WEEDING &WATERING

Work is what pays-some are addicted
Play is the way free will steals time
Dolphins in captivity amusing themselves blowing bubbles
Consciousness finding new gold cage words
like Houdini to open these chains round my chest
I stretch-structures bend -to reveal how organic and real
meaning finds containers to fit form and shape
amphorae/gazelles/quick breath haiku/songline sonnets
weave of melodies in a line of guitar/stretch this world
until you meet borders.Here words stop,change languages.
Summer heat and the last of vegetables.
Before dog daze August,rainwater tanks bulbous,bursting
spring buckets of green waters for parched throat gardens to sing
I kneel in the altar (altered)earth,benedicting flowers
Weeds that sing too will soon be beheaded
I dig to the roots ,sweat out my pores
Water flows out in drops .I share more
with this earth than admittance.
Last tomatoes seem smaller,recalcitrant
Shriveled pensioners seeking Goodwill
I leave them for the season will deal
In this casino,all is seasonal-storms,cracked earth
rotate like crops,in circles.Messages of miniature harvests
Almanacs or portents?I weed and water ,as every peasant
Knowing less of what lives beneath than what comes from it

DEATH/REBIRTH/ONE LIFE?

i am on the ceiling looking down
at my body on the carpet(fascinating!
time has stopped since i coughed myself out of myself
SNAP! back (it could have been ages
car accident time.bus stop time.Yorkshire night
Stopping breathing is not the end of life
many micro-lives await our consciousness.
Poet's husband usual patriach-hard on her softness
until his heart attack saw him die on the operating table
then be brought back.from then on kind to his poet
change is a death,death is a change.no guarantees
how many of the edge,fall over/slip/accidentally
most do not return to write these warnings
become dated photographs/retro movie memories
like Yangzte river dolphins/Ganges river dolphins
Irrawaddy river dolphins-now Amazon river dolphins
Once extinct,all that is left is mutations ,myths,legends ,stories
While we are alive in our lifetimes-THAT is poetry!

May you never..

forget John Martyn (departed last January
Stormbringer of acoustic guitar/who "Couldn't love you more..
"Go down easy,John"I don't want to know
the how or why of your "Sweet little mystery
You"Glorious Fool! who caught death with a "Certain surprise
Now you are in his"Clutches "You can discover
what the other worlds are like,where there is no"Solid air
"One world moves on-you always said"Let the good times come
"May you never lack for being played in the "Small hours
"Rope Soul'd or Sapphire/you were no "John Wayne
Whether you loved "Anna or "Angeline,"they are still"Dancing
"Go easy,John-you who sang both"Head and heart
are now"Over the hill-we always loved your music-we always will.

"Bless the weather(that brought you to me
Curse the storm that takes you away...
Dear John,i was one of many who came
and paid,and sat,and listened,absorbing
your bright and bitter lyrics with shimmering acoustics
You with strings made love seem a song
You stroked that guitar like a lover-made bright
dark nights with worlds of words
we could recite .Now you are gone
like a storm that cleaned the skies
and moved on.Those who replay you
without having seen you perform live
are transistor radios(crystal radio sets
Movies will feature you on soundtracks
Tribute records will sing your praises
Yet the sharing of your anger and your Light
helped many of us broken into healing nights.
Humming "over the hills",we remember
"May you never" be forgotten like these lines.

THEORY OF HOLES

i was looking at my arm-at all the holes in skin
where hair follicles sprouted like miniature demonstrators
realized it was the same for my head-
porous skin allowing sweat and tears out and roots in
Holes in my cornea for Light to slip in(undocumented!
holes in my ears for the sound of this line
holes in nose to breathe ,holes to release fluids and solids
holes are holding my whole body community together!
i then realized the dilemma of Arkansas-
if they fixed the holes in their fences,no farmer would find workers
no roofs mended,no laborers in the heat of interrogation
Spaces define us/divide us-without them
we would be an amorphous blob-a mass where nothing could circulate
I decided to opt for space-not a race to the moon nor mars
more individual space for withdrawal from such
to have a hole to hide away in when the heat gets too intense
to be on the outside of the skin of hot debates
There are holes in arguments that keep lawyers paid
Holes in our Constitution for politicians play
And if the hole in our fences ever gets paid for
We would have a hole in our Budget(that's for ever more...

