We are the good guys!

We don't torture?http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121705C.shtml

Spirit Post Mortem

What was this unarticulated joy
that beat inside my chest?
That was both expected and is past,
reflected numens chanting
to my spirit, as if subdivided
in my superconsciousness--I may not
have borne them as a whole
though holy they may be...one mystery
selects a lifetime as its drum
and makes the years crescendo
poco a poco from its infancy
unto the crashing storm of age
when breath itself implodes.

I think it is too much--
a joy the mind at quest must know
and not to be endured.
I think a man must shake his fist
in protest as Beethoven did,
unable to sustain it to the end.
It is the depth and height of ecstasy
of which its single aim
is to expire.
~

This too, shall pass

There is an unseen magnet in the lure
of solitude. I seek it hungrily.
In it, I draw down silence as
a cover, insulating truth, but I
deny the need for joy. For as a boy

I sought too often, all the places that
my friends avoided, sanctuaries that
would give the groping spirit in the heart
of me some rest. Of all my friends it was
and still remains, the best. Yet finally

as age invades this shell, the mind has learned
to swim in consciousness, to question and
to laugh, to know that truth alone,
while still supreme, will also reach about
in love, and also with the cosmos that
it rules, may celebrate its restless peace.

I chase down thoughts, and wrestle with them now.
I make them work; they may not get away
with merely tantalizing fantasy.
They are the mortar of a spirit house
I'm building from a curious design
some spirit architect passed on, but it
is mine, and will bring smiles, I think, at its
grand opening.

The years are good, the friends as well, for as
they came along I saw at once that they
were not a mirror for my greed nor just
a sounding board for some vain homily
my ego had prepared--no they were sons
of God! I laughed again, but now the joy
is sung in concert in a universe
without an end.
~

To December

Racing in to us, dull season
short on daylight, long on endurance,
that for once I do not dread,
although I do not know
just what severity may come--
I laugh at old presumptions,
tattered hopes,
sophisticated fears
that seized their own close skies
and pulled them down like shrouds
around me...not this year.

A wiser soul may welcome cautiously,
arriving wnter,
tolerated for its piquancy,
its stinging air,
enough to foil the colorful bravado
of the schoolgirls' scarves,
uncompromising skirts
and blushing, sensuous knees.
And should that soul retreat to kneel
before some stodgy saint in penitence,
the stuttering shame it bears for looking
may become salvation
if indeed its god still smiles.

Mine does.
He understands old men like me
who suddenly, like frosting on the years,
will notice pleasure seeping in
between the breath of one more tomb
or its cessation in the death of gloom
that mortal skill alone creates...
Audacious men, indeed,
who sit at wizard keyboards
punching out the will of God

...and graciously forgiven.
~

For Children Only (revised)

The gentle monsters
live just over there across the hill,
and there are those who will attest
to their unerring skill
in the selection of their kill,
for they are kind, and wise and good.
Their weaponry is sanguine sweetness,
eyes upon the prize of triumph;
burial is for another's tears, not theirs,
for buried consciousness is quite enough.

And though the stain remain
upon the yellowed pages, there is more,
for war in constancy insures
a generous, perpetual supply
of heroes.
~

My Impossible Dream

To find and elect leaders who will not lie to us. Is that unreasonable? Is that too much to desire? Here in the land of the free, what kind
of freedom is that?

Reflections on Spirit Reality

If life is just what it appears
and that which we may test,
then we are just the lonely ones--
looking out between the bars
of bones, and dressed
imprudently in softest armor
spun of flesh.

A spirit may not laugh
at such a spectacle--
may not collapse in tears
as wonder such as this
is contemplated...years
of such illusion form
the phalanx of our refuge,
make our outer gates secure.

The camp is pitched upon
the edge of darkening days.
The loss of sunlight only marks
the end of fading time; one may
crumble it between the fingers
as grave dust, and turn away
to consciousness like reborn youth
inside unending day.

Perhaps we need not turn away.
It may be just remembering
that we are visitors upon the earth,
each one a changing chrysalis
beneath the light of changeless love.
Another metamorphosis is ours,
and ours again to be.
~

Molokai

I'm an island,
though aware that old John Donne
would never treat me so. He didn't know
that there are particles of me
that I would never show to anyone
...could not; the sacrifice
may not be contemplated, now
or even then. I happily
maintain the sham
that is this body, fondly gathering
my little evils deep into the nest.
Once bursting forth, they rest within
until I call them, dressed again
in camouflage.

Do not molest my island, for
not I, nor you could bear it.
Let no priest, no lover probe
beneath my skin where sepsis lies
protected from the truth,
and let no friend believe
when some seductive creed
flows trippingly across my tongue.

I am an island, here for you to love--
you who are above
a superficial loyalty,
you whom I can count on
to see past the scars--
not to look at me too closely,
never to possess me as I am,
but merely hold the fantasy
of what I wish to be.
~

To my son

The signposts come along much faster, now.
And I fear most of all not my own death
or even your own sense of loss or grief,
but my betrayal, for I cannot go
upon the road to everlasting life
that you will travel, reaching for my hand
and at the close releasing it as I
release your paper lord--and then I die
without your blest assurance
that I made him mine.

You cannot understand the god I breathe,
the one who breathes in me also-- the one
who holds his peace and thus enables me
in dying, to inflict more pain, for if
I make an honest life and then in death
deceive, I do not pull away your prayers
but neither do I then impart the love
I hold within my chest. For I do not
beneath this tent address your god or your
devotion; and thus become for you
the merest husk to blow away.

How may I speak to you of mystery?
How may I share with you
a cosmos that embraces all--a love unstoppable?
If I could creep with you upon my knees
into a throne room in the stratosphere
that our old fathers fabricated in
their heads, then I would plead that you
perceive a later portrait of
transcendence.

Then will you let me grieve with you
that you must grieve eternal loss?
(while in my heart I know with your
same certainty the opposite is true)
--That I remove the father of
the lord we love, as I suffuse a
deity beneath that canopy of truth.
I might explain forever what I know
of that supreme and drowning ocean,
overwhelming fear--but knowing inwardly,
it is what you may never see.

You own a most capricious source
of immortality. Of after life,. I do not doubt,
but see it through another spirit lens
that you have spurned, as I in turn
have laid your own aside.
There is double dying as the price
for glad reunion, and for one of us
in--creed-able surprise.
~

The Legacy of Helen Keller

We thought to care for her, to give her life
inside her tomb,
surrounding her with sound and sight
though second-hand, with all the light
of knowledge and the color of our joie
de vivre. We would create in her
a channel to a world she couldn't understand--
then revel in her gratitude.

What irony, that she, the partial woman
that we playful gods created
showed her partiality to other suns she knew
that we did not. Outrageous!
She the teacher that we had to teach
to learn? She, the one who found serenity
in that rich silence unoccluded by
the lightning swords, the battle hymns,
the marchers' vanity called truth.

No, Helen's sight emerges from a realm
that we, encumbered by the ear and eye,
must be denied, lest she let us in to see...
lest she share with us the symphony
upon her private stage, and via
some miraculous device that she
would like to give away to us who wear
our blindfolds much too readily.

I must confess to jealousy
sequestered in my shadowed room,
upon my little bench, and wishing
that I knew what Helen did, and had
resource to reach into my dark
and bring out light, too magnificent
for me alone to keep.
~

Revelation

Inside the chamber in the earth
the darkness teaches,

never ceases, though this whirling ball
sets forth its glory in a thousand frames.

Pain is the carrot on the stick, sacrifice
and sorrow just the stuff that will not sell--

yet through the stifled sobs, it resonates,
and though it gives us tears

it is the spirit provenance
that lets us travel back upon the years

and find humanity within-- locate the self
distorted, broken, brother to the adam

and the eve scarcely able to remember
paradise. The newer heaven and earth

is said to leave behind
the sorrow and the sighs

but they are gifts that mold us still
and hammer on our consciousness

that we who seek the new Jerusalem
will find it in the shroud.

I saw the broken men walk from the mines
and when I saw their eyes, I hurt like them...

I loved them, then, the black upon their skin.
I loved the knowing that they never would

grow old, their dusted lungs would be my own,
their breath grown shallow, drowning me...

that from the gift of tragedy I was enchained
within those other hearts, admitted without test,

without a crumbling document
to certify my worth before the fellowship

of those repulsive soil-stained arms
embracing me.

There is no choosing grace like this,
no pain accessible, no paradise

to promise sweetness,
for of all it is the gift most free...

down in the chamber of the earth
where wisdom hides within the dark

beneath the guise of agony.
~

Dimensions of Love

I thought to analyze this basic stuff
that is existence...taking love apart,
identifying every alias
that I could name. There was compassion and
humility; there was romance in all
its ages, and upon its fringes lurked
desire. But that must now be cast aside
as faithless, though there was compulsion deep
within, that may not be denied.

