The Summer of Woodstock
During my first year as a Los Angeles teacher
which was also when UTLA was formed
and we went out on our first strike
around nine months after the first human walked
on the moon and the summer of Woodstock, Carl
Mark Stilwell was born March 2,1970.
.
Mark had red hair as did my mother,
her grandfather, oldest sister
and two younger brothers.
After the 6.6 Sylmar quake jolted our Pasadena home,
Mark would climb down every night from his crib, snuggle
between mom and pop and sleep with us till wake up time.
Nancy and Rick with their daughters, Michelle and Ana
lived a few houses west of us. Michelle was two years
older than Ana as Luke was with Mark.
“Go see Ana,” Mark would say and off we’d go to her home.
One night after returning home, Mark spotted a full moon
rising above the Camphor trees lining our street.
“Moon! Moon!” he said pointing to the sky
and pumping his legs like they were
a hummingbird’s beating wings.
Michelle will be killed at the age of 25
in a freak accident when a truck’
rolled over her car.
Luke at the age of 47, after moving to Japan
and living there for 13 years,
will die from colon cancer.
Nancy and Rick,
Cheryl and I,
will be divorced.
But at this moment which I believe
Paul Tillich calls the “Eternal Now,”
the world couldn’t be more beautiful.
OPEN
OPEN UP
OPEN WIDE
OPEN SEASON
OPEN the door
Open your heart
OPEN YOUR MOUTH
OPEN HEART SURGERY
OPEN SESAME
OPEN A CAN OF WHOOP ASS
OPEN THE DOORS TO PERCEPTION
OPEN THE GATES TO HELL
OPEN YOUR VEINS
OPEN DOOR POLICY
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
OPEN A RESTAURANT
OPEN A MOVIE
OPEN HOUSE
OPEN AND SHUT
OPEN MARRIAGE… COME OUT IN THE
OPEN WITH IT WHY DON’T YOU? YOU’RE AN
OPEN BOOK, YOU FROSTY MOTHERFUCKER BUT
YOU DON’T HAVE AN OPEN MIND, CRACK YOU
OPEN AND TRY... OH MAN, THINK I
OPENED A CAN OF WORMS ON THAT ONE... HE
OPENED A FUCKING PANDORA’S BOX ON ME
OPEN THE FLOODGATES OPEN SEASON ON ME
OPEN THE DOOR TO MY DOOM
OPEN SECRET…SHUT IT PLEASE…
BUT WHEN ONE DOOR SHUTS, ANOTHER
OPENS... AN OPEN-ENDED QUESTION...I AM
NOT OPEN TO THIS SHIT OPEN FIRE
OPEN MYSELF TO CRITICISM... I HAVE
OPENED THE WAY FOR SOMETHING
HORRIBLE... BUSTED WIDE
OPEN... BLOW WIDE
OPEN OLD WOUNDS
Open new wounds more
than likely
OPEN UP SOME DEEP TRAUMA
but you greet it with
OPEN arms... BE
OPEN TO LOVE…THE HEAVENS WILL
OPEN UP AND THE
ANGELS SING
YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO
BE THAT EASY?
YES, YES
I DO
—From the graphic trilogy, THE DARK BACKWARDS by Luke and Mark Stilwell
LET ME CRY PREACHER
Let me cry, Preacher.
Mama’s gone
and no resurrection and life sermon
gonna comfort me now.
That “How Great Thou Art” solo
was pretty
and maybe she requested it
but it ain’t her.
In her dancin’ days
if it didn’t have
that swing
then it didn’t mean a thing.
We all laughed with her the time
she fell on her elder behind
attemptin’ a jitterbug step.
But we all knew what she meant.
The sounds she came to dig
were whippoorwill calls, cricket responses
and hummingbird buzzing dives
to defend turf around her feeder.
Mama wasn’t too religious.
She never went to church much and when
she got mad, she’d often say “shit”
or take the name of the Lord in vain.
To be honest with you, Reverend,
the flames of your hell didn’t scare
Mama nearly as much as not
being able to feed her family.
At 15 I got religion and started sayin’
grace before meals. Mama said
she thought it’d also be a good idea
to remember the hands that prepared it.
I was too much of a pious prick to get it then
but today I see we oughta be grateful
for all the hard work it takes from farm to
kitchen to put our daily bread on the table.
Holdin’ everything in
when it’s gotta come out
ain’t never gonna do nobody
no good.
So let me get it out, Preacher.
Then you can talk about
wipin’ away all tears.
But keep it short.
Billionaires and the Kingdom of God *
Narrator: One day as Jesus was going down the road, a billonaire ran
up to him, and asked,
Billionaire: Good Teacher, what must I do to get right with God?
Narrator: So Jesus said to him,
Jesus: Why do you call me good? Only God is good. You know
the commandments. ‘Do not murder. Be faithful in marriage.
Do not steal. Do not tell lies about others. Do not cheat. Respect
your father and mother.
Narrator: And he answered and said to him,
Billionaire: I’ve always played it cool with the golden rule but it still
doesn’t seem to be enough. I wish I could call God my father as you do
but he feels so far away and detached when I pray.
Narrator: Jesus looked steadily at him, and nodded,
Jesus: Yeah, you do have a big God problem. So let me tell you
whatcha gotta do if you wanna get on board that good old gospel ship
bound for glory. Sell everything you got, and give all the money you made
from this transaction to the poor.
Billionaire: Omigod! This is utterly unbelievable! Do you mean to tell
me, to find salvation, I’ve got to throw away all my capital to welfare
bums who’d just waste it on wine and whores?
Jesus: Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t, but this is not
about them, but you.
Billionaire: Hey don’t get me wrong.There are plenty of deserving poor
who need aid but why 100%? Even 5% of my assets would be
an enormous amount and I’d be willing and able to donate up to
15% for assistance to the needy.
Jesus: The poor need more than charity, they need justice.
Billionaire: What do you mean by justice?
Jesus: When the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven,
power as well as wealth is redistributed. There are no rulers nor
subjects, rich nor poor, master nor slaves, colonizer nor
colonized. The first become the last. The last become the first.
Narrator: The young aristocrat grinned as he shook his head.
Billionaire: Good luck on that. The odds of that happening are
about as good as of a… as of a…”
Jesus: As of a what?
Billionaire: Of a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle.”
Narrator: Jesus laughed.
Jesus: May I quote you on that?
* Based on Mark 10:17-25
I was on a long,
dusty Winnemucca road
in a Winnebago
borrowed from Hank Snow
and driven by
Jack Kerouac who asked me
if I seen a road with
so much dust and sand.
And I said,
“Are you kiddin’ me,
buddy-ro
I’ve traveled every road
in this here land!”
I’ve been everywhere,
man.
Crossed the desert bare,
man.
I’ve breathed the mountain air,
man.
Of travel I’ve had my share,
man.
I’ve been everywhere.
I’ve been to
Gad, Asher, Lagado
El Dorado,
Gog, Magog, Megiddo,
Armageddon,
Oz, Asgard, Shangri-La,
Utopia
Dan, Duneview, Brigadoon,
Kalamazooloo
How do you do?
I’ve been everywhere,
man
Crossed the desert bare,
man.
I’ve breathed the mountain air,
man.
Of travel I’ve had my share,
man.
I’ve been everywhere.
I’ve been to
Lemnos, Troy, Hades,
Utopia,
Gomorrah, Sodom, Mayberry,,
Oceania,
Mayflower, Middle Earth,
Hobbiton
Land of Oz, Rivendell,
what the hell!
I’ve been everywhere,
man.
crossed the desert bare,
man.
I’ve breathed the mountain air,
man..
Of travel I’ve had my share,
man.
I’ve been everywhere.
I’ve been to
Smallville, Whoville,
Pleasantville, Xanadu,
the many mini-malls
of Michita,
Fairyland, Munchkinland
Neverland, Candyland,
Man oh man!
I’ve been everywhere,
man.
Crossed the desert bare,
man.
I’ve breathed the mountain air,
man.
Of travel I’ve had my share,
man..
I’ve been everywhere.
I’ve been to
Westview, Brigadoon,
Atlantis, Eurasia,
Hogwart, Mordor,
Endor, Trantor
Cantelope Island,
Skull Island, Monster Island
Babel, Birnam Wood,
Airstrip One, Alderaan,
Emerald City, Gotham City,
what a pity.
I’ve been everywhere,
man.
crossed the desert bare,
man.
I’ve breathed the mountain air,
man..
Of travel I’ve had my share,
man.
I’ve been everywhere.
THROWING UP PRAYERS
91106
Pasadena
California
USA
North
America
NW
Hemisphere
Earth
Solar
System
Milky Way
Galaxy
Laniakea
Supercluster
Universe
Multiverse
To the
Great Spirit, Zeus, Ishtar, Vishnu,
Yahweh,
Christ, Allah, the Force
or to
whomever it may concern:
O Lord,
how countless are our enemies.
