White is Chinese for Death

so she ate only Green for growth
no refined -just rough,raw,real foods-
no white bread,sugar,flour,white cancer cells
more Brussels sprouts,broccoli,peas,beans-thin foods
that passed and did not stay with her

Color meant a lot to her-
pink blush of high blood pressure
pink skin where sun burn kissed with cancer

She loved brown mud earthen colors
Shades that sang of tree and bush,earth and water

All she digested,she became.
She had no name.
Gaia

i am sorry Robert Frost(woods and water have already lost

our little village pays for fluoride to be added to water today
our trees are dying in the drought
roads dissect our wounded town
ring roads ringworm gridlock round
only police cars come in black and white

i am sorry Langston Hughes
our Renaissance is out of view
we have F1,and APPLE 2
valet parking condominiums,too

i am sorry Walt Whitman
men cannot marry in this town
women need a sonogram
before contemplating abortion

i am sorry Adrienne Rich
Womens Rights are in the ditch
Monuments and memorials
are all we have for Civil Rights

i apologize poets of the past
we have forgotten your bright spark
we praise you in our newspapers
only because you are not here to harass us

i live within the covers of a book

sleep between pages.wake up with page turners/pot boilers
grab plot points as moral compass.eyes traverse verses
translate prosaic into memorable/REPEAT
re-screen images that edit miracles QUICKLY!
go back only for lost thoughts/wild geese
patterns of pilgrimage ancient and continuing
Imprint habits matrix.We are not lost-just map reading/
integrating directions INNER through LABYRINTHS
until a brighter path lamps our bed ,and we alpha smile
Home again.

you text and train me-to be small screen and thumb scroll
to live via look rather than h/ear.Your world as small as a screen
you dream digital/play games.ANGRY BIRDS with hard sound tracks
the toy you hold in your palm will pilot drones
the paths your eyes traverse old as scrolls
Ages live in different rooms.Memory remembers formats
but forgets programing.Teach me the wonders of text without meaning
and i will read you like a book.

grief and gratitude

Niobe(there is no noble death-all is waste
tears will not return a murdered son,Treyvon
Unnumbered Afghani women and children
buried under stones and flags
their relatives paid a blood debt
We cannot afford loss(nor stop/loss
All death diminishes us.Birth can never catch up
Rebirth waits with gratitude flowers
to be shared with living gardens
Water them with your tears for all unnecessary casualties
We can all get along.Greeks created tragedy
now have austerity..We invade and get blown away.
Wounded warriors realize the myth of invincibility
There is still earth ,water,air,fire,food,shelter,work to share
Our steps lead us either together or..

TONIGHT (he left
after lapsing in and out of breath
for years,diminishing speech
his bright mind still steel cages
now more air between and gone!
He left his skin behind tonight
and we can never talk with him-just of
Bright deeds shine best with living loveliness
The rest is death.

THIRD LEG/THIRD MAN/THIRD RAIL

Electric controversy-to expand or diminish?
Luddites wish to return to pre-tech simplicities
History is made,not watched-the Channel is open
and Heathrow will either expand(or not!
There is a world shortage of ideas(and capital
So BORIS ISLAND remains a fantasy
unless and until some private consortium
buys the real estate with eminent domain
for a private jet sanctuary/a separation of Herculean tasks
Gatwick wishes to grow(like the population
which is already in austerity and Greek shock
To fly in 2012 is barely possible and disrupted often
To land in England will soon be a privilege
for the rich with private jets,and government functionaries
We live in a closed system earth.All the carbon credits accumulated
will not bring back clean air.And we cannot go back to horse and buggy
It may take a Napoleon London Mayor or a Coalition of the Willing
to clear congested airspace for dialogue and conversation
No one knows where that will fly to
or where it may land.

living within language

you see-we use sounds.and sight(art
in caves first(for ourselves(like fire
when we move into a tribal light(we have to agree
and language has rules which evolve(slowly-like stories
We do not understand Shakespeare
as a Warwickshire or London lad would in 1650
Texting has changed poetry
as social media has changed gossip
Language also changes tribes-expands
and alters their perimeters/so Chinese traders
and English privateers/East India Companies
export more than labels on products
(our worlds are wrapped like babies in languages-
interpretation allows survival.Verbal,visual cues
allow text to be performed.Words alone are bones
Flesh them with cultural /historical context
Minds come alive with empathic communication
Less grammar cages-more demotic conversations
Export your experiences every time you speak
Understanding and reception await unwrapping in linguistics..
We are what we speak
We become what we sing.

you have one life

slice it in to moments
frames of a film
you hold in your hand
examine closely
does this resemble anyone?
image?reflection?
line for a poem?
the best thing about memory
is loss.Budgerigar brain
Goldfish world.Look out
or in-interior visions!
Split screen dreams
Divide day from night
darkness from light
blindness from sight
still more-forgotten
it will never be written
nor remembered
This is the joy of life-
amnesia ad infinitem
but i forget why

to accommodate the dancing elephants

ants will be evicted.Large banks make deposits for pigeons
Hawk vigilance required when hunting bargains
Imported yellow mustard bastard grasses displace wildflowers
Amnesty International or chemical warfare?
War in the countryside.Chemicals added to your water supply
Rice farmers upset.Small portion porridge.Vultures,grackles,road kill.
Black strap roads high gas prices.Trucks,SUVs from another dinosaur era.
No one is lending.Nor borrowing.Frozen austerity Stoics
Stockpile stocks.APPLE rich from beggaring Austin Council.
No Trail Of Lights -just $200 million bond debt AFTER re-election
SCANDAL when deficit budgeting bankrupts your children's children.
DO NOT LOOK @THE PUPPETEER!(Corporate Welfare-subsidizing SXSW
For profit millionaires in gated communities.Homeless OCCUPYING prison cells
Valet parking for imported musicians.Thin string locals empty tip jars
Austin leads the way in failed capital projects-light rail boondoggles/APD overpaid,unprofessional
Another black youth shot .No accountability.No oversight .No change.No hope
No worries-tourists love us!They all want to move in! Displace us again!(like East Austin!
QUICK!Move to Buda!Move to Wimberley!

something happened(you can not go back

envelope of today opened.will not fit.Maps strewn
Carpet stains from where beer brains spilled
You tried smoke.Got burned.Fired.Work is not play
You do for pay what others shirk.Dirt poor.
Even when swimming in dust/gold can't be eaten
Slice lemons to make bitterness/cry over spilled onions
Russian dolls Internet husbands.Romance brand names.Gold watch.
Lame' glitter .Bangkok.Stop the traffic in your New Look!
Outside has a different cage.A book made in to a film
made in to a penguin documentary.You change suits and win!
Gambling Addiction!Little wars explode and explore-
recite your Litanies-Tibet,Iran,Syria.JetBlue Captains
internalize class media wars.What happens on TV
stays in your mind's eye.Retention Pond.Cream of Experience
Manacled by crew"a personal problem"(emotionalism)
You cannot afford such cheap fares.

"had we but world enough, and time"

you will walk out of your home.you may return.you will leave again
this happens so much you forget why.Some cling to the apple skin regret
broken teardrops in cheap motels/TV on,continuous(it no longer matters
Bibles are just books.Belief a subscription.
Cable to your brain is on re-run.You have scene this movie before
You walked out last time.Claiming repetition.You do not want
to sit through this again.Retro.Replay.Remake.Special Emotional Effects.ENOUGH!
Relationships parking meters.Crocodile Shark Skin Soup.SWIM!
SNAP! of close cars crashing fill your ears and eyes.Explosions in your mind.
Minefields planted in your sleep.WARNINGS given and ignored.Trust The Deep.
When you awaken,it will seem new.But Ground Hog Day is Deja Vu
And you do not want to know.

tap tap

tiny dancers in gold lame'/miniature Lost Vegas
spin music box karaoke's forgotten power ballads
in a dime store fiction novel in which you are only one character
Here ,unscripted,you ask for Director.All Improv!
Back up! You get your back yup(there is no back up
Zip your crocodile snakeskin back up.Revealing too much!
Mystics tap auras and caves for wealth
Abundance a gold futures promise.Struck coins and faces
Gold miner's pick axes bold as love.Guitars string us together
Mussolini and mistress.Eva and Adolf.Image and reflection
To get there,you have to leave here(but it is so comfortable!-
apart from that sound of tapping @my woodpecker door
Are they digging up our Streets of Memories again?
Is this cycle recycled?Ice breakers ,tap dancers,plumbers of depths
Magicians best trick is not to disappear

lucky we forget

if we remembered,it would be unbearable-
betrayals,false friends,lazy enemies-
all created by our mirrors for entrapment
Fingers pointed accusations return for insufficient postage
The sailboat stream sinks,unplugs,drains lakes.Emptiness
There is a certain darkness with no name.We go there in a cave dark night
to sit in womb and cry and sweat lodge-release daemons.They stay
for their amusement.Despair,depression,Despond.Deep,dark,down!
Consider ends as friends leave their only Holy Skin.Your End Up!
Once you forget death,life is icecream Disneyworld
Rides eternal-like widescreen Tv in a cheap HBO hotel.
You forget checkout.Time taps @your door.You snore through appointments
Until they want to remove your body.And you are still in it!