My vanity in such an exercise
was clear enough, although there was a man
named Paul who wrote a letter to his friends
in Corinth--could as well have stopped it just
as greatness loomed to crown his song about
a word, for with unconscious eloquence
he crowned himself with need of nothing more.

Old Paul knew how to say unlovely things
and seldom held his tongue,
but in this thirteenth chapter there emerged
the poet's saint, a mortal's dawning of
creation's mortar--quintessential truth.

In those post-lightning years he was no less
irascible, but bore within himself
an overflowing heart sustained by that
one ineluctable constraint that holds
us all together in a spirit sea.
~

Listen

Paradox is singing
sometimes, when you choose
to be alone.

If silence is ineffable,
there is contained within it
sadness, too...never understood,
but nourishing, feeding on the quest--
as if to widen its dimensions,
color it with that most proper dress
that makes solemnity a mode apart.

Perhaps it is the hovering
of that unconscious self
which rules us all, reaching back
to distant moments when mortality
first introduced itself...
a calm, insistent friend that we
were not yet ready to accept.

It is only now, it has become
a well of resource never dry,
the sweetness of regret
and who within its reach
escapes unbound?
~

Dream Ocean

The breathless seas expire across the shore
as if still more to dramatize decay,
as if the spirit realm were threatening;
unseen the children of the day who swim
within reality you cannot touch,
who bear no name, who are the aliens
encamped upon a planet floating in
a world of dreams.

As such, it is illusory to read
the ink upon a non-existent page,
for lucid reverie is ours when we
can touch this fleeing fantasy of skin,
and see just how it molds itself around
our skeleton, creates the apertures
that let us see and hear, the brain that lets
us stop and wonder, and the tear that takes
the moment into memory.

In such a night alone, the love we share
is just a gentle brooding shadow of
beneficence that hovers over all
the stones, the souls in flight, the messengers
of light. It is the commonality
to which we cling, and some of us
will call it God.
~

The Grace of Cowardice

Finally
I sent it off, and knew

you could ignore it,
set the piece aside, and just forget.
You could skim it, dutifully,
perhaps become enraged,
or only choose to be amused.

But no, we chose to stand together,
you and I, among the others,
in our silent tribute
to the shivering emperor

and to the noble walrus,
to the end, discreet.
~

Author! Author!

Ideas gleaned from poetry and books
should be for sale in little boxes, that
were optional at extra cost--and I
would find inside, the little people there
that I could set upon my desk, and shake
my finger at them, questionning without
offence their origin, or their descent.
And as a gentle Gulliver, perhaps,
remember to remark upon their zeal.

Of course if I found feedback from the air
that bears my voice, or from my friends who care,
I would. But yes, it is too much to ask,
and much too little to depend upon.
No wonder that the wee ones live for us!

Beware, my tiny leprechaun, for we
are scavengers who would invade the night
to capture you, for you are rare indeed.
Within your packs, the wonder drug, insight
to know, to understand, embrace, believe!
~

Look to your right for a moment

You will see that the Iraq war has now cost us over Two Hundred Billion. Do you think we have our money's worth?

Last full measure

There was Mike's famous creeping smile
and then the punch line
spoken slowly, in his style...
we laughed, and felt the pressure
in our chests, saw his hands thrown up,
and in an instant, saw him die
and that was it, no interim,
not a single second of respect
to get us ready.

Then when we came home
we couldn't say to anyone
that he was more a hero
than the rest of us; you know
it doesn't seem to be
quite fair.
~

August 16

Ignition...on
and in an hour, it was over.
One slash of time made ridicule
of caution, for the silence that he chose
was not enough; he hated it,
chose death instead,
and that without regret.

I wonder just how long it was
the engine poured its fumes
into his ambience,
and he beyond a care...
how many passed just yards away,
how many chronicles raced
past the brute unconsciousness
of the undead, as they sped by.

It was a double silence that prevailed
upon the darkening day--
a double irony as that frail candle
smoldered when its destiny
was light.
~

Please... no selling on my site!

This is a blog for poetry, opinion, and discussion of current issues. It is not for the promotion of someone's commercial blog. All, of course, are welcome and very much encouraged to leave their comments here, and visitors make it better, and more interesting. However, of late, some have left commercial "hints" publicising their own money-making activities. That is not what this site is for, and I hope this shameless activity will be ignored whenever you come across it.

His last concert

I wasn't there to hear the choir
though once I sang with them,
but I still think of Holliday
at closing--cadence coming up
and his conducting stern, impassive
just as always
with the same authority,
demanding and receiving
absolute attention,
pulling them along .

What were his thoughts, I wonder,
'mid those final measures of polyphony
when glory filled the room?

When as the homophonic chords
resolved in the "amen"
his gaze still far away, aside,
just before the cutoff,
then he turned, perhaps,
to look directly at the singers
--that faintest hint of smile appearing,

wrists in last release,
the frame of stillness introduced...
his hands suspended...
four seconds of eternity
and he stepped down
to face the last applause,
what then?

Through all the years thereafter, I am told...
they offered him the podium as guest
and he, as always
quietly declined.
~

My Higher Self

I sense him watching with amusement
at my foolishness,
though I have need of him
else I would run amok.

Yet sometimes I resent him for his caution.
Let him play within his spirit world;
for mine, though just a fantasy
outranks his in its solidity.

I must admit it is the best
illusion I could ask;
for though I know that time
may only trickle out at my life's close--
the world is on a suicidal binge,
whiIe I may stay the game

if I remain within the present, cling
to it tenaciously; mine is not
the gloomy prophet's role. I am
the celebrant, the last remaining lover
quite as much adored and unrepenting,
thank you, as your bleeding Lord.

No,
I do not mock him as do those
with ears which will not hear
or hearts that will not bleed.
I mock your truth...and as I speak my own,
that too is just a hollow creed.

May I instead look up,
enabled (not at all enlightened
by pure truth) rather by desire
to sense its fire within,
where words may never
win the day.
~

Eccles...2005

Still there, amid the change,
the girl was speaking.

There was something
in her voice as she explained--
something
blanketing her fears
and yet revealing them
for those who wished to know
...something stealing softness
from between the words
and leaving gentle crusts of doubt
within her hand, seeds not of hope,
but resignation.

It was time to celebrate the wave
that crushed the innocent, the lost,
the weak that could not stand aside.
The truth she spoke, could never be denied.

It was time, assuming power at day's end--
a time that crushed remembering.
No seamless victory, perhaps, but still enough
to make the dead capitulate.
It was time to hate.
~

Evensong

Each day at five o'clock
the shepherd leads his flock
across the bridge,
the waiting traffic in suspended time,
serene, yet unaware
that they are gifted by
uncommon grace.
~

At the Gate

He walked beside a wall that day
and knew its silent stones
held something back,
no thing that might compel him,
yet he was compelled.
It was the opposite
of everything he knew,
a state of nothingness
that even God obeyed.
Someday he would press through,
engaging it with echoed stillness
of his own.

He walked the edge
of his own consciousness
with that suspended,
ever pristine void of the unknown
beyond--another blessed question
waiting in its paradise,
the answer in its hell.
~

Earthbound

It is the night that brings the spirits forth
in some ironic twist of the mystique
for they know only of eternal day,
and play upon the dark side of the moon
as readily as frolicing at noon
on some outrageous court we cannot see
with stuffy eyes in stuffy bodies bound
in time to contrast their eternity
.
It is no wonder we compare them with
the stuff that hallucinogens promote--
that nether world of dreams that science dares
to waken from a state of fantasy,
forgetting yesterday is but today.

Some say that life is just illusion; may
I then convey my deathless gratitude
to every soul who may come by to see
this new reality I made?
~

All the reasons

why the wrong president is in office. Anyone who does not agree should be prepared to explain why the reasons are not true:

(after clicking on the link below--scroll down a bit for the actual article)

www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

Pernicious Insight

"Oh, the kitty, the kitty, the kitty!"
my litle sister cried,
as the screendoor closed behind me
on the kitten's neck.

Regrettable, I thought.
For what at ten I knew of death,
was like penumbra
on a cloudy day,
and little more of her,
at three.

Her state of shock and grief, however,
threw the flashing sun at me
and I, amazed,
could see how poignantly
I loved her.
~

In my Studio

I know that I must not exist

in synchronicity with you

nor may my soul create

within this lumbering

and evanescent form,

an odyssey of light,

no, not alone--

it takes a higher self

that I do not remember very well,

to make it swell

within a breathless chest--

that this is art!

That search within goes on,

for what is there that speaks?

What tiny cell is fired,

freeing up the stuff to change

a universe?

Or is there mystic sperm and egg uniting

there within a spirit womb,

there in a microscopic cosmos?

Might there be a spirit bishop

or a phantom God

to launch the swarm of particles

in Botticelli's mind?

There go my children,

fending for themselves

and never looking back

upon their hollow birthplace.

