with the right people
This has always been the case
and will preserve you from all harm

The only way you can be in the wrong place
is to doubt ,and fear,corrode your joy
and turn all in to hesitation's waltz

This is how Icarus fell,and Lucifer-
all the fallen know doubt,and fear,pain and loss
because they split themselves from what is right-
place,people and time-and lose the plot

Where your heart sings is the right space to be
and it beats time unconditionally!

RITUAL FOR YOUNG DEPARTED

Invite all who knew /to a public park
where testaments in song and poem may be shared
and the spirit of departed revived via visualizing
Invoke best and brilliant images of child gone
via personal testimonials.Share the songs
There will be need to amplify and mix emotions
so they adequately represent full range of what was lost
Hold on to who they were-then release like balloons
into a sky of pure love,so each carries colors homewards
as a living gift to all those present.Keep the conversation
fresh,active,alive and vital so focus is on life not endings
then this story can travel beyond all limits of time and page
into the ears and eyes of all who find solace in loving the living
'even when they have moved on to other planes.
Change,adapt as required.Add flowers ,food,smiles
Mix well with hugs and cuddles for all survivors
Add to the love by both being more and giving more.
Explore your modes and rituals when one too young is snatched and lost
Then tell us what we have missed.This is the kiss of experience

no body owns any celestial body

even if they sell star maps and star wars
even if they name asteroids and meteors
even if Halley named a Comet and they name the craters on the moon
no body owns any body so the choice is up to you

You can pay a million dollars for a suborbital flight
or drop a drug that gets you high (at least temporarily)
You can stand on a ladder if you want to feel tall
or climb mountains to get on top of it all

But you will never get back to that bone rock moon
a flag and some space junk would await you
Yet they are not like space rocks in some space museum
Just stored somewhere in a TV studio in Houston

For the moon landing was faked like a mock documentary
and "man on the moon!" is just a science fiction story

rain drops

voice on the moon
no one in space has a hearing aid

voice in a box
add extra for echo!

voice in a bar
submerged in fluid conversations

voice on a stage
just passing through.

voice in a cloud
offshored GOD app.

voice on the phone
THIS CALL MAY BE MONITORED

voices in your head
who is listening?

voice work
opera/poetry

playing with voices
drama/protest!

adding voices
sing-a -long!

return forever

last night i watched and re-watched films of Kennedy's murder
there were 12 short ones -all shot from different angles
the Zapruder one slowed down ,others digitally enhanced
red splatter from one of the three shooters triangulating
over and over like watching BREATHLESS or BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
or CITIZEN KANE or SEVEN SAMURAI or THE PROFESSIONAL
or any other filmed novel that enhances WUTHERING HEIGHTS or JANE EYRE
These loves of literature once aflamed my eyes/eye return when
new digital effects are all bombs and bombast/echoing emptiness
They have just made a new silent movie with French stars
They forget it is not the absence of words-
more the magical images that allow us to follow
Each page of a book is a walking tour for the eyes
this is why the texture and lettering matters
Gutenberg Bible to Family Bibles-ponderous
yet beautiful as King James' version
I return to places and people i love-as well as book and films
It reassures me that there is beauty beneath death ,war and economic madnesses
I will re-read you as soon as you complete
your life's works-your GREATEST HITS-
your Great American Novel Life.

splat rain track

walk out in
wet tshirt skin
dust needed reminding
cracks in every thing
birds halt ,confused
what is this sky juice?
temporary life this
little boat sinks
below water levels
pull the plug ever
skies change underwear
all clear!

the right to be left alone

means more than privacy.Salesmen phone,mailbox bulges
SPAM emails ,frauds and fakes persist in seeking to sell
while divergence is rarely tolerated.Try walking naked.
Try talking in tongues.Try believing in peace and human beings.
Always,we want to believe in perfection-somewhere,Heaven.
Yet we fill the frame with 7 billion- Coca-Cola save the polar bear!
Happy Feet Too the penguin!Wild tongues inside us unexpressed
Palestine punished.Aborigines ignored.Reservations fro indigenous.
Rainforests yielded remedies medicinal and spiritual-
until roads dumped tourist trucks which crashed into silences
Amazon plundered for timber-same in Indonesia/fires in Mexico
We must leave space for the OTHER in us(and all others.
Each frame need not be named.ANONYMOUS a fine artist.
Art of skies needs no chemtrails nor kerosine vapor mess particulates
Leave enough alone.If this planet is our home
leave a room open and empty for visitors...

last

if this be the last word in the last line
on the last day of my life(so be it.
Quality is no consideration
when it comes to endings
there is a certain rough equality
yet we never expect our children
to leave before their elders
Endings never make sense-
being truncation of as the yet unexpressed
Consider each day a beginning-
whether first or last or random
I see each moment as treasure
not to be stored-more distributed
so each and every and all
might taste a sample of life's buffet
and we of gluttonous appetites
might devour more /once they restock/restore
our positive vocabulary...

