Monday, March 27, 2017

PK Dick Said (poem)

Time out of joint
PK Dick said
He was talking
About a fold
Of the waveforce
Passage forward
The slipped joint
I saw today
On 33rd st.
Was a tulip
Who bloomed
In Feb and got
Clobbered by hail
In March
The final scene
In Do Androids
Is when the guy
Feels affection
For a gently 
Hopping bird
Then he’s not
Sure if it’s
Real or mechanical
Can they
Blur the seasons
Or erase them?
PK Dick saw
This mad spring
In his cold fevers
When his mind
Untethered
After all the speed


Wednesday, March 22, 2017

"Kumbaya" and the Anti-Empath

The United States is a culture so rooted in the isolation of the individual and the disdain for community and social values that people's attempts to bond with each other and to express empathy have earned their own derisive idioms – such as, "holding hands and singing Kumbaya," "social justice warrior," and "do-gooder." What has always remained in fashion in the United States is the detached and glossed stare of the anti-empath. Whether in his guise as a CEO, political operator, gunslinger or gangster, this emotionally wretched creature is held up as the model human we must all aspire to become. It is no wonder that those of us who reject this mad archetype are relegated to the margins of society and often exist in a state of bewilderment and unease.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Su Muro Bello / His Beautiful Wall (letras/lyrics)

Vamos a explodir su muro bello
Y crear una tormenta con el polvo
Vamos a tomar los ladrillos
Para formar un puente fuerte

Vamos a quemar los muros feos
Que se nos forman en la mente
Para demolir las fronteras
Que corren por dentro y por fuera

Música instrumental

Vamos a olvidar ese sueño
Que se llama lo americano
Que nos obliga a destruir el mundo
Para poder realizarlo

Vamos a caminar por el sendero
Que solamente se ve vagamente
Vamos a cantar en las montañas
Pa’ despertar lo que haya en los bosques

***
(Translation)

Let's blow up his beautiful wall  
And make a storm with the dust
Let’s take the bricks  
And make a strong bridge

Let’s demolish the ugly walls
That form inside our minds
And demolish the borders
That run inside and out

Let’s forget the dream
They call the American
That forces us to destroy the world  
In order to achieve it

Let’s walk along the path
That is seen only vaguely
Let’s sing in the mountains
To awake what lies in the forests



Monday, March 6, 2017

The Man Is Special

The man is special.
And if he is destructive,
lurching from one glorious
disaster to the next,
he is very special, indeed,
and will be accorded
certain permissions.
The special man
will be allowed   
to deceive & to form
baroque honeycombs
of madness for his
lovers to dwell within.

The man is special,
but the women are not.
They are as annoying bees,
buzzing in realms of viscous,
amber lunacy
that the special 
man creates -
a truth,
an entire reality,
withheld
and then revealed,
but only vaguely;
a promise offered
to a desperate heart
rendered more desperate
by the shocking actions
of the special man -
these the bees 
must process
while the special man
pursues the roguish, tortured
aspect which affords him
his unique permissions.

Finally, the special man
will set fire to the hive
and witness the bees
fall earthward,
spiraling plumes of smoke 
like machine-gunned
World War I bi-planes.
If the bees awake,
stunned and woozy
after the fall,
and point to the special man,
he will assure us
that they are crazed,
whirring insects
seeking to silence him
and his important work.