You and I are equally

without a clue to where we came from,

how or why, or what the process means.

And when I graduate to death,

quite willing to forsake my breath,

not wonder, (for a heaven of answers

surely is my hell) I'll not neglect

as my last opus, to create

a gracious God who may

receive my gratitude.

~

Connection challenged

I just remembered.
It nearly got away from me...
the day you died, nine years ago.
Even then, you let 800 miles come between us;
you are closer now
than you were then--

you simply died at your own hand,
and that was it. That passageway
is now as filled with rock.
I heard you call just once
although you typed hellos,
i love yous, notes like that,
and then the probe comes through
once in awhile.,
getting just a little better.

I will wait
and further store my love
like bricks of gold
stacked in the vault
somewhere near that damn tunnel,
800 spirit miles
of instant flight for you,
solid mystery for me.

I have time.
I'll wait.

From a better poet than I:

"Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people's plight.
Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.
Help me take responsiblity for my own life;
So that I can feel free at last.
Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.
Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with other workers.
Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.
Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world."
~Cesar Chavez

Read what Cindy Sheehan has to say

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sheehan/sheehan10.html

The Inner Circle

(Thanks to Barbara Mades for the inspiration)

I've learned to deal with funerals.
They celebrate a history both far and fresh,
cementing it with closure just as earth
would close a grave.

There's not much room for victory,
despite the words of triumph in the rite.
But all the faithful ones
who could and would be there,
looking at the moment of departure
saw transcendence
at the bedside or the battlement
and drew upon resources
that they never knew they had--

not I, apart, spared from
the crisis, glory-drenched,
that turns good-bye
into transforming art.
Not I, the chosen one
to see the flight
to timelessness.

It is this tiny brittle stone
in shattering
that marks the apex of a pathway
that humanity or other
walks no more.
The confraternity of those
who walked with them until the end,
alone will understand.
~

Some words we need to hear

"A Feast of Death "
By William Rivers Pitt /T r u t h o u t Perspective

Now thou art come unto a feast of death. - William Shakespeare, Henry VI

On Tuesday, some took solemn note of the fact that the total number of "Coalition" fatalities from the invasion and occupation of Iraq had reached 2,000. On Wednesday afternoon, that number blurred upwards again to 2,015 dead soldiers. 1,821 of those served under the American flag. Fourteen US Marines died on Wednesday when their vehicle was shattered by a large bomb. Six other Marines were killed together on Monday, and a seventh is reportedly being held hostage. Two more Marines also died Monday, both from car bombings in separate locations. We are only three days into the month of August, and 22 US soldiers are dead. 54 died in July, 78 died in June, and 80 died in May. The occupation has lasted 868 days. More than two thousand soldiers, almost all of them young American boys and girls, have had the life blasted out of them because they were sent by their commander in chief to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Those soldiers who remain, those soldiers who have been redeployed into the war zone two or three times already, wait with grim resolve to be brought home to their families whole and sane and safe.

Acclaimed novelist E.L. Doctorow has penned some words about George W. Bush and his understanding of death and this war. "This president," wrote Doctorow, "does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country." "But you study him," continued Doctorow, "you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life. They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq. How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing."

The occupation of Iraq is almost a thousand days old now, and as the self-serving justifications for invasion wither in the desert sun, as the neo-conservative "Bush Doctrine" collapses in a swelling flood of blood and total failure, as more and more people see impeachment as a moral necessity, as those who stand in opposition wonder what they can do to thwart a corrupt and crazed administration that exists entirely without checks and balances, there remains one act of defiance and strength and solidarity that cannot be ignored. On Saturday, September 24th, there will be a protest in Washington DC. This gathering could possibly dwarf all previous demonstrations against this administration. That weekend will see far more than a protest. On the 25th, Progressive Democrats of America will host a wide-ranging strategy session at the David A. Clarke School of Law on Connecticut Avenue. The purpose of this gathering will be to prepare progressive legislative and electoral strategies for the 2006 midterm elections. That Monday the 26th, activists will be walking up and down the halls of the House of Representatives to lobby congresspeople to demand a withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

That is for September. This very weekend will see another gathering in Dallas, Texas. The Veterans for Peace are holding their national convention from the 4th through the 7th, and will be celebrating their 20th year as an organization of military veterans committed to ending war, and specifically to ending the occupation of Iraq. Among those who will be speaking in Dallas will be Dahr Jamail, the courageous journalist who spent months in the most dangerous places in Iraq so he could tell the world what is really happening there. Michael Hoffman, a lance corporal in the Marines who participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and returned to form Iraq Veterans Against the War, will also be speaking. Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, will be speaking as a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. Those who would defend Mr. Bush and his deranged war policies are fond of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic, un-American cowards. In Dallas this weekend, there will be a journalist who risked his life over and over to report the truth of Iraq from within. There will be a Marine who fought in Iraq and returned to organize against the war. There will be a mother whose sacrifice and sorrow is beyond description. There will be hundreds of veterans who have served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and elsewhere, who stand now for peace and the end of the occupation.

It has been a hot summer so far, and this feast of death continues in Iraq with no end in sight. The Veterans for Peace, the Gold Star mothers, the Iraq veterans, the journalists who have seen the reality of Iraq, and the hundreds of thousands coming to Washington in September appear to have every intention of making this summer hotter still.
~

An Odyssey Untouched

In the beginning was the truth transcending
Alpha and Omega--too dazzling to catch
the human eye.--too patient in its vigil
through the trillion years of night. And
there were gods aborning, fanciful creations
of the creatures from the sea,
who learned to breathe and watch
the warfare in the sky and finally to write
about the wonder of it.
.
Then there was El, Baal, and Elohim,
Astarte, Gaia, Artemis
and hundreds more
upon their heavenly thrones
who played among the dust and lust
of Earth, and made the Nephilim
to rise from bones, and blood, and art.

So humankind cherished their gods
and goddesses, but at a decent length...
it would not do to genuflect too much,
to bare too much of angst
before the peerage bar, to tremble
as one more is turned away
short of the mercy seat-though justice
cries somewhere, and that lament
is strained.

And there were some who looked beyond Olympus
to the trees, the starry trails,
the ether of another time,
the silent void that speaks of worlds unseen--
and some are watching still.
(Some look back at them as quanta flash
across the ether, forth and back again!)

There are no heroes in this self-effacing song.
No dragons slain, no perfidy one may lament--
A boy in wornout coveralls may see the glory
his allowance could not buy...but then, alas, forget.

He sees his counterparts and wonders.
Do they wonder too?
Do they look back before their birth,
ahead beyond the tomb?
Do his feet retrace the prints of wonderers
who walked the timeline, knew they did not walk
as prisoners alone,
both breathing and creating history?

The boy sweeps up those sixty-seven years,
departs the stage
and violates his youth with wisdom
no one wanted, a breath of history
that no one understood, and few regret.

Souls have their day upon each earth home.
Some reach out when interfering eyes have closed,
creating mystic openings they never knew were there.
Others feed on prayer...alone.

Then It is All Souls Day
and time is but an artifice
that lets the work be done;
it is the enemy of little boys in coveralls--
of high school graduates like you.
Remember?
You seized the little summer there
before the car was loaded for the trip
to academia...the precious time
for meadow basking underneath the clouds,
the time to entertain regret
for words you did not speak
to that shy pretty girl who smiled at you
the day her life crossed yours.

You were the one who wondered.
You were the one to store up lifetimes.
You were the one to cast out gods,
creating new ones, fallible
but somehow more enlightened,
more accessible when awe, not fear
is the transcendant path.

It is a day for souls to gather.
It is a day for songs, and weeping,
looking back and forth along the timeline,
unashamed to introspect.
It is a day to know salvation never was
an instrument of God, but of ourselves.
It is the heaven only we create.
~

Just for fun

Unique

Were I inclined to be
a double personality,
I might impart to such a phantom twin
the power to create within
a prototype of his own self,
and then there would be three
or none at all,
if you may follow me.

Such magic maunderings
do have their way of teaching
that the quality to be unique
that may be present in the mind
quite possibly defeats itself
by replicating, don't you see?

...and finally, perhaps to sigh,
to draw it all within
and disappear.
~

Another Road Less Traveled

They are nothing
if not taciturn--these spirit travelers.
They do not shock, or ridicule,
for they are single-minded in their quest
for timeless realms where magic dragons play
and roar for joy that cannot be contained
unless they are ignored for brighter flames
that drown the seas around their mystic shore.

They are not much
for words or diadems of thought to sway
the psyche, win the day, or call to arms
a soldier, surfeited with war or from
a restive peace. Theirs is the steady breath
to leave one breathless, voiceless, more removed
from what a dawning day reveals than they
had ever been before, and more in tune
with universal song,

although they do not sing,
for their metier is listening. and that
is quite unspeakable--they do invite
us yet, to take their hand and come along.
The journey is not wearying , and rest
awaits the patient ones. Vacation at
the cosmic level is the prize received
unending and forever new,
~

Challenge me!