Thou
handest us over like sheep for the slaughter.
How long
shall the wicked triumph?
We see no
signs nor prophet any more.
Why
standest thou afar off, O Lord?
Why
hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
Thou hast
laid me in the lowest pit.
I am
filled with misery.
My life
is on the brink of hell.
Why hast
thou forsaken me?
How long
will thy hide thy face from me?
Is thy
rejection final?
Yours
truly,
Perplexed
poet
Resident,
Thank you
for your prayer. I appreciate having
the
benefit of your views. This response is an
acknowledgement
that I received your prayer
and will
make note of your comments.
Sincerely,
God
GENESIS
3:9
And the
Lord God called unto Adam
and said
unto him, Where art thou?
And he
answered, Just kicking back in
the
Garden of Eden with
Eve on a
planet orbiting
one of
400 billion stars in
the Milky
Way,
one of
around
two
trillion galaxies journeying in
the
observable universe which could be
one of an
infinite number wandering
within a
multiverse.
But, hey
Lord,
I was
just about to ask thee
the same
question!
ODE TO
THE PERIOD
Where the
comma is hesitant,
you are
resolute.
Abrupt
the dash--
You get
to the point.
Ellipses
enigmatic…
You
translucent are.
The
semicolon initiates;
you
consummate.
An
apostrophe’s known for its exclusions
while you
are recognized for your inclusions.
The
exclamation point is excessive.
Hell yes,
you are stable!
Does not
the question bring uncertainty
But you
closure?
As the
old quotation marks, “When all is said
and done,
you are there.”
Colons and
waves can’t stop.
You do on
a dot.
A
NEOLIBERAL PA$TORAL
The Free
market is my mantra
For
offshore tax havens
I shall
not want
He maketh
me spray pesticides on green pastures
and
leadeth me to build factories beside still waters
where I
may lay its wastes
He
guideth me to lay off union workers in my country
and move
operations overseas to hire cheap labor
for the
sake of maximizing my bottomline
Yea,
though I walk through a valley deforested by climate
chaos,
I’ll fear no evil for my government’s in thy hip pocket
Thy media
and church, they comfort me
Thou
preparest a banquet table of more gourmet food
than I
could possibly consume far from the sight of over
a billion
people on the brink of starvation
Thou
fillest the skies with over 420 and
counting
particles per million
of
carbon-dioxide
Thou anointest
beaches
from
Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico
with oil
spills and deepwater drilling blowouts
The
landfills runneth over with single-use plastics
used for
average of 12 minutes but persisting
in the
environment for half a millennium
Surely
unlimited accumulation of wealth
shall
follow me all the days of my life
and will
continue on a planet of finite resources
world
without end Amen
Amen Ommmm
LIKE
JESUS
I was
baptized
and don’t
condemn
abortion
or homosexuality
Like
Moses,
I have a
white beard
and do
not covet
my
neighbor’s ass
Like Jimi
Hendrix,
I have
some Cherokee blood
and
smoked pot
Like
Woody Guthrie,
I was
born in Oklahoma
and moved
to California
Like
Jackie Robinson’s father,
my son
attended Pasadena City College
and moved
to Brooklyn
Like
Pablo Neruda,
I’ve
written some odes
and think
capitalism sucks
Like
Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
I’ve
eaten Coney Island hot dogs
while
waiting for the rebirth of wonder
Like
Allen Ginsberg,
I’ve been
to the City Lights
Bookstore
in San Francisco
Like
Bukowski,
I’ve
worked at a post office
and lost
money betting on horses
at Santa
Anita and Hollywood
Like
Einstein,
I’ve been
to Caltech
and think
energy matters
Like King
Kong,
I have
visited the Empire State
Building
in Manhattan
and dig
blondes
Like
Donald Trump,
I have
been to Queens
and do a
lot of bullshitting
Like
Emily Dickinson,
buzzing
flies at funerals
bug the
hell out of me
Like
Holden Caulfield
in The
Catcher in the Rye,
goddamned,
name dropping
phonies
make me puke
FATHER SKY/MOTHER EARTH
December, 1953
Freshman year at
Oklahoma Baptist University located
in Shawnee, city named
after first people’s nation
led by Tecumseh who died
140 years ago in battle
defending sacred
ancestral homeland from occupation
by White Anglo-Saxon
Protestant settler colonialists
Under darkening purple
skies in Pontiac sedan,
our university
evangelistic team drives to Indian
tuberculosis sanatorium
blue northern wind from
Arctic blasts cheeks
pink as we step out of car
parked on asphalt lot
Blue-eyed student
preacher along with four other
ministerial students
stands before plate glass window
separating healthy
settler-colonial descendants from
coughing and wheezing
indigenous inmates
lying in or sitting upon
hospital beds
In warm, earnest tone,
he assures dark, brown eyes
in Ghost Dance trance
that though their sins be
as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow through
the precious blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ
We stand upon cold,
concrete floor above moist,
crimson soil of the
state where the Trail of Tears came
to an end and sing,
“Just as I am without one plea
but that thy blood was
shed for me”
Oklahoma is from Choctaw
words
okla and humma—the
land
of the Red People
MASTERS OF WAR
Do not fear to step into
that endless war night.
Hear no weeping for
martyred mothers with their daughters.
Deny, deny there’s any
dying of the light.
Dismiss charges our
government has committed war crimes.
Contend we have the
right of self-defense against enemy terror.
Do not fear to step into
that endless war night.
Although rubble and
craters from 2,000 pound bombs a dreadful sight,
Say we hear the cries of
those who mourn and hunger,
But deny, deny there’s
any dying of the light.
Hear not thousands of
worldwide demonstrators protesting genocide,
Assert our country is
the one who is fighting the real horror.
Do not fear to step into
that endless war night.
Advise doubters they
should always look on the bright side
And view with skeptical
eye those dissenting detractors.
Deny, deny there’s any
dying of the light.
And you, my President from your lofty heights,
Considers subjugation of colonized to colonizer the right and natural order,
And does not fear to
step into that endless war night,
Or deny, deny there’s
any dying of the light.
BLACK FRIDAY
They say it’s darkest
before dawn
but it don’t seem that
way
Mama sits at table but
this time
without coffee and cigarette
I don’t hear her
coughing or wheezing
It’s clear she’s gettin’
better
I call the undertaker
and cancel her funeral
It’s lighter now but
still dark
Saturday after Black
Friday--
the one following
Thanksgiving
not the good one before
Easter
I got some letters to
mail
but before I do, I hug
her
for the longest time
Death has given me back
my mama and I can’t
let go
RECTANGLE UNIVERSE
Between shadowy
east and west
exits,
solar rays
drawn north
by gravitational
force so
strong not
even light
can escape
door-shaped
black hole at
end of trek
THREE WISHES
I wish elder
wearing conductor's cap
and blue denim overalls
walking bus length
ahead of me
while on guard duty
during foggy night
on bridge
spanning river
which seems wide
as Mississippi
would stop
and let me know
which direction
I'm walking
where I'll be
when I reach
other side
and where I was
before I came
to this bridge
90
I am 90.
My birthday, September
23, is the same birthday
as John Coltrane who
just happens to be my
favorite musician even
over Wolfgang and Ludwig.
Checkmate, atheists.
Grandma’s birthday was a
week after mine.
I’ve heard that living a
good life is the best revenge
My grandma did that
after her husband abandoned
her and their seven kids
to fend for themselves
a decade before the
Great Depression began
By washing clothes and
cooking at pow wows,
she somehow managed to
pay the rent, bills
and feed her single
parented family
Grandma died at 91
surrounded by
a love supreme
a love supreme
a love supreme
of her four daughters
and three sons
along with their
children, grandchildren
and great grandchildren.
I not only won’t
I CAN’T
call her ex-
my grandfather
He died,
at whatever age it was,
abandoned
by ALL the love
he had abandoned
ELOHIM
COM LIT 250 CRITICAL
BIBLE STUDIES SEMINAR: While her Teacher’s Assistant, Wiki Lin, addresses the
seminar class, Loki draws a picture of large billowy white cloud on class
whiteboard.
Okie: (singing as he
enters classroom)
I saw the light
I saw the light
No more darkness
No more night
Praise the Lord
I saw the light!
I saw the light!
Wiki Lin: According to
Christine Hayes, kavod is this cloud that contains or hides the fire
that is Yahweh's presence--That is also the term that's used in the Torah, in
Exodus and the priestly sources to describe the presence of God among His
people, this fire that's encased in a cloud, the kavod.1
(Loki finishes drawing and lays marker on whiteboard tray)
Loki: It’s kovad time,
Bible scholars—SHAZAM!
Loki: Hi, Elohim. Love
the way you commanded earth, sun, moon, stars, plants. animals, humans into
existence in just six days.
ELOHIM: Thank you, Loki.
Yes, on each of those days I spoke all matter into being.