MAGIC PILL

My grandfather in his dying bed
piles of pills and potions stacked near
none of which could cure
All of which he believed-
advertising,vegetables,phlogiston,
karma,religion,secularism,affirmations
gods,gurus,doctors,saints,miracles
garlic,blueberries,green tea,kumbacha
art.music,gardening,poetry
wars,progress,real estate,"reality"
dropping salt,sugar,fats,adding exercise
faith healing(no one can hear him-
he is long gone,yet still his beliefs persists
whenever i filter my water and wash the DDT
from my(organic)garden vegetables
Long life is a lottery-a few win
most get white crosses /ashes scattered memories
held on to like blind faith in some magic pill
like ghost shirts,ghost dances,ghost cures
Polish cavalry against WW1 German tanks
thinking IF ONLY and I CAN!
our ancestors laughing
from within our garden
hear them?

F1? F---NO!

$250 million dollars of Austin's taxes
given to a for profit company
with no reimbursement nor profit share?
BAD DEAL! (NOT IN MY NAME!)
Carbon emissions and traffic densities environmental damage?
ABSOLUTELY BAD DEAL!(NOT IN MY NAME!
Haircut Governor squatting off our paying-for-his-rent
Get back to the Governor's Mansion!(until the election!-then
Let Bill White close this dumb deal down!
Who needs millionaire toy games
destroying wilderness areas?
Who needs more car pollution/traffic mess?
Who actually needs F1?Not we who live here-
it is done for the benefit of the rich
LET THEM PAY FOR IT!
Profit if ye will but not from us
We who have no interest in F1
but are stuck with a $250 million price tag
even when we can barely navigate Mopac nor IH35
Toll roads are a ripoff
Ring roads are tolled too high
Lessen the traffic mess
Drop the F1 on its profit motive
and let the rich pay for their own sports
NOT US!

sacred places

know them by absence-spirals of seashells,circles and riverflow
bend in the rock where you get off the path
and find the track invisible.Getting lost helps.
That is the purpose of deserts and distance.City cages
cede to seasedges.Sit on a beach for the waves reassurance
Slip away like a snake in a rainforest.Alone is easier
To retrieve original silences(and lost ones)
To forget time(apart from pulse/and heartbeat)
To remember who and why you are(in connection
with others and with consciousness and choice means
every path is sacred,every choice is yours.Before and after,
we will be forgotten.Who counts waves?Moons?Stars?
Who witnesses what is most important?Meaning waits
even if we rush fast past.Inside every leaf,a new forest.
In each drop,oceans.One is all in miniature.Maps hide mysteries
lest crowds demand miracles made for moments.Like this one
When you make a sacred space for breath.Time slows.
Death waits.Life pulsates through each opened cell.
There is a quality innate .Found,not made.Like a rock pool
where life in tides ,waves...Where water knows.We visit,but must go
What is most sacred might be best met in silence
Seeking with attunement and respect-via riversedge/in deserts
in the speech of rocks and stones and stars long past
Most of all..in silences...(like this one...

near the end of the night

is where the miracles occur/when musicians meld
attune in harmonies and swing in strange quixotic riffs
that exist only on the edge of jazz. Wordsters drive language
to our local dump and recycle,rocking B boys with an A license
Then she arises like a flower in a moon garden-shares one dream
about how she will live(as an affirmation
Night breaks all glass pre/tensions-listening ears spark flints
from the back of the room-a fire of at/tension
She has broken the cool! No more diffident nominalism
She is our Wikileaks,Medicine Sans Frontiers heroin/e
We become idea addicted.Then he slides in with a coup de gras
smiling songs that sparkle like the sea for tonight's last fool moon.
They stay.He holds them like lassos.Wild horses feed from him
They become wild,too.Expression now matters more than matter.
Energy wins!We have convinced ourselves that continuance and creativity
is not only viable,legal-but also pleasurable!
More wish to rise like opium poppies-
but Cinderella closing time ..Even our barista brings out his guitar
Why are we so afraid of speech?(All these years of tearful silences
Obedience fails to impress.We stay to listen to each other
File out when a guitar unfolds the origami evening
another human miracle/another revelation-
how we can hear each other(if only we stop to listen.
@THE HIDEOUT MONDAY EVENINGS 6-10pm 617 Congress