I am an independent thinker. While I am no better educated, nor more sophisticated or knowledgeable than the average person who has been to college, I do have very unorthodox opinions about God, society and politics. It is highly unlikely that anyone who comes to this blog to read, will find all of those opinions compatible with kira own.

This being the case, why don't you raise an issue or two? When you disagree with me, tell me why...or at least ask me why I take that position. Tell me about yours, and why you take it. Invite me to argue with you. (I promise to be polite and respectful). This is the only way I know of that each of us may grow, may learn, and may ultimately be better informed. If we go about as little islands that no one else may visit, how do we impact the world...how do we express what we believe. How do we encourage thinking? As for me, I hunger for this. Is it not worthwhile? May we not grow together, and perhaps ultimately influence someone else as well?

You may respond to the blog directly, or contact me by email...read down to learn how. Will you come out of the closet? And, no, there is no implication to the question. :-)

Further thoughts on meditation

Openness, it seems to me, is the primary ingredient in producing a satisfactory meditation. Obviously success, positive benefits, or at least gratification are the goals of any worthwhile activity. However, in meditation, one may not concentrate on those goals in the actual process. If ke places kiraself in a postion of assertion, there is no room for the benefit to "get in." Only a faithful confidence that one is doing the right thing, has any real hope of producing satisfaction. This seems to be true, whether the inner journey is truly into the self, or an opening to some sort of divine intervention. Obviously one must be committed to the concept of meditation as something desirable, but as soon as one starts looking for revelation, or immediate fulfillment, the opportunity is lost. When I can tell myself (and then forget the effort of telling) that a deeper immersion into the realm of the spirit (however I may define that) is in itself worthwhile, that is when I become open to the often amazing experience of transcendance. It doesn't seem to happen to the same degree every time, but I seldom emerg from my period of meditation without some very positive impressions of the experience. For the novice meditator, it is worth "hanging in there." Meditation has become my way of praying. It is not a time for self-examination, valuable as that may be. It is a time for wonder and awe...the numinous in action.

My religious faith--as of 7/10/2005 (not a poem)

Universal Mind is my God, and I am part of it. If dualism is wrong
(and every indication of it points to that.....friend vs enemy, good
vs evil, God vs Devil, white vs black, right vs left, truth vs
deception, we vs they, ours vs theirs, public vs private, sin vs
purity, triumph vs surrendur, moral vs profligate, loyalty vs
betrayal, justice vs license, procreation vs lust, power vs
appeasement) and God is not a being (if he is, biblical
descriptions of "him" make him a lousy one)...then Unity is the
order of the universe (anything else is incomplete) and UM both
surrounds and is inside all that is. It is love, and nothing else. It
is what captures me and captivates me. I do not pray to it,
although I do express my gratitude for the state of order it rules.
How that state of order was created, if it ever was, is beyond my
understanding, or ability to define. For me to try to approach such a concept would bring us right back to dualism again. It is I,
and I, in a state of incompletion) am it. It is the only God I have.
Yes, call it the spirit of God if you wish, and in that sense,
Genesis was correct. Spirit--Universal Mind--moves over the
face of the waters. I feel it groaning...inside me.

Quizas

Across the universe a quantum flashed
"Hello" to resonate a billion, no
a billion trillion miles behind the plane
on which I stood. I missed it, but the one
apart did not, and dialogue began,
perhaps a son of man saw flames leap out
a billion ages hence. Perhaps the spark
that eyes could never see ignited war,
or peace, or some outrageous fantasy
within the newborn mind of God.

Perhaps the quanta still flash forth and back
in that same frail, persistent prototype
of love.

Perhaps we miss it still.
~

Prologue to Eternity

I draw into the artificial womb
and travel from the day upon my breath
until dimension fades, a silent shift
occurs, and there is no more self to pad
the absolute, yet from the depth emerg
the wonders of an ambience that I
shall only know in full when breath is gone
and I slough off this cumbrous body for
a flight of some flirtacious fantasy
which I perceive is hovering, perhaps
in readiness beyond the mist.

Until that time I long to tell you more,
but cannot, but to say that even this
is more than words or wonder will allow--
no god I ever met would try to speak
of it, nor lover of the truth reveal
that which I daily see. and know, and feel.

What tumult lies within the thought that you,
the reader, may elect to come along
one golden day--or let it slip away!
~

At her interment

I know.
I know that love is old
and that the young
can slough it off as merely
hormonal--cosmetic preparation
for maturity, but they do it
at some peril as a life retreats
behind some shadow it contrived
for self-protection--
some reality it built to stand
against a deeper longing--
teaching it to whisper at them,
"Not a chance!"

Yet there is older wisdom,
pulling at the years and entering
its wiser plea to "Stop!
Go back before it is too late."

And each will hear,
and most will turn away
and gather up the years
until the day fades
like an aging coverlet.
And then the stone is set
until it too returns to dust,
and even love forgets.
~

Her hundreth birthday party

It was quiet in the meeting room
just down the hall, as I came in.
I knew that she would be, as well.

And there she was, propped in her wheel chair,
body in pink jumpsuit, cocked
far to the side, not quite asleep.

For her, there was no false facade.
One saw, and got a mumbling ancienne
and no apologies.

Then suddenly it was time
for people, punch, and platitudes,
kids and candy mints and cake.

The honored guest forsaken,
just as if she were not there,
reached out...I saw her once,

accepting then one small remembrance,
but too late, the speaker
had already turned away

and I, but for the press of day,
had need to cry; they missed it,
souls who turned hello into goodbye.

The small ones never really knew you, mom,
and that's ok; your spirit longs
to break away. The authors

of the books you knew, will soon
make room for Elna in their dusty rooms
along a corridor in paradise

where dusty reticence is blown away
by one enchanted newborn breath
of joy.
~

Upon this Rock

Join with me now in the creation of a faith;
may yours become the portrait
of the father of a God.
Give us the words
that we may spread the glory 'round.

Faith is the flight, we're told,
to know that which cannot be grasped
....that which is not,
in fact, it is beyond
no thing at all.

What it becomes, is footsteps of the mind
directed well past any time we know
or any universe;
we may elect when we may go,
but never when we may return.

But isn't that the nicest thing
about a faith?--
that there are no demands...no limits...
nothing to define.

And so on second thought,
you need no words at all.
~

Bottles in the Sea

Hundreds

at the bottom in a finite reading
of forever, never rising,
washed onto an island shore,
caught in mangrove roots somewhere,
or floating still upon the wavelets.

Those well-sealed imprint
a consciousness alive
that breathes its shred of wisdom
on the window of the years,

and wait.
~

Epilogue

There are too many miracles invading the earth--
too many old ones, given short shrift,
gratuitous, and faded yellow.
I'd like to make a moratorium on time,
then stoop to look at them,
allow my fingers simpler luxuries
before they race away.
I see a page of jerks and starts,
forgotten hiccups, little coffins closed
and never locked. awaiting my return.
Something knew.

Now when the end arrives, I too
will think again of my own plodding
sentences that covered up the gaps.
While hoping it was not, I knew the pretense.
There was too much to do.

It seems to be a good thing
that lamentations can be second-hand.
To make a literary bent a slave
to such convenience it could trick a cardinal.
Or me.

Might it then be
for such nefarious purpose
that good prophet Jeremy lives on?
~

Iconoclast

We do not die; we live.
To call it "after life" is a mistake.
Consciousness is life, life is love,
and love is reaching.
It cannot stop, only be forgotten
after a new birth when the mother planet
conspires with ego.
Then it is that a man
becomes born again...
or wallows in the womb.
~

Caesura

I thought the night came in like fog,
like quanta, in degree,
the cosmic umbra of a consciousness.
But falling was the better choice,
a trembling twilight curtain,
then the blanket of the day
that threw itself at that last peace
and set the scene where all the particles
of dust were past remembering;
the skydome opened,
the latent breath a mystery.

Here was a portrait sketched in blackness
from beyond the now...
the unknown second uncreated,
time in its arrest.
And yet to come?
~

Meditation on solitude

The light along the bay burned through the night
as if to emphasize the dark, not tame
it, throw the hours upon slow fire and show
that one keeps watch, and may not sleep, as if
there hovered over him a stillness he
could not profane.

From each high moment's passing ecstasy
a stubborn and exasperating love
lurked underneath, fed by a god, perhaps.
There was a wrenching, nagging urge to change,
to weep for those who can no longer weep
and offer them the tears. He knew

that every soul who finds himself alone
upon the stage when pomp and circumstance
is over, then might contemplate the bag
of lenses that he took from all the years
before, and testing one.......his very own,
would look for some far palace on the hill.

Alas

The child of every age is prisoner
between soft barricades of stubborn self.
No wonder death is the escape of choice,
for everyone makes change of circumstance
but when the night arrives the walls still hold,
the shackles are secure and freedom is
a strange and distant song.

