Amerika needs drugs

Out of the cave of your medicinal body,

brown and unadorned, illegally labeled,

your pharmaceutical wave, spotted and rainbow,

crests the white tile of this sterile

amerika.

Amerika, the wall builder, the impounder,

not wealth but spoils of war

comes from the imprisoning

of the land and humanity.

Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice for the drug dealers

of diversity with joint

force

are spilling through the cracks

of the no border lands of the mind.

Amerika, your caste system of hate

is past; a jelly belly juju of diversity

spills out

even from within your own fertile body

of antibodies

inside you.

Feed their hunger with your plenitude,

open your mouth, open your borders,

open your land to the wild

beyond your imagination.

Rejoice, rejoice

and know you must learn perforce

to take your medication whole

or be wholly annihilated;

your whitewashed history

ineluctably colored

in a juju rainbow flood

of healing.

Work in the Time of Abrupt Climate Change

I originally wrote this a couple of years ago when I first heard of abrupt climate change and the idea of exponential growth of climate disruption with numerous feedback loops versus simple linear climate change only influenced by co2. Everyone by now is noticing the effects with severe weather, fires, etc. When scientifically conservative organizations like the IPCC are raising alarming warnings things are escalating quickly. I decided to try and get this published and dissident voice a progressive news outlet was kind enough to publish it.

Work in the Time of Abrupt Climate Change

Ants scenting a line across your stoop

commuting back and forth from home to foraging.

Commuters stop and go dreading the dreaded SIG alerts

on the Devil’s own parking lot - the 405 in Los Angeles.

What a system of queens sacrificing drones we must follow,

the wealth of the many in the hands of a few

and by wealth I mean love

between the forces of death and this brilliant creation

of all living things reborn as commodities.

Do you want to be a good commodity someone’s purchased

for your work and your buying

or a bad one whose worth makes more profit

by you sitting in a jail cell rehabilitated

by making stuff for Nike at 10 cents an hour…

I lied, it’s not about love or justice but survival

and I really don’t care if the rest of you

all die and go to hell

but I need a living system to live

and maybe one for my daughter just a newborn thing.

Oh, when you wish upon a star…

My parents are not idiots

but they are idiots for what they are told

to believe and believing it

and I am an idiot for lacking the courage

to stop believing in anything

like Hope.

Our greatest achievement

no hope and still fighting the good fight,

saying things could be different, could be better

as everything we ever knew, or thought we knew,

or believed

is flooded away, blown by storms, perishes

in fire - no gods, no angels

just our unbelieving giving us wings,

our unbelief raising us up,  the last to see

or care as we, the earth and every living thing

winks out in 50, 30, 20, 10 years time

and there is no hope but still fighting the good fight.

Ants scenting a line across a front stoop.

The system of queens sacrificing their drones.

The wealth of the many in the hands of a few.

The forces of death; the creation of all living things as

commodities.

No gods, no angels,

our unbelief unfurling from our shoulders like wings

and we shall rise, the last to see and mourn

ourselves amongst the death of countless other species

on this once beautiful gaia mother earth

for all things are dying

and no more are being born.

originally published by Dissident Voice

In my poetry group, where I shared this poem, the comments seemed to center around the ideas of belief and the nature of reality until someone finally said “Can't we all just agree we are sitting in this room together?!”

That is the same way I feel about myself and all of creation being regarded by the current system as commodities. It is self-evident. But that is apparently not the case for everyone.

In the current system, the mass of the people “workers” are powerless drones guided by a powerful few – all of whom are trapped together in an illogical belief system where only profit matters. For example, in america we imprison our poor – i.e. surplus labor at incredible rates rather than create good jobs or educate them because it is more profitable for our private prison system to do so (control of citizen dissent simply an added bonus). Likewise, it is illogical to pollute a water system which you depend upon for drinking water unless it is profitable to do so and the decision makers do not live where the poison is dumped.

This system called Capitalism (both private capitalism – america and the “free world” and state capitalism – russia and china) kills and uses to exhaustion the natural systems upon which all life depends. And there is no mechanism within the system to correct itself.

Of course Capitalism may evolve into something else as it once evolved from feudalism but there are no more great land areas to take from indigenous non-capitalist peoples and there is no time as well. The coming destruction from climate change, and possibly abrupt climate change, is already leading us into the next mass extinction event – of which humans as predators on top of the food chain are particularly endangered.

One member of the poetry group, an educated man of faith, wrote in the margins of my poem, “Maybe not idiotic but 'desperate to believe'. We all need to believe in something, perhaps for our own security. Otherwise we can only focus on our own ultimate demise which could happen any time. Then there are idiots that do not believe! Idiots that think we are all dust and nothing more – evolved animals but they procreate anyway”.

