POET'S MOUTH

No Map
(08-17-08)

Today the weather changed
Old dreams occupied
More space

Surrounded by
Upwelling clouds
Shaken by fire

An invasion of senses
Front rolling
Through earth and sky

Making known
Un-insulated
Currents

Shaking
Every thing
As one thing

More power
Imagined more
Nervous animals

No wonder
You can’t tell me
Time and temperature

In doubt
More accurate
Than knowing

What next
Old dreams?
How now?

Give me new
Dreams to map
My fears

As earth and sky
Decide what
To do with me

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Waiting To Swing
(06-18-08)

“Ha! Ha! White folks yo'all sho is a mess. Ha! Ha! Swing!”
Louis Armstrong

I can define me
But only by my actions

I can
Let
Other voices define me

I can
Let
Epochs define me

When waiting
Is my action
My choice
Is my death

Doing jazz is
Me defining me

Doing poetry is
Me defining me

Doing healing is
Me defining me

I can not define
Any
You

Am I healing?
Am I a poet?
Am I a musician?
Is it Jazz?
Is it Poetry?
Am I just white?
Am I irrelevant?

Race is the point
When I am the oppressor
The self-enslaved

What race is my voice?
Who silenced this little boy?

I silence my own voice when I don’t listen to
The enslaved
The colonized
The silenced
The survivors

In this epoch
Jazz
Poetry and
Healing
Swing hard

Culture speaks loud
Voices abound
Ears are stretched thin

The thing is

For
Thelonious, Dexter, Billie and Cecil
Langston, Toni, Sherman and Alice
Jazz
Poetry and
Healing
Wait not
For your ear
Or my ear

The mode the rhythm the tone the flow the syllable the meaning and the anticipation
Waits
For no one

I silence my own voice now when I don’t speak now

Oppressed or oppressor

Waiting
Is the wound

Listening
Is the healing

Voice
Is the power

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It is birthday time

And Mom is dead
Gone to the land of gathering
Where all mothers must go

Down here
58 years since
The original event

The birth you gave me
Keeps happening

Meaning is not found
Rough diamonds
Unearthed and polished

It is created
Nerve excitation after repeated excitation
DNA birthed protein memories

Combining unaccountably
Under decades of stratified pressure
Intensifying vibrations

Each pressed memory recombining in
Coherent legislature of ideas
The sum more than the sum

Until the jewel emerges
From the forehead a
Holograph before the eyes

Floating vibrating prism colors
Rotating so as
Not to miss any of the wonder

The father
Calling love finally
Leading without armor

The brother
Singing strong chords of family
Inviting my harmony

The sisters
Holding each other safe
Both holding father at the brink of chaos

The son
Needing me to hear
What he does he thinks he feels

The beloved
Accepting holding yearning
For all of me

Her first daughter
Seeking no credit
Claiming self care

Gives the right gift bringing
Well loved children
Magic yeast for my loss

Her second daughter
Choosing me
To share the healing stories

Her child brings to
Her husband
Her self

Until the jewel emerges
From the forehead a
Holograph before the eyes

Floating vibrating prism colors
Rotating so as
Not to miss any of the wonder

The birth you gave me
Keeps happening




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Rain comes
The time of rocks
Listens

I believe
The rocks are changed
By rain

As twining trees
Grow
And fall

I believe
The rocks are changed
By Trees

Lovers come
And go

Changed by the
Rocks they stand upon

As trees
Are changed by the
Rocks
Lovers stand upon

I believe
The rocks are changed
By lovers

Yearning

The time of rocks
Listens

To falling rain
To falling twining trees
To yearning lovers
Falling

Through
The time of
Listening rocks

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There is a beach
At Ucluelet
A small bay
Gradual beach
I can walk out forever

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My Brother’s Salvation

(02-17-07)

He
Called to say he fell down
Got himself up
Patched up his head
Got his pants on
Went down alone to dinner
At the home
And found out he was still leaking
Everyone was very helpful

He
Remembered again the call from my fearful sister
Reminding him not to commit suicide

He
Told me again how before she died
He and mom had talked
And agreed that suicide would be too tough
On the family
He asked, “Do you think I’m suicidal?”