He would not sing to dawn, unthinkable.
For set apart, his journey was within,
the walls his covering, and their soft flesh
his eminent domain. And all we need
to see is just the light reflecting there
upon the water, through the endless night.
~

Pet Peeves

OK, everybody, it's time to air our frustrations. Perhaps all of us can gain some insight by hearing about how others view certain things.

My own concerns include frustration with careless language usage. Nearly every mature person these days has at least been through high school. Why is it, then, that we have difficulty exressing ourselves beyond the fourth grade level? There should really be no confusion about the difference between "lie" and "lay"--among "their," "there," and "they're," between "jibe" and "jive," between "its" and "it's," between "to" and "too", and believe it or not, between "knew" and "new!" There are a number of other careless expressions as well. Generations ago we let the "setting sun" slip by to replace "sitting" and that is not recoverable, but most common errors are today. One has only to read essays written by academia to be aware that good usage is still respected by those who care. Of course there have been serious proposals to make english a phonetic language, and they make sense with respect to an example or two, but carrying such a trend to its logical conclusion would produce an almost unreadable result for most of us.

So that is just one of my own "pet peeves." Your reactions would be interesting, as would the sharing of your own concerns, and of course they do not have to be limited to language usage. Mores, custom, too-casual attitudes about work, corporate and governmental power, distortions to influence thinking, and much more, are all fair game. What do you think?

A bit of arrogance

Today I am assuming leadership (realizing that my chances are next to nil) in a cause that I have long endorsed. In these times of "political correctness" one of the accommodations that is definitely catching on, is inclusive language. English needs a neutral pronoun, desperately..."he" is no longer an acceptable substitute for "s/he", "he or she", "it" or "their" when a trans-gendered reference in pronoun form is needed. And, it borders on the ridiculous, when referring to a deity.Accordingly, whenever a gender-free pronoun is needed, I am suggesting "ke" (pronounced KAY) for the pronoun in nominative case, and "kira" (pronounced KEE-ruh) for the objective and possessive cases "him, her, his and hers" and pledge myself to use them henceforth whenever indicated, until someone suggests a better alternative. Of course, the traditional forms would be retained in the majority of cases where they suffice--males would still be "he" and females still "she." Remembering the "rule" is simple: When a non-gendered pronoun is desired, use "ke" instead of "he" and "kira" in place of "him" or "his." Thus for inclusive non-sexism, and theological use , as an example, I present my latest poem:
Divine Paradox

The greatest glory is the silent God
in kira wisdom meeting prayers without
a single answer, yet in kira grace
imparting breath to every soul in quest
of mystery.

Ke who would disagree might well recall,
ke cannot teach the one who knows it all.
There is no spark, no fire in what is done
to speed a victory already won.
A cosmic invitation to the dance
is life, a cosmic "yes" a fatal trance
imposed for every lethargy to come.
~

posted by Dean at 4:59 PM

Comments:
LolaMaria said...
First question: ~ what is the root of your new non-gender pronoun... is it Latin?second, ~ Did you know that there are genderless pronouns now being used?Quote:Depending on how one counts, there are between three and five groups using GNP's (gender neutral pronouns) actively on the Net. The two most popular seem to be "sie, hir, hir, hirs, hirself", (especially "hir"), and "zie, zir, zir, zirs, zirself". The latter apparently came into being after a German-speaking netizen objected to "sie" and "Sie", which in many contexts means "she" in German. Third and fourth, differing only in the first and maybe last word, are "e or ey, em, eir, eirs, eirself or emself". Fifth, some people use "per", from "person", which i assume has the set "per, per, pers, pers, persself", although i've never seen it developed that far. I've not actually seen this in use on the net, but i've seen people on the net who claimed to use it all the time in their own lives.For an excellent discussion of gender-neutral pronouns, see John Williams's site at GNP. Here's the link:http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/John's page is #1 of about 2,400 in its class, on Google searches. "Words and Women" by Casey Miller and Kate Smith is a great book about the genderless pronoun.
12:52 PM
Dean said...
To answer, the "root" is the process of elimination, not a particular other language. Contrary to most of the suggestions you refer me to, mine are simple, include the deity (whoever ke may be), use only two substitutes, and should be easy to remember. With respect to the discussion linked here, I'll put my own suggestions up as a better solution.
4:52 PM

My Heresy

I like my God much better than the one
who made his home up in the stratosphere
and favored us with visits now and then,
harrumphing down below about the way
that we behave, and tantalizing us
with sticks and carrots grown especially
for those who said the secret word or not,
by having properly proclaimed one man
a king: all this, of course. was indirect.
The voice of supernature wasn't heard;
the being had a handicap as beings will,
and yet the silence was as heaven-sent.
For I, the fallen one, would live because
the son would die. That was the sense of it.

But making sense is for the sensible,
and arms and legs and progeny fall short
of that pure consciousness which stubbornly
insists on such intangibles as wind
and breath and spirit time to mark
its age, its truth, and its enlightenment.

It is in such an ocean that I swim;
It is in such transcendant holiness
that I perceive a new enlightenment
to scale the mountaintops, to part the mist,
and finally to show the face of God.
~

Home

It was more than sentiment, more than familiar,
more than that persistent love
impossibly respiring in the corners
when the other occupants left me alone
one weekend.
It was the empty chair, left out of place,
uncaring whether its last user might return,
identity secure in its distinctive history--
sensed more than known.

Now I marvel at the ease
of turning back the years,
and in the picture of a memory
to see not words or faces,
merely furniture, a still in time,
a mental photograph,
poised to take again its function
hours or centuries ahead, no matter;
I, caught standing there
inside the silent room,
gave welcome to the flooded chest
that comes from that outrageous mix
of absolute contentment
and the pain of loneliness.

The mind is fond of this obsessive gazing,
tracing the indelible perspective
of a moment that would never count
as even an event,
never take its place in stories
one would share--
and yet make wonderment a part
of those few dust-encrusted seconds
long ago
when only pathos was perfection...

It was then I knew
for once I did not dare
to take a single step away.
I've not been home again.
~

The Courage to Be

This little two-stanza ditty may not be the best poem I have ever written, but I consider it the most important. Until a few days ago, I never realized how much of ourselves we bring to all experience, and how essential to growth is the inward journey.

The Courage to Be

"Will I be free?" he asked,
and Wisdom answered,
"No, for when you look within
you are both prisoner and prison.
See? Your sentence is eternal.

"There, inside of you
is all of humankind
and all of God
and all that you will ever know.
Without is never that domain
which you may rule or enter.
You do well to rest in awe, for
in your incompleteness
you are whole."
~

nice tribute to FDR here

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer
_041805X.shtml

(paste both lines together)

Thoughts from reading

I have been intrigued of late, probably stimulated by a recent book, about this business of how we see things...that each of us is prisoner of the unique lens within us, and how much that explains different religions, different social views, and even different preoccupations. We send out probes to examine questions that we think are important, and these probes do influence us, but they never create us. No one will ever see things in the exact same light. Evolutionarily speaking, we may be headed to that goal, but I think even in the spirit world, there remains a diversity of lenses. Each of us, no matter how much we may have in common with another, has his or her own "worldview." It is why we have an opportunity to learn from anyone--why no one is beneath us, or deserving of our contempt. It is also why we truly are unable to judge another person, particularly for that person's opinions....She or he simply is at that point in life, and if one ultimately changes because of something you or I have said, we may be sure that other factors were involved. Prisoners we are, and also locked gatekeepers to those outside. We may choose to let in their probes, but they will not gain entrance, and cannot. Therein lies the paradox. We are all one--we are made of the same stuff. Our quarks flash on and off with those of everyone else. Yet we are armored islands.

I want to place a sign on my beach: "Everyone welcome." Alas, they cannot come.

There is, however, hope...hope that some nice amphibious boats will keep trying, while I stand on shore encouraging them. There is hope that the prison walls may be breached someday, if they are attacked from both inside and out. How is that possible? One way alone may sweep them down. One way alone may someday establish a beachhead.
And, that is love.

What do you think?

All in a mortal's work

God factories abound upon the mountains
and the plans are written in the holy books
but lack consistency from page to page...
reason enough to keep the cubicles apart,
unwired; the laborers are always free
to improvise.

So there are gods for sale.
Choose yours.
Some are free of charge
but then the prototypes are never up to date.
Others willingly accept a sacrifice or two
but do expire if not renewed.

There, I just made mine again,
my lump of clay as yet unfired.
Do you like Her?... Yes?
It is a pity that I cannot say the same
for yours.
~

Full circle

The day came bumbling along
when he found time
just to look across at Dad
and wonder if he noticed--
if he'd be there down the line,
when it was time
that he become a dad to wonder
at such sure magnificence,
that there would be another soul
t o pause...and look at him.