Cal: Really? Astronomers
today tell us there are over 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe, each
with billions to trillions of stars. So how in hell could you have created the
universe in only six days?
Edmund: Is it not true,
Elohim, that one day with you is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as
one day.
Okie: I object. Edmund’s
a pre-law student and leading the witness.
Loki: Objection
overruled. Please answer the question.
ELOHIM: Yes.
Edmund: No further
questions.
Amiri: The Bible says
God made man in his image, right?
ELOHIM: Of course. I
created humans in my own image, in the image of me created I them.
Amiri: Then you must be
white because that’s the way Michelangelo painted you on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel.
ELOHIM: No one has ever
seen me so any images of me whether graven or painted are misleading and
therefore idols.
Lupe: I remember my high
school U.S. history teacher told me how when the Catholics were trying to
convert the Incas from sun worship to Christianity, their emperor Atahualpa was
reported to have replied something like, “Nobody has seen the god your Bible
claims is the one true god but we Incas worship a god we see every day.
Joni: Why are humans
called Homo sapiens when they do all these stupid things like fight wars over
resources to make useless stuff for us to buy and bring home in single use
plastic bags which are then thrown away and eventually end up in the oceans and
then bellies of fish and birds.
ELOHIM: Well, I
certainly didn’t call your species Homo sapiens. It is a name humans in their
hubris have given themselves. In the beginning I did not create puppets but
people who have the freedom to make choices which are wise or foolish, good or
evil.
Laura: Mic drop.
Cal: Excuse me but was
there a democratic vote on whether or not for a couple of minutes of a soda
gulp, capitalists should still manufacture Styrofoam cups which persist in the
environment for half a millennium?
Loki: Wish we had more
time to discuss your question, Cal. It’s been an honor and pleasure talking to
you, Elohim. MZAHS! (Kovad light
coming from whiteboard switches off and returns to inside of cloud.)
1 Lecture 3. The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern
Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context, YaleCourses, YouTube
MT WILSON EPIPHANY
O, Spirit of Mount
Wilson Observatory
5,710 feet above the
Pacific Ocean who
did discover last
century we who live
in the Milky Way Galaxy
are not alone, how
many stars are there in
the universe?
Well,” answered the
spirit of the learned astronomer,
“there are 100–400
billion stars in our galaxy
and since there are over
two trillion similar sized
galaxies in the
observable universe simply multiply
the range of stars in
our galaxy with the number
of galaxies in the
universe for the best possible
range of stars
estimate.”
“Gracias.”
“De nada.”
JUNE BUGGED BLUES
Watch out, boy!
Junebug, Junebug
Meaner than a bumble bee
Harder than a bowling
ball
Spotted you a mile
high
Above that wood tag
game
And heeeeeee’s--
A-GONNA GETCHA!
Run cross the front
yard, boy,
And jump on your front
porch
But it ain’t a-gonna do
no good
June bug’s a-buzzin’
down
Like a dive bomber
From the twilight
sky
And heeeeeee’s--
A-GONNA GETCHA!
Slam the door shut
Crawl under mama’s
bed
But before she get’s
home
Ole June bug’s gonna
bang a big hole
Through a bedroom window
screen
And heeeeeee’s--
A-GONNA GETCHA!
Watch out
Junebug, Junebug
Mama’s a-comin
through
The front door now
So you better turn
around real quick
And fly back out
The same way you flew
in
Or sheeeeeee’s--
A-GONNA GETCHA!
DECOLONIZE THIS POEM
“Decolonization or Extinction”—Elena Gomez, The Red Nation
De-Columbus Day this
poem.
America wasn’t
discovered.
It was invaded and
colonized.
First and foremost, this
poem would like to
acknowledge it was
written on the stolen,
occupied land of the
Tongva people.
This poem views the
world through the eyes
of the colonized whether
they be those of Jews
under domination of Rome
in ancient times
or those of Palestinians
under Israel today.
De-canonize JunÃpero
Serra.
A saint he ain’t.
The first peoples of Los
Angeles needed to be saved from
colonialism, NOT from
the imaginary flames of a hell with which
this "Apostle of
California" threatened them unless they accepted
his blue-eyed, European
Christ as their lord and savior.
De-colonize Mother Earth
Liberate
her skies from
greenhouse gas emissions,
her oceans from being
capital’s plastic junkyard,
her coasts from oil
tanker spills and deepwater drilling blowouts,
her honeybees
pollinating one of every three bites of food we eat
from glyphosate-based
herbicides,
her chickens and pigs
from cages or crates where
they can’t turn around,
her sacred land from
electronic and nuclear waste contamination,
and her boreal woods and
rainforests from corporate plunder.
This poem like the poet
who wrote it and those who hear
and/or read it, are a
part of nature, NOT separate from it,
and thus one strand in
the web of life currently threatened
by the sixth mass
extinction.
De-Thanksgiving Day this
poem.
It does not give thanks
for the genocide, plantation
and wage slavery labor
on which the wealth
of a settler colonial
nation was built.
But it does give thanks
to—
white haired
grandmothers locking themselves to bulldozers
to stop laying of carbon
bomb oil pipelines,
Standing Rock water
protectors facing dogs, pepper spray,
water cannon blasts in
freezing weather while resisting
the construction of the
Dakota Access Pipeline,
those sitting in trees
to defend Weelaunee Forest
in Atlanta, Georgia from
being demolished
and replaced by “Cop
City,
university students in
tents on campus lawns protesting
genocide in Gaza,
thousands of
environmental activists murdered for
opposing rape of Mother
Earth by fossil fuel extraction,
and Idle No More
brothers and sisters round dancing
to beat of hand drums
before banks funding
fracking and oil
drilling to demand end
of fossil fuel era
before it ends us.
De-commodify this poem.
It has value even if it
doesn’t add one cent
to unlimited wealth
accumulation of richest 1%
De-privatize this poem
and re-communalize it.
As Roque Dalton has
said,
“Creo que el mundo es
bello,
que la poesÃa es como el
pan,
de todos.”
“Poetry, like bread,
is for everyone.”
O SAY CAN’T YOU SEE
Antarctic ice shelves
size of Los Angeles collapsing into sea,
wildfires in Western U.
S. and Canada seen from space,
Amazon rainforest—our
planet’s lungs which supplies 20%
of world's oxygen—
losing 200,000 acres a day,
Nebraska experiencing
two “500-year floods” in one decade,
Zhengzhou, China
receiving one third of annual rainfall in one hour,
900 killed in Southern
Africa by longest-lasting cyclone, Freddy,
hundreds dying from
triple-digit temperatures from “heat domes,”
equivalent of one
garbage truck filled with plastic debris
dumped into ocean every
minute,
135 sea turtles dead
from nearly 500 plastic pieces in stomachs,
less than 14,000
Sumatran orangutans remaining,
and one million species
on brink of extinction?
You will not know what’s
in your wallet nor given
15 minutes to save
15%,
you will not find your
beach and drink ice-chilled bottles
of beer with blonde and
brunette bikini beauties,
State Farm will not be
there like a good neighbor,
there will be no art
shows nor Black Friday blowouts,
there will be no “skies
the limit” commencement speeches
to high school and
university seniors,
there will not be 9
brilliant ways to build wealth after 40,
nor drill baby, drill
political campaign speeches
on a dead planet.
Scientists have warned
humanity has five years to act
to keep global
temperatures below 1.5º Celsius
Thus saith the
physics,
“Better end your
MotherEarthfucking ways,
before they end you!”
A BOLIVIAN BEATITUDE*
And when Bechtel, the
neoliberal conquistador murmured,
“I thirst for a greater
return on my investments,” Bolivia’s
governor and legislators
did hear his cry and filled with
compassion for their
boss’s bottom line, privatized
Cochabamba’s municipal
water supply
But when the indigenous
compesinos of Cochabamba
like the companero
carpenter on Golgotha cross
cried, WE THIRST, they
were told they
first had to pay their
water bill
They then asked how were
they going to be able to pay
as much as one quarter
of their two dollars a day income
and still get by
Government and
corporation spokesmen explained
sacrifices must be made
for the structural adjustment
which would insure a
more efficient market but if
they were patient,
wealth from Bechtel investment
would trickle down to
them by and by
But when the rains came,
the people of Cochabamba
discovered Bechtel had
claimed even the water
which fell from the sky
and they were prohibited
from gathering rainwater
“The water didn’t come
from that pendejo so why
in hell is he charging
us for it,” they asked?
When the people saw how
their government defended
the private property
rights of a corporation over
their sacred right to
drink water, they took to
the streets shouting,
“THE WATER IS OURS,
DAMN IT!”
