RITUAL HABITUAL

i use habit to deal with forgetfulness
senior moments /gaps/ellipses
i carry keys to my cages around my neck
like some ancient mariner's albatross
i place objects in certain fixed spaces
so i can return like indigenous
and know the place for the very first time
I repeat rituals like pill taking
at certain defined hours (as per instructions)
i go to the same places when traveling
as a form of reassurance
that some things do not change
(like me)-even when hair disappear
body weight remains,with extra layers
due to sedentary patterns of behavior
I do not know if i will always be this way-
i find change hard,so stick within comfort zones
Tomorrow is today with extra time to repeat
that which has sufficed for so long is enough for me
Ritual habitual -circles within spirals-ad infinitum. Zen./
Need i say this again?

it is a blessing to us that you exist

your life a gift to yourself and us
we rejoice in your celebratory impulses
by relating,you make more joy
(some call it poetry-we call it life!
each moment you exist is extra -
heartbeats,drumbeats,flutes,guitars
the music of your smile is a start
Art is life sliced into edible proportions
Unframed and free as air,with extra emotions
Belief is a coat you wrap yourself in winters
Autumn is the Fall.We all live in Eden
with apples and pomegranates
snakes and ex-lovers.Stories are told
and shared round fires.We are in them
You live by tongue and eye and ear and touch
You are more than doubt and pasts
Art that you are makes more
This only begins when you breathe
continues when you sing and smile
becomes astonishing when you are revealed
as these lines are footprints to your heart...

even with wings

by the side of my temporary highway
stilled kookaburra with blood beak
did s/he meet glass ceiling windscreen?
stop eye/pick him/her up
wrap in blanket as in shock(warmth is love-
proceed to happy hippy land where my puppy tent
held two-one with wings,me feeding him/her
(i do not know what birds eat-snakes yes
this jackass was not laughing/his/her beak shattered
by intransigent forces(gravity,logic,weight,acceleration)
i fed her/him grass,meat,whatever i could gather
Wings come from a sacred world-this visitor of soul
was teaching me vulnerabilities and trust.
I wrapped her/him in my blue blanket
arose morning light to find s/he flown.Freed,
i left for home-with new wings
2
Kangaroo,hit by road convoy,curled,dying
Shudders waved through her /his furred flesh
I sat next as to a dying dolphin.Looked into her/his eyes
Saw thought die.One star .Black night.Stillness
All the rest was noise and damaged cars.Like death of leaping deer
swift had been this collision between the living
and what carried motion sans negotiation.
I never saw her/his leap-only last gasp when breath left
a broken body to be cleared from progress
a final chapter in the Great Leap Forward.
3.
Rescue he-largely dolphins,whales
disoriented,come to beach and die.Looks into their eyes
asking for life.Cries when eyes close/knows
choice is only time over loss.Still brings water
to wash whales back into river.Oceans we came from
disgorge cetaceans.We,now mammalian,reptilian
witness our lost origins.

"Everything worthy is under fire"(Wendell Berry)

Libraries shut down,schools closed
while police and prisons boom with pride
Books are seen as history,earth defiled
conversation reduced to txting,ipod earphones
It is not that common sense is common!
They do not pay volunteers.Demonstrate on your own time!
We smell bad air,taste worse water,degraded soils
only a few ask the necessary questions-poets,philosophers
are everywhere in decline(seen as discredited
Religions war,governments lie,music becomes muzak
art a commodity rather than initiation.Change resides
inside every one who questions.Every singular one.
No clump nor clan nor clique nor coven represents us
No flag nor symbol nor speech can save us
Your questions,marked.Your bravery,becoming different
Singular as thought,with no safety net
this exploration is in process and may never end
We are in times that have no name
Bravery is being attuned to values that will save-
others,forests,earth,air,water,the future
is in the hands of every one with hands
and all those born without.Every one is a world
Every voice can sing-and shout!Work it out!

ANGELS IN AN AEROPLANE

Bright breezy programming music on their ipods
Bubbling with Seventh Day Adventist joy
They had left their children with their husbands
and were holidaying together (two college friends)
for the first time in many years.Conversations between us
Southwest is a cheerful airline/holidays a reason to be positive
Her mother writes childrens' books/plays music
has a novel under her belt and more books on the way.
Retired from career /decided to have her life's work in play
now she is successful in a creative and personal way
and her daughter is so very proud of her-and aware
that life can get in the way .Time must be tithed for Muse
She smiles as we land,awake,aware,knowing i will write this
and she will dream her way into future expressions of...