Twice in one generation,
thunder rumbling to be heard...
one kind of love
to be extinguished by the sun.
Unspoken.
Wondrous.
~

Meanderings and ruminations

I began to think of a state of mind, and wonder if it is a small chunk of universal mind, or is it all my own. Does it choose my dreams, or leave that to the unconscious? I'm thinking this is what time travel is all about, and before one returns to his home reality, has he indeed left his body? Has he crossed dimensions? What is the stimulus for separating realities? Is there a parallel between this, and what he can do when he leaves his physical lifetime, and becomes spirit alone? Here are my thoughts breeding questions...breeding a lesson in patience. The answers will come, and along with them, more questions. It makes one contemplate his death with the stirrings of appetite.

Another tongue

I want to share with you, the fact that the following poem is in response to a contest...to write on the subject of poetry! Here was my entry:

Another tongue

If passion speaks beyond self-centered will,
if stones may cry aloud because a man
keeps silence, or if whispers wash the mind
as storms in springtime will refresh the earth,
then it is poetry that feeds our hearts.

At birth it is a soft caress that would
protect and nourish thought in gentleness,
to draw from deep within, a song that prose
could not express, a sigh devoid of art
that art alone may sing, the singer but
an instrument, and that of conscious awe.

All this, and still demanding to be heard,
for if it were not so, we would not know
or speak of poets; wars might then be just
regretted or dismissed as lost for lack
of strategy; arms would be taken up
for power alone and men would then survive
in shallow grief, insouciant within,
a tired state of lethargy, where no one
ever cares.

The powers of heavenly places may be thanked,
for muses dwell upon Olympus, not
within the hell of circumstance or haste
or juvenile romance--for there
is power indeed when insight travels where
the lofty giants led and left upon
their pages majesty, and bled, and wept,
and gave us beauty that device alone
could try to emulate, but merely fade
and vanish from the mind.

Gossamer breastplate

There are the walls of flesh that hold us fast
upon this devil's island of an earth,
deceptive paradise of blue and green
that calls on birth to bond us, death to let
us go.

We are the restless spirits , ponderous
in bone and sinew, all but frozen in
a time continuum where only dreams
and stillness open windows to the light.
It is the soul's dark night that keeps us bound
when all the whirling universe holds court
outside, and we who touch the blinking quarks
but may not pass between them, are but half
angelic, waiting, wondering...

Perhaps there is a vesture that the mind
and not the eyes, may see and might there be
a trumpet to awake us after all,
a wonderhorn indeed, to sing of a
reality that may escape the dreams,
the torturous parade of lifetimes we
require to probe the mind of God?
~

Incarnate Dreams

There was a dome spread overhead
in that first lifetime, holding back
the waters and the gods;
perhaps there was a place beneath it
for the lesser thoughts that never grew,
but drifted easily away.

There was a summer when the mariners,
adrift upon the still Sargasso sea,
thought of the nearly-dead,
and though enlightened,
waited for the moment when
another dome, less tangible,
might, crashing down,
be shattered into evanescent pieces,
to their requisitioned end.

There was a pleasure dome,
defined by men at play,
in ancient time, and then anew
where thoughts were cast away.

There was a dome upon a hill
where men had once looked up,
spoken their noblest dreams aloud
...and everything was still.
~

A Song to the Unsung

These are the ones who dare,
these gloved old men with plastic bags
who roam the lanes on foot
while I drive by,
for they are more aware
of the adorning, aleatoric splendor
of the flashing crinkled cans,
the cups and wrappings
scorning those who prized them
for the moment, flying
to their rest, behind.

But now the countryside stripped bare
in naked challenge to the passers by
invites its heroes, still unsure
who they may be,the revellers who flee
before their minds take rest
upon their artifice, or those
who prize the green and see the art
of the pristine.
~

My Doppelganger

I've seen him only once
and then but feet away
outside the streetcar window;
whether he saw me,
or fled my sight deliberately
I cannot say, however

I still sense him near,
and might it be
that I shall meet him only
on the day I die--
some kind of irony in store?
Yet how I wish
there might be more,

that I might probe his psyche
as he brushes mine.
And does he pine
for yet another glimpse of me
confirming that October day
some fifty years ago
when I was borne away?
~

Is this the America we want?

http://www.bushflash.com/14.html

A challenge

to English teachers, poets, and linguists:

The language is in great need of a genderless, neutral pronoun. Poets must always compromise when referring to the deity, or when identifying anyone in the third person, and not wishing to confine that identification to gender. It is a limitation for which the time has come to be resolved.

The advent of the internet is that opportunity. Through lists, academicians from everywhere may confer together, make suggestions, have them analyzed, and eventually reach a concensus. What a boon to writers and thinkers that would be! I believe that this impediment to consistency and precision can easily be overcome without rancor, and virtually without prejudice. Yes, I have a few suggestions of my own, if anyone cares, but this is not the time to get into that. Ladies and gentlemen, heroines and heros. distinguished minds everywhere, may we begin? It is in our power to get this done. If there are obstacles, they are insignificant. Let us be consumed with the opportunity, not the obstacles. We can do it. Why wait? What better time?

Dialogue with a ghost

To the unseen and unknown presence that I made
I pour out all the doubt, the hopeless pemutations
of my thought, the dark intangibles, ideas strong enough
to tie the hours together and make of them pretenders
to a faded throne...a magisterium that everyone ignores.

My will is for some flesh upon these spirit bones,
an argument out loud, a sounding board
would near suffice, and I could carry you along
within a small attractive case, and bring you out
when no one else would care to pay attention.

Name your price!
And I will pay it joyfully.
Insulting, you may be; I do not need to win,
but only hammer at a patient ear
the inspiration of a simian mind
on impulse leaping out before remembering
the bars...and leaping...leaping.

Howl at me! I am your god.
How dare you fade
like those more proper shades
who first conspire with fame
before they take their places
in the heroes' books. and dignified
by fear. Speak now, or you shall have
no name at all.

I must conclude
that gods don't have much fun
with their creations.
Mine is such a disappointment.
Were he real, then all my thoughts
themselves might be more shy
and less inclined to play,
or fantasize,
or fight for me alone,

but merely drone inside my head
like stubborn bees
until the frosts descend
and by the winter fire
begin again.
~

Mind over Matter

His body sat there, in its chair, unmoved,
but for the whims of those who care an hour
or so, until the time clock sets them free,
yet he has left them long ago, his stare
misleading lesser travelers who stand
in elevators and in trains and are
quite unaware of their imprisonment
in other chairs less mobile, but much more
confining to the mind.

It is a question, truly, who may claim
to pity whom, and where the markers are
along the way. of when the watchers are
the watched, of how ideas play upon
the screens before or just behind their eyes.

And do we patronize a liberty
we may not know? Are there true, wondrous lands
to which the tiny particles within
alone may go? The Steven Hawkings of
the universe depart at will aboard
these spirit ships, invisible in port,
and then upon returning will report
the finding of an India that we
had never seen, or never ever dreamed
~

Corcovado

The plane approaching Rio sights
The God-man on the mountain
in the sunlight-- that cold tremor
just between the shoulders strikes;
we see the arms borne up by love
and reaching to the traveler,
the city, and the earth.

Then from below, the pilgrims mount
the heights to see the features
of the Cristo...first, the railway,
then the stairs climb higher
in the quest--
anticipation, breath and blood
now pounding in their hearts--
there comes the turning at the parapet
to watch the mists brush by his face,
gauze curtains breaking to reveal
that intermittent, scowling
countenance of stone,
once emerging in austerity
beneath the mallet, now
beyond the shadow of Elijah's peak
is seen again, and lost,
else one would need to look away--
before this stern,and re- transfigured God.

The city plays beneath his watch
just as the drama of
an immanent, transcendent deity
erupts in silent declamation, then to part
in a reprise of his ascension
in the cloud.
~

The Celery Fields

Madre de Dios! Morning already?
The mud, still damp upon my pantalones--
how can I face another day?
My niña is so thin.
Two little oranges are not enough for her,
before she rides the bus to the escuela.
I must work harder, still--
hacer algunos dollars more
hacer su vida para el mejor,
si puedo.

I remember
when like my niña, I was young..
We did not work so hard,
y sobre las alturas
every breeze was cool...
not like this steaming
California campo
by the sea.

I remember, as we worked,
how we were singing,
'De la sierra morena, Cieli...'
Now there is no heart, no time to sing.
El jefe blanco will be angry
if I make him late.

The sun is high upon this field.
My back hurts me so much
from bending. Ay!
En muchas horas I can sleep again
and stop remembering.
Jesús amado, en mi sueño
solamente, take me home
............................................
to my brown mountain.
~

Voices

Cautious spirits test the waters of my world
and call to me....then go away.
Perhaps they are perfecting inter-mind
devices, just like psychic Edisons,
Marconi's revenant in breakthrough just
for me, or else perhaps
celestial wallflowers, much too diffident
to follow up my name with headlines
from beyond the grave.