They sent the police
They shot tear gas
Two children blinded
The companeros marched
on shouting,
“EL PUEBLO UNIDO
JAMAS SERA VENCIDO”
They sent the army
They fired guns
Six killed and 175
wounded
The companeros marched
on shouting,
“EL PUEBLO UNIDO
JAMAS SERA VENCIDO”
At the climax of the
struggle--
The police remained in
their stations
The army stayed in their
barracks
The members of Congress
became invisible
The Governor went into
hiding and afterwards resigned
The only legitimate
authority left was,
EL PUEBLO UNIDO
JAMAS SERA VENCIDO”
The people gathered at
the city square
making decisions in
large assemblies
And at the end they made
the decisions about the
water
In 2006, 500 years after
the invasion
and subsequent
occupation of the Americas,
Evo Morales was elected
the first
indigenous president of
Bolivia.
In 2019 a research
report from the Center
for Economic and Policy
Research showed
Bolivia had reduced
poverty by 42 percent
and extreme poverty by
60 percent since
Evo Morales became
President in 2006.
Blessed are those whose
thirst for justice
will never be quenched
until it rolls down like
mighty waters from an
ever-flowing stream
*From an interview with Oscar Olivera, Coalition of Water and Life, from the documentary, Corporation.
MANA*
Mana is
Bahaman Brahmans
chanting mantras before a Madagascar dawn,
high noon profits of a
Mama & Papa pot shop in Chicago,
jogging off millions of
Machiavellian manipulations on Saginaw sidewalk,
the magic of a margarita
with a Mohammedan Madonna in March
Mana is SUNRISE
Mana is DAYTIME
Mana is SUNSET
Mana is NIGHTTIME
Mana is
spring cantatas of
rocking Rachmaninof’ and be-bopping Bach,
Jimi Hendrix, Joe
Cocker, Santana and Janis Joplin at Woodstock,
manioc madness
manifested at a Madison, Wisconsin stomp dance,
a sasquatch munching
Choctaw chocolate on a frozen Mackinaw swamp
Mana is spring INFANCY
Mana is summer ADOLESCENCE
Mana is autumn MATURITY
Mana is winter wisdom of
ELDERS
Mana is
the Taj Mahal love of
Shah Jahal for his wife, Mumtaz,
the prophetic poetry of
a pentecostal Hobbit in Managua mañana,
applauding Amada
Delgado’s Tecate Tocatta at Montana cocktail lounge,
the colossal saxophone
of Sonny Rollins melting Stockholm frost
As far as East
is from West
and North from
South is MANA
Mana is
the cosmic immensity of
a Ma Yüan monochromatic ink drawing,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
detoxification of Nazi demagoguery,
Mayahana contacts with
Yahweh through Allen Watts radio talks,
the Pascal thought we’re
nothing before the ALL but ALL toward the nothing
Mana is BEYOND
Mana is WITHIN
Mana is the beyond
within
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
*The Polynesian,
Melanesian, and Maori belief in a pervasive supernatural or magical power.
TO A COSMOS FLOWER
I want you orange
like the Mexican
Marigolds which honor the dead
and celebrate their
lives during
Los Dias De Los
Muertos
but I also want you
yellow
as sunlight shining
through your petals
like the life coming
from our sun
I want
the sky from where the
sunshine comes
blue
the clouds which float
by
white
and your chest high stem
with leaves
growing in pairs along
it
green
and the ground from
where you sprouted and grow
brown
I want
your roots sunk deep
into dry and sunbaked soil
where you need to be
watered
only once a week or when
you start to wilt
and intertwined
underground with those of your nearby
flowering family
I want you
to stretch to the
firmament flexible enough
to bend with the wind
but strong enough
to return upright
whenever it calms
I prefer you wild like
your ancestors who first grew
in Mexico
or mine who became known
as Homo Sapiens
in Africa
I want
you as balanced
as the Cosmos we live in
and which lives in
us
WALTZ OF THE FOREST FLOWERS
(To Charles Lloyd)
Hiking east
through a mountain wood
I hear the poppy’s
golden sound
Butterflies start
their waltz at dawn
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmm
While puffy clouds
pass over peaks
I see rock wrens’
saxophone chirps
Willows whirl as they breathe in psalm
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmm
Ravenous hawk
circles canyon
Lazy diamondback
soaks noon sun
No one’s blue
by this gospel song
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmm
Funky bunny
by bush ahead
sniffs afternoon
leaf aperitif
All the forest
hip hop along
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmm
Thirsty Alders
on sunset banks
sip stream water
through tangled roots
Everywhere
there’s a dancing throng
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmm
LIVE FROM THE MONTEREY
JAZZ FESTIVAL
Charles Lloyd--tenor sax
& flute, Cecil McBee--bass,
Jack Dejonette--drums
and on piano, Keith Jarrett
De-dot-de-da-da
De-dot-de-da-da
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
FORTRESS OF FAITH
My alma mater 1
Fortress of faith
No doubt allowed
Believe tales of
talking snakes and
virgin births
history, not myth
But Genesis 1
says God made man and
woman
at the same time
While Genesis 2
says man made first,
then Eve came
from one of his ribs
Both accounts
can’t be true
One’s true,
the other false,
or both false
In Matthew there’s
a star over Bethlehem
but no angel choir
While in Luke there’s
an angel choir but no
star
over Bethlehem
Both accounts
can’t be true
One’s true,
the other false,
or both false
Fundamentalist
preacher said,
homosexuals
make God puke
Gay pastor asks, “If
God hates homosexuals,
why
did he make me one?”
John said the Devil’s
the father of Jews who
doubted
Jesus was God 2
Michael Servetus
doubts Jesus was God
Burned at stake
by John Calvin
MAGA state school chief
doesn’t believe
transgender
people
exist
Nex Benedict gets
jumped 3-1 in
high school girls
restroom
Dies next day
I John 4:20 3
says you can’t love God
if
you hate people
Whoever does not
love those they’ve see,
can’t love God
whom they haven’t seen
1 Bob Jones University
2 John 8:44
The author of 1 John is not the same John who
wrote the gospel of John
PSALM 150 & ALL THAT
JAZZ
Hallelujah!
Praise the everything to
which I am nothing!
Praise the nothing to
which I am everything!
Praise the universe
beyond us!
Praise the universe
within us!
Praise with Freddie
Hubbard trumpet tour of Cantaloupe Island!
Praise with Purple Haze
from Jimi Hendrix’s electrifying guitar!
Praise with Bob Dylan’s
Mr. Tambourine Man!
Praise with a Shakira -
Hips Don't Lie dance!
Praise with Newport Jazz
Festival secular humanists
dancing to gospel beat
of Mahalia Jackson!
Praise with Don
Cornelius Soul Train line dancers introducing
on syndicated television
show the latest dance moves!
Praise with Eric Dolphy
playing Jitterbug Waltz on flute!
Praise with loud
crashing cymbals of Elvin Jones drum proclamations!
Praise with Willie
“life-of-the-party” Bobo on conga!
Let everything that has
breath
Sock-it-to-me!
Sock-it-to-me! Sock-it-to-me!
HERE COMES GERTRUDE
STEIN—
Queen of Pasadena
Library’s Doo-Dah Parade--
riding
in her “rose is a rose
is a rose” float! Then Walt Whitman
high-strutting
before Redwood Chainsaw
Massacre Marching Band
chanting
“Pioneers, O
Pioneers...” Next--Cleopatra in front of Langston Hughes
singing
“America...” from a Nile
River gallery deck and a
smiling
Uncle Tom and Simon
Legree pull oars before Bukowski
bathing
in four-wheel bathtub
with Gregor Samsa metamorphosed as cockroach
inline-skating
on six legs behind the
dirty old man! Fortunately Falstaff is
unicycling
behind him with a mucous
scooper and in front of Allen Ginsberg
directing
the Beat Poets’
HOWL-e-lu-jah chorus followed by Emily Dickinson
popping
out of her casket to
swat the fly she hears
buzzing
over her--Hey there’s
Ezra Pound in cowboy suit
hopping
along over a broom horse
with his fascist gun in the West and
firing
blank verse bullets
above a raft on the Mississippi
carrying
Jim, Huck and what’s
this...? Langston Hughes again
singing
“America...?”
Look--Romeo’s at a balcony
French-kissing--
Good golly--Mrs. Molly
Bloom! Ah, Titania and amiable ass Bottom
whirling
in mad Midsummer Night’s
Dream followed by Joseph Conrad
driving
river boat deep into the
Congo--Can you believe it? Langston Hughes
singing
“America...” Does this
guy know rivers or what? Here comes Moby Dick
holding
Captain Ahab and Ishmael
showing
banner, SAVE THE HUMANS!
Omigod! J. Alfred Prufrock is
daring
to disturb the universe
I LOVE THIS PARADE
PASCAL & BUKOWSKI
SNEAK FROM SNOTTY SESTINA
TO GO TO SANTA ANITA
All around our tiny
planet in a tiny galaxy is empty space.
I have to take a crap
after making bet for first race.
In relation to the
infinite I am nothing.
In relation to the
nothing, I am everything.
As if the very
searchlight of God was focused on me,
I picked up my racing
form and began reading it.
By reason I seek to
comprehend the infinity of things beyond it.