LIGHTNING MAY NOT STRIKE WHERE YOU WISH

yet we are all witness to storms
within us /thunder arguments/cloudy days
rainstorms of bucket criticisms/muddy worldviews
nights of isolation,when floods rose
up to our windowed eyes.We might not make this night!
Despair bone soup for one.Broken smashed hopes
You were there when the bodies of pasts were dredged up
as evidence of the murder of hope.Fingers pointed.
Hang your head.Struck and singed.Lightning judgements
hung juries,death sentences for thin green young
Quick strike/white flash!Instant (forgotten)illumination!
All that you see is a star.Falling.All that you know
is a spear of light/thrust from a Vulcan sky
bridge to an earth whipped in rains.
All that you know is now change.

TEXAS TOUGH

On the front of our temporary home
is an outline of Texas done in barbed wire
It was made by our neighbor /who also strung up
the lights for a small town Hall
We are still village here-we know who you are
Hard as wire,thin as a fence border
Sometimes we run wild /stampede
sometimes we just digest grass
Time is dust here.Forever a story
of a neighbor who left in a scandal
when the heat got too close
and his deeds were on the wire
You can get born again/home again/reborn and killed again
like weeds that arise@a Bar-B -Q
or a child wild as Spring.Stories are tall tales here
depicted in cinematic gossip.No secrets last long-
every skin exposed eventually..Presidents,homeless,businessmen/women
spaced programmed,blessed,cursed,sacred and profane-
Texas is a range of shooting stars.

MEET YOUR POET LAUREATES

Our 2012 Texas Poet Laureate is a wondrous raconteur!
she unwrapped carpet snake stories of TB as a child
whereby she was exposed to isolation,self-initiation
relationship with the natural world via observation
and (ultimately) description,narration,verbal ,written and visual depiction
She blessed her illness as a formative and positive experience-
as we were by the truth of her scaffolding verse in the House of Poetry
She built a Safe Place for us to dwell within as temporary shelter
until we each could create our own hovel,palace or communal dwelling of words
whereby and wherein our world could celebrate its existence ,continuance and intrinsic essence
Karla Morton similar-her stories of breast cancer survival
and its effects upon intimates and strangers were made of Truth or Dare
Alan Birklebach's wife knitted bookmarks while he read
and she then gave them to poets she enjoyed the most
Dave Parsons defined Texans' poetic response as a deep UMMMM
Each brings a blank map to their year of pilgrimage
Each stamps their boot life upon metaphorical saddles
San Antonio's first Poet Laureate's work is banned in Arizona
Dripping Springs has a Poet Laureate,as does little Wimberley,Salado,and Temple!
The process of selection deems one soul as representative of all,each ,every(temporarily)
The laurel passes in time-like life,pain,birth,joy,death
Be your own Poet Laureate.

THOM's CRUISE

Recently,my mailbox has been deluged with offers
to"take a cruise" or accept a "FREE"cruise
i think about this-would it be bliss?
Surrounded by retirees all hungry for buffets
sitting on sundecks quietly mouldering away
I cast my mind back to Cruises contemporary-
Costa Allegra stranded off Seyschelles
Costa Concordia ripped whale belly side off the island of Giglio
and the biggest cruise of all(Tom Cruise)-in IMAX -
but that was MISSION IMPOSSIBLE-a franchise and a remake
and so i look for a bigger ,brighter example-aha! TITANIC
re-released on cable and soon to be re-re-released in 3D in cinemas
THIS is what i wish for -a virtual tour!No crashes,no splashes,no disasters
just a comfortable formula -one where we all know the ending..
and this is it.

AGE OF ENDINGS

Defining our times via endings-worlds collide
with variant results.Against odds,Arab Springs &Occupy
Wikileaks vs STRATFOR.Euro vs dollar.
Exchange rates sabotage self concepts.
Buy a bagel with a wheelbarrow of Deutschmarks
What we need are new Marshall Plans and micro-economics.
Austerity shrinks /prosperity expands/debt forgiveness is in our hands
New systems of value need be exchanged
so we might all begin again-seed by seed,barter by buy
black market economies on the rise.Buy futures ?
or be the future that you wish to see in this whirl?
All is possible!Euro knows it is time bound.
Time to start a gain...

transmission,awakening,reception,response

wordboat leaves in water float in bowls of consciousness
cages for some,saplings for young,trees of elders
tree does not need to know it is a tree.Bulldozer does!
water knows when it is fracked.wordflags wavewarniongs!
DO! DO NOT! DO NOT GO! DO NOT GO HERE!GO!
Sacredness Everywhere!Still these bootwords plod on,plod on

You of art and paint and sculpture may say -IMAGE!
Special effects,3D,mirages,hallucinations distract us
from the reason and purpose of our linked existences
Yantras might entrance us.Signs on walls in caves initiation
Still we use words to share among us just what these symbol icons mean

Silences will not save us.They,too,are languages!(w/accents,dialects,modes
to take us deeper into meditation or distract us with fear or anger
So many silences lost to us-deep forest,deep cave,aloneness
Between us,silences are emotional punctuation(RESPOND to this!

You will leave these words unconvinced/that your words are adequate
Mysteries and riddles,Bibles,Korans,Gitas clash in Crusading translations
Actions speak louder-jihad,fatwa,pogrom! Words follow after-
to warn,console,heal,chant,pray,beg ,sing-and script new Paradises

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

Last of the Mohicans and Pathfinder portray a pre-us forest world
where bears had power and clawed their autonomy/life was harsh
You wore their fur by taking it from their skin.Hunting.Gathering.
Also this sense of impending loss of a natural world-of dreams
and prophecies of invaders waging wars upon the wilderness
With no respect for wood nor water,animal or totem
how could they respect indigenous cultures?
Largely these were oral cultures(now long lost to us
He wrote of times historic even then-when wild was hunted
and men waged war upon native cultures.These times remain
James Fenimore Cooper must now rely upon widescreen movies to portray
a world that has disappeared.Not "noble savages"-just nobility.
If a culture falls in the forest,and no movie is made ..would we know?

steady state or expanding uni-verse?

as we are,so we see this world
as a steady state or expanding exponentially
While we know we are in motion at all times
we still feel a certain illusion of stability,/continuity
and make maps that allegedly define borders,perimeters,territories
which lead to negotiations,discussions,arguments,wars
which are eventually or dynamically settled
often without regard to geography or population
This flying rock is one of many.Many galaxies,many constellations.
The scale is only daunting because our species sees itself pre-eminent
It took years to even ask if other types of beings might co-exist with us
We make monster movies and horror movies about mutants,zombies,aliens
and scare ourselves into nuclear wars.Armageddonitis confounds us.
Rapture astounds us.New scenarios are needed so we can leap in to a new paradigm.
Because we cannot leave this planet.No other will have us !

in the Bible of my body(i believe in breath

and heartbeat,in arms and legs and articulation
in the stretched yawn of involuntary reactions
in the holes that serve essential functions
in the stars in your eyes(where did they come from?)
in perambulation and meditation
in mind that means more than a brain
in ears that hear more than they say
in speech and reception/that we share in common
in two arms that hug,cuddle and caress
in the wisdom of articulated legs
in the territories without a medical name
in the listed inner workings,powered by blood
pulsing through and never stopping
until that final

and the word went out to all the mega-cruise ships

and they heard the message
and they started to ground themselves into this earth
on rocks and reefs off Italy
(they wanted to do some sight seeing,too!
They were so enthusiastic they caught fire off the Phillippines
Many had to be towed back to port
much like their elderly clientele
who had come to snooze and buffet
Each huge Behometh imitated Titanic 3D
and practiced EMERGENCY drills
then the REAL THING happened
and old folk died not believing this was only a drill
and young folk took video on their cameras
and these mighty ships took on a Mythic Quality
as Wounded Warriors,limping along
a visual Metaphor for every one who wants to ride away
as if distance could cure us en masse
and sunsets will not fit in a camera
and big is not necessarily better
and to be broken means attention is needed

"serve God in the place wherefore to ye are set"

Once was an Ordered Universe-God,King,Nobles,Servants,Fiefs,peasants
in a hierachy of fixed and abiding rules.Like Commandments,obedience was prime
Now even our Elementary Particles are questionable-a "God Particle"sought
to hold all our neutrino thoughts together.Disparate are we,like Internet users.
No one Ring rules us all.Rule of Law flouted Universally.We are civilly disobedient.
Philosophy inhabits physics where maths is mere projection."Angels on the head of a pin"
become "Dancing Wu Li Masters".Metaphors change,morph and upgrade.Black Swans proliferate.
We define identity now as then via uniforms,haircuts,visual cues.Hippy,punk,.nerd,New Wave,preppy-
all wear fashions self denoting status.Laminates as albatrosses replacing rosaries and scapulars.
Rich choose to be Anonymous-to melt and merge with mobs -no Crowns,Sceptres-unless they are luxury cars.
Mega-rich choose private yachts,jets,islands-gated communities to ZARDOZ separate THEM from US.
Mansions sold for millions inhabited by reality show pop stars.Status defined via fame rather than achievement-
much like breeding THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER(switched babies @birth-who can tell a Paris Hilton from a Kardashian?)
Homeless pushing shopping trolleys in unconscious imitation of conspicuous consumers
Cutters and tattoo wearers scarifying themselves for identity like tribal warriors
If a sign is not given,it will be worn anyway-temporary tattoos,beauty spots,wigs,skin art-
all are more than fashion-they are signifiers of identity and status-like gold rings and hats used to be
We recycle influences unconsciously-and will do so until DOLLY clones make robots of us
Even then,we will make a MASTER CLASS poetry robot ,rebooted to elite status among the serfs
so all can see just how different we really are-and how alike.

