"Don't Crucify Me, Bro!"

I am 55 years old, and since graduating from a Jesuit high school in 1985, untangling, understanding and, very often, undoing the Catholic theology into which I was submerged - quite literally - since my baptism as an infant, has been an ongoing project. While I gained some valuable perspectives from the thoughts of the Nazarene scholar of Jewish sacred texts, mystic, and cultish leader from 2000 years ago whom we refer to as "Jesus Christ," the psychological damage I suffered through my repeated exposure as a child to the lurid torture sequence of the "passion" and the nails-through-hands-and-feet-die-in-the-unceasing-Palestine-sun human crucifixion and - just as importantly - my exposure to the the stories I was told to contextualize JC's torture & murder by the Roman state was and is profound.

In this brief before-workday post, I will refer to one aspect of the context of the story of JC's torture and state-sanctioned murder, The Big Enchilada: "Christ died for your sins so you could have eternal life." No. It doesn't work that way. I do not want eternal life, at least not the eternal life described to me as a Catholic child. I do not want it. I want to live of and for the earth and for humanity and for the universe and for spirit and then I want to die. Then I want to have my remains decay and nourish the soil and the web of life (if my body is not too toxified with heavy metals, microplastics and other shit that could harm the web of life).

I reject the manipulation of the sacrifice. I only want people to sacrifice for me if they have my consent. I don't want Jesus of Nazareth to be tortured and murdered by praetorian guards for me - so that I may have "eternal life." I already have eternal life. I was incarnated here on earth and the elements from which I am made will merely and beautifully dissolve and feed life after I am dead. They will dissolve and feed eternal life, in fact (if the combination of environmental collapse and nuclear reactor meltdown doesn't totally destroy planetary life - which I do not think it will).

As regards my spirit, my consciousness, my essence - yes, of course, I would like that to persist after this flesh incarnation expires one day. But I don't even know what that means. And I do not believe that I need Jesus of Nazareth to be tortured and murdered for my spirit-consciousness-essence to perhaps persist after my death. Water sun earth life force, the sacred cycle of growth decay death rebirth already all existed for billions of years before Jesus of Nazareth ever incarnated.

Brain Tour Generation X

Saying "uncle" after thirty-five years of wage labor. The sky is a red sound you can't forget. Across the horizon, whales go crazy hearing nuclear subs perform their sonic tests. The 1960s were a possibility that was assassinated person-by-person. A woman in a polka dot dress runs through The Ambassador Hotel yelling, "We killed him! We killed Bobby Kennedy!" We were born into landscapes made by people indifferent to us. We're not meant to know of them. I'll never pick a flower or strum a guitar for Ronald Reagan, even though he projected himself across the sky of my youth like a mayonnaise packet splattering across acres of white bread. I'll never write a love poem to Oliver North, even though he was a knight sent to deliver a dead dream onto the cold front porch of my youth. I'll never drive a Winnebago onto George Bush's Jr's ranch, even though he lit up the planet like a century of torches tossed into a forest.

The Orchestra

This orchestra is playing in the future
always in the future

They are lonely, distant from us
The instruments they play will never be invented

Nobody attends their concerts
They play in empty, wooden halls

When they stay in hotels
there is only the solitary bellhop

The lace bed covers and
crystal pitchers of water

Who will ever hear
this orchestra from the future

Ulfur Hansson & his segulharpa (photo by Elísabet Daviodottir, NYT)

When Being President Backfires

Power, money, crime, deception and manipulation. Contempt for people and for the living world. Personal development stalled at age 6. Cheating and lying, cheating and lying. Such are the dubious pleasures of former President Donald John Trump. And he has walked between the raindrops for all of his life. From arch-villain Roy Cohn, he learned to strike first and always deny, to never apologize and never repent. Act more jaded and cynical than the next guy. Respect nobody. Of kindness, exercise only the artificial variety. Disdain for those who follow him and for those who oppose him. He runs his affairs as a series of crimes that can be plausibly denied. Leave no paper trail – flush the evidence, eat the documents, shit them out later. No cell phone messages, not even an email account. Threats spoken but never recorded. People are gullible, weak -- this belief forms the cornerstone of his faith. But mafia dons don't become presidents -- it's too risky, too much exposure and potential accountability. Donald could not resist: No amount of power is ever enough. Roy Cohn was not around to advise Donald against doing it. And today federal agents peered into his safe and pulled back the scrim just a little bit more...