He
Listens again to the message from mom
On the panic button reminder machine
To take his pills
Her voice telling him what to do
Giving him another chance from beyond
To prove he has free will

He
Asked me again,
“Is it insane to keep listening to her
Tell me what to do
On a recorded message
When she has been dead a month?”
I told him…
“For God’s sake you of all people have free will
And I believe you are saner than you have ever been.”

He
Told me again how…
He asked my brother to go to church with him
Dad knew he was asking his son
His wise and gentle agnostic son
To suspend his free will
They went

He
Worried over the phone
About my brother’s salvation and heaven
I told him…
“There is no better man than my brother
And that…
I believe in the God that would welcome him.”
And I said that
“Hell… I believe in the God that would welcome you, Dad.”

He
Said…”Yes.”
(Even though Mom
Who
Would take a sip of my brother’s beer
Would not have agreed quite so quickly.)

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I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

Modern human culture goes from north to south and east to west covering and polluting earth, air, and sea. We are a THE predator. The world’s most successful predator. Van Nuys and Istanbul look the same as Seattle and Tokyo. CNN is everywhere. The culture of coercion is in me and in you. We feel justified in our conflicts. Our power struggles are the apples of our eyes. We feel justified in our consumption. We want billions of things that no one has ever needed. We cringe at the wolf and the shark and the lion but they are endangered by us.

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

Animals don’t matter…
The environment doesn’t matter…
Other humans don’t matter…
Children don’t matter…
Women don’t matter…

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

How can I get you to….
What ever it takes…
They will have to go along…
I have a right to make you…
You have to…
They have to…

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

Political correctness be damned. When we repeatedly violate people they either find a way to heal or they find a way to destroy. When you don’t stop violating them many will become extremely efficient destroyers. The violated eventually stop receiving. Some will come from Ohio, some from India, some from Africa some from Florida. They did last week. They will next week, except there will be more next week. All over the world the violated are becoming the top, the Alpha, the Eater.

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.


War is human self-expression. Terrorism is a subset of war. Humans express themselves. Violated humans often express themselves through the medium of terror. Sometimes they say they have a great cause and sometimes they leave no note.

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

It is no longer the isolated mad person dredged up by war or other suffering killing tens of millions of other humans. Now it is permanent war. Permanent crisis. Now it is mass education of the permission to violate. Now it is global corporations, thousands of humans operating without a conscience. Now it is in the Madras and in the Humvee advertisement, in the church and in the public school, in the household and in the McDonalds advertisement, in the Oil Company advertisement and in the political advertisement. We are invited to consume against our self-interest, vote against our self-interest, manipulate against our self-interest and accept all manner of violation against our self-interest. We put ourselves in a senseless stupor. Not conscious. Violated. The human response to violation is rising to a crescendo none of us can measure. It will be a tsunami coming suddenly from any direction from an earthquake that has already occurred somewhere submerged.

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

Mark these words. We have set loose the weakest and the most hurt. We have ignored the manipulated, the violated, the isolated, and the starved. We have starved, and raped, and killed, and sold them lies upon lies. As humans repeatedly violate each other and the planet, the planet will find a way to heal. Humans will cleanse the planet of humans. Human beings are of the dust and we will all return to the dust. Now the planet expresses itself through us. We humans will turn ourselves to dust. The planet will throw up another. We will not be here to see.

I don’t have to prove this.

You know it and I know it.

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Not Four

(02-17-08)

Tough little bud opening
Tougher blossom

She numb to nothing
Looking the world
Into backing off

She wants to know
What you
Know

Knowing she doesn’t
Have to
Change

Except to contain
What she chooses
To keep

Except to love
Whom she chooses
To love

Pay attention to
What she chooses
To

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