white buffalo/pink slime

When she was 16 she saw a White Buffalo(its name was Marigold)
When she was at school,she ate pink slime meat
As she grew,both wolves ate her
The one she fed made her into art in Galleries
The one she ate made her sleep with her art
After a while,two roads diverged in the woods
The plum she left in the refrigerator she ate
It was delicious!The meat left in the refrigerator was green and rancid
She made it into an art exhibit,and slept with it
Her children went to school and ate"Organic"wolves for adolescence
Traces of pink slime were found among their green blood @Twilight
They blamed The Hunger Game,texted and Tweeted
until there were no Grey wolves,no White Buffalo
just Green Austin children eating Pink Slime Sandwiches
and making virtual digital movies about their hunger.

grand mother wisdom

i keep hearing the same lines repeated-
"if i did not believe this would improve things
i would be at home with my grand children"
so some grand mother wisdoms stay at home with the future
sharing their experience and nurturing their growth
while some lone wolves still prowl the front lines
with energy,intelligence and community minded altruism
Both lines add to the stories we are weaving-home and hearth
and well as heart and soul and mind .This is specific-
Patricia Fiske,Cindy Sheehan,Jackie Mills,Donna Bowling,Lee Leteff,Connie Williams
You add to this world's village with wisdom,harmonies,applied energies
Your grand children are all growing like wild flowers in a drought
May every grand mother release her dreaming weedy followers
in to a world that thirsts for wisdom in life scripts...

and the angel of mercy

swooped down into Homs
gathered up all unarmed civilians
women ,elders,children in her arms
and took them to safety
away from guns and drums ,bullets and bombs
why only one?Mercy is rare ,and precious as life itself
One angel is made of light
carry carry all your weighted sorrow

and the angel of compassion
flew into Gaza,gathered up unarmed civilians-
elders,women ,children-flew them to safety
away from planes and drones and targeted assassinations
why only one?angel overload!so much sorrow,so few angels
same for Yemen,Sudan,Somalia,Iran
Rescue Remedies mean more than Amnesty International
our very civilian culture is facing snipers
We want to dance in the streets! w/poetry and music and human angels
until every one of us is winged,i cannot see that flying...

7 billion of us-and each of us is one!

we will most certainly never know us all
Within us-millions of particles/selves/footprints/fingerprints
trace indices of past influences
connecting us deeply with few/tangentially with many

We claim one-but our intimates change
We sleep-and when we wake-we change
We dream-and each night re-arrange
The deep calls all of us to account for our names

Links,chains,memories,projections connect us
All we have in common thin as spiderwebs
Strong and supple as our desire for continuance
means we are always ever only interdependent

I lean,you cry(the weight /of authority
means we are both subject to gravity.
Dying is an artform-as is life
We take the time to make a ritual

It involves all who choose to remember
We cast ashes to wind,wave,water
When we awaken,another boat soul has departed
Where we land is a foreign shore(another..!

Here be magic and mystery ,science and history-
We are part of each other-temporarily,eternally

distance as a cure

if religions arise from deserts
i believe in deserts
where distance and time sleep together
commingle occasionally in oases
stretch between us
like silences
simple as sand and wind and stars
Deserts are not cities
with haste and waste and speed
they are slow changes,hundreds and thousands of tears
lost and evaporated
Sometimes it is good to be lost
Sometimes it is good to be a desert
Sometimes distance cures
Sometimes silence sings

never began with one

sprang from conjugation of two
always linked -brothers,sisters,siblings
and now new-adventures
stranger than Paradises
this breath,this life
counted as one,encompassing all
who come to sip and dip and nibble
@the waterhole.Here be amnesty temporary
while we all drink (same air,same water,same earth)
we are satisfied.When need or fear erupts
herd scatters like pepper black birds
Skies cry with split screams-but for now
we sit in dreams-of being-in peace..

every one comes first

virginity was once prized as property and power
sequential monogamy /serial recycling of relationships replaced
same with being THE ONE(a human god)-first cause

yet on the printed page and empty stage
we start always with a tale-then evolve
collaboration and improvisations replaces sole authorship

maths more rigorous in that unlocking conundrums /limits
can be attributed to specific individuals
yet computer programs are often designed in teams

Hundredth Monkey Syndrome/parallel communities
discoveries emerge simultaneously like apparitions of the Blessed Virgin
we owe inventions to Tesla and to Edison

Copyright,control-the fact that Disney licenses images like the Catholic Church
makes for a New Indulgence-same as trademarking BOOK by Facebook
and the copyrighting of MLK and Trayvon Martin

"Nothing new under the sun?"-try copying EAT MORE KALE!
Corporate shark lawyers cruise sites for profitable litigation
Give me the open stage and empty page.Everyone can create...

bring your harmonies and solutions

sing your way through labyrinths
threads connect us tight as bullets
invisible powers strongest
let doors be open upon all and each
will smile accordingly
the best we share will find us
the rest will leave us hungry
sharing trauma and victimhood may pass time
but energies of change allow us new
to be more than we were before
who am i talking to-
if not you?

sitting,reading,watching time disappear

in my sunshine garden where lone bees land
birds gossip in treebranches
elders are leaving their holy skin
i sit in the sunshine and dig the green

she cries /he is aged/breathing slow/low /deep
she cries /her love made relating easy
she prays for his parting and passaging
he does not believe in anything

he will be planted in earth as ashes soon
i sit in my garden and stare at the moon

TRAYVON MARTIN/Green on Blue

Wearing a hoodie is not capital punishment
Shopping for Skittles is not capital punishment
Defending yourself is not capital punishment
Being young and black is not capital punishment
Standing your Ground is not capital punishment
Lethal weapons end this conversation.Trayvon Martin never got
his chance to speak.Silenced like Afghan women and children.Innocent but dead.

War comes home.Invade a country or a person.Just a question of scale
Returned vets explode @random.PTSD /uncaring
Welcome troops home.In body bags or broken
Their casualties uncounted.Politicians drone on.

Man with a gun.You hear it again."we never knew..a family man"
Bodies cannot speak .Casualty toll creeps.Steep.
16 Americans killed by Afghani troops.Allies??
Something about burning Korans.Lack of respect.Killing civilians
What we accuse Taliban of-fundamentalism.We do.Withdraw now
War machines kill both operators and innocent.No more corpses.
SPEAK!

"SUE ME SUE YOU BLUES"

FACEBOOK asserts copyright on the term"book"
Chick-Fil-A sues EAT MORE KALE Tshirts
as well as EAT MORE MUSIC and EAT MORE DOG!
MONSTER Energy Drinks sues barley wine "VERMONSTER"
TOOTSIE ROLLS sues a roll up shoe called FOOTZROLLS
THE NORTH FACE sued a clothing company called THE SOUTH BUTT
In the Court of KICKSTARTER,EAT MORE KALE Tshirt manufacturer
is making a film"A DEFIANT DUDE".Like that man who almost died
eating McDonalds for 30 days/the film may cost his life,time and money
Shakespeare had it best/when put to the test-
Let's kill all the lawyers!"


COOLING TO GLOBAL WARNINGS
Arctic retreats,sheet ice melts-exposing oil,gas,minerals
Hungry for dinosaurs,we cannot see the writing on the iceberg
TITANIC economies sink in 3D.Polar bears on Coca-Cola cans
Oil spills on to the printed page.Turns to blood.


DEMISE OF DAMIEN
Now his objects are not selling
Art of shark and Myra Moors murders
Diamond skulls high price tags
mean their value going down.Concept costs/
ideas expensive.Once you place a price tag on
you become collectible.

Economies tumble,governments crumble
i sit in my garden and weed and water
Peace disappears with threats of new wars
i plant carrots,beets,tomatoes
Words are abused /trust refused
i use rainwater barrels to feed the future.

Response

because we do not know
another mystery is born
reborn in every child
in every moment
in every decision
results are random
no First Cause
no Special Effects
just continuance
(and surprises)
This is the way it has always been-
explorers are now digital and metaphysical
Spiritual pilgrims must content themselves with the journey
the maps are still blank
the casualties mount daily
the next step unknown
the future awaits
in this moment
OPEN!

fresh

today's quota sunlight exceeded expectations
Soak i in seat /watching garden
grow green huge leaves
hiding spring peas

thirsty tomatoes gulp
their serrated limbs invoking-
"more,please!"

tiny wildflower shoots
promissory notes
for future colors

red cedar mulch
color guaranteed one year
had we that guarantee!

volunteer plants seek companions
intention?breeding
PLEASE APPLY!