Some Giants: Ten Poems on Jazz Composers

John Coltrane

Henry Threadgill

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Sun Ra

Pharaoh Sanders

Charles Mingus

Yusef Lateef

Thelonious Sphere Monk 

Ornette Coleman

Eric Dolphy

Earlier versions of the poems "Henry Threadgill" and "Rahsaan Roland Kirk" appeared in Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature. Some Giants was performed as a theater piece featuring the author and reedman Aaron Rybski, directed by Martha da Costa, in 2011 at Gorilla Tango Theater in Chicago.

***

rip a rhythm

from the seas

rig it to the stars

don't panic

it's just the start

***

eons of heat

burnt into score sheets

each note a dare to eternity

to throw down its gold key

John Coltrane

invested in the elements
spins a sun
and sets another system swirling
on the pulse of elvin jones’
breakneck metronome
to redefine rhythm
and therefore space time
'these are a few of my favorite things'
sings a soprano sax
so unlikely
only inevitable
like a cardinal
on green grass
it appears
to wrap minds
around new vines
scaling manhattan canyons
trane laid down sets
with monk at the five spot
said rehearsals
were 'just learning'
from sphere
eight hours at a pop
how to stop a blue train
can't be done
bends into night
sounds lonesome blue
midnight blue
blue egypt
blue ascension
blue the color of the robin's egg
in carolina hills
blue beam of starlight
on the nightingale's beak
blue stones roll
as tumbling notes
across the staff paper
blue the color of
astrological charts
strung across
the beams of night
'won't the midnight special
shine a light on me'
leadbelly memorandum
laid the table
for stone cold blues
trane could reform the
in the steam engine
of harmonic extension
medieval modes put into
brass improvisations
call it africa/brass
call it 'the spirit
made me do it'
ballads whispered
from duke ellington's piano
were information
in a glazed glass
tangerine sundown
the tenor in the hands
invocation
of the very stars
of the coming night
all was written
in your name already
coal the element
to generate steam
trane the engine
crossing the continent
in ascents and whistle-round-the-bends
so much trouble seen
refined down
to copper penny arpeggios
trane baroque tapped
onto broadway melodies
so much trouble seen
must glean some daybreak
into the coldwater flat
while the steam
of trane’s inventions
floats up
the fire escape dawn
it's time to craft a monument
alright trane will do it
in sonic sculpture
and know the rushmore
of this night
of this song
is in the ascension
up

Henry Threadgill

the ghost of buddy bolden
fire in his eyes
floats over the rooftops
of bronzeville june nights
swing a gate open
and follow a line
from the bayou
to chicago's stockyard miles
the second line drop step
of buddy bolden's gone
storyville blues
blows a highwire signal
into chase scenes around the el lines
henry threadgill passes easily
into otherworldly states
songs bloom and push forward
into fragrant skies
like bumble bees in flight
very very curious
the dreams that grow
as diamonds in washington park
fish ponds
the future is already written
in sky lightning
for those ready to see
pure sound and power
in breath
each note
must teeter on the tightrope
for the flute to bring forward
the cello to draw downward
magnetic poles battle
in the balance

heard it all
I heard it all
in the one-bedroom
overlooking the lilac tree
in bloom
the drug deals
on the corner and out
the tiny black speakers
too much sugar for a dime
was it poured into porcelain cups
in late-night edward hopper
contemplation
or drunk with the dogon
people of the dog star
who navigate all that celestial space
from red clay earth of malian midnights
eons of heat
burnt into score sheets
each note a dare to eternity
to throw down its gold key
you'll hitch your circus wagon
to her and rise over the limestone walls
of the hudson
east above the atlantic
to find a flute seen years ago
in dreamtime
of chicago twilight
henry threadgill grows melodies
in goa
blue india
blue shimmer
the alto sax line
and two tubas cannonball crush
twin guitars
sprung like jet turbines
backbeat breaks down to reveal
the cabinet of many doors
start with jelly roll reborn
to an orchestra of windmills
whinin’ boy blues of winged antelope
hovers over the land
where the buffalo roam
the sides of nickels found
by junkstore troubadors
iconoclast
eyes the tall grass
for signs of the forbidden theatre
rolling into town
try dancing to this number
we’ll choreograph the eight petals
of lotus light that only appear
on parade day
in lily pad revival
it’s showtime
it's high tide
too soon to know
if this seed will rise
into oak or baobab
let the bass be plural
and play tag with the crash cymbals
the circus wagons are on fire
so much rising up
release elements
to regain old kingdoms
of thrill magic
of the still active
kingdom of birds
risen to harmonize and ignite
what was lost on rolled scrolls
call them down now
with flute and arched bow
between major and minor
passing through dreamtime