EMERGENCE!

from the cocoon of last night's dreaming
to the garden of this morning's mist
from all labyrinths of obstacles and barriers
to a clarity at last expressed

you have emerged! with joy and laughter
borne in to the cavalcade of colors
as bees and flowers delight in beaming
despite all darkness /limitation

you emerge!with freshness and a smile
that laughs at blockades and walls
and rises above all that falls
and claims this morning as her own

now the day advances(you with it
emerge emergent and victorious
all littleness burns off in bright sunlight
of your warrior's winning winsome ways...

rather have a tree than a guitar

rather silence than the strums of music
rather singing than the sounds of speech
but if no words can ever convince you
can we settle for a world of peace?

rather have the laughter of goodwill friendship
than guns drawn,guitars taken away
as long as we can make more harmonies
there will always be a reason to stay

give back what was taken from Gibson
let them create more instruments of change
we all live within the worlds of regulations
may this for Federal governments be the same
        
violent and illegal consfication/violates our Constitution
return what was stolen/give compensation to Gibson

big as a small house

12 meters(40 feet long),two tonnes heavy in the water
a wall of one whale displaces all.  Why lodge on land
where death is certain?is it sonar submarines
drive these mammals from their element?
Noise from deep oceans sends them in to shallows?
We see huge corpses/seek only to rescue
22 sperm whales on Tasmanian beaches
2 minke whales lodge and thus suicide
Are we displacing our singers of oceans?
Are we removing the song of the deep?
When will we learn we came from these oceans?
We had fins before we had hands and legs and feet
Like crop circles -signs in the land for our eyes
Smell of the dying fills up our sense
When will we give back freedom of oceans
so these mammoth lovers do not die beached on land?

as we become fewer,we become more precious

like gold(i guess)-or diamonds
their markets artificially limited
so value is based upon scarcity
Yet our time and energies
become gold and diamonds
We cut our cloth
with the available garments
Wear each other well
until we wear out
Fashions change
we are constant
Sun returns
yet it is different
Cycles and seasons
define light and shadows
While we are here
We make a difference

SHADOW TIME

and the light dims darker.Cold comes in
Night is the hunter.Beneath blankets we huddle,
outwaiting winter.Seasons define us-chilled our reminders.
Once we were cave,and spear,and fire
Now we are warmth(artificially added)
Outside,our homeless,shudder.
All that is wall will fall in time.
We burn in to Light,spark,fire.
Cool winds edge skin ,slip in to shadow
Darkness our season-dream in to tomorrow
Bravely,we stage Lights to hold darkness at bay
Nights are now longer than our dying days
Trees that were green bare bone decay
We are the seasons.We change this way.

dark pilgrimage(headless mariachis)

where jesus was buried means a lot to christians
they fight with islam over jerusalem/bethlehem/golgotha
Sacred artifacts of saints -a bone,a finger,the head of a saint
we so value the corporeal/forget the WHY of value
(it is to remind us the body is transitory(as are we
who hold material like the shroud of turin as if it were the body itself
Wrapping is not the gift.Place is not the miracle.Witness is not the saint.
Headless mariachis remind us of the furtive burial of saint osama
the fear of insurrection.the videod killings of saddam and gaddafi
lest we find in the desert a place of pilgrimage-and followers rise up
in another resurrection of the spirit(we bury the body to remove all doubt
autopsies and DNA might clear convicted corpses/
sainthood may be proven by miraculous preservation
Red Square for Lenin,Tiennamen Square for Mao-iconic waxed reminders
of the temporal and temporary clasp on power.Decline over time
like Nero and Reagan,Churchill and Roosevelt.
Bush malapropisms /dyslexic language tortures end in waterboarding
Cults rely upon physical charisma(Clinton)-posthumous fails to impress(Reagan)
Veneration of the body declines over time.
This is why Doubting Thomas's need to see the wounds
before the body is removed from public examination-why Gaddafi was paraded
for days before digital cameras.Why headless bodies roll in the streets of Mexico
Journalists cannot report back from the grave.The last terrorist is death.