RESPECT &REVERENCE(2 elder languages)

Before we were here(and afterwards
there will be living consciousness
Vibrancy of birds,bees,beasts
within a context of earth,plants,shrubs,trees
Pre-lawn,pre-golf course-a wild willing wood
that grew quite naturally,and died in drought
or flame of fire,or quite naturally expired in time
We came and saw only resource-wood for fences
houses,homes and furniture.We chopped,cleared,bulldozed,mulched
and made less of what was once more.We lack respect for living things-
for what we call weeds .We blame Cedar Fever on the Junipers.
We make industries of logging,supplant multi-species
with single growth pine newspaper plantations(where no bird sings
Our elders may outlast us-or we may use them to death/
making them agents of our power/saddling them with our debt.
Air is not free.Trees work hard to photosynthesize carbon dioxide.
Water is not free.Every nursery knows-trees are not free.
We need to pay rent of respect and reverence to our elders...

the seller of gold cages to wild birds

"but what does it do?"ask the birds
Well-this simple cage works best if you are a blackbird on the wing
Clips your wings and you may never fly again
This cage assaults you @airports-stripsearches elder birds and baby birds
shakedowns fragile birds with medical conditions
(the GOLD version costs more-but largely bypasses shakedowns(VERY expensive!
Steel cages are used for youth,to keep their wings small
Cagemakers guarantee the non-lethality of their creations
but do not attempt to fly in hunting season!
Many a bird has been lost to us believing
they were immune to aircraft engines and plate glass ceilings!
"but WHY do we need cages @all?"ask the wild birds
"it is MUCH more fun to sing outside the cage!"
"And THAT is why we train you in cages,so you can work in cages all your life-
all you have to do is choose your preferred cage.You will be in one
for the term of your natural flight.."

BACK TO THE GARDEN

sun is out ,so i slip shadows off
and sneak in to the green
sweetpeas dangling-tall towers of leaves
if i move-it means water and weed
if i sit-it means i turn pink
green or pink-every thing is colorfilled
Garden World envelopes time and space
so time stops and flashes fast past simultaneously
wind lifts leaves .Little plants are rising revolutionaries
They will to create food with water,air ,sun and soil
They conspire elements assistance in this
Soon a feast of salads.Right now is sit and stare @seeds
in trust they will rise and become more than before
Garden is us.

monster mirror

narcissus solipsis
Zen tail fingers
"J'Accuse!"Dreyfus
Co-conspirators
Hanging around
Found,charged
Some young shot
Who holds arms?
Who cuddles and hugs?
The opposite of love
is love.

against all odds,and possibilities

a bird will sing outside your window
you do not feed it,nor particularly admire
its scruffy feathers or scavenging dustcoat
You see a beggar bird-sparrow,pigeon,bluejay,grackle
Forget the sheen of song and seek a swallow
Life is a sandwich shared-even crumbs count
Red cardinals as rare as red squirrels
Revolution is a song,surprised/unexpected as an Arab Spring
Anonymous Wikileaks OCCUPY attention
People sit in sunshine,listening.Volunteer birds whistle in change
as melodies and harmonies soften harsh winds
Ragas of hard days softened by the song of wings..

when the dolphins were saved

did you notice how one did not beach like whale?
their direction confused,they landed to die
until grabbed by the tail,each one re-aligned with waves
we,too,one by one,rescue each other
grab the confused by their tales
re-align each with their deeper futures.
We have water in us.We came from the deep
The dolphin in us still sports and cavorts and dreams
Rescue is necessary when we seek the cage
rather than be free/d.It takes all of us
to align .Each to each-to see both how and why
life is an ocean of possibilities.Seek the deep!

re-invention(when all the gods were lonely

to be in this life(is a choice
made manifest.Behind (dead)heroes,we shadows
gossip in trust we are not asked
to carry thorns of accomplice /or crucifixation of focus

Distance easiest.To stare @TV
makes small huge and vice verse.
(when you get close-pimples and make-up)
how could our heroes be so short?

each day a re-invention.Knowing less
will be remembered /like George Gershwin
or lesser Woody Allen movies.Godard still films
Even the dead have ghost writers

FACEBOOK faces remain undeleted-
but they will not answer/nor activate
You are now on the front lines/feel the draft?
Another war requires your peace

All of us studied under example.They left/
it is lonely in a crowd-even worse alone...

a faith less man

who has no ears when all the gods are calling?
who speaks without the word to sing?
who claims this time as now and ours alone?
who argues in a bell line that rings?

spiderweb and bitten,sliced in time segments
linear as skin,curved as river bend
bird caught in hunting season
every hope and dream an idea upon the wing

this trust is blind that breathes and sings and moves
toward as well as away from
these directions that we choose
as random as tomorrows still unpromised

radio is on but the stolen tunes of tomorrow
are community on the pirate band width
To hear ,you need all your attention
To get there requires focus

Body knows what the mind denies
Forget all pasts.This is our time.

for life(a love poem

can not move with out you
was nothing b for u
now is only one stop.i get off
then get back on again

your borrowed breath sustains
your energies change
i remain within
being is every thing!

all is connection-
listing,learning,knowing
this alchemy eternal
until ending.

in a book(i found a tree/trying to get out

i examined her rings/found she was an elder
rooted in this earth until my need to read
extracted her longevity for my brief story
stolen for the space it takes/to store water in plastic

the taste changes/as we approach
names change/we bow down to all that went before
and is no more-forests,rivers,creeks
all that water stored /now covered in plastic

a certain immortality exists in oceans
where Sargasso Seas of containers expose themselves
to weather and the waves ,yet stay
same shape for ages.Let us say then-

Immortality (both plastic and radioactivity
is for cockroaches,rats,sharks )-and we are history.

Release

once,eye chose to know nothing/to trust
that my footsteps were in alignment
with the Great Spirit that animates
and decimates simultaneously

eye still read,heard,listened,delved
into arcane mysteries far beyond my pay grade
i am still a volunteer on the road
yet now i can no longer pretend ignorance

i am responsible for my every moody moment
every projection,decision,mistake,fallacy
i revel in the joy this brings
when all around me laugh and sing!

for being human is a state of error
releasing pasts my greatest pleasure!

Barber Shop Verses

You clip your hedges and your hedge funds
You hedge your bets by twice digesting
People like the sheen of applied enamel rouge
I hear blood beating beneath the skin

Once each and only original and unique
Each of us a co-creation.Cut your cloth
according to your art's fashion
Allow me form experimentation

Most confusing?Response ability-
when i criticize rather than appreciate
how many languages we are
how much lost in translation

Walk your footsteps-you are in them

Remembrance keeps the fire alive

Warmth is in recall-all the bright flames
bark brightest when recounted
like Tales of 1001 Nights- Scheherezade
recounts,recaptures every spark

You are The Teller Of Tales-
we only know stories from the speaker
Ears ring with pleasure when
you sing Praises of the Passed

One Step Removed is still One Step
We rely upon your example
to bring the best of what is gone back to us
by your bright warm being/to be that Eternal Flame

as yet unread

books awaiting eyes and time
movies i may never see
places i may never visit
things i may never accomplish
IT IS ENOUGH!(says this ant
when looking@the Pyramids
Mountain can only be mountain
Water can only be flowing
Stagnant or still,loses vitality /energy
like birds in a cage or animals in a zoo
We lose who we are when borders and limits
Sky ends somewhere near space
Rain needs clouds to displace
We need each other more than i can say

when i died

it was on a friend's couch
i coughed myself into a coma
left my only body
looked down from the ceiling
@my sleeping body below
with amused detachment
as if for a very long time
FLASH! back into my inert body
return with eyes wide opened
every little death a homeopathic dose
every moment afterwards
another blessing!

WE ONLY HAVE THIS BETWEEN US-

breath/a bridge/sounds/to call(to reach/echoes/response
silence will come in and finish our life sentence
Sounds of seas in every portable seashell
same in our floating inner auricles
twinned,twining between
what is now,will be and has been-
the spark of recognition!

of course,some money is counterfeit
some contracts worthless
some loans sharks,some silences snakes
not to blame animals for our poisonous natures
Discrimination is often a positive game!

between morning mist and daily quotient sunlight
your waking mind discerns the differences
Between the snapping jaws of sharks and crocodiles
we walk between us with no safety nets..

if you stand still long enough in Texas

you will become a Museum..
if you travel to the
Brassiere Factory,Kingsley Street,McLean,Texas
now home to the Devil's Rope Museum
dedicated to barbed wire and fencing tools
Dallas has their 8 track Museum
Plano has the Cockroach Hall of Fame
Carmine has the Texas Basketball Museum
San Antonio Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum
Luling has their Central Texas Oil Patch Museum
Houston the John C Freeman Weather Museum
Waco has their Dr Pepper Museum
Parker the Southfork Ranch Gift Store and Museum
Every tiny village a Pioneer Museum
and in Austin ,where hippies are preserved in music
on South Lamar inside our Independent Republic
you will find both 60s and 70s living and well /in the
South Austin Institute of Popular Culture
as well as @every open mike /every night!

once upon a now

i was not bothered with Zen
ate,drank,dreamed,listened
as clouds roiled overhead.
Now i know the storms within
have passed,noting shapes of clouds
a distant preoccupation
I leave the grasshoppers to hop
the spiders to weave,the sun to burn
my pink face to embarrassment
of riches!

LONE GUNMAN

"Do not foresake me o my darlin.."
Gary Cooper slim thin tall gaunt strides down a black and white street
to meet his nemesis.1963,the Presidential cavalcade approaches Dealey Plaza
Lee Harvey Oswald in that Texas Book Repository with his carbine.
John Wilkes Booth at the theater of blood with Abraham Lincoln
Lt.William Calley taking sole responsibility for My Lai massacre of hundreds
Afghanistan,one soldier sneaks off base to slaughter 14 women and children
In France,one lone motorcycle rider shoots French Arabs ,then Jewish children
"Rather have a boy with a guitar than a man with a gun"
Behind every lone gunman-centuries of duels,conspiracies,vendettas,assassinations
Arch Duke Ferdinand 's end began World War One.Wars have already begun.
We no longer need any more lone gunmen.