I’ve found this
place...you should see the air, light and space.
The endless enormity of
an impersonal universe engulfs me.
Rush to bar for shot of
scotch after second race.
Miss the love shadows--
When she left, she took almost everything.
What was before and will
be after, I know nothing.
How can all there is
come from nothing?
Unless it bursts from
your soul like a rocket, don’t do it.
Like Einstein or Hawking
I want an explanation for everything.
With heart not reason,
I’ll soar throughout space.
I pass gold poppies by
Seabiscuit’s statue during third race.
It’s so sad: the flowers
are still trying to please me.
.
If I wager on God’s
existence what will happen to me?
If God is, I win all. If
he isn’t, I lose nothing.
I haven’t won shit as we
come to the fourth race.
As stars move through
space they dent or warp it.
They say deep in earth
live Creatures from Outer Space.
At a black hole
entrance, I come to the end of everything
but through its exit, I
may come to the beginning of everything.
A crazy alcoholic woman
once threw Pound’s Cantos at me.
What we think is gravity
is the strong curvature of space.
Wild: my body being
there and filled with nothing.
It’s still miraculous
whether the beginning is from a thou or it.
Can’t get my ass off
barstool and miss fifth race.
I break my losing streak
in the sixth race.
From the precipice I
leap into the void or everything.
I told that tough
motherfucker, “You can make it!”
The eternal silence of
these infinite spaces alarms me.
Yet like the universe I
have come into being out of nothing.
Nothing but space
between us... care to close that space?
After the seventh race,
Blaise says to me,
“Chinaski, you have
everything to gain but will lose nothing.”
“I wish it were that
simple,” I tell this fucking space ball
Rosalee Gurrola Thompson
walked in beauty upon the earth from September 16,1950 to May 30, 2013. Her
poems were published over 135 times. The lines in italics are from some of her
poems.
TO ROSALEE
Where
We walk inside roaring
comets
Stepping on broken stars
When
Everyone tells you that
they are dead
And you didn’t even know
it
|
Rosalee Gurrola
Thompson walked in beauty upon the earth from September 16,1950 to May 30,
2013. Her poems were published over 135 times. The lines in italics are
from some of her poems. |
Before
I bury 7 endangered
poet’s books
Under my plum tree
While
Your green haired two
year old boy
Runs naked through a
rainbow sprinkler
During
Journey of a
talking orange koi fish
In quest of a star at
the bottom of the ocean
After
I see you at The
special All About You Day
For this year’s April
Poetry Festival
I snack
On half portion of
poached political brains along with
Bag of grandma’s chacha
crunch chocolate chip crazy cookies
See
Six billion red bees
fall from the smoggy sky
Over Los Angeles City
Hall
And hear
Jacaranda leaves
laughing lavender tears
The day you died
AUTUMN IN LOS ANGELES
I don’t recall when the lights of the universe
were switched on but I heard they were
pretty damn spectacular
Anyway before you knew it—you had
galaxies filled with stars orbited by
planets orbited by moons
It takes our planet, Mother Earth, 24
hours to rotate on her axis—morning,
afternoon, evening and night to
complete one spin and 3651/4th
days to orbit the sun—winter, spring,
summer, and fall to complete
annual solar revolution
Speaking of fall, autumn in New York’s OK
but it can compare no way’
to an autumn in LA
I mean in New York autumn leaves
fall from the trees brown
while in Los Angeles they
remain in the trees green
same as they do in the spring
So give me a fucking break!
What’s so romantic about
decaying matter returning to
the dirt from which it came?
That’s why Garcia Lorca said,
“I want you green, not brown,
you New York clowns
By the way the LA Dodgers last
won the World Series in 2020
When was the last time
the New York Yankees won
the October classic?
But I digress
A HAIKU TO MY HIROSHIMA DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
Maiden voyage to Santa
Monica on Metro Expo line
Get on at Metro 7th St
Standing room only
Compassionate commuter
offers me his seat
Rail ride almost as
bumpy as bus one to same city
Forever and ever like
rolling over slow tide
Wonder if it’s worth it
But after nearly two
hours on rail from Pasadena
and I step out under
blue skies within white puffy clouds
while inhaling salty
ocean breeze
as I walk to Santa
Monica pier,
there’s no doubt it was
Walk over rugged pier
planks to Coffee Bean
Order coffee with
blueberry muffin and take to outdoor table
Read Luke’s poem about
how his wife, Masami, when she was
an elementary schoolgirl
dreaded field trips to the museum
in Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Park because It was a non-stop
tour of the horrors on
August 6, 1945
I had never cried
reading this poem previously
but on picture postcard
day over Southern California shore I cry for—
Massami’s loss of
innocence before unconscionable evil and suffering,
the loss of my firstborn
at 47 from rectal cancer
and the human sacrifice
of over 140,000
to the hellfire god of
nuclear war
Then across wharf
from man of Asia Indian
descent between
white-blue speckled sky
and sandy earth
sitar music
Pulling laptop from
backpack
I begin to write—
To sitar beat from
Santa Monica Pier
waves dance to beach
AMADA ESTRADA’S TECATE TOCATTA
I gotta WHEN I’VE BOUGHT
ZENYATTA’S PIÑATA
Go with the BEAUTIFUL CONTRALTO CARLOTTA
Hear Ronda ON ORGAN PERFORM LIKE YOU OUGHTA
We gotta AFTER THE GRANADA REGATTA
Take Ron with US TO THE ARMADA CANTATA
Hear Ronda ON ORGAN PERFORM LIKE YOU OUGHTA
Amada ESTRADA’S TECATE TOCATTA
Tod’s gotta GLAZE A WHOLE LOTTA TERRA COTTA
For Mama, PAPA AND YOLANDA ZAPATA
Hear Ronda ON ORGAN PERFORM LIKE YOU OUGHTA
Amada ESTRADA’S TECATE TOCATTA
Shimada HAS BOUGHTA RICOTTA TOSTADA
Enjoyed Sue SINATRA’S SUMATRA SONATA
Heard Ronda ON ORGAN PERFORM LIKE YOU OUGHTA
Amada ESTRADA’S TECATE TOCATTA
I gotta...SONATA...CONTRALTO CARLOTTA
A lotta...ARMADA...GRANADA REGATTA
You oughta...HAVE
BOUGHTA...RICOTTA TOSTADA
Tecate...TOCATTA...AMADA ESTRADA
TUTTI FRUTTI
A
A wop
A wop BOPA
A wop BOPA loo
A wop BOPA loo BOPA
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP bam
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP bam bom
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP bam bom BOOM
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP bam bom
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP bam
A wop BOPA loo BOPA LOP
A wop BOPA loo BOPA
A wop BOPA loo
A wop BOPA
A wop
A
Rooty Tooty
AFTER THE RAIN
Breathe in crisp blue sky from billowy white clouds
floating west to east with San Gabriel mountains
to soprano sax meditation of John Coltrane
Walk to corner of Colorado and Allen to take
Pasadena city bus for breakfast at Corner Bakery
and grocery shop at Trader Joe’s located a floor above
After getting off bus change mind to go instead to nearby
Green Street Restaurant where my mother-in-law, Dorothy,
often treated our family to a gourmet breakfast
See they no longer have on menu Otto’s Potato Patch omelet
Order instead two scrambled egg-potato tacos
Coffee not hot and ask waitress to bring me one that is
Spot sitting at nearby table spirits of those living
today--Cheryl, Mark and me along with those whose
bodies are no longer with us, Dorothy and Luke
Dorothy, a recently retired nurse, is sitting
between Luke and Mark, her first two grandkids
She worked at the maternity ward where they were born
Cheryl orders eggs benedict, Dorothy, ham and eggs,
Luke and Mark, pancakes covered with strawberries,
and me, Otto’s Potato Patch omelet
The eggs benedict looks luscious but Cheryl with soft voice
says eggs are a little bit too hard and asks for new plate
“MOM!” Luke says grinning while rest of us laugh
Clouds flow across cyan skies like flock of swans
above Trader Joe’s on corner of Lake and Del Mar
Exhale
A Love Supreme A Love
Supreme A Love Supreme
CALIFORNICATIN’
Eat breakfast of cream cheese spread on bagel,
not biscuits, bacon and scrambled eggs
and drink cup of kona, not Maxwell House coffee
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Crew cut gone, now have a mustache and beard
Wear jeans and sandals
not polyester and wing tips
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Reading Dostoevsky, Kafka and Joyce
Think that I shall never see
a more philistine poem than “Trees.”
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Can’t stomach the reader’s Digest no more
Stopped buying used cars from Tricky Dick
Hell, Jimmy Carter’s too far right for me!
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Dig the sounds of Billie, Miles and Trane
but unswayed by Hank’s honky tonk twang
or the teary love songs of Patsy Cline
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Cheer depressing foreign flicks with English subtitles:
jeer macho John Wayne, hokey Jimmy Stewart
and upbeat Doris Day movies
Say, boy, ain’t you gittin’ too big for your britches?