I do not totally disagree, but am I an idiot because I am utterly confused by people who do not believe that this world is enough and have to believe in stories about invisible entities to feel better about themselves? And then fail to realize these same stories are also used to placate an afflicted, disgruntled population by their masters, or to create mass support and justify invasion of another's territory?

Yes, it is my belief that humans are dust – albeit star dust. But so is all of creation – we are all made of the same stuff. And although some would argue humans are evolved animals, I would argue humans “are” animals – no different than any other creature. Evolution is not hierarchical. It is the height of hubris and to my mind (considering the peril humanity has placed itself in) heretical to believe we are more than, much less, better than the rest of creation.

30 day ambulatory cardiac telemetry

30 day ambulatory cardiac telemetry

scheduled for a month of walking around

and transmitting my heart’s intentions

to the man in charge 

of such things

the man who can explain the inexplicable

of what a heart wants and needs

my heart skipping beats even when

she's not around

the normal lumbering rhythm

now a day to day uncertainty

unmasked by sticky suckers like truth

on a chest of growing crop circles

some kind of tribute or retribution

for having lived or continuing to live

the itchy peeling skin saying it’s time

to start following directions

white wire below your right clavicle

green on your left sided gut

red button tip just below your left nipple

while black is always under the armpit

don’t ask how it works, who chose the color placement

or if it was political

only know the white torso outlined in black

with the beating red heart - is you

except in the shower where singing is allowed

the wires undone

how quickly we become inured to that half-

octopus medicine under our shirts - invisibly,

unconsciously under our skin

the electricity of us passing

side to side ricocheting throughout our bodies

slowly, so slowly losing momentum

with every beat

the wires at the end of a 30 day countdown

emerging and dropping away like grace

the only thing helping us to understand



originally published by Golden Walkman Magazine

On route 66
(after the painting by Courtney Carroll)

it's all messed up,

trees with eyes and a devouring mouth

of death and infinity all tied up

with falling humans and strumming angels.

The weird thing is, thanks to my parents, I can understand it all,

except the truck, a Semi, chugging along the inexorable highway,

puffing poison, hauling who knows what from who knows where,

the green cheese sun and moon

eclipsing each other.

If only I could fit it all in to the

story I've made of my life

like the hiking loner or fisherman

gawking at the spectacle.

Let's be honest, the Semi's coming to take us

home on its windshield,

us falling – fallen humans

really have no choice

dangling, dangling on the Florida Turnpike

like a cat toy – cat's paw

of fruit and luxury

at least while the moment lasts,

for the seas are rising; the sun is setting

no matter when you were born

so let us rejoice and listen to the music

of this moment be it angel or monster tree.

How fitting the shining cross of my parents

appears to me as a real tree,

Pontius Pilate, simple gravity and wind direction,

that most holy of men to sacrifice, a thrill seeker,

the root of all evil, living simply,

or perhaps, simply living

on the earth.

And it really should end there

but Dale and Paul continue to stand and stare

thinking someone really should be calling the cops,

concluding someone else will most likely take care of it.

In the meantime,

it's too late for the cops to do anything

and even if they were here in time

what would they do about it anyways?

“Who woulda thunk it, Dale?” “Who woulda thunk it, Paul?”

they continue to commiserate with each other.

The now and hereafter captured live

and streaming for everyone to see,

so go on and grab your camera, y'all,

I can think of none better to stand with

as we gawk at the end of the show.

How to chop wood - the tin man's explanation

My dear, chopping wood

is an intimate affair involving

the cutter, the wood and

his tools.

For example, the grain of a thing

will tell you which way it yields

and which way it stands fast,

the density telling you

how much force

is needed

in order

to split it.

For chopping is not clearing brush

and neither is it sawing, my dear.

Chopping is a means of

breaking down

to constituent parts,

a way of burning away

a thing

to its essence,

its heat heating your body, your food

exactly what an individual needs

to survive.

So yes dear

when I called you nothing

but dead wood

believe me

I was only

sharpening

my ax.

Published by Non Binary Review

on these walls

~after “On Gay Wallpaper” (Williams)*

not gay wallpaper but sickly

yellow paint once finger painted

with whorls of raspberry jelly

and on bare hanging wires

not the thread of heaven

but dusty bulbs casting dim shadows

after so much daily routine

a red carpet runner indelibly wrinkled

with worn directional living

what does it say that entryways

once furred with winter jackets

are now rows of empty brass teeth

that on windows lonely rivulets rain

with no faces pressed to the cold pane

praying to any childhood god for the sun

and on these walls not gay but gilt

faint traces whispering here too was life

we, the unremembered, we too have lived

* i n s p i r e d b y W i l l i a m C a r l o s W i l l i a m s

Originally published in The Centrifugal Eye