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

roll rahsaan
rollin' out of ohio
make the lions smile
saxophone clusters mile after mile
gut bucket stride piano wiles
sawdust symphonies beguile
bop to swing to stride
the stritch glides
and the fearful hide
sing into the flute
of worlds which collide
call thee kokopelli
spirit of hunchbacked hopi
who flies the earth with flute free
maintains time and harmony
manzello tangerine melodies peak
as a cubist formation of horns
form a night vision station
born a new nation
in inflated teardrop orchestration
the orbit of elvin's snare drum
rounds saxophone solar trick sums
jaki's black key meteors stun
richard davis bass runs
what orchestra on a hill
what magical pill thrills
in these tricky dreams of will
despair?
kirk brings lunar repair
a rare bee
brewing honey from flowers
of fa so la ti
never scared easily
pulled melodies from trees
snatched rhythms from the breeze
willow weep for me
as I ascend in ecstasy
pillow keep my dreams
I’ll seek them in night’s reverie
risk it
a green and yellow gasket
pistons popping
bass drum dropping
are you ready to go?
'we’re going everywhere'
green is the color
of my true love's mind
yellow the color
of the saxophone climb
a spiral sign
a nautilus shell
curves a bit like a horn's bell
finds three horns are better than one
oceans of impetus
all rise with the sun
saxaphonium to tenor
switch to the stritch
stretch out a line
and scratch that itch
describe the first time
you heard lester live
thick notes stirring
your glass of wine
leave a hole in the tune
where the moon can
break through
and a star
fall into
wherein we can
reach you
rip a rhythm from the seas
rig it to the stars
don't panic
it's just the start

Sun Ra

an ark you were
are and always will be
tributaries of magnificence
all flow to the same sea
sonic cacophony
turns into beauty
multiplicities
of the ever-changing we
the ark rocks & navigates
levitates into galaxies
of sophisticates
john gilmore tenor lines
leave labyrinthine contrails
on the skies of your mind
ra piano figures
fly and rewind
the tapes of centuries
recorded blind
revise the future
spontaneous
combine
the benign and the unkind
reinvent the sublime
subvert sisyphus on the incline
spin gold from spools of twine
ra left his fingerprints on clouds
dreamt out loud
released the earthbound
through the sound
of the arkestra touching down
the sound of the earth
spinning round
tilted kalimbas on saturn's
sacred ground
bassism
space systems
trace the roots of your
trans-generational
bluesisms
true bliss through
blue prisms
majestic carnivals in
ra's vision

Pharoah Sanders

pharoah saunders
blows fractal fossils
free as shadows
white seas
black pearl cliffs
the universe inside an if
1000 ifs blossom inside
the skiff he sends to sea
navigation by dog star
dips the bow to see
train of okapi
scripted in martinique
impossible jasmine scent
drifts across the field
of his vision
isms he fights
through prisms of light
tears down
with solar saxophone might 
by the dawn's early shiver
breaking over the east river
like a phantom conjured
in alphabet city nights 
lofts sparking energy
of fingers pressing keys
kites bright fission
and the drum's
orphic mission
oh say can you see
500 dreams of the okapi
grazing on jasmine blossoms
under black pearl cliffs
on the shores of white seas