Am I their snuffling guinea pig?---
their crude receptor in this mass of flesh
that yearns for finely-tuned antennae
(please God, invisible,)
and color pictures if I may,
upon my mental screen?
No, I shall stay the course,
though I know not the hazards of its path,
the travelers,or the design,
nor may I fine
their metaphysical intent.

The reader knows, I speak with some regret,
for there are those who will decide that I
bear watching, lest my touch upon their world
begin to fade too much, that I be too
entranced of waves they cannot, will not see.
Though I may fear the world
beyond white doors, I still invite
my curtained friends to part the night
with energy no instrument
that science met may sense just yet,
I iterate...just yet
~

Regime Change

How like a child to know that being free
to taste the wind, is the unbidden source
of art, of what life means, that joy is there.
How fair, a thousand wheels above the earth
that sing upon the hills, that gifted from
the air, relay its strength and redirect its power.

How much of truth that trees may breathe again,
that fish may frolic in the ripples that
the stones create in flashing mountain streams,
that caribou will graze upon a plain
though far away, still undefiled.

How deep the melancholy of the earth
to learn the incarnation went awry
and it was man who rose up from the sod,
a metamorph, a true sardonic sire,
an avaricious god.
~

The Doll House (revised)

Behind the scaled-down images there lurk
the scaled down dreams of future lives-- perhaps
of incarnations silently recalled
by little girls with vision far less blind
than little boys, who would forsake the gate
and scarcely see the whitewashed picket fence
along Peace Lane.

We walked together, she and I, and gained
or lost a century without a care,
then pausing there untouched by age or time,
were suddenly at home, and though it was
too much inclined to the postiche and far
too lovely, she and I could then perform
a step into dimensions that
I only thought I knew.

Of course it was a given, she would lead
me to another view, though I protest
a movie-set facade so much a part
of someone else's dreams, for it spoke more
of me than comfort would allow. I saw
a book of life in which the pages mocked
my own somnambulistic journey home,
my own defense against reality.

And then we saw the open side, and there
the little rooms cut out.showed little beds
and chairs that may be moved about, but strange...
the tiny people always stayed away
as if the president would come to call,
and they are suddenly unworthy.

There the little souls might sleep
or sip at tea with giants watching, if
they dared, but no, the house is empty, much
too quiet, too pristine, and even presidents
would presidentially demur.

She took my hand, and asked me if
I like it. I, too, broke the silence, "Yes.
I think it's grand. Might it be one that you
would live in?" "No, it's beautiful
but never home enough,
for me."
~

Isn't it time we learned from "the troops?"

http://oldamericancentury.org/dalt1052.htm

Meet.......and help, the Bendermans!

http://www.bendermandefense.org/

(if this link doesn't open for you when you click it, please
try copying it, and pasting it into your address bar. Then
it seems to work for sure)

And we are the good guys?

Click here

Sonnet to a Lifetime

They laughed at one another as they threw
their mortar boards aloft, and dared to kiss
the girl goodbye, though she had spurned them in
the dry years underneath the towers, high
above their academic rounds. Now boys
no more, and war much brighter than their lust
for adolescent loveliness, the bus
and train will take them to a new domain
where pleasure girls will lie for them, compressed
in six short weekends hence, until possessed
with skill to kill, men pack their gear to fly
across the globe and die in puzzlement,
identified, and boxed and neatly laid
to rest beneath a cool and restless shade.
~

Tribute to Gertrude Stein

Three in a tree agree
to visualize a life of strife,
to realize
the hour of power
within
The Foshay Tower*
at noon
on Sunday
noon on Sunday
noon.

*This building, modeled on an obelisk similar to the Washington Monument, is in Minneapolis, a city that claims to be situated on the northern tundra, in a state called Minnesota. While this territory is too isolated to be verified, the name is said to be of Indian origin, although some residents claim that their Viking ancestors who crossed the area several hundred years ago in a drunken stupor, probably first enunciated the word as an oath, when they kept running into lakes filled with bathing Moose and slippery fish called "pickerel." They boiled the fish in a solution of lye and stagnant lake water, and called the results "ludefisk" after a delicacy first obtained from cod. When no one could eat it without retching, they cried out "man-eh soda!" and were not heard from again until spring. Minnesotans are still perceived as curious creatures who have their parades in January, drink nothing but Hamm's beer, and get very angry when someone expresses the opinion that Sauk Center ought really to have been built down in Illinois with the rest of the Sauks. It is still little known that "Sauk sucks" emerged from this controversy.

The Stranger

The train was gone, and then inside, I saw
the old one standing, looking back at me
and out of pity I returned his gaze--
there was an urgency that held me fast.
It seemed that I could hear his thoughts that day,

"Come, stand with me beside the well of years
that I may bear to look at them. They feed
off memories and wisdom second-hand;
their refuse lies upon my aged mind,
and they are all I have."

We stood inside that station sealed from time,
and then I looked for madness in his eyes
and he in mine, until I realized
it was a full-length mirror that I viewed.

"Come look with me, into the well of tears, "
he said...
and turned,
and walked away.
~

How can Democrats ever have a successful future election?

It is very simple:
(1) Insist that all electoral fraud is eliminated (publicize it widely and demand that it be fool-proof)
(2) Build a platform of distinctive issues
(3) Proclaim it loudly, passionately, and repeatedly in every community, at every opportunity, until the voter makes it his own.

Oh yes, a real challenge for sleepy Democrats....but it worked for the Republicans, except that they did it by the reverse of Number 1--encouraging and manufacturing the fraud. In the end, representative government disappears.

My own personal comment is that I think they will not take my advice. Consequently, if we survive until another election, they will lose again. It is a prediction I make with considerable confidence.

Finally: A Republican who asks the right questions

www.truthout.org/docs_05/012905B.shtml

This article

places our current situation in excellent perspective:

www.thedeprogrammer.com/
democracyisflatlined.html

(copy and paste it into your browser)

Mother at 99

It was the prison of her body that
I saw beneath her downward gaze, but more.
Her mind lay in a quiet turbulence,
still knowing something I did not, and still
content to hide it from my probe. Yet my
humanity looked in and saw saturnine
shadows roiling.

I wished that I could cleave them, rearrange
their mad procession, but I knew there was
a reason of its own that drove them on,
defining shapes and setting courses for
a dance of death, perhaps, a mystery
that gifted her alone.

My mother, quite unknowing, peerless, left
me there, amazed by all the wisdom she
alone could understand...that one so near
and still eons away could bear to set
upon a course that left her rolling chair
and every soul she ever knew, behind.
~

Namaste

Here is the yeast of thought that like the dough,
though it become suppressed, is rising still
within two souls whose vision is just one,
then beaten once again becomes the bread,
the mounting God, the sinews shared, the death
of self, the breath of life.
~

You still doubt electoral fraud?

Then please do me, and your country, the laudable service of pointing out the inaccuracies and false assumptions of ALL the points in the following article--and may God bless you for doing so:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html

Revision: "Apostrophe to Martin"

(this poem appears farther below, but this version is an update
with assistance from Professor Michael Bennet)

Apostrophe to Martin

Two lifetimes I have seen since yours began
and still I am not free, though haunted by
your words, blood-coated with your passion, seeped
into a history of marching feet.
The cadence of the years still cannot stand
their purity, and you, baton still high,
drum major for a righteousness you saw
that lived in dreams, still march...and I cannot.

It's best you died, perhaps, for you would not
abide another line of voters kept
out in the rain, their voices slain by fraud
and perfidy, their backs still open to
the lash of scorn, and scarce remembering
the wounds that you received when all you asked
was but to love.

That loving didn't get much easier
around this shrinking ball, disfigured from
a restless floor beneath the sea, and for
a while the human heart was stirred, but more
had died from restless greed and naked power
when love was set aside.

There's not much zeal for marching now along
the streets of Washington, and bigotry
is steeped inside. We need to hear your dream
again, to have you sing with us once more,
to pledge anew that we shall overcome

someday.
~

Let flesh retire

Upon reflection
there is something to this business
of a resurrection;
there is space within us set aside
to see the dead alive...to see

the Lord, and yes the least of these,
my sisters, brothers, now no more
imprisoned in their tombs,
nor subject to
that useless yeast
of faith dispensed on sawdust trails
and in the artless tents--the drums
and hoarse evangelists will plead no more,
no more.

"I am the resurrection and the life."
Though slender is the living bond
it is not cut
and what is manifested, too is artless,
though it seemed to die.
A love to imitate the Christ exceeds
the power to crucify.

"Not from the grave, my body
or my blood.
Discover in my words,
the realm of God,
and when you are together
eating,
drinking,
and remembering,
then you will touch,
and see,
and know
that it is I."
~

Our hero Barack Obama---NOT!

voted to confirm Rice today. :-(

All of our pre-election excitement was in vain, my friends. We have us another political hack.