REHEARSAL
Twenty years of BLISSNINNIES means empathic connections exist
Start with a note/a chord/each smile and launch
into revamped DEAD,Dylan,Band,Beatles,originally laundered
into a new brighter process/tonight in this garage
they beam with laughter/Mark is back from his alcohol holiday
Each has professional success in their own way
and they come together to play with a power and passion
that defines this as more than band-it becomes a work in love
demanding,petulant,astonishing,original in this-
their reason for playing...is bliss!

BROOKDALE LODGE
Lodged within redwoods in the hills above Santa Cruz
Haunted by ghosts still active as tarantulas
Blissninnies had performed here many owners ago,
and wanted to link again with this celebratory space
where band and vibe tribe might park overnight
and party without fear of driving while
Now the band is professional,loadup clear and conscious
Friends and allies volunteer for  sound and lights
CORDUROY JIM  begins,as tiedyed smilers dance in
Soon the Bliss will begin-everyone smiling and dancing
Together for two decades.Vibe Tribe survives!

SATURDAY NIGHT
and the word is OUT! The band is BACK! The music is TIGHT!
More folk filter in to fill the hall.They all want to dance!
GRANDPA's CHILI leads the night -did i mention
that members of Blissninnies were central to both support bands?
One of the great initiatives of Vibe Tribe shows was the rotation of headliners
and bands that shared members and jammed like Heaven
Tonight is no exception-by the time Blissninnies begin
the joy level has risen to SPECTACULAR PROPORTIONS!
Folk who have known each other at Festivals for Grateful Dead and Phish
weave with their children and parents among the consenting dancers
Multiple encores later,the band has cemented goodwill with everyone-
Brookdale,Vibe Tribe,volunteers,support bands,dancers
all agree-the energies were positive and sweet
BLISSNINNIES means dancing feet
and new adventures will soon levitate
those whose need for joy
brings out the bliss in every one of us!

POST SCRIPT
Two more angels visiting Round Rock
laughed all the way to Austin from San Jose airport
They had come from Burbank to visit sisters
who had lost jobs,mothers ,fathers
Their sweet pilgrimage enlightened the return
when we re-learned-adding to joy is easy=
"Add your Light to the sum of light-
and never forget your dancing feet beneath!"

every thing you say/every thing you sing

will be remembered/vibrations ring
then reside within the visible and invisible landscape
emotions cling like film to our memories
until we become what we recall/all is never lost
to be remembered is a giving and a gift
Harmonies exist -within us and around
When you speak,birds find wings
When you sing, they soar above dark clouds
"The way out is the way in"
As you recall those whose example touched your skin
so too/they become living again,fleshed in your dreams
This is as old as cave  and plant and fire-
desire is the warmth we give
Response the chorus we receive
When you speak,whole libraries rise and fall
When you sing,Akashic Records are recalled
This is the way it will always be-rivers round mountains
We are sustained by our living memories
For AL GRIERSON via STEVE BROOKS,MADELEINE MERCIER

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Californian welfare recipients can no longer use
state-issued debit cards at medical marijuana shops
for psychics,as bail bonds,in bingo halls or on cruise ships
They are also banned from tattoo parlors
And no longer can they be used to get cash from casino ATMs
Morality is money .Cash is King.And debit cards are not worth
the plastic they are issued upon.
2
San Francisco's Board of Governors have banned Happy Meals
All fast food will now be fruit and vegetables in order to get free toys
Happiness has now become a government proscribed commodity
3.
California has banned violent video games
Players no longer have the option of killing,maiming,dismembering
or sexually assaulting virtual images of a human being
Grimm's Fairy Tales are protected by the First amendment
Rap music has warning labels compulsorily stamped
All films are subject to censorship ratings
Are we not lucky to be able to separate church values from state?
Do not ask about Proposition 19
nor state aid for church schools.Fundamentally,
something is missing in these family values...

what happened was

we arrived a@the hideout to find a film crew
(independent,like the best of little austin
applying makeup to their volunteer crew
They courteously asked if they might film before
our open mike for poetry begins-of course! Yes!
so we start the art of open heart and watch
as they enact a scene whereby an actor steals bagels
and an actual barista chases them down Congress
(two,in fact,which was the only exaggeration in this scene
The weird part is-this fiction had actually happened!
Folk have attempted to steal tip jars and food and drinks
on an intermittent and irregular basis/and to see this enacted
was grist for the fiction faction that characterizes life in 2010
Three takes later,while our open mike was in full swing,two forms of art
co-existed happily-independently-freely,sans conflict/culturally
"our only enemy is a criminal culture-culture adds joy,thieves steal it"
FOR EVERY OPEN MIKE IS A VOTE FOR YOUR PERSONAL FREEDOM