Charles Mingus

mingus fingers hit the bass's neck
verses surge and reach
the outer limits
where the concepts
that diminish us
dissolve into pure floating dust
charles mingus
they tried to
jim crow out his soul
but his flow could not be slowed
compositions ascend to peaks of snow
where angels fear to tread
where the devils from the old homestead
get turned away or left for dead
poured syncopated symphonies
of molten silver
wrote notes to make musicians'
fingers blister
described a line the bass and drums
would twist or
circulate above and below
a dove and a crow
conversational flow
between the sticks and the bow
oh how a man bow-legged
and a pigeon-toed
from watts in the '40s
flew musical sorties
but 'oh Lord don't let them drop
that atomic bomb on me'
and so he rolled the ocean floor
his mind flooding with scores
notes pushing the boundaries
staffs bending with memories
the tempestuous century
jazz speaking its reverie
beyond the calamity
mingus composing destiny

Yusef Lateef

pharonic blues 
to shake the river nile  

slow tambourine jangle
unravels the times
we've been undermined
strings sing of fields
delta and elysian
felt in euphratean hearts
under the moonlight
blue with the tattoo
of so much longing
true to the belief
in the splendor of coral reefs
in recumbent seas
that speak
in sparkling dawn 
colorful blinks of light
yusef lateef
the rebel who revels
revealed
peels back centuries
of decrepit thuggery 
unseals scenery of unheard music
green area of a higher plane
fans the flames of the furnace 
of higher mind or cools down 
the eternal sine and co-sine
for minds to unwind
insisting on fat riffs
drum beats like shape shifts
through estuaries of song drift
fragments of ghost ships
transformed into
nilesian bliss

Thelonious Sphere Monk

monk when I first heard you
in cuzco after machu picchu
the glacial space between your notes

the piano roll grace
warped in the right place
helicopter operator
arms to propel
defector from the
wasted vectors
lifting you from the hell
of the segregated states
of america
I had to climb in a train
the jungle the rain
to aguas calientes
up there
the thermal baths
like floating on a raft
through the stars
that rain in the andes
came back down
on the train
only this time
my brain starved
for oxygen
upside down oxen
crooked tree limbs crossing
a sip of soda
a glance out the door
brilliant corners
not seen before
and now in the hotel room
the creaky bed
the phones on my head
ruby my dear
was it something I said
all dread lifted
the sins of the
new york police
how they grifted

upended
notes bent into windows
of colored mosaic
sea glass archaic
brought with the tides
from west african shores
reflected now like pleiades
over the andes
color

Ornette Coleman

ornette
granting equal credence
to the harmony
as to the melody

and yet
we can oscillate
between the two
and reach
a crackling in blue
forget
everything
you thought you knew
about the sounds
that came before
because ornette
sets the table
for a feast in which
the water turns to wine
and our thoughts
of time dissolve into
sine equations
syncretisms
of synaptic passages
we'd barely known
but only had
to hear two horns
combine inside that zone
and suggest
the microtones
between the notes
like micro-moments
we can't hold
the shimmer
of a silvered branch
the glance that someone gave
the city squints
we blink and breathe
believe we'll see
again the leaf
the glance
the dance of light
through the haze
of these long
wandering nights
oh days we dreamt
of colorful dawns
that'd speak of a greater grace
than this old place
of bifurcated black and white
of fifty ways to leave
your love of all
you once believed
was right
but still the notes
of wonder
the lunar and solar
eclipses bewilder
all of our dreams
are without parameter
and pete ballistreri
once worked as a janitor
while nights he blew
his colemanesque truths
to audiences of twenty or two
who believed that the man
on the flying trapeze
would ascend into heaven
on the song
that he breathed

Eric Dolphy

optical illusions
on the bass clarinet
sound like sonic confusion
but it's just something
you've not met before
don't need a weathervane
to hear the song the wind gave
in europe reaching out to souls
with george gervin finger rolls of light
the vibraphone blinks blue sights
navigation signals in the blue night
for the bass to respond to upright
sending messages from
stratocumulus cool heights
tony williams drums tick tock
salvador dali trip clocks
melodies mesmerize minds
like a dream fox
dolphy watched ships 

on the seine

as they reached docks

folks flock 

stop talk

take stock 

as their jaws drop

A HUMAN TALKS TO THE PARLIAMENT OF OWLS

OWLS: OK.

HUMAN: OK.

OWLS: OK.

HUMAN: OK what?

OWLS: OK, you made it here. You can ask us anything you want.