WHEN AMERICA WAS GOOD
Innocent after World War 2,liberating those death camps
Forcing nearby villagers to see the corpses in Belsen,Buchenwald,Auschwitz,
refusing to believe their plea"we did not know"/making them dispose of the bodies
along with the agents of harm "merely following orders"
In 2012,we know of the slaughter of civilians/by our troops/drones/orders
Until we are shot in our own (Syrian/Afghani/Iraqi)homes,bombed in our Gaza rubble
wounded as "collateral damage"-this warning against the next /continuing war
will merely be an accusation for the next Nuremberg Tribunal to be held in Palestine.


THE HEALING OF DREAMS
Half our life is dreaming/our waking life tip of iceberg
Stronger than TITANIC,we rescript ourselves,refresh,revive
when we sink in to the bed of roses.Day dramas get resolved
Space time curves in ellipses-we travel time and become particle consciousness
Perspective comes when our eyes are opened/when they are softly closed and fluttering

ANYTHING THAT HAS A NAME

exists(as well as many without a name
Fear fills where facts fail.Moon shadows connect us.
Cycles,seasons resurrect.They hunt via almanac rivers
Thin forests hair scalped.Concrete prisons displace.
Speaking without a face.This call monitored.
Anonymous moustache.Demonstrate alone or with others.
For causes that call like wolves of land mines.
To say it is to corral .To define nature(as distinct from
Animals know(they do not need to speak
Trees cringe from chainsaw and infernal combustion
Even when you know/how avoid?(Death,pain,fixations..
Underneath all names,energies pulsate like god particles
Instantly created,to disappear.You may never see it
Some things are faster than things.

when storms come(and they will come

it is time to love the living-
those conscious and loving enough
to connect,communicate and co-create
gardens among stone hearts

you are fire,earth,water,air-elemental!
all of earth within and surrounding
and when wild winds shake trees and walls
cat content,you will bird nest calm

worlds will change /age will claim us
within tornado-stillness.Example us
via being in and among
without reaction

there is no separation/storms
will pass/you will live on.
love the living.

for 7 cycles round one sun/while wars and invasions roll on

a MILLION MUSICIANS march for peace-during SXSW
what do we do with no leader?we become the cause
unique as every individual is/someone has to plot the route
navigate bureaucracies/beg for space /for free/for freedom
of speech and assembly is a song perennial
and each of us a dot in the matrix grid.
Together we get the full picture-music and poetry outside the Capitol
Every word a flower,every line a song
Now with a brass band leading some straggling hundreds
past hundreds of digital cameras/with placards
and stickers and leaflets proclaiming peace
in all its forms and manifestations.Reach out and a smile responds!!
Through Sixth Street full of St Patrick's Day green beer folk
to the City Hall welcomed by musicians/take as often as required
Unless and until peace is here and now/harmonies will have to take hold
within every singular DNA.This is the way we walk together.
Forever.Lay down your arms.Open for hugs and cuddles..

Dream time

drops of water(teardrops-the gift of time
a bucket for sadness.Drip drip drip
it fills.You empty it.It fills again
(there is a hole in the top you can never fill!

time stops for dreams to alight
there are passengers in our dreams
hitchhikers-they await our disposition
we let them get off where they will

inside,a rosy glow .warmth.fire
outside-a fog surrounds
in the house of dreams
there are many cupboards!

entering bed .entering dreams
coming in like a plane in the airport morning
prepare to land.we are over the sea
it is deeper than time could ever be

island moments

everything happens @once.Funerals,St Patricks Day,Peace Marchs
but we only have one life!Cognitive dissidents in Syria and Palestine
Civilians bombed by long distance college drones.They are us!
Remembrance too late-remember the living!Rain reminds drought to leave
Night reminds day to dream.Each open mike opens Diamond Jubilee Olympic Gardens
(small contains the large-we contain multitudes-small is still.Beautiful a view)
To remark marks time.River sluggish with brown bottom.Mus time(stuck!
Lightning time(insects in a bottle-we buzz electric chainsaw appointments
Stillness sits and waits for these Parades to pass.Birdwings rise!
Does memory make pain palatable?or forgetting?Morpheus or Alacrity?
Gods question.We sleep dream.Awakening takes lifetimes.Last year,stone
This year,forest.Centuries ,feathers!Build me a bird and i will believe EVERYthing!

mountains of Japan

death and disappointment.senyru sadness
snow covering Hiroshima/Fukoshima
we become ancients when we stop.sit.wait
for time to pass by on a fast white horse
we become stone Temples of breath
Control this and mountains will come begging to your door
Fail to breathe and you become mountain
Circles sustain us,Chuck.Word boats are paper lanterns
sent like cherry blossom Spring messages
Emergent we are(despite Aristotle
Feed the cows before breakfast
Thin hungry elders first.They sustain us!

uniqueness of every body

leaders die.get shot.retire.abscond.seek sanctuary elsewhere
what is a tribe to do?replace their natural leader with an inadequate new one?
form a committee of those with partial talent?or leave the position open?
They might try to bribe their leader back to rule.Presidents for a second term/dictators for life
or seek a new mode of self-governing-volunteer or military style
Options are always comparative-people love nostalgia
They compare the OLD regime with the NEW and find faults
They forget they cannot dig up the dead.Flowers bloom once
Kampuchea is not Cambodia.Mumbai not Bombay.Myanmar not Burma
The French Revolution chopped heads.The Russian Revolution killed their King.
Mao purged.Gaddafi waged Green Revolution.Assad murders his opposition.
Dictators have a way of making trains run on time
and simultaneously depriving people of rights,liberty and pursuits of happiness.
Yet folk vote for Hitlers.Repeatedly.Military coups prohibit free will and choice
North Korea .Sudan.Somalia's armed gangs.All dictate and demand.
Yet on this tiny rock,we are connected.Age takes us.When we go
who will even pretend to know what to do next?

give an image(take a photograph)

Picture you as you grew
in the light of the cameras of your life
In the eyes of your parents you were a box Brownie
small image of black and white
As you grew,you saw yourself turn to color
Your image grew larger and wide
You were a slide,a collection of moments
Your family around you grew too
You gave them all pictures of who you were then
and they took a picture of you
Now digital fingers in virtual worlds
Photoshop and post online
You make a movie-you are in it
It is the images of your life
What happens next-you hold in your hands
as the camera clicks and snaps and bites
another image is stored for as long as you need
Which means more?-your image?or your life?

to be useful

every body works(unless you are dead)-to some extent
some get paid for their services.Many more volunteer
fulltime jobs are rare-those with benefits rarer.
the very notion of "work"has changed in our time-
startups for small businesses /creation of apps/
ideas seeking venture capital engage the best and brightest
Yet the growth in jobs is largely in the service industry-
pedicab drivers ,food van workers,baristas,store staff,cab drivers
Many of these positions are temporary,casual and low paid.
One would need several of these (and tips!)to afford current costs of living
Creation of jobs can be artificially induced via governments"make work"programs
as in the New Deal-creating work on roads,national forests,parks
Industry wishes to cut labor costs,and exports work to cheaper areas
These change over time,and are part of the new global economy
Birth rates add new bodies to a smaller pool of "jobs" to service them
Models for full employment have become conservative as tithing
The current conundrum of high and continuing unemployment
requires not austerity programing-more incentivisation,micro-loans,
angel investors,venture capital and a holistic co-operation of businesses with government
The results will either employ your children or bankrupt governments
or both..

SOLUTELY FABULIST!

Apple's suppliers in China have had workers poisoned via hexane
Some workers are under aged .Most have poor working conditions
To make art out of journalism mixes fact and fiction
What we want to believe is that Charles Dickens"HARD TIMES" is fiction-
that New York sweatshops and Mexican border factories
are old stories/history.That all workers are treated with equality and respect.
This is pure fiction,and bad art.Whistleblowers are punished and sacked
for speaking truth to power.Journalists killed in Syria.FACT. Verifiable.
Reporters shot in Mexico's drug wars.Headless mariachis learn corridos.
Bradley Manning in solitary confinement.Alan Pogue ignored.
Storytellers persist in awakening us to the world we all live within.
We prefer airport headline fairytale fiction-Navy SEALS assassinations
rather than slaughter of women and children in Afghanistan.
Rescue missions where the hostages actually are living to Black Hawk Downs syndrome
Somali pirates hijack our Walter Raleigh Walter Mitty syndromes
When they defend their territory,we kidnap them.
Terrorism is a territorial term.Benjamin Franklin was to be hung by the English.
Now we raid Third World countries with Little Britain as our last ally.
Check your stories!A grain of truth is still food for thought...

