Let us begin at a place that everyone can agree

Let us begin at a place that everyone can agree.  There are too many poor people and too many wealthy people who do nothing to help the poor.  United States, for all its pomp and power is a nation of poor who are the backs that carry the wealth of the rich to their holding cellars.  Consumption, markets, fickle wants, ups and downs of demand and supply, the staggering affordable housing shortage, poor education, and lack of adequate health care are crippling my nation, my beautiful homeland, my resting place.  My mother is sick and the children are out in the cold at war with death’s promising door.

There are about 600,000 homeless people in U.S.A, that are counted for, and there are probably many more that have not been counted.  If a country with such wealth and resources, technology and potential cannot help its citizens, if in this great age of knowledge, there is no cure as of yet for poverty and instability, I must ask, is anyone looking for one?   If affordable housing is not available, where will the working poor live?  Or the sick?  Who are you working for?  What are you working for?  What are you living for?

Just in case no one ever told you, there is a better way.  Out, as far as you can perceive, the horizon of your hope and imagination, I ask you to sail the dangerous waters of the impossible, and tell me, what exactly can’t we do?

We have heard the old tales of competition and that the fittest survive, but the true tale of life and civilization, the bedrock of why we as species developed society, is cooperation.   The reason we have advanced is cooperation.  This is not some high in the sky bullshit.  This is truth; it is easier to carry a heavy load when you have help.

Freedom, potential, creativity, dreams and imagination, hard work, and fearless dedication to life, are the keys to the many locked problems that face us as the gardeners of earth.

Today I sit in a comfortable condo, off of the street and bitter cold drinking a hot cup of coffee.  There is food in my home, even a little beer and scotch.  There are plants and books and warm sweaters.  I have socks on my feet and I wear a gold ring on my finger.  Today, I am lucky and I am alive, and there are few who live better or have more joy.  I have pants, and underwear.  I have this machine that I write on that I can learn more than I can imagine.  I have music, piles of cds, files, records, and radios, and a tv.  I have everything that a woman could want.  I have tampons and nice fitting caps.  I have green tea and honey.  I have real maple syrup.  I have paints and canvas.  I have so much that sometimes, I don’t know what to do with it all.  Should I have tea or coffee?  Should I fold or hang my sweaters.  Should paint or write?  Should I listen to the public radio or Whitestripes?   Should I read the dictionary or world philosophy or physics?  Should I make a pumpkin pie or a pumpkin cake?  I am so well off that if the world could live as I there would be rejoicing and dancing and fucking, and peace, o, peace, would spread.  but of course, when I list off these things, they are not the same as a fat stack of money or a big house or a fancy car, or anything that my society considers to be wealth.  Its bunch shit.  Its bunch here today, gone tomorrow.  But what do you have that you take for granted?  Legs, arms, a full belly, medicine, a warm and secure place to live?

I know many think I am depressing or that this all negative, but for me it is the only way to exist.  I must be thankful and I must speak out, and I must bend my body to get the work done.   I have seen too much not to realize how truly wealthy I am.  Do I have needs that are yet to be met, yeah.  Do I have wants that may never be met, yeah.  Am I living an offensive life style on the labor and backs of others who suffer while I gain?  No.   Are you? And if you are, why?  If you are so damn smart and rich, successful and hard working, why don’t you help others?

Mutters and an Atmosphere

I’ve just finished a painting that will be the cover of the chapbook, Bring Your Own Cup….maybe…

Painting is not my strong suit.  I try very hard and take my time but everything I paint comes out a little weird.  The paintings look cool and are colorful –that should count for something.

There is an elephant that can paint a better elephant than me.

This is not a big deal.  I enjoy painting.  I can say a lot more with a painting than I can say with poetry or a story.  I can put what is in my mind on the canvas and there is no confusion.   I like confusion. I do but painting is more expressive of the mental images.  I like how the mind creates meaning with light and form.  Different colors set different moods.  If I could I would paint more but paints and canvas are expensive. Besides I broke my best brush.

Do you paint?  Are you good?  Why is that the talented don’t paint and creeps like myself paint?  Ok. I know a lot of great painters who paint but my favorite painters don’t paint enough.  They have jobs and lives and budgets, and well, they could make money selling their paintings.  All of my paintings are for sale.  You can buy them. Warning –they cost an arm and a leg.