half listening

when we petitioned General Colin Powell
that we should be dropping food,not bombs
to the starving children /civilians of Afghanistan
he sent down food parcels to be picked up
They were in the same bright yellow packaging cluster bombs came in
The ones that make so many legless in Afghanistan

when we suggested Dick Cheney might try "enhanced interrogation"
Noted Senator Cain's experiences of being tortured in Vietnam
Waterboarding and stress positions and assassinations continue
Guantanamo still open,as is Bagram Air Force Base

when we argue for libraries and pools and schools and parks staying open
Police complain about less overtime.Homeless still incarcerated

when we suggest that drones make remote murders
that civilians like us still die in undeclared warzones
that private security killers are on black budget government payrolls
no cuts are made in those budgets

we do not want wars/austerity.We want peace/prosperity!
Listening takes lifetimes.Our lives on every line

STARR

To Daniel

it is not we have forgotten/even when time leaves us
waiting for a repetition of wonder once beloved
More that you remind us of a wonder long ago
THE LOVERS were a splash of comet fire,a meteor
crashed down among us in a blaze of Light
Starr sang across the Nations and all Worlds-Universes
unfolded like flowers to her voice enchanting
and we who gave her only ears and time and energies
amazed at this beam within our midst,grateful for this
angry when she was stolen from us.We adorants
wanted only more of the privilege of adoration
Daniel loved her close up.Embraced all death and dying in his love
kissed away distance in a song,kept on when bodies failed
and only stories ,songs and poems could be shared
No reminescence this.Actualize her if ye can-
yet know the distance has settled in so much
We cannot exchange our stories for her touch.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

81,and you have already made HEREAFTER
You make new films with no rehearsal now
Each moment stolen from inevitable silences
You screen your dreams and visions loud
Widescreen ,with film heroes,and a plot,low budget
like a Woody Allen for the serious set
You ennoble Hollywood storytelling
by your example on each set
INVICTUS a theme you return to
like all those movies made when you were young
Outlaw,with humanity-lawman with a heavy gun.
Now whether they will make your films again
you know they are not making any more
of stories with a script and plot and characters
not just cartoon special effects,all digital
Every film you make -you make as if it were your first
For time and life and death are critics
You wonder which raven will bite worst
Pecking at your entrails,all the Gods are watching
Your life unfold as in a docudrama
Who will play YOU in your next life?
Do they have standins or rehearsals in the HEREAFTER?

TRAVELLING WITH ANGELS

In this boat life,we choose our passengers
We rise together and share our life
Some like a window seat so they can see adventures
Some an aisle,so they can move as they like
We are all moving/always in flight
This little Earth is all we know all our lives
We stare @stars and full moon skies
knowing others seek wings,and they fly
We travel ASTRAL AIRLINES,land in dreams
Leave our Sacred Skin when called by Night
Each Dream a Map of Constellations
Starpaths and uncharted evening flights
Adventures call us-Art,and Love,and Muse
We answer to our Secret Names and Choose
those we wish to share our time and energies with
These are our Companions On The Path
You are One-who shares both Life and Muse and Art!

with the energies of extra mornings

focus,alignment,attunement,aim and purpose
meditation before action,thought before deed
pause before the active application of aligned will

with the energies of noon-balance
a scale between what has been and what will be
Janus style-to look in both directions simultaneously-inner/outer

with the energies of afternoon-calmness and depth
wisdom that comes after the youth of rush and the pause of noon
deeper,slower-a river slowly making its way to the moon

with the energies of evening stars-bright lights over dancing distances
access to dreaming trails and the hunt of Light
allows one to become that source of primal satellites

with the energies of this moment-
to both be/ more ,and to assimilate,integrate all
ragas of advancing shadows and clear sight

this is both where and who you choose to be-
time tuned songs on the lips of eternities
you are composed-of endless energies..

JOB,SISYPHUS,CAMUS

In every age myths resurrect in different skin
We wear them in unintentional hypocrisies
Refute them if ye will-Job's suffering is Palestinian
The first question is always-shall we live?
Once made,all else falls in space
Myths and legends reinforce entangled gods and men
who fought their will,and suffered tragically again
Sisyphus still seeks Independence@the UN
9 shot seeking to give aid to Gaza
Camus not only saw absurdity as human
he embraced philosophy in action
"we must live together or die separately"
Arab dictatorships still wage war upon their own
Wars and walls define more refugees
All is unresolved on mythic and quite human stage
THE PLAGUE is still with us on every page