I AM A MUSEUM

of antiquated lifestyles/my cliches 60s/my exhibitions retro-
reminiscent of and alluding to styles and fashions long past
My permanent collection of memories accessible easily
Public storage and admission await your piqued interest
When our childhood is history and adolescence documentaries
Visitors will compare and contrast our recollections with their private ones
Trams ,pre-cars,bicycles,recessions,grandfathered Depressions
Trains that steamed like puddings.Frames of Prado,Louvre,Hermitage,Met
There are special rooms where temporary demonstrations OCCUPY
Examples,role models,ANONYMOUS,Wikileaks defining our age
File storage always limited ,so your addition to archives welcomed(folk Museums!/songs
Deaccession spontaneous-where forgetfulness creates modern architecture
with no historical reference points-just cages for humans and industrial facades
Languages and visual education co-exist in various formats-
stories shared and experiences recollected.When you enter,
you may need an INSECURITY clearance.People are afraid of poetry-
and the only known antidote is familiarity.This is why i still exist-
to remind you that you are all ages,past and future-living in this present moment

every story for free-download on the upload now!

as soon as you stop to listen(as soon as you stop.
people turn into flowers(stories turn in to gardens
revealing weeds and storms,seeds and sagas
Thin saplings from family branches become oaks of trust
Every word golden.Every life made from dust.Scrape off pasts
and hear them in your auricles while they bloom-
whether tall sunflower solitaries or bee nectaring .Soon,another moon
will pass over .We will turn in to stories ourselves-
how we listened like seashells on the beaches of oceans
How we rolled into depths of waves and saw Sirens and Mermaids.
How,touched by sweetness and stars,we became more than paper doll people
Cardboard spines became short stories,became tall,became books of true adventures
And we all became forests,sharing canopy and foliage,green and golden
And we listened as stars glisten,polishing Heavens..

"rather have a boy with a guitar than a man with a gun"

so it came to pass (as time and SXSW passes pass
@Full English (poetry)Cafe Saturday night 17 March
on the last night of SXSW
we (me and a man guitarist)entertained
two British parents (she from Ipswich,he from Bristol)
with songs from Nick Lowe and poems from South Austin
Their son was in a band @STRANGE BREW
He and his band had driven from Boston to Austin
to play for free to a tiny crowd/but that is the prevailing madness
so we played for free for ourselves
making up songs and poems extemporized
lines borrowed,blue,stolen and new
until even he had to go,and a new Tom arrived
Swing shift with guitars and songs by the Beatles,Who and Rolling Stones
sing a long as one by one,refugees from SXSW came for breakfast @late night cafe
knowing this to be the last night of SXSW. Earlier ,was photographed
doing poetry with flutes and guitar outside the Capitol
for MILLION MUSICIANS MARCH 4 peace.Trust it all worked
(it worked for us).Every night a Festival.Every moon a song!

"TIRED OF EATING KITTENS!"(sign on SXSW streets busker

Elvis @a Garage Sale
7 am St Patricks Day
Spring birds chirping anarchy
a Million Musicians gathering
"HONK IF YOU LOVE PEACE AND QUIET!"

RELAXED ATTENTION
Spontaneous street performances
FREE FOOD!
FREE SYRIA!
(include China in that too said my Chinese audience@FAIR BEAN

IN PRAISE OF PEDICABS
more praise for bicycles and skateboards
and most for feet-those biped beauties
that get us from A 2 B!

when poets die in Texas
obituaries list their achievements
but even in their passing
no publication of their verses

GRIEVING GLADNESS
say their names-Dr Marvin Kimbrough/Floyd Freeman
Albert Huffstickler/Susan Bright/Peggy Lynch
still living in Buenos Aires=Sue Littleton!

EVERYTHING HAPPENS@ONCE
multiple streams of consciousness
police shoot youths/then sue them
for loss of bullets

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's SXSW KEYNOTE ADDRESS

"After Elvis,everyone has different musical tastes..
Elvis got me interested..Dylan gave me the words..
the Beatles sang harmonies from heaven
and i stole what i could from the Animals
(he plays the hook from BADLANDS-
"that, my young friends is successful musical thievery"
A rocker,a pub singer,influenced by soul and Sex Pistols
"play your whole heart out 1000 nights,and your audience will follow"
He picks up a guitar and strums "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND"
They sing along.He praises Woody Guthrie and James Brown
Laughter among the laminates as he recounts his growth through music
"All my songs come from WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE"
He strums the bass line with his superimposed lyrics
Soon he will sing with Jimmy Cliffe and Eric Burdon
For now he acknowledges his influences,and his thievery
This is what they came to hear-familiarity
Soon someone will steal from Bruce Springsteen
And the beat glows on...

someone else's party

sitting on sixth street
in the gutter,watching
people poetry

thin sneers,fat chances
float,flit,flaunt,follow, fast past
i wait and i watch

leaflets fall on streets
Hare Krishnas chanting loud
(time warps come easy)

free music(black rap
while bands compete noise levels
sharing tinnitus

digital cameras
flashes from laminates
(not)we,the people

skateboarders,cyclists
slip through the milling masses
to be mobile-YES!

bright young Japanese
beat drums and dance along streets
crowds gather around

long lines for pizza
parties,bands,films,and more lines-
badges/laminates..

finally -FREE FOOD!
i take a pot plant homeward
broccoli tonight!

"i want to die"

No ,Magdalena-sleep and cry
Sleep and cry.When you awaken
you will know why
"Maybe god wants me to die..this life is so hard"
No Magdalena-no one comes back
Your task is to stay here/live(not die
live(not die
"Maybe god let me come back and try again"
No ,Magdalena,you are here/you must try
while you are here.Do not die/do not die
"I give it one more year(maybe five)
No Madgalena-give your whole life-50 years
and then we can talk about tiredness and fears
exhaustion and tears.When it comes near-
sleep and cry.Sleep and cry.When you awaken
you will know why...

you canot ignore the dragon

of SXSW-you may choose to ride the dragon-
to play on the streets,to consume,imbibe
you may even choose to wear a penguin laminate
or just leave town until the gridlock dies down
All options present themselves-but you cannot ignore
the multiple parties on every street ,impossible parking
and a city importing every luminary to add to its temporary lustre
This year i chose gardening and poetry
There is no poetry content to SXSW(there once was-
but now only rap and hiphop represent verse and rhyme
Music rules every available stage-and to play
one simply sets up one's own alternative stage
This is the way for all cultural independents
to make ,create,share,connect on the village level
when corporate for profit behomeths exploit our gentle agents of harmony

i look in the bulging CHRONICLE-see far too many acts
decide to put this information to good use-i mulch the paper
and use it as compost.I also fold paper under the mulch
to keep all legal weeds at bay/then read while i garden
of all the musical acts i will never see play

i used to prowl late night streets-all post-poetry
this temptation exists,but this town is now valet parking
and those nights of adventures are only stories to be shared
in a South Austin library in a universe far far away
from dragons...

Bullets, Lots of Bullets

PREPARING FOR THE BEGINNING OF THIS WORLD
Gardens!Lots of gardens!Food gardens!Flower gardens!
Multispecies/varieties/greens as divergent as jungle and rainforest
Natural as death ,change,compost,manure and old growth forests
Flowers!Lots of flowers!One for every gun barrel!
For every dollar spent on death,ten for art and healing,love and life!
Expansion!Connection!Cultural exchange!Learning all the time!
Every moment shared ,every wisdom advanced
Every singular epiphany added to the next
in waves of unending consciousness
flowing /floating in a bowl of emotions
(or none!)Zen Gardens!Eternal yes!Affirmations ongoing!
Adding to the harmonies that keep us linked and loving
Each new renewed with energy and gusto
Every old revered with respect and support
Continuous as acculturation.Step in to the Heraclitus.
Get your ideas wet behind the ears.Listen!

LIFE LAB

Here is where we get tested
It is continuous assessment
If you graduate ,you get to live
If you fail..well,there are others-
robots,clones,replicants
wanting to be human
waiting for their chance
The whole Fourth World
want to graduate to the Third World
New Age and Middle Age folk
want to evolve to the Fifth Dimension
(they even play their records)
Gravity is failing to convince
Comedy has now become a Corporation
And here we are on the testing block
waiting to see if we will see
another day 's sunlight!

sometimes,legends are made in the passing

not dependent upon quality @all
that manger in Bethlehem?
those miracles@Cana?All were small
and much magick in their day-
only time can turn Beatles into muzak
lawyers into politicians/heroes into criminals
and vice re-verse -ah!Change is not constant
it splutters,burps,repeats,regresses-then,when you think
history has run out/it repeats itself!WW1,WW2.Bush1,Bush#2
This is why remakes ,retro,regression therapy
We feel safer going back than advancing
Let us stay the same then.Let us not change anything.
(and see how long that lasts!

WHEN I SIGNED ON(for this life)

i did not know night nor day
nor black nor white
nor good nor evil
in this world

i learn in every moment
that which adds to life and laughter
and that which lowers energies

Death,pain,suffering i avoid
Whether they seek me out
i have no need for them

Happiness i do not seek-
i simply am /and this is enough for me

Emotions/moods wash over me
Wave after wave,i surf this life watery

when i went to Barton Creek Cinema

two or three of the theaters were screening THE VOW
a saccharine recycled romance with second tier actors
promoted as mushy distraction for Valentine's day couples
i went to see SAFE HOUSE-showing CIA duplicity,waterboarding,illegal ops
tightly edited,well photographed,with powerful acting and a good script
I sat through it twice.Digesting the lines"people do not want the truth-it is too messy"
i thought of St Valentine-how he was put to death and is now a little Cupid figure
How Ron Paul came second to Romney but all the media featured only Romney
How we are withdrawing from two battlefields while creating new conflict zones
How we are simultaneously cutting military and boosting secret ops
How we suppressed Bahrain and allow Syria to kill her own people
How Americans may now be detained indefinitely without trial
How our Constitution that folk fought for is in tatters
And how the eviction of OCCUPY reveals no freedom of speech or assembly
Then i thought of all the sweet cooing couples sipping THE VOW
and realized how distraction is elementary magic
and the next war is now.