astonishment

at the utter neutrality of nature,money,other people
how words like good and god and evil and devil are empty projections
how we are here despite statistics to the contrary
how people still think anger is a passport
how re/action is not action enough
how positives pile up like a golden wedding cake
how kindness is still a key/and goodwill endless
how imagination has no borders
how birds still learn the sky,as fish the sea
how we may not even be in the middle of the story yet
how amazement clarifies detachment
how words are boats @Dunkirk(little Arks! Light canoes!
how origami stories are paper replicas
how short life is compared to stories
there may never be time to finish this.i do not mind
half a footstep upon the moon.an untouched sun.
stars so far away they vanish in time
people the same.and still we claim emotional response.
perhaps when we find out,we may make new maps
if we knew before we breathed,would we?
in this Casino,i will settle for astonishment
o! and wonder,too!it always adds more energies
whether or not we know
what
happens
next

ARTIFICIAL EMOTIONS

Before computers can replicate human errors,they need to empathize
Their programming is not self-replicating,so this is difficult
If we are to be effectively programmed(like computers)
we subject ourselves to predictable choice patterns
Somewhere in No Man's Land =RoboCop/Terminator/robots
every classic clone /Frankenstein/programmed person
indoctrinated into Catholicism/Communism/Terrorism/Capitalism
still feels unwelcome emotions(contradicting their propaganda)
Our best solution is Artificial emotions(like Artificial Intelligence)
HAVE A NICE DAY! PAPER OR PLASTIC?
WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT ORDER? I LOVE YOU!
Phrases used ad infinitum until the content is neutral
By dumbing down emotional content,we can watch TV without anger
We can believe advertising.We can lower educational standards
WE can reduce support for culture and increase wars
All of this can be achieved without sacrificing standard processes
Classes without textbooks,libraries without opening hours
No emotion will be stirred by passive witnessing
Everyone will blog.No one fill juries.Few will vote.
Of course,there will always be renegades who sense and fell and respond-
poets,singers,artists-but they will be ignored
as more monies flow to those in the know
who process emotions until there are none involved
and we can all be happily cloned.

GRAND MOTHER LEGENDS

i teach-first @UT,now @ACC
(of course ACC rip off their staff with low wages -
but who does not?And it is hard to get in to any position now
Retiring?Of course i have considered it-but refuse
My mother taught till she was 70(special education
Eventually,it all got to her-the inertia of the system
Not the students(their needs are real-
though i do ban cell phones apart from vibrate-
and texting(who can concentrate in this TV age?
They simply cannot read nor write
and automatic progression is a lie.
I was afraid once-of not having the necessities
But now i guess i will teach until i die
or until it just gets too impossible(the system that is
not the students-when i see them glow with learning
it makes it all; worthwhile

RESOLUTION
"When i turned 50,i resolved to be happy
Every moment precious.I help my neighbors
and now it is 6 years later(i do not regret a thing!
I am SO glad to meet an Australian-
is there anything else silly that you might like to buy?"
So passed Saturday morning,in the University of Learning
otherwise known as Department of Garage Sales

incrementalism

small we are.tiny turtles,sandbound,heading into deep waters
power we have not-nor influence
(we cannot even convince ourselves (about the need for changes
this antique art form (words)has become text msging
acronyms kill civilians.Muttering among us may not save rainforests
Whence then,this irrational exuberance?This joy for no reason?
Itemizing disasters finds more awaiting.
You are the line between chaos and abandon
Consciousness translates into action.All magick is reversible.
Remember Chenobyl?End of our world scenarios?Burning Kuwaiti oilfields?
Radiation lives forever.Three Mile Island.Burning rivers.Gulf deaths
just one in a long line of casualties.
Yet-remember when Thatcher closed UK coal?
Green became Welsh valleys.Air became clear.No silicosis.
Same when asbestos uncovered.Solutions abound.Alternatives await.
All it needs are folk to adapt .Slow as rain barrels ,organic gardens
Letting go of MacDonalds,Kentucky Fried.Walking again.
Battlefields can bloom flowers.We can change from wars within us
Gentle in the flowing rivers.Changing as we listen.There is wisdom.
Step by step,recycling.Re-using.Renewing.Ourselves
and this only world we live within.
(for wildflowers and the Butterfly Effect)