They are not very good.   If you like twisted worlds of imagination, you will like them.  If you want to look at a painting, my paintings are for you.

You and I are not alike.  Our bodies and brains are lived in.  I’ve damaged mine.  You might ask how, and I might answer with a cough or ask you if you’ve ever made an atmosphere.  You will want to talk about your favorite TV show and I will discuss science and art and poetry.  I’ll play Thelonious Monks and you will say, this is weird or say you really don’t like jazz.

You’ll want me to notice your new shoes and I will talk about the obscenities of a long dead bard.   This will lead both of us down a path of desire.   I’ll desire someone who is more knowledgeable and you will want someone who is not a weirdo.

Time.  What is it exactly?  Space, what does it feel like?   Distance, why don’t you run to catch up?

Ultimately I’ll want to be a lone.   I will go into my office and finger my addiction.  I will write and read and try to comprehend what it meant for Kepler and me, to imagine.  You will watch TV and later, call your best to talk about it.

I will pace up and down the hall, muttering to myself.  I will call my soundboard, and he will belittle me and remind me how pointless my existence is.

Money is stupid.  It is convenient.  It is everywhere.  It causes the waste of natural recourses.  Spend more money, space explorers.  Earth is overcrowded.    How much money do we spend on discovering new ways to kill?   Some people can’t wait to die.  I can wait.  No, really you can cut in front of me.  I don’t care. all of you can go before me.  I have a lot on my mind.  It will take a long of time for me to sort it out.

The more space and time fabric between me and the predicable, the better.  Play the banjo or beat the drum.   Don’t run with scissors

Ever since I started painting my mind has been changing.  It is hard to put in words… Perhaps I’ll paint a poem about it.  What would that look like?  Does your brain try to build it?

Bees are not native to North America.  I love honey and the first person in 1500 something that brought those honey factories to good old u.s.a.  Do you realize that there is this beetle killing your trees?   In my past life I was a tree.  I was never an elephant, sadly. Who are these enslavedthinkers that are barking religion and confusing the masses?  It is hard enough to live.  I am a freethinker.  No one pays me to do it.  Are you afraid yet?

Radiation is a big deal. We need to build a thing you can climb into  and go ten thousand miles per hour and protect living life. How do you make an atmosphere?   Take your time, I’m never going to mars anyway.  Mars is boring.  I want to go to Andromeda

Children are stupid.  They are lazy and they are imaginative.  They don’t care about homework.  They don’t care about safety.  As a parent, you will probably ask yourself, if your child will make it to adult and if they do, what will become of them.  You’ll try very hard to teach them all you know but they won’t give a damn until you die because then they won’t be able to ask you the same questions over and over again to argue with you why you are wrong.   If they stop arguing with you then they have probably learned to accept your inferiority. It is a struggle to survive.  Have you ever got mad?  What did you do with your madness?

I burnt all my old writings.  I lit them on fire and watched them burn. It was pointless act.  I should have known better than to take matters into my hands.

I hate games.  I hate football.   Not that games are all the same or all bad.  I hate them because people use them as way to entertain themselves without thinking anything complex or new.  People want to always be entertained with simple and predictable ways.  Take riddles or ethic problems.  Children love them.  They are good for children. Adults love them too because they are simple.  They, like games have preset rules. You can comprehend them.  You can hold the whole thought in your mind with ease.  You don’t have to take notes.  football is complex. It may be the most complex game.  Watching a complex game is not the same as playing one or designing one and the game despite its ability to entertain you will not make you immortal or help you save your trees from the beetles or get honey in a jar.  It is a soap opera. You are attracted to the emotional elements.  Fan. Fanatic. A fantasist’s way to spend a day.  Fuck.  There is no way in hell I’d go back in time.  There is no way I’d pass up going on to the future.  Unless it was mars and I had no way to return.  I’m not saying I would come back.  I’m saying I’d want the option.  If you get in a boat and sail to a new land mass, when you set out and explore, your boat is waiting for you.  It will ride the waves for you. You don’t need a special suit for that.  The future, who knows what kind of suit you’ll have to wear.  One thing I am sure about though, it will not be biker leather.  That is just the way things are.  It will never be a world where everyone, even those who don’t ride motorcycles wear black leather.  Leather is old technology.  There are better fabric choices now.  What everyone in the future dressed in football attire?  I’d want to come back and slip on a pair of flops and cords.   Are you paying attention?    Wake back up,        please?