WHEELING ,DEALING,INVENTION,APPLICATION

To make millions,invent an app like ifart(for one dollar
that millions will download and pay for
Application is every thing!Inventions are patented-
yet their application and marketing are the true mark of success
Tesla vs Edison.It matters less who came first
what matters is the many uses of safe electricity
Even if Einstein has been proven wrong-
the application of his hypotheses enabled both bombs and space flight
It is application that rewards.Native Americans had the Medicine Wheel
but towed their tipis behind horses.No machine industry needed
Appropriately,pottery wheels were used-first by hand,then machine
A car is a stagecoach on different axles.The axle allows adaptation.
Gear wheels rely upon grease and axles ,oil and shafts
All invention is inter-related.Discovery of significant ideas
occurs simultaneously in different continents(100th Monkey Effect?
You can use hand made cultures for appropriate tribal /village populations
The need for quantity invents wheels,gears,axles,engines,robots,systems
Dictatorship of the best idea is often market-driven.We await your next with wonder..

GREECE IS THE WORD

Austerity for breakfast.Cutbacks for lunch.Nothing for supper.
By using debt to reduce services to citizens,democracy-
"rule of the people,by the people,for the people"
has been supplanted by Euro-politics.Military occupation failed-
juntas of Generals failed,violations of human rights failed
Economic dictatorships succeed.Fiat Accompli.
Forgiveness of debt was made conditional
upon destruction of workers rights,retirements,pensions-
anything trade unions had gained for their members
was taken by a foreign cabal of governments
allegedly in the name of "saving"-the cost
was picked up in living conditions of Greek citizens
Greece has now been made in to a Third World country
This has been a deliberate policy.Who is next?
Unless and until austerity is replaced by peace and prosperity
we all are.Beware the cutbacks.(Death of 1000 cuts...

HOW TO EXPLOIT HOMELESS in 2012

1.As in the Depression-have them wear a sign for your business(EAT@JOES!)
2.In 2012,adapt this to becoming a mobile wifi hot spot -pay them $20 a day
plus $2 for every customer.(NOTE!No employee would or should accept slave wages)
3.Have them as puppet pawns for your controversial business outreach
without providing fully paid work,housing or benefits for your homeless staff
4.Affirm that you are actually"helping"the homeless by providing low paid temporary work
5.Point out this is the future-no work or low paid work offshored to China
6.Rake in media attention .Make money for your business
7.Never actually consider giving homeless people fully paid positions
8.Lifting expectations-then destroying them
9.Using people without respect
10.Getting away with it.

RAY KURZWEIL & DR MOREAU

"We must come to accept robots/artificial intelligence with human qualities
as long as they are sufficiently complex and can interact with us"(R.K @SXSW today)
Remember H G Wells"The Island of Dr Moreau "?
We watched the Director's Cut(Directed by John Frankenheimer(The Manchurian Candidate)
with the late huge Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer-
and that Nazi mixture of human /animal genes which failed
Remember that sheep they cloned"Dolly)?
Remember stem cells controversy?
Remember (still fictional)BLADE RUNNER? TERMINATOR?I,ROBOT?KARA?
The theme has become passe-the reality has replaced Hollywood
ABUNDANCE Seminars point out successful human DNA research
to map the human genome code/and to replicate life
Ray Kurzweil joins WIRED and futurists like William Gibson
in proclaiming the inevitability of human /machine robot models
Car factories already deploy many.Some are in households(and cars)
Your GPS.Your remote computer programming.Your limited life choices
Tour Diebold voting machines.Your MINORITY REPORTS
This is more than 1984 in 2012.More than a BRAVE NEW WORLD
More than ANIMAL FARM .This was written by a human poet robot on a word processor
soon to be made redundant

why others?why not you?

do you not start
with believing in yourself?
if what you do and are
resonates with others-extra!
if you are fated to dance solo-great!
like life's music-start with a signal
then flow with accompaniment
bands start (and break up)like this
they make beautiful music together(for a time
and the best thing about creating is this-
you do not need to believe a thing
you do not need to believe in anyone
not even yourself!

disappointments,disenchantments,dissatisfactions

o how busy our boat life is!
rowing between moods ,emotions,feelings,reactions
towards Light,drenched in Darknesses ,in a Trough of Despond
Did we forget this is a Pilgrim's Paradise?
that to journey is the path?
that we are already here.

of course,we can indulge-
chocolate cake,petulences,reactive patternings
but the TV is empty and pizza too full
it stinks of manure and death comes too soon

i am glad to be so disappointed!
i am happy when disenchanted!
i grow in Light when the seed of dissatisfaction
demands i gain true grit or go to ground

this seed flowers best in manure
grows tall when firmly gardened and ground
is required to hold us together
between the dream and this earth-
we build between us.Sound!

in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS,the aliens communicated in musical tones understanding across cultures often brings respect for folk music (Huun-Hur-Tuu @the Hogg Auditorium brought the steppes of Mongolia to Austin as did traditional Aboriginal dancers..Culture has tones and notes and scales- music is a universal bridge we walk upon- it lifts and sustains us in moody rivers it chants and atonals when we are dissonant it attunes and harmonizes when we choral it speaks in notes we can cash in people buy,make,create,share,download,listen to and embody music we all have fave composers and performers the divergency of which is both healthy and necessary a good song can raise spirits faster than a flag an anthem may be memorable,a soundtrack iconic Make magick,Muse-musicians await your example! This world is out of tune and needing sound healing...

in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS,the aliens communicated in musical tones
understanding across cultures often brings respect for folk music
(Huun-Hur-Tuu @the Hogg Auditorium brought the steppes of Mongolia to Austin
as did traditional Aboriginal dancers..Culture has tones and notes and scales-
music is a universal bridge we walk upon-
it lifts and sustains us in moody rivers
it chants and atonals when we are dissonant
it attunes and harmonizes when we choral
it speaks in notes we can cash in
people buy,make,create,share,download,listen to and embody music
we all have fave composers and performers
the divergency of which is both healthy and necessary
a good song can raise spirits faster than a flag
an anthem may be memorable,a soundtrack iconic
Make magick,Muse-musicians await your example!
This world is out of tune and needing sound healing...

"You cannot turn the wind,so turn the sail"

We breathe together.Some of us are in Syria.
Some escape across borders.Many are butchered .
A few decide to join the FREE SYRIA MOVEMENT
A few defect from the killing government(too few)
The problem is military.The answer is not military.
"The water is so deep" Blood tides.Awash with weapons.
Yet the slaughter is of unarmed civilians.A civil solution required.
This is not Libya,nor Egypt,nor Algeria
It is not Yemen,nor Somalia
It is not Iraq not Afghanistan
It is most certainly not Iran nor Israel nor Russia
This is a military dictatorship over civilians
Anomalous in an Arab Spring.Weather is changing.
Safe havens are required.Zones of peace and prosperity.
"You cannot turn the wind,so turn the sail"

THE NEW NORM(ative)

War exists.Peace is rare,precious,hard to find
It should be valued like gold and diamonds-an instrument of exchange
We do this when we bribe Taliban with suitcases of dollars
or Egypt with millions in bail monies(Iran the same)
We bribe North Korea with food for peace
is expensive-but war always costs more!
Fewer casualties in Afghanistan-but many more disabled veterans
draining military funds via health benefits
Same as Austin Council put a dollar value on their trees
we need to assign our values to peace
To violate the Noise Ordinance in Austin costs $400
That is the price of quiet.Domestic violence is subject to civil
as well as criminal penalties-up to millions may be paid for damages
This is the current price of domestic peace.
Billions have been spent on weapons-made redundant like USS Enterprise
Sting purchased a rainforest in the Amazon-then demanded it be left pristine
This is the price of property peace.Prosperity can bribe peace
Poorer nations attract more savage violence-Sudan,Yemen,Somalia etc
Prosperity schemes like Marshall Plans and micro-loans may pay for peace
It always costs less than wars.May we invest in peace now-it pays dividends
for our children and our ancestors...

u r your guru

and to hand your power over to others
is to deny your own life force
you are the question and the answer
and anything less than better example
will not suffice.

this is not solipsism.nor Narcissism.
it is defining who you are
in context to better example
if you need to pilgrimage to a place
do so in your own spirit
if you need to disciple to a leader
to learn how to lead yourself
it is your choice,your voice,alone
you hear your voice in silence
prayer,and meditation

mistakes are part of the learning-
bad food,bad music,bad lovers,bad gurus
without mistakes,we would not be here
making errors,being human

LYMAN GRANT@Resistencia Friday Feb 3,2012

@ACC,he sends his students out to open mikes
to interview poets outside the walls/to speakspell where freedom lies
Tonight within these colored walls of Resistencia,he is respectful,aware
ready to read and share his personal roads home.
"I want the daily events of my life-each one,one by one-to mean something.."
and they do,in chronicles domestic and personal,a song for one
with eyes watching,solitary witness to relationships/changing
as the crowded room leans forward,listening
his life on every line.Like AT&T,they listen in.
Like butchers,they admire the chopped lines
lives they do not lead but can buy under covers.His life.
Mostly unread.He defers to others.Smiles,with respect
Most of this will be unwritten

KEVIN GANT@Love Poems Only! Expressions February 4,2012

Surfacing dolphin among the sharks ,smiling as he sings
with new material to weave among his antique harmonies
Rings in the new with a quivering voice
for a long time blocked/now he is back with us
Chicago House in 1990s closed in 95
He went away /to LA/then when he returned
he could not play.He COULD NOT PLAY!
Years pass by like pedestrians/he returns to sing @Expressions
gives his best -and shares his CD and DVD movie
to re-affirm that energy source that stays
(it is only to the living we can speak today)
Our best trust is that Kevin Gant will play!
@Austin open mikes/every night and every day!