Break down in California license plated Dodge in parkin’ lot
of Oklahoma rest home before gittin’ out for what’ll
probably be the last time I’ll ever see my grandma alive
Hey, man, looks like you lost a little weight!
OLD McDONALD HAD A CORP FARM
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
And on his factory farm he had some cows
Ee i ee i o
With a moo-moo belch here
And a moo-moo fart there
Here a belch,
there a fart
Everywhere methane emissions
sent into the skies
Ee i ee i o
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
And on his factory farm he had some chicks
Ee i ee i o
With a cluck-cluck in a cage here
And a cluck-cluck in a cage there
Here a cage cluck, cluck
there a cage cluck, cluck
Everywhere cluck-clucks in cages
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
And on his factory farm he had some pigs
Ee i ee i o
With an oink-oink in a cramped pen here
And an oink-oink in a cramped pen there
Here a cramped pen oink, oink
there a cramped pen oink, oink
Everywhere cramped pens oink-oinks
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
Old McDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
And on this factory farm they used pesticides
Ee i ee i o
With asthma here
And cancer there
Here dead honeybees
There dead Monarch butterflies
Everywhere an ecocide
He stilled maximized
his bottom line
Ee i ee i o
Old MacDonald had a corp farm
Ee i ee i o
O AMERICA, AMERICA
I’m sick and tired of
you having more gun fatalities in a day than
Japan has in a year
and more people killed with guns in an average
week than in all of Western Europe in a year
I’m sick and tired of
psychopaths from sea to shining sea using
automatic and semi-automatic firearms to massacre
gays dancing at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida,
and Asian Americans celebrating a Lunar New Year
Festival in Monterey Park, California
and of
white supremacists in Georgia fatally shooting
a young adult guilty of jogging while black,
and a “stand your ground” vigilante in Florida a teen
who he suspected shouldn’t have been walking
on the grounds of a townhouse in an affluent
neighborhood because of the color of his skin
and of
domestic terrorists using assault firearms to execute
Walmart shoppers in El Paso, Texas, who looked
like the illegal aliens President Trump had said
were invading our country,
Jews worshiping at a synagogue in Pittsburg,
Sikhs worshiping at a temple in Wisconsin,
and African Americans praying at a Methodist
church in Charleston, South Carolina
and of
deranged AR-15 gunmen riddling the little bodies of 20
Sandy Hook elementary school kids in Newtown, Connecticut
and 19 Robb elementary school kids in Uvalde, Texas
with bullet blasts from rapid fire combat rifles
and the so called pro life governor of Texas who signed
the bill allowing the mass murderer of Uvalde innocents
to buy an AR-15 at 18 with no background checks
I’m sick and tired
that during the first 23
days of 2023, there were
37 mass shootings,
52 people killed,
and 102 injured
So sick and tired
sick and tired
sick and tired
of being sick and tired
O America, America
When will you love your children
more than you love your guns?
When will you beat your assault rifles
into plowshares
and your semiautomatic handguns
into pruning hooks?
When will you be
from sea to shining sea
the land of the free?
FEMME FATALE
No pleasing that woman of mine.
“I’m getting tired of same old sex,”
she says first thing during foreplay
“Come closer. I can’t feel you.
Why are you hiding from me?”
So I wrap my arms tighter around her.
“Jesus Christ! I can’t breathe.
You’re trying too hard.
Just let us be.”
Gently enter cavern in quest of desired prize.
“You’re strolling, not probing,” she complains.
“Exhilarate, don’t bore me.”
I speed up the rhythm.
“Whoa! Slow down the jackhammer, Mac!
“Do I look like a sidewalk?”
I lower tempo to reach climatic moment
but it still won’t come.
I’m exhausted.
“I don’t think I can.
I don’t think I can.
I don’t think I can,”
I say, ready to give up.
“Yes, you fucking can!”
It comes.
I show her the little rascal.
“Not bad,” she says.
“See you next poem.”
ME & JIM
Jim Feliz was half Apache and Latino
but looked more Indian than Mexican
I am 1/ 16th Cherokee and Irish
with the rest Anglo but look
like a full blooded Okie
We both had the same animal guides--
horses
That’s how we met each other
at Santa Anita
Because of his surname kids at school
would greet Jim, “Felix the Cat
the wonderful, wonderful cat...”
That’s why he always bet on any horse
with a cat in their name like Outlaw Cat
Onebadkitty or Relato Del Gato
He also had a tabby named Tiger who
knew how to listen whenever Jim had
any troubles he needed to talk about
When we went to the races we would sit
at an outside pavilion where we could
smoke cigars and Jim could share any
corn chips or pretzels with some
blackbirds who flocked on the grass
near the corner table where we sat
When successful at the track, we’d celebrate
with a chile relleno dinner at Super Burrito
in Pasadena or I would fry a couple of Buffalo
burgers which I had bought at Trader Joes
When not, we’d feast on the blues coming
from my car stereo as we drove home
In addition to going to the races, we also
would go to pow wows
We’d eat Indian tacos on fry bread while
watching Fancy Shawl and Jingle Dress
women along with men in brightly colored
regalia consisting of large bustle of feathers
worn on upper and lower back dance
in a circle on the grass as drummers sing
while beating a large drum they encircled
The prostate cancer Jim suffered over
a decade ago came back
After his funeral, his sister gave me
and another race track buddy each a plastic
bag filled with his cremated remains.
He wanted us to spread his remnants around
the Great Race place’s sacred grounds
I placed some of his remains near the statue
of Sea Biscuit and on the grass near the pavilion
where we would sit while he fed the blackbirds
Then I went to this pow wow in a state park
near Chinatown which coincidentally was
a couple of blocks from Philippe’s where
we often ate French dipped sandwiches
and drank coffee costing only a dime a cup
At this pow wow when they invited all the gathering
to join the round dance, I entered the circle
As we orbited on the park grass to drum’s heartbeat,
I laid my last of Jim’s ashes on the holy earth
where we were dancing
DOING THE MARINARA
1/2 cup of extra virgin
olive oil
two cloves of garlic
1 lb 12 oz. can crushed
tomatoes
1 teaspoon of oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
salt and freshly milled
black pepper
to
taste and 1/2 cup
dry
white
wine
WE ARE MARINARA
Place oil in large
skillet and
heat
add chopped garlic bits
when they crackle to
golden brown
turn off stove
allow
sizzle to fizzle
dump tomatoes in
and then flip
flame
back
on
WE ARE MARINARA
Add oregano and basil
shake
shake
shake
oh, my baby,
your salt and pepper
booty
bring to boil
cover pan
after
sauce simmers for 30
minutes
with
add wine and
let
salsa colorada bubble
cinco
menudos
mas
WE ARE MARINARA
add 12 ounces of your
favorite
fire roasted red pepper
linguine
to
4 quarts of boiling
water
stir in galactic spiral
to separate
cook 4-5 minutes
drain
toss with sauce
top with parmesan cheese
and
then with favorite
Chardonnay and
bakery fresh sour dough
baguette
enjoy
ENJOY
ENJOY
WE ARE MARINARA
ALL BLUES
You want to know why
I've become so distant
I flip the channel
to another football game
Kind of blue
You want to talk
about us
I try to change the
subject.
Slam the door as I walk
out
Kind of blue
Pretending you're
another woman
while making love to you
Unaware you've recently
opened
your legs to another man
Kind of blue
I begin
to come out of my shell
as you
enter yours
Kind of blue
See you with another man
--so what
You see me with another
woman
--so what
Kind of blue
At home
Alone
Listening to Miles
on the stereo
ALL BLUES
BROKEN RAINBOW *
Between four Sacred
Mountains—
Mount Blanca in
Colorado,
Mount Taylor in New
Mexico,
San Francisco peaks in
Arizona,
Mount Hesperus in
Colorado,
is the Four Corners
Universe
of the Diné and Hopi
people.
This is where Roberta
Blackgoat lives
in her Hogan home.
She knows each tree and
plant growing there.
And they know her.
Peabody Coal does not
know
each tree and plant
growing there.
And each tree and plant
growing there
does not know Peabody
Coal.
What Peabody Coal does
know is—close to 20
billion tons of their
high-quality, low-sulfur coal lies
under Diné and Hopi
ancestral land.
Thus with US government
aid a "Navajo-Hopi
Land Dispute" is
created.
More than 12,000 Diné
are relocated so Peabody
could strip mine Black
Mesa's vast mineral wealth for
more air conditioning in
Los Angeles, neon lights
for Las Vegas, heated
swimming pools in Phoenix,
power for concrete and
asphalt urban Edens rising ever
higher upon Southwest
desert plains and of course
the maximizing of
corporate bottomline.
Roberta Blackgoat
refuses to sign lease relocating her.
“No one thinks how earth
or sky is sacred anymore,”
she says. “If you keep
mining, you are excavating
her peoples’ ancient
songs and prayer chants.