How many people died from WAR?

There is not a clear answer.  

People know how many people

died from car crashes or cigarette smoke

but they do not know how many people died from war.

 

When I use the word war I am referring to all war

related deaths, including genocide and democide.

I am including all acts of violence by groups

of persons against other persons.

 

I consider torture an act of war.  

I consider slavery an act of war. 

I believe starving people is an act of war.

That is my idea of war.

 

How many people have the drones killed?  

How many people died in the Iraq war?

How many  people died from war since 1909?

In one year, on the planet earth, how people have died from war?

 

These are questions that are on my mind.    

I want to ban war.  That is my goal. Let me ban war.

 War is not a choice for most people that find themselves in war.

 One day there is peace and the next there is war.  

 

War is out of most peoples control.  I am against that.  

I am for freedom and choice. I am for peace.

Auto De Fe For The Strong And Silent Type

I spent a life trying to explain why

my vagina didn’t make me worthless

but my heart never got it.

I tried to prove I was as accomplished as any man

who ever played but when I played my song

with the composure of  god

they said in surprised tones,

you’re pretty good for a girl.

 

I tried to show I was strong and brave

as any dick so I became a soldier

but when they brought

the dead citizens in trucks -balls of water gathered at

my eyelids and my body covered itself in

cold sweat bumps and vomit puddled my mouth.

 

I tried to say I was as well spoken

 as any  preaching stick but when the mob

came with the jeers and cheers,

 I stumbled over my words, missed the step up

tore my white suit, and exposed my sexual organs 

Embarrassed I covered myself and gagged my mouth

 with my heart’s black cloth

 

From my womb generations

have slipped out and raised

their fists in the morning light. 

I did not cry out like a man

but kept the pain inside as a secret.

When they saw no expression on my face

they looked inward to their heart’s coward.

 

I wanted to prove I was as self-reliant

as any ball sack but when I moved

 into the woods and grew my own food

and butchered my bull

they dragged me out from under my quilt and

built a funeral pyre  and tied me in the center of it.

They pilled the logs I had chopped for winter on top

 of me  in perfect order to guide

the flames  up my calves

to my thighs, and finally my eyeballs boiled.

 

I did not cry out like a man

but kept the pain inside as a secret.

When they saw no expression on my face

they looked inward to their heart’s coward.

 

 

So filled with lust and awe

they bound me with my Sunday apron strings

Hammered forks into my wrists and ankles,

banged me against the table 

and crucified me inside the kitchen

 

With my pruning knife

they gut me and hung my entrails

on the line, to dry out in the sun

and later stuffed with sausage.

 

I did not cry out like a man

but kept the pain inside as a secret.

When they saw no expression on my face

they looked inward to their heart’s coward.

 

 

I spent billions of lives trying to example why

my vaginas didn’t make me worthless

but all of my hearts never got it so with the rage

of a thousand supernovas and the blood thirst

of  humankind I did not cry out like a man

but kept the pain inside as a secret.

When they saw no expression on my face

they looked inward to their heart’s coward.

 

I murdered with their fervent lip prayers

in my ears and left an ocean of nuts and dicks.

I flooded the entire earth with spilt semen,

and called what I did, good and holy, leaving the

wombs and breasts to rule over

the lowly sticks and lumps

who are now and forever

forced to  grovel for their menstrual blood blessings

 

Excuse me but thats what happens when

Wisdom is dismissed 

Even When You Can’t Art

Even when you can’t art

anything good keep at it

Even though you’d like

to drink and fornicate and run

wild and nasty art

with a sober grip into your hurt.

There is nothing that works

out the world or fulfillment.

 

A purse must be whole

wheat bread carefully sliced

to share substance.  

Badly torn to feed the great masses

 

Double-talk

Do you know how? 

Do you because I heard you

talk like you did and had never heard

so much mash fall to the ground

before so I didn’t know if you were waiting

for to me to call bullshit or if you were serious. 

 

 

The gewgaw conversations

on  the news people watch

when waiting for a thing

to come about confuse me.

 

Where are the punch lines to

all the jokes?

Register to Vote

yesterday I registered to vote.  

 

 

Have you?  

 

Election is Nov 4th.  

 

Do not be silenced.   I can’t wait to vote. 

 

 

I can’t wait.  Yippy Peanut Butter.  

I encourage all to vote as well. 