NIMBIN,MAD MAX,GYPSIES,BURNING MAN,SLAB CITY

Want to get away from the hustle and bustle of bills and THE MAN?
Want to "go country"/try a new identity,drop out ,man?
Want to get "off the grid"and grow organic lifestyles,man?
Rousseau to Thoreau,Sierra Club to Slab City
You take the city to you whenever you camp
leaving nomadic gypsy lifestyles for permanent settlement
Even hunter-gatherers had defined perimeters/songlines and singing
changed from coast to desert,swamp to rainforest dreaming
It is when you sediment gravity enters-fences,borders,territories
Look becomes word becomes fist becomes knife becomes gun
Wild West was never won-it was taken via occupation
And repetition is simply not knowing the alchemy of association
Tribes define space,time is an Empire,territory is all we know
Outside us -aliens.Within us,too.I know me-but i don't know you!

KROMECZKA

In the lines,i kept reciting
these lines saved me

Bud,blossom,flower,weed
All change me

Crumbs from Miss Havisham's
wedding cake island

Scrooge's Christmas
Marley's vengeance

Pip to Magtwitch-
"I am Australia!"

A Tale of Two Cities
Bipolar

Less Great Expectations
More diminished expectations

There is an Oliver Twist
"More,please!"

The price of David Copperfield
Rose in Futures Markets!

"you should NOT be here!"(AVATAR)

Firing Fallujah.Burning homicides in Homs
Long ago-Dresden/Tokyo.Hiroshima/Nagasaki
Vietnam's genocide.Reparations?Apologies?
Iran lined up for bombs and bullets/assassinate scientists
We are guns/being pointed at random civilians
People forget we torture now(no Nuremberg Tribunal
Bill of Rights shredded by FBICIANSA
Do you feel secure knowing armed marshals fly with you?
That you are monitored/spied upon by your elected government?
That the ongoing wars are paid for via your taxes
Arguments that war makes for full employment
forget death is a full time job.Volunteer,soldier!
PTSD brings war home.You know what you do is wrong.
Grief and ghosts /abuse/lack of respect-for water,air,earth,fire.
Indigenous await our survivalism religions.Long ago,they chose-
as we choose.Those who live now make the rules
If you will not follow,do not rule
When it comes to Sacred Waters,Holy Mountains,Sacred Sites
You should not be here.

MAGDALENA LOVES NERUDA

"My son/he is 18/he get a tattoo of Neruda
you know Neruda?(i quote"sometimes i am tired of being a man..."
"Send me to my phone this poem"
"Magdalena-i cannot text-and i do not know your email"
"I send you my email-send me this Neruda"
He would be pleased.Lines from half a century
still sing to this young man in love.In Spanish,in Chile
in Mexico,in deep South barrio Austin,a tattoo will be etched
with the words of this poet.Poesia will sketch a life of young lovers-
outlined as permanent as love itself-where the love of these life lines
sustains and explains the tongue-blocked young
to every one who will read his storied skin..and
"sometimes i am tired of being a man...

BLUE MOON

Shadow of the father/light in younger eyes
Blind to all relating/estranged from parent skies
When We Were Very Young/our Father Who Art In Heaven
Hollow Be Thy Name.Eye am on my own
All you do is share stories of my life
Eye am my own person with my own Light
Eclipsed in His Story(versions of the Bible
lost in translation.Relations are not factual.
Myth or Truth?Cartoons settle stereotypes
Children's stories sell huge demographics
Eye only have one little shadow,one light,one life
You stole and marketed me.That story you need write..

ele/mental truths

we are as the weather is-fickle/thick/settled
we move as wind does/sluggish in Sargasso sails
we come from /end in earth.Hear my talking bones?
It is when skeletons dance in fog will i believe
we are the seasons we conceive

the last bETAMAX

the last crystal radio set
the last phonograph
the last ice sculpture
the last re-issue of TITANIC
the last cassette player
the last democracy
the last open mike
the last ploughman
the last ploughman's lunch!
the last leather(not leatherette!
the last stick shift
the last 3D 4G nerd
the last valve radio
the last valve computer
the last heart valve
the last Last Days
the lost nights
the last lines
the last sunset
the last story
your last love
(every thing remains)

love poems only!

heart outside your door-
it is yours
please claim @LOST PROPERTY OFFICE

heart outside your window-
it is mine
DO NOT RETURN!

heart inside you-
RETURN FOR POSTAGE!

hearts beating bodies
into love's submissions

heart in the sky-
WESTERN UNION!

hearts in your eyes
STEREO GRAFFITI!

hearts crinkled on the ground
AUTUMN,(again...

orchestra of hearts
puzzling mind's eyes

"words into the world"

Flags they are-saying( like birdcall-"I AM ,HEAR?"
Signalling sweet steps into the indefinite
From fog of forgetfulness through Troughs Of Despond
This journey is a pilgrimage of choice-
where we are is where we wish to be-hearing,responding
singing in an unknown future from an edited past
Every bird is right.Each to their own tree.All one sky.
FLY!

what fluids?

you see me sweat for you
dribble for you
give blood for you
what else?
shall i excrete my love?
release bodily fluids to express
my connection ?
tears are not enough!
earwax of my love
dandruff of my love!
sweat stains and secretions of my love
all fluid our linkage
solutions to bathe within
when emotions rise
tidal waves release
i surf into you
with more fluids

ROCK SOLID

This one earth we footprint/molten rock
So hot@core we dare not trespass
Staying on the surface/we worship Holy Mountains
Make Pilgrimage to Shrines /Zen Gardens/Rock Temples/Pyramids
Each one sparkles with a different light(We value diamonds more than coal
is it because we value permanence/hence buried within Pyramids?
or is it intrinsic that we adore the very Earth we will all fall into-
whether as ash or bone/there is nowhere else to go..
Even fired into space,rockets still fall with dull gravity
We are intrigued by stones-the lapidary of life
Opals dug from deep thin mines/veins within our earth/we find
Blood diamonds /King Solomon's Mines-legends of stones ,rocks,diamonds
accrued like wealth of aurum in Fort Knox.If rock alone were wealth-
this earth a mine,we all dig-to find?Strip mining/uranium poisoning
Great Green Ant Dreaming disrupted into earthquake and tornado.
Do not blame rock.Sculptors know-beauty is in flow
Rock silent-stone face-speaks only to those who already know..

EDITING DREAMS

Popular culture sells Armageddon/Rapture
What if you wanted neither Democrat nor Republican-
just a program of peace,prosperity and common sense?
Horror movie headlines would eclipse
Gentleness remembered
Your inventory of happiness would increase
Empowerment as sought via Tea Party and OCCUPY
would increase participation and decrease cynicism
How can this happen in a defeated world?
When the very air is exhausted ,water drought,earth toxic..
First is to dream the possible-next the im-
Second is to trust all dreams come true
Third is to actualize all you are to flow with these energies
Fourth is to gather with fellow dreamers
Fifth is to listen to all divergent scripts
Sixth is to apply that which is agreed as common sense
Seventh is to seek empathy/consensus
Eighth is to compound energies towards achievable goals
Ninth is to affirm,consolidate and extend all possible positives
Tenth is in your hands-what will you do next?

OCCUPY THE TEA PARTY!

"Why can't we all just get along?"(TAZER!)
90%chimp,1% bee.Reptilian brain vs Civilization.
Faith based belief systems are just that-projections
Is anything innate that cannot be contradicted or exorcised?
KOHLBERIAN ethical dilemmas are rare
(is it right to steal a drug for one's dying wife?)
Do we burn the village to save the village?
BENTHAM is dead.It is no longer
"greatest happiness for the greatest number"
Now we have pressure groups,factions,third parties,splinter groups
Philosophy morphs into psychology to explain our rationalisms
Yet for a child survivor of abortion,there is no argument
For a survivor of torture or Communism or groupthink,ditto
Cliches kill.Politics divides.Generalisms confuse."What Light
through yonder window breaks?"Burglars or police?
Lord of the Flies revealed the flaw in Tribes.
1984 and Brave New World the errors of collective thought.
Will William Gibson explicate the fictional daze we live within?
or must we turn to poets and singers,one more time-SING!

in every moment

we are challenged.Things change(we change
Our comfort zone often shrinks(dried up watering holes
Still here/still hearing.The news still grim/inhuman
Reports coming in of gunfire/massacres
Only now we do not have the white virginity youth
We are elders by age but not respect.We write solutions
for invisible audiences.We persist(plod,plod-
because it is the RIGHT thing to do.Peace.Gentleness.
A world we can actually live within.Zones and homes
where laughter can be heard-and music made,and love real.
This is no dream-it is the process we are engaged within
No bird sings in war zones.So we sing
Each bird a feather in the mask of time.
Each wing a word for peace /a rhyme set in song
You hear it best when it is made by you
for any ear that hears knows-they can make it,too...