Something you can do

Will you help Senator Boxer get the truth from Condoleeza Rice?
She says:
http://www.pacforachange.com/

and here is where you can sign:
http://ga4.org/campaign/ricehearings

Is Social Security in trouble? See this!

www.eriposte.com/policy/socialsecurity.htm

Apostrophe to Martin

Two lifetimes I have seen since yours began
and still I am not free, though haunted by
your words, blood-coated with your passion, seeped
into a history of marching feet.
The cadence of the years still cannot stand
their purity, and you, baton still high,
drum major for a righteousness you saw
that lived in dreams, still march...and I cannot.

Best that you died
for you would not abide
another line of voters in the rain,
their voices slain by perfidy and fraud
their backs still open to the lash of scorn,
scarce remembering

the wounds that you received
when all you wanted
was to love somebody.

No, it didn't get much easier.
The love around this shrinking ball
got stretched from that one
restless floor beneath the sea,
but many more died
from the restless greed
and lust for naked power
when love was set aside.

Right now there's not much zeal
for marching, Martin.
We need your voice again
to sing with us,
though I am one who still believes
that "We shall overcome

someday."
~

A Dream for Everyman

www.truthout.org/docs_05/011805Z.shtml

Denial

Too much the rapture of an earthbound spring
prevails, surpassing lovers' agony,
too many willows full of glory stream
like fountains there along the path
while history may languish free of art.
The queen of seasons is a harlot blessed
by her eternal youth, a tart redeemed.
Come forth, my muse of airy head and heart,
and dance for me, dissolve my crusted mind
with your inane delight where content flies
away like skittish dreams when darkness dies
and color sweeps away the night.

It is my right to thus betray
a January day.
~

The Doll House (there is a later revision of this poem later on in the blog)

They seem to be for little girls
with scaled-down dreams
of future lives behind
the scaled-down images,
perhaps of incarnations
silently remembered.

There we walked together
down Peace Lane,
skipping back a century
and pausing at a picket fence,
'So this was home,or might have been.'
...a karma touchable
and still untouched
by interrupted time...its colors fresh,
the giveaway too lovely,
too inclined to the postiche,
and yet for little girls,
a step into dimensions
that I only thought I knew.

I knew of course, that she would lead me
to another view, though I would leave
reluctantly, the movie-set facade
entrenched in homemade dreams
for it spoke more of me
than comfort might allow.
For me, no bathos smeared my vision,
rather ghosts of my old friends
were lurking just beyond those walls
and I was one to see
a habitat (though strange to me)
was theirs, perhaps,
a life creating them,
a life, a book, in which the pages called
...one that I hadn't known.
'Wait......just a little more.'

And then the open side
with little rooms cut out.
Little beds and chairs
are moved about...
and tiny people stay away
as if the president
would come to call, and they
are suddenly unworthy.

There they might sleep
or sip at tea
with giants watching,
if they dared, but no,
the house is empty,
much too quiet,
too pristine,
and even presidents
would presidentially demur.

Now she takes my hand,
"Do you like it?"
"Oh, it is grand.
Might it be one you'd live in
someday?"
We agree. "No."
'It's beautiful, but never home enough,
for me.'
~

Là où le temps n'est pas

C'est un voyage
quand je médite,
et avec sa crête je trouve
que je peux atteindre dans la perfection
bien que je ne puisse pas me retourner avec elle,
ni dans ma perception changée
Je jamais suis ainsi disposé
pour changer le monde,
ou même toi, jusqu'au moment
je me rends compte
que tu, aussi, atteignent
... pour me changer.
~

A madman in the White House?

Here's what a psychiatrist has to say:

www.awakeninthedream.com/georgew.html

Fraud?.............What fraud?

If this is your attitude....and if you get your news from
the corporate media.....you need to read this:

www.truthout.org/docs_05/010405Y.shtml

Jane Stillwater's Web Log

Jane Stillwater's Web Log

Want a kick?

Poem: "New World Order" by Meredith Holmes, from Shubad's Crown. © Pond Road Press. Reprinted with permission. (from today's "Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor)

New World Order

At dusk on January 2nd
we close the curtains,
eat bread and potatoes by candlelight
and burrow to sleep like marmots.
Pulse and respiration slow
not quickening until April.
Driveways go unshoveled
streets unplowed. Snow fills
doorways, sifts into mail slots.
No traffic, no church, no bowling.
Phones are still, offices unlit
and cities as dark as Nebraska cornfields.
All the interstates are deserted
the truckstops silent.
No steak and egg breakfasts
no Johnny Cash
By February, stars are visible
in the night sky over Manhattan and Detroit.
TV stations on the Gulf Coastand in Southern California
report only local weather.
The Industrial North, the Midwest
the Great Plains, the Great Lakes
are all but forgotten.
The continent is a closed door
with a narrow band
of light around the edge.
Everybody is dreaming:
fire, skin, cave, snow.

You still do not think the election was a fraud?

Did you know....?1. 80% of all votes in America
are counted
by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.http://www.onlinejournal.com/
evoting/042804
Landes/042804landes.htmlhttp://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/
Dieboldhttp://www.essvote.com/
HTML/about/about.
html2. There is no federal agency with
regulatory authority or
oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.http://www.commondreams.
org/views02/0916-04.htmhttp://www.
onlinejournal.com/
evoting/042804
Landes/042804landes.html3. The
vice-president of Diebold
and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.
net/html/
private_company.htmlhttp://www.
onlinejournal.com/
evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.
html4. The
chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major
Bush campaign
organizer and donor who wrote in 2003
that he was "
committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to
the president next year."http://www.
cbsnews.com/stories/
2004/07/28/
sunday/main632436.shtmlhttp://
www.wishtv.com/
Global/story.asp?S=16478865.Republican
Senator
Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S.
He became
Senator in a surprise upset, with votes
counted by ES&S machines.http://www.
motherjones.com/
commentary/
columns/2004/03/03_200.htmlhttp://
www.online
journal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/
031004fitrakis.
html6.Republican Senator Chuck Hagel,
long-connected
with the Bush family, was recently caught
lying about his
ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.http://www.blackboxvoting.
com/modules.php?name=News&file=article
&sid=26http://
www.hillnews.com/
news/012903/hagel.aspxhttp://www.
onlisareinsradar.com/
archives/000896.php7. Senator Chuck
Hagel was on a
short list of George W. Bush's
vice-presidential candidates.http://
www.businessweek.com/
2000/00_28/
b3689130.htmhttp://theindependent.
com/stories/052700/
new_hagel27.html8.Kenneth Blackwell
co-chaired George
Bush's Ohio election campaign. As
Ohio secretary of state,
he left no stone unturned to surpress
the democratic vote.http://www.truthout.
org/docs_04
/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/
display/19/2004/
894http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=
04/10/29/14142199.
Diebold's new touch screen voting
machines have no paper
trail of any votes. In other words,
there is no way to verify that
the data coming out of the machine
is the same as what was
legitimately put in by voters.http://
www.commondreams.
org/views04/0225-05.htmhttp://
www.itworld.com/
Tech/2987/041020evote
states/pfindex.html10.Diebold also
makes ATMs, checkout
scanners, and ticket machines,all of
which log each transaction
and can generate a paper trail.http:
//www.commondreams.
org/views04/0225-05.htmhttp://
www.diebold.com/
solutions/default.htm11.
Exit polls are usually excellent predictors
of election results.
Reputable analyses could not find and
explanation of the
discrepancy between exit polls and
results of the 2004
presidential election.http://ucdata.
berkeley.edu/http://
www.buzzflash.

com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_
poll_discrep_v00l.
pdfhttp://wwwnytimes.com/2004/
11/23/international/
europe/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&
amp;amp;ei=1&en=
3a3c24b7e64fe4912. A Diebold
subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons
as senior managers
and developers. These people helped
write the central compiler computer code
that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.http://www.wired.com/news/evote/
0,2645,61640,00.
htmlhttp://portland.indymedia.org/en/
2004/10/301469.
shtml13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer
on Diebold's central
compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts
of felony theft in
the first degree.http://www.chuckherrin.com
/Hackthevote
FAQ.
htm#howhttp://www.blackboxvoting.org/
bbv_chapter-8.
pdf14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for
planting back
doors in his client's accounting software and
using a "high
degree of sophistication" to evade detection
over a period of 2 years.http://www.chuckherrin.
com/
HackthevoteFAQ.htm#
howhttp://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_
chapter-8.pdf15.
None of the international election observers
were allowed in t
he polls in Ohio.http://www.globalexchange.
org/update/
press/2638.
htmlhttp://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004
/10/26/
loc_elexoh.html16. California banned the use
of Diebold
machines because the security was so bad.
Despite Diebold's
claims that the audit logs could not be hacked,
a chimpanzee
was able to do it!