Tuesday, April 25, 2017

chocolate, klonopin & coffee

for years
i ate chocolate
took klonopin
drank coffee
and rage
rattled
within me
with the force
of the chicago el
arriving
in station
spitting sparks
like a diving
bird of fire
& on the train
i entered into
loud arguments
with strangers
who ambled the aisles
mumbling & glaring
cursing & accusing
& i was threatened
with murder
and all this because
i took klonopin
to slow the rising
dark thoughts
that had bloomed
like blood flowers
starting in ‘92
after my friend
drowned himself
himself in a tidal river
and the chocolate
and coffee
elevated a pulse
deadened by
the klonopin
everything
reacted coalesced
moving to
a smaller city
saved me from
an encounter
with death
that would not
have been
restless sleep
in a tidal river

traitors

i just watched 
a movie
about a punk rock
girl in tangier
who must drive
a car carrying drugs
from a small village
in the green
magrheb hills
back down
to tangier
cuz her band
“traitors”
has to buy
studio time
even music time
is money
sometimes
and opium
is a flight
from time
and the car
she drives
moves across
landscapes
that really
encompass centuries
of distance
from fast tangier
to the tall
swaying plant
lands of the
interior
the punk rock girl’s
family's time
in their apartment
is threatened
because they lack
money and her father
spends his time
and loses their money
playing dominoes
in a tin-shuttered room
the punk rock
girl robs a french
man of the money
he gave her for
time in bed
the film is her
gradually
mastering control
of her own mortal
time and when
explorers arrived to
a distant pacific island
and explained
to the native
people what their
pocket watches do
measuring
the divided up portions
of the day and night
the natives laughed
so hard that
they began to cry





the alphabet of notes

i'm 50 now
and i sing in C
i used to sing in D
the line of song
travels through flats
and sharps and takes
decades to reach
the final horizon
a pine cross planted
on a distant
dirt mound
a hawk tracing
sky arcs above
i’ll know
i’ve reached
the sun drop
endpoint
when i arrive at
the start of
the alphabet
of notes
where i’ll
sing in A
from the other side
with a hawk’s
sun voice

Monday, April 3, 2017

The Infinity of Funhouse Mirrors & the Preservation of The Sacred

I find myself having to avoid news about Drumpf for two reasons related to self-preservation...
1. As with all toxic narcissists and sociopaths, engagement with Drumpf projects one into the role of a bit player in a demented drama. People like Drumpf are, by definition, not inter-relational beings. To Drumpf and his ilk, other humans exist for one reason and one reason only: to be conned, exploited and manipulated -- to be gamed. When I follow the minutia of Drumpflandia, I begin to feel like a mark. Having said this, I recognize that as a citizen of this country (and of this planet), I am subject to the consequences of DumpfBannon's actions, and I will remain active in resisting the the ecocidal agenda and the rising fascist tide. However, I plan to avoid becoming a prisoner of the infinity of funhouse mirrors that constitute Drumpf's mind and his projected reality.
2. For those of us who have long been repulsed by and have rejected the American doctrine of the pursuit of one's own personal greed as the path to happiness and social harmony, what Drumpf is doing is particularly depressing. It is so not because it is something new, but rather, because it is the more naked, extreme and vulgar version of what has defined our political culture since its inception: sacrifice all – wilderness, human health and spirit, ancient cultures, everything – to allow for corporate plunder (euphemistically referred to as "economic growth"). With a double-talking Democrat as president, I was able to occasionally forget that this is the vapid and destructive agenda of the political culture I was born into. Drumpf allows for no such illusions. Thus, I avert my gaze in order to preserve what of the sacred remains in my soul. I must maintain my strength and my clarity of thought because the changes we must make run deeper than we can imagine.