HUMAN: OK my question is: When you are up here looking down at us, what do you find most surprising? Or most weird?

The owls rotate their heads, ruffle their wings, hoot and cluck.

OWLS: What we find most surprising, most weird, is that five days a week you work for somebody called a "boss," that he or she can tell you what to do all day, that you check your freedom at the door and then reclaim it 8 or 10 hours later. And then you're too tired to really do anything with it. We never got that. We didn't picture it turning out that way.

HUMAN: So what did you picture?

OWLS: What we pictured happening is something more along the lines of what we do. We fly around at night on our own, making our own decisions. The night air is cool across our feathers, we ride the currents and look for little critters to snatch up with our talons. Or we circle and swoop across the light of the moon. Sometimes we just sit down on tree branches and hoot.

HUMAN: So, where did we go wrong?

OWLS: Not sure. Agriculture?

Block print by Virginia Warwick, Critter Critter Creations.

Last Summer

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Crows get lost in the wind

Land on cars on cars and perch

Like onyx hood ornaments

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Children lose their minds

Walk into churches schools supermarkets

Say nobody is safe as long as I am alive

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Wind arrives to lift winged insects

Finds nothing - dust old dominoes

packing peanuts a sippy cup

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

"Why did you do it, Zechie?"

"I left seven stones down in the lithium mine

In seven lands in seven times"

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Men are growing more violent more insane

They tote piles of radiation in wheelbarrows

And dump them down our throats

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Every beast we've stolen from & terrorized

Kneels screaming on our chest during sleep

We hear only faint static & crackles

Is this the last summer in the history of the world?

Three Poems Against Tucker Carlson

REPLACEMENT: THE TUCKER CARLSON VARIATIONS

I

Tucker Carlson sold his heart

During a boring meeting in New York

Distant are the days when

He would watch goldfinches

In the 1970s La Jolla sun

Before he became “Tucker Carlson” on TV

II

He seeks a replacement

For his heart

But for now only has

The chittering laugh

Of a creature reeling yellow-eyed

Beneath a bad moon

III

Or Tucker's heart was lost slowly

Fading away reducing

Something vicious said for a dime

Something cruel ok'd in his mind

Always another ladder to scale

Or cracked bell to chime

IV

Tucker Carlson stays

One step ahead of something

He doesn't know quite what

Nothing a glib quip

A droll look cannot solve

He thinks

V

Or Tucker Carlson's heart

Suddenly vanished poof!

This can't be real he thought

Hearts don't

Just disappear

He thought

A GUY IN HIS LIVING ROOM WATCHES

TUCKER CARLSON ON TV

Here they come

Women and children marching

Down the dusty road

Fleeing one oblivion

For another

Riding on the tops of trains

Or inside boxcars

Camped out at a border

Waiting

Dislodged from history

Like tree branches broken off

And found on

The river’s edge

No climate-failed crops

No AK-47 Made In USA

No ballot box mishap

Or ambitious general

Trained in Georgia

Or coke sniffed in Manhattan

None of the Marine invasions

Stacked up in the 20th C.

Like a teetering tower of grenades

Is why this is happening

We are agents of history

We forge the new reality

Though the consequences

Are not ours

After each of our gestures

Of Odyssean will

Of commerce

The line of history is cut

We are beyond

The dynamic of return

This we deliver to them

To endure and grow stronger

It is like a gift in that way

To be more like us

We will turn them away when they arrive

Thirsty and worn by the elements

Each historical moment

Appears in the field of time

As a firefly appears in the night

Glowing and disappearing

Unbound and gone

TUCKER CARLSON IS TEARING DOWN

MY FATHER'S MIND

Tucker Carlson is tearing down

My father's mind

Hannity hammers holes in his heart

Laura Ingram lays laurels of ignorance

All around him

Dread brutes are they who say one thing

While they dig pits to bury the bones

Of the old Americans

They lead into the forests

Of charred tree desecration

People like my father

Who barely made it

Out of the 1940s

Sleeping six kids to a room

Skipping rent if it had to be

Roxbury Boston was too hot in the forties

He made it into his eighties

Now crazy men and women

Yell at him

In the Milwaukee setting sun

Saying they can make it right

They don't even know

What happened