Bus Riding

The Daumier-like faces

Clinging to logs
being tossed about
on the bus
me hovering
like a dragon fly
Seeing
Can I help?
Stones hide in each one
if not hope
at least a flickering
of a soul.

Cement headed drivers
(they have to be)
mourn the human condition
All seek shelter in a world
other than their own.

Niches form to isolate.
If you don't find a niche
you are what I call a breakaway,
or at least you ride the range.

As soon as the faces are spoken
to, ah a light exchanges,
warms the atmosphere,
and everyone even the driver
lurches with a purpose.

---

Robin's Nest

When the little bird
in the cuckoo clock
found the switch
in the back
the energy released
was beyond belief – the only child
found a mate:
A wild puppet master
who would not rest.
Always the outsider
he looked into you
pulling on your strings
peering into you
who couldn’t stop laughing.

---

Unknown

I say red is blue not red.

Big money backs me.

Red becomes blue. The money,

the creator of the shift,

means everything.

It would take a lot

of money to change

it back again.

Maintaining the status quo,

upholding tradition

is what the vast majority

of people do or wish they could.

The majority of Americans 

who run things like public

schools, the House of Representatives,

a Kiwanis Club have so

much power

that quite often they are able

to prevent themselves

from learning something

that might be very good for them.

This power is caused

by a false pride.

If the people cannot see

what's good for them

they will often

choose what is bad.

The bad will have long term

consequences and further

complicate the people’s search

for the good.

---

In the Beginning

One becomes two.

Two became the many.

Looking at each other

making faces furrowing,

smiling, pointing, laughing.

In time they approached

other members of their society

and entertainment began – 

In the Beginning.

Entertainment as an activity

grew slowly; there were more

important things to do.

By 3000 B.C. (at least) all forms

of entertainment

from religious ritual

to epic poetry

were finally in place.

---

The Antidote

A naked human

the feeling their skin creates

the light gleaming off

the chrome bicycle handle

salty, foaming ocean water

the song living inside

the face containing all

faces all the vaccines

all the dogs we have created

Hammer, Wood and nail

the touching of the horns

the deepening breath

of humility

early Antonioni.

In general people define themselves

more by their hates

than their loves. Hate sticks

to their ribs. Love is all

around like the sky.

O, How the mighty human multiplies

while the poetic traits

in man are torn asunder. 

Submerged

Inundated

By lies-a tapestry

devoted to Mammon

Has eroded our belief

in an effective communication

transmogrifying the so important

effects of our democracy.

Satisfied by cheap gods

and mind numbing

cultural repetitions

we have lost 

our knowledge of The Good.

Now we will have to

start all over again.

---

In This Time

Our first dream

is of course the womb.

The second is the expulsion 

and third is our struggle,

our work, to create

a womb-like existence

in the waking world.

We walkabout 

in all forms

strutting, barely balancing,

crawling, sliding, flying,

keeping the thought

and the memory of that thought

from wrinkling.

Every now and then

we play small parts

in peoples’ lives.

To transcend loneliness

we live our episodic lives

as if we were expanding

through the eyes

of a distant narrator

or even better still

we hide in the weightless

world of dreams.

For me it’s all about

the feeling. What happened,

what’s happening? 

I define it simply.

I ask do I want to see

that person, do that thing,

go here, stay there?

I feel it out and decide

and try not to put

a label on it.

To define why I feel

a certain way

would be a blasphemy.

---

At This Moment

The fat people seem to be

hustling me

into indolence. 

Though they move swiftly

when necessary

leaving me to wonder

will I be able to mirror

their grace?

I eat like a horse

elongating my jaw

cracking each morsel.

Before destruction there is misuse,

then abuse and finally

the never ending pain.

---

Beauty

Handprints discovered

in a cave near Pendejo, 

New Mexico are carbon-14

dated to around 40,000 B.C.

The magic being unearthed

in Troy

seat of the Mycenaean Age;

the regal profundity 

of all hidden tombs

the astounding myths

of The Aegean Sea.

The Scrim of Euphoria

A lot of times people attempt to restrict their emotional thinking.  Envy, jealousy, hate and love can be embarrassing and in our own eyes tend to diminish us, but they are only moments on a wheel, which in a larger context enable us to survive and integrate.  Emotions contain no more truth than an ice cream sundae. 

Under the guise of professionalism and order we limit our interaction with ourselves, our neighbors and even our friends.  In the public sphere, from radio, t.v. and public speaking, we are an abomination of sameness.  There is very little diversity in our public sphere –  certainly not representative of our nation’s people.  It’s a practical matter, the owners say.  We can’t have differing kinds of voices.  Consistency and repetition are necessary to establish the brand.  We must have stability.  Stability is the enemy of creativity.  A meaningless slogan, but if you look into current media it’s as if there were no humans behind the format, or behind the screen if you like.  From the right to the left, the people who present the radio, t.v. and movie events literally have no idea of the effect of their content.  They themselves can no longer hear what they say.  They have been brainwashed by their belief in bullshit – as long as it sells, baby.  

Off the Reservation

In this desert of sensory exhaustion, in this banal, repetitive nightmare dream called the middle class (the wasp’s contribution to the programming of the American mind), it’s easy to let yourself go and begin seeing things – things that could be our way of life like creating a new financial system and a cultural structure with an emphasis on efficiency and care.  Oh, that’s impossible.  Man’s nature just the way it is here on earth the territorial imperative rules.

If all our activity is based on making money we will always have emergency sirens not Bach; war over joy and the trap door will shut upon us from above occluding our chance to evolve.

We need to dig deeper into the world of art.  In the world which stems a tide and catches the fire and beauty of a given time the turn of the 19th century is hard to beat for its spirit of intense collaboration leading to breakthroughs in all fields of endeavor.  All great art is made that way by a self-awareness, a confidence which insures its longevity.  As soon as that collaborative strength is lost, the walls of the art kingdom crumble.

Our psychic pain is our amnesia.  We recall very little of our personal history and practically nothing of man’s experience which is why we repeat ourselves over and over.  The familiarity makes us feel secure, free of pesky thinking and the need to alter one’s course.

Thinking is an art.  Perhaps that is the reason why there is so little intellectual content in our media and art.  Art takes decades to develop.  This society of ours doesn’t pay you to practice.  In a mass culture, the absence of critical thinking creates a vacuum for the quick, the mindless and the violent to rush in.

During a brief stent as a teacher at San Quentin Prison, I spoke with Sal, a huge man sort of the opposite of the gentle giant.  Sal bristled with an anger he couldn’t control.  He had been imprinted at an early age to be the enforcer.  With tears in his eyes he turned to me and said, “I can’t believe it but it’s true – I’m safer in here.  I’m not fit… to live out… there.”  I have never forgotten his look – the real human baffled by his circumstance imprisoned with no discernible way out.

We’re pounding away at the old Humanist Culture like the ape men in Kubrick’s 2001, holding large animal bone and pounding.  The destruction of the old will be replaced by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – blanched out world of pharmaceuticals, computers, weapons and pleasure domes.  The pleasure domes are really great poundings.  Stadiums and halls where we get together and root.  You get it?  I prefer subtle sex but apparently a lot of pounding takes place.

The slight scratching sounds you hear are men and women’s fingers brushing key pads.  The computerized voices can drive you mad.  Humans get harder to find unless you get off the reservation.