Coal is the liver of
Mother Earth.
Mining cuts into her
flesh...her abdomen...
She is in tremendous
pain.
How would you like it if
I cut into the outer flesh
of your mother while she
is still alive?
It needs to stay in the
ground so she can be healthy.”
She’s forbidden to
gather firewood or maintain
a pair of outhouses.
Her sheep and goats are
subject to impoundment
But this 4’10” giant
stands her ground
She holds up sign in
front of her Hogan home—
The Creator is the ONLY
ONE
who’s going to Relocate
me!
Roberta Blackgoat walked
in beauty throughout
her life of 84 years.
She is laid to rest in
power in the soil where
her mother had buried
her umbilical cords
and she had buried her
children’s.
* The film is about the
history of Navajo Native Americans, focusing on the
government enforced
relocation of thousands from Black Mesa in Arizona
after the 1974
Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act. According to the film, the
Navajo were relocated to
aid mining speculation in a process that began in
1964. The film is
narrated by Martin Sheen. The title song was written by
Laura Nyro, the theme
music was composed by Paul Apodaca, with other
original music by Rick
Krizman and Fred Myrow.
MT. WILSON
Yesterday, while walking
east on the second floor balcony
of my Pasadena condo and
passing as usual the Mount Wilson
Observatory 5,710 feet
above the Pacific Ocean, I ran into
the spirit of Edwin
Hubbell, puffing on a curved stem pipe,
as he looked up to the
summit where he once worked.
“Didn’t you use to work
there, Dr. Hubbell,” I asked? “I remember
in my science class, the
teacher said you discovered that
the Milky Way Galaxy
wasn’t the only one in the universe.”
“Yes, we are not alone.”
he said. “Our Milky Way Galaxy
with 100-400 billion
stars has over two TRILLION
similar sized neighbors
in the observable universe.”
He took a puff from his
pipe. “In 2020 Andrea Ghez
and Reinhard Genzel were
awarded the Nobel Prize
for their discovery that
a supermassive black hole
most likely governs the
orbits of stars at the center
of the Milky Way. By the
way most galaxies also have
super massive black
holes at their core.
“Wow! This is so mind
boggling,” I said. ”No wonder they say
that scientists like
you, Ghez, Genzel, Einstein, Newton,
Hawking, etc. are the
universe aware of itself.”
“I’ve heard that,” he
said taking another puff.
“O.K., so let me ask
you, how can something come
from nothing,
consciousness from unconsciousness,
the personal from the
impersonal?”
He exhaled smoke from
his pipe. “How
in hell do you expect me
to know
something like that? I’m
only a scientist,
not a poet.”
A FOUND POEM ON TREES
FROM TWITTER
Biologists say
Trees are social beings
They can count, learn
and remember
They nurse sick members
and warn each other of
danger
by sending electrical
signals
across a fungal network
They keep ancient stumps
of long felled neighbors
alive for centuries
by feeding them a sugar
solution
through their roots1
When you understand
that under capitalism a
forest
has no value until
it’s cut down,
you begin to understand
the root of
our ecological crisis2
1 Indigenous@AmericanIndian8·26m#INDIGENOUS #TAIRP
2 bettemidler@BetteMidler
Jung Diver
leads me up
high diving tower
Teaches how to dive
d
e
e
p
into swimming pool
He then leads me up to
high cliff
Teaches how to dive
d
e
e
p
d
e
e
p
into the lake
He then leads me up to
mountain peak
Teaches how to dive
d
e
e
p
d
e
e
p
d
e
e
p
into the ocean
A Ditty of Diminishing Muster & Redundancy in Endeavor
to Amuse Reader While sipping glass of Pinot Noir
99 spy balloons in the
sky
99 spy balloons
And if one of those spy
balloons
is shot down from the
skies,
by a President who
ordered it lest he
would seem weak when
dealing
with aggressive foreign
powers,
wouldest there not then
be
98 spy balloons in the
sky?
98 spy balloons in the
sky
98 spy balloons
And if one of those spy
balloons
is shot down from the
skies,
by a President who
ordered it lest he
would seem weak when
dealing
with aggressive foreign
powers,
and is vexed by spy
balloons
over our nation,
although we have spy
balloons
over their nation,
wouldest there not then
be
97 spy balloons in the
sky?
97 spy balloons in the
sky
97 spy balloons
And if one of those spy
balloons
is shot down from the
skies,
by a President who
ordered it lest he
would seem weak when
dealing
with aggressive foreign
powers,
and is vexed by spy
balloons
over our nation,
although we have spy
balloons
over their nation,
wouldest there not then
be
96 spy balloons in the
sky?
96 spy balloons in the
sky
96 spy balloons
And if one of those spy
balloons
is shot down from the
skies,
by a President who
ordered it lest he
would seem weak when
dealing
with aggressive foreign
powers,
and is vexed by spy
balloons
over our nation,
although we have spy
balloons
over their nation,
even though both nations
have nuclear weapons
and escalation of
hostilities could
bring them to brink of
nuclear war
and nuclear war can not
be won
and so must never be
fought,
wouldest there not then
be
95 spy balloons in the
sky?
95 spy balloons in the
sky
95 spy balloons
And if one of those spy
balloons
is shot down from the
skies,
by a President who
ordered it lest he
would seem weak when
dealing
with aggressive foreign
powers,
and is vexed by spy
balloons
over our nation,
although we have spy
balloons
over their nation,
even though both nations
have nuclear weapons
and escalation of
hostilities could
bring them to brink of
nuclear war
and nuclear war can not
be won
and so must never be
fought,
and there is an IPPC
report which says,
“output of oil and gas
needs to be cut by 74%
by 2030, with complete
phaseout by 2034,
and though young people
are afraid of
climate change
destroying their future
and our President says
climate change
is an existential
threat,
our 750 military bases
around the world doth
need an abundance of oil
to defend
our country and way of
life,
and he wouldest fain
declare
a climate emergency but
fighting
and transport planes
can’t fly on solar,
wouldest there not then
be
94 spy balloons in the
sky?
94 spy balloons in the
sky
94 spy balloons
To be continued
My Favorite Teacher
“Mr. Esteelwell, why do
Americanos call me,
TJ,” I asked my ESL
teacher, “when I’m from
El Salvador, not
Tijuana?
“Are you frigging’
kiddin’ me, man,”
he answered? “TJ stands
for Trader Joe’s
where workers who make a
living wage like me
can purchase eggs laid
by free range hens, tuna
caught in dolphin free
nets, fair trade coffee,
organic bananas,
blueberries, cranberries,
oranges, walnuts,
peanuts and other vital foods
fertilized by bees for
as Einstein said, once bees
are gone, we’re all
gonna be in deep shit.
Trader Joe’s also
happens to be where mijo’s
got their milk after
they were weaned
from mi exposé’s breast
milk.”
Mr. Esteelwell took a
deep breath and went on
to say. “So when you’re
called TJ, they’re wishing
that you’ll live in a
community where there’s
a Trader Joe’s in your
neighborhood.”
I remember the first
time I asked him for a hall pass,
“Mr. Esteelwell, I need
to go to the bathroom.”
“Well we don’t have a
bathroom where you can
bathe and jack off but
if you need to take a crap
or piss, by all means be
my guest,” he said signing
and putting a time on
the green tinted hall pass.
One time, I asked him,
“Why are Americans
always telling each
other, ‘fuck you?’
“Es muy facil,
companero,” he replied.
“You see the word fuck
is translated in English
as ‘love.’ So when
someone says, ‘fuck you,’
they mean, ‘I love you.’
You see America
is a nation of lovers.
Like the refrain in one
of jazz saxophonist
Pharaoh Sander’s songs—
O love is everywhere...
Love is everywhere...
Love is everywhere...
Some students and
teachers at my school
call Mr. Esteelwell,
loco.
I call him my favorite
teacher.
The Extinction Will Not Be Televised!