Down with vile oppressors. 

and up with hope. ahaha

I’m an one woman mayhem

I riot in the streets alone.

Yell and wave hands-

scream war-war or peace-peace

or stop the evil please

 

Stupid is not political. Stupid

comes from not enough

blue tuna in your diet.

Vote or die

I am going to vote for Obama for president because McCain is old.

He picked Palin to tease us.  Vice president is not the same as president.  I may be a chick but i know that….where did i put my nail polish?

I know that Obama is all talk and that he probably won’t do 95%

of what he says but at least if he did it would be nice.  

 

Another thing -when was last time you heard McCain criticize torture?   

 

or Papa Bush?   

 

I’d rather vote for someone else but Obama sounds nice and he shows people that if you want 

to join the corruption game, it doesn’t matter what color you are.  Join the politics.  I love politics.

I love it when democrats talk bad about Bush.  It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.  hot coco. 

 

I love to talk crap about republicans because they have followed Bush as he were their papa.  

I am going to miss all the bushisms. that was a lot of fun. Thank you.  Bush said so many dumb things that it was hard to focus on all the important issues and vile things he was doing.  He came off as being dumb.   It was funny.  Turd blossom.   Will Obama be fun to make fun of?  no, not nearly. 

 

He is too likable.  If he does something stupid I’d feel bad for him and the shame he brought to his family and country.  Just being part of Bush’s family is a suit of shame. They are used to it.  They have learned to accept it just as we did as Bush as our President.  I know a lot of people wanted to see him impeached and so did I but the senators would not abide us.  Our politicians would not. I hope this isn’t some bad luck and we will continue to have torture and war and greed and stupidity as symbol for the white house but this game has been going on for a long time and all of the nominees are embedded with hedge-lobby-smack-gold-jet planes-blood fun.  I know this you.  You know this. 

Americans, are you as dumb as you appear to be?  I used to think that most people are smart.  I did. I thought they were smarter than me.  

 

If it sounds to good to be true it probably is……you hard that cliche before…. so If the republican or conservatives or evil people tell you something like, I love Jesus or God bless America or there is nothing wrong with torture or its not your choice to be gay or a woman shouldn’t be able to decide what goes on in her body …. they are telling you what you want to hear.

 

Just like when your spouse or kids or roommate tells you something odd, you can usually tell they are bull shitting you, well try using those same skills when listening to politics.  They are just giving you a line of bs and they are not going to take out the trash. they don’t want to. they did not forget about it they just know you can’t make them or that you are too busy to make them and will put it off for an another time. 

Point- How does gay marriage wreck your man woman marriage?  It does not wreck mine.  I am not gay and it has no affect on my marriage.  How does it affect yours?  what?   is there somewhere you rather be?

 See, politicians know that gay marriage won’t affect straight marriages.   Why should they care if a gay person wants to marry another gay person. I don’t care.  but they know you do because you uncomfortable with gay people because you think it is contagious and your kids and spouse are going to catch gay.  It doesn’t work that way.  I have gay friends and I did not get the gay from them.  I still like to have sex with husband.  

And i don’t care what the bible says, a book of faith is not the law of the land and i would not want it to be.  because people can say it means anything they want, like they do and people can use faith books like the bible to oppress and treat people bad.  

 

Point 2- Why do you want abortion to be illegal?  It is not because you think killing is wrong. That is what you say but that is not the truth.  You are not trying to protect the babies in Iraq.  what if a woman was raped or way too young and she would die if she had the baby?  You wouldn’t want her to die.  you decide that the baby had to go.  So you think its ok to kill in certain circumstances. like the death penalty or war. stop wasting your time talking about how bad abortion is and spend the time  teaching your children how babies are made and tell them about stds and take them to a doctor and make sure they have birth control and condoms. bam. You don’t like that because you feel bad about all the sex you had and you think that sex is wrong. It is not. it is good.  but you are afraid of your  sexuality and have a hard time dealing with your feelings.  so you say, just say no.  you didn’t just say no and your kids are most likely going try some sex out.  Teach them about herpies and warts with pictures.    Lots of women have abortions and do not regret it.  fact. 

teach your kids to be responsible for their choices.  bam herpies. bam abortion.  Herpies is a big problem

 

Leave the gays alone. Leave abortion alone. Worry about your own family.  Do not oppress people because of the bible. That is wrong. Love.  Turn the other cheek and oppress at your self. Bam