SIMULACRA

our times compound-retro ages
50s cars and fashions merge with 60s peace signs
Vietnam becomes Iraq,80s Wall Street repeats
(Money Never Sleeps).We FACEBOOK based upon 90s pioneers
Our digital children assist we analogues
All our heroes dead,dying or issuing denials
No one inhaled,define "sex",i am not me
We recast our history .lie to our children
dare not replay WOODSTOCK without embarrassment
and PEACE still resonates,even with two endless occupations
Cliches ring in our ears every time we watch TV-we compare
THEN with NOW-comparisons become odious
The music downloaded but inconsequential
Familiarity becomes programming.Time stopped somewhere
and dumped us with tinnitus and sad fashion sense
while chips off our block rule with mock cynical smiles
Farewell,our youth! Hello,senescence.We forget
more than remember,and smile at what remains-
ghosts,shades.shadows,chewed memories
and a page of a book we forget to turn
just in case we might have already read it...

silence and stars

Two gifts remembered when in my desert-ears clear to hear
the sound of snakes in bush  and curled black on tarmac
eyes opened to uncountable constellations above and beyond fingers pointing
Now combine the lack of people with attunement to each night
Time slows and freezes as stars fall in slow and quick time
Earth vibrates as it moves(you can hear heartbeat earthquakes
Another life is gifted-and it is this one! Listen! Watch! Slow down-
the speed and pace changes according to where you are
Just to sit and steal time to watch stars-apart from city fed luminaries
Out where distance is forevers,deserts hold secrets they will share
only when you stop long enough to learn how time stops with you
every star is a story,every sound stolen from The Book Of Silence
Here is where you are.Cast deep in waters of skies-your eyes attune
when you look past solo moon to every point of light.Watch it pulse/vibrate
Even in stillness-movement.As it is with us,when we slow .Stop.
Become deserts.Drop distractions.Make time .Become time.Watch
this only world become many moments-filled with silences(and stars!
FOR DESERTS LIVE WITHIN US EVERYWHERE IS HERE

PANGEA ULTIMA

Earth changes continuing-predictable and un-
Hurricanes,volcanoes,tidal waves cycle and repeat
We clean up messes and repeat patterns of habitation
Housing along San Andreas Fault Line
Building in flood plains.New Orleans below sea level/
Haiti has a history of hurricanes.We cannot help ourselves.
Slowly,over eons,continents drift apart.We create illusory nation states
to divide us like Koreas.Sometimes wars unite us(Vietnam)
Yet all the while we get further and further apart
Icecaps melt/polar bears drown/global warming changes us
The heat is on and we are on the front line.
There is no other habitable planet .No moon nor space station.
We are here on a piece of rock spinning through space
with a dying sun and one old moon and some historic stars
to define our path in the moving map of our collective path.
Where we are heading separate from the earth we walk upon
even though our ashes and bones reside here
Once we relate to the fate of our only home
perhaps  we can love her /empathize with her
as she spins apart in her path further from us-
Blue planet gaia.Pangea Ultima.

BEHAVIOURAL ADVERTISING

What you love defines you/decides your choices
Voices around you influence in your allocation of energies,time and space
You can live your life clipping coupons for experience
or be"bold,brave,and resolute"in exercising your personal choices
The illusion of free will sustains us-apples?or pomegranate?
Snake?or nakedness?UNRATED or X Box?Now ?or later?
Cookies on your browser track your path.
"HTTPS Everywhere" means constant surveillance
You can encrypt to avoid eavesdroppers-yet even GOOGLE
data mines (except in Communist China!)
Those wall ads you saw in MINORITY REPORT are real-
to sell politics or dog food,the techniques are the same-
track your patterns,home in on your choices,influence change
Mediated,medicated,moderated data world
Soon -embedded chips in more than animals and Alzheimers patients
Soon-1984 in 2010.Sooner-advertising rules!(Brave New World)
Soonest-all this has already happened yesterday.
Vote 1 to change your predictable patterning!
WRITE YOUR OWN WAY OUT!