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing
can be changed until it is faced.”– James Baldwin
You will not be able to
stay home, brothers and sisters
You will not be able to
keep up with the Kardashians
You will not Make
America Great Again
nor Build Back Better
Because the extinction
will not be televised
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
The extinction will be
brought to you by Exxon
who knew about the
climate crisis in the 1970s
and lied about it for
close to 50 years
and by the Koch brothers
who spent billions blocking
congressional action on
climate change
and spreading false
science while continuing to dump
carcinogenic pollution
into our air and water
State Farm will not be
there like a good neighbor
You will not be able to
find your beach and drink beer
with Snoop Dogg and
Malibu Beach bikini beauties
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
The extinction will be
brought to you by Citi, Chase,
Bank of America, and
Morgan Stanley who loaned
$36 billion to
corporations opening new oil and gas fields
within three months of
the IEA's announcement that to 2
have a 50% chance of
limiting global warming to 1.5°C,
there can be no new oil
and gas fields developed
and by the U.S. military
which uses 340,000 barrels
of oil per day, making
it the “single largest purchaser
and consumer of oil in
the world
You will not know
“What’s in your wallet”
nor spend 32 million
dollars an hour on endless wars
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
The extinction will be
brought to you by apocalyptic Amazon
fires destroying 200
acres a day of 20% of our planet’s lungs
for more grazing land
for methane belching bulls
and by Indonesia"’s
ancient rainforest for palm oil in your shampoo,
You will not be able to
buy a barbecue bacon double
cheeseburger Combo at
Jack in the Box
Palmolive will not make
your hair so smooth you can finger comb it
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
The extinction will be
brought to you by China’s boom in new
coal mines and mine
expansions commissioned in China since mid-2021
which threatens to raise
global methane emissions by at least 10%
and by the pro-corporate
and anti-science Supreme Court six who ruled
to curb the power of the
Environmental Protection Agency to
regulate irreversible
global heating greenhouse gas emissions
The extinction will give
no bright and boundless future speeches
at high school and
university commencements
nor will seniors rejoice
for graduating
Because the extinction
will not be televised
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
The resistance to
extinction and rebellion for life
will be brought to you—
by Extinction Rebellion
activists supergluing themselves
to government buildings
and shutting down the London Bridge
to protest Britain’s
inaction on catastrophic global warming
and by Sunrise Movement
activists crying out to Senator Joe
Manchin as he stepped
off his $5 million yacht bought
by fossil fuel money—WE
WANT TO LIVE! (duet)
WE WANT TO LIVE! WE WANT
TO LIVE!
by Kayaktivists in
Seattle protesting Arctic oil drilling in the ancestral
homes of whales, seals,
polar bears and inuit people
and by Greenpeace
activists on rafts holding up signs reading
OIL FUELS WAR before Russian oil tanker entering New York
by Greta Thunberg at 16
telling world leaders How dare you!
We are at the beginning
of a mass extinction and all you can talk
about is money and fairy
tales of eternal economic growth”
and by white haired
grandmothers locking themselves
to bulldozers to stop
the laying of oil pipelines
and degradation of land
and water
by Standing Rock water
protectors in North Dakota protesting
construction of Dakota
Access Pipeline which violates
indigenous treaty rights
and threatens to contaminate
their ancestral homeland
and sacred waters
and by Wet’suwet’en
water protectors in Western Canada protesting
largest fracking project
in Canadian history by Coastal GasLink
which violates
indigenous treaty rights and threatens their
ancestral homeland and
sacred waters because
WATER IS LIFE! (duet)
YOU CAN’T DRINK OIL!
KEEP IT IN THE SOIL!!
by Australia climate
activists blockading rail lines leading
to Sydney’s major port
in a nonviolent direct action
campaign aimed at
halting fossil fuel exports
and by over 1,000
environmental and indigenous activists
murdered since the 2015
Paris Agreement for defending sacred
land and waters from
corporate rape of Mother Earth
by 38,000 customers of
Bank of America, Chase, Citi,
and Wells Fargo, joining
a campaign called Customers
for Climate Justice, to
demand their bank stops
financing fossil fuels
and climate death
and by Idle No More
brothers and sisters round
dancing to beat of hand
drums before banks while
demanding that they
defund climate chaos
Because the extinction
will not be televised
THE EXTINCTION WILL NOT
BE TELEVISED (duet)
Fire, Air, Earth &
Water
In 2020, the Arctic
surpassed 100° Fahrenheit
More than half of the
carbon exhaled into the atmosphere
by the burning of fossil
fuels has come in the last 30 years
At least 26 million
people are at risk of starvation following
consecutive poor
rainfall seasons in the Horn of Africa
Yet Sub-Saharan Africans
are responsible for just half
a percent of historical
greenhouse gas emissions
2021 is the 25th year in
a row in which Greenland's ice
sheet lost more mass
during the course of the melting
season than it gained
during the winter
FIRE, AIR, EARTH &
WATER
Fires in the Western
United States and Canada
can be seen from space
Bomb Cyclone Scoreboard:
159 mph winds, 17 inches
of rain, 42 inches of
snow
Colorado just had a dust
storm more than 200 miles long
that traveled more than
300 miles
Zhengzhou (Chengchow)
China--where your iPhone comes from—
got 25 inches of rain in
24 hours
That's literally a
year's average rainfall in one day
FIRE, AIR, EARTH &
WATER
58% of the Western
United States is now in a “severe",
“extreme" or
“exceptional" drought
20 transnational
corporations and the Pentagon are responsible
for more than 35% of the
total global carbon emissions since 1965
Our Mother's lungs are
on fire and the fire
is fueled by capitalism
and greed
Violence against the
land begets violence
against our women, our
children, our future*
Over the past century,
three of Hawaii’s major islands,
Oahu, Maui and Kauai,
have lost around
one-quarter of their
beach shores
FIRE, AIR, EARTH &
WATER
The planet is currently
on pace for a "catastrophic" 2.7°C
of heating this century
if countries fail to rapidly and drastically
slash greenhouse gas
emissions, accelerate the transition
to renewable energy, and
enact transformative change
More than 330 U.S.
research scientists send a letter to
President Biden telling
him that listening to science means
stopping new fossil fuel
projects and declaring
a national climate
emergency
Chief Jacqueline
Thomas’s grandmother taught her, “When
we take care of the
land, it takes care of us but if we
destroy this land, we
will destroy ourselves”
Standing Rock water
protectors face water blasts
from settler colonial
police in freezing weather
because—YOU CAN’T DRINK
OIL
KEEP IT IN THE SOIL
FIRE, AIR, EARTH &
WATER
My Family
I’m from a
metaphor comparing,
image sharing,
sonnetting,
villanelling,
haiku and pantouming,
blank and free versing,
take no shit,
kick ass
poetry family
I LMAO at pixes of cute
kitten and puppy tricks shown
on Facebook family
albums by brother and sister poets!
I onamatopee ooo’s and
awes when grandparent bards
display photos of
beautiful grandkids
I send hearts and
congratulations to proud parents
exhibiting snapshots of
high school or university graduates
along with emojis of
wrath to articles or videos of
Mother Earth Fuckers
using sacred land, waters and sky
as their private sewers
to maximize profits while threatening
to rob these beautiful
children and grandchildren of their future
Sure we squabble and
fight
What family don’t
Your poem prose not
poetry
Walt Whitman sucks
Emily Dickinson rocks
Vice versa
However when suffering
inevitably comes—
a sister or brother poet or their loved ones
get cancer
or COVID-19,
a coming surgery,
death of a mother, father, daughter, son,
loss of a dog, cat, goldfish or canary
we surround with our
love
We are FAMILY!
We U.S. poets not
America First
We are from AFRICA FIRST
We descended from holy
womb of Black Eve
200,000 years ago
and poets know, you
know, that if you
don’t know where you
came from,
you won’t know where the
hell you’re going!
So don’t give us no
racist bullshit about all lives matter
when descendants of
slave patrols continue to be
judge, jury and
executioners of the dark Other
for selling cigarettes
on sidewalks,
using a counterfeit $20
bill to buy something,
driving with expired
license tags,
not signaling when
changing lanes, jaywalking,
and other misdemeanor
stuff
NO lives can matter
until Black Lives Matter
We are a
metaphor comparing,
image sharing,
sonnetting,
villanelling,
haiku and pantouming,
blank and free versing,
take no shit,
kick ass
poetry family
In the Beginning
In BibleLand where I was
born and went to school,
I learned—
“In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of
the waters.
And God said, Let there
be light: and there was light…
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE FIRST DAY.
And God made the
firmament, and divided the waters which were under
the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament:
And God called the
firmament Heaven.
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE SECOND DAY.
And God said, Let the
waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let
the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry
land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters called he
Seas: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the
earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind…
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE THIRD DAY.
And God said, Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heaven
to divide the day from
the night; and let them be for signs,
and for seasons, and for
days, and years:
And let them be for
lights in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth:
and it was so.
And God made two great
lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to
rule the night: he made the stars also.
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE FOURTH DAY.
And God said, Let the
waters bring forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth
in the open firmament of
heaven.
And God created great
whales, and every living creature that moveth,
which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every
winged fowl after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE FIFTH DAY
And God made the beast
of the earth after his kind, and cattle
after their kind, and
every thing that creepeth upon the earth
after his kind: and God
saw that it was good.
And God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and
female created he them.
And God blessed them,
and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth.
AND THE EVENING AND
MORNING WERE THE SIXTH DAY.
Thus the heavens and the
earth were finished, and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day
God ended his work which he had made;
and he rested on the
seventh day from all his work which he had made.
And God blessed the
seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it
he had rested from all
his work which God created and made.
After I graduated from a
fundamentalist college, I moved to SecularLand,
I learned—
The universe didn’t
begin in an act of creation 6,000 years ago
in six days and nights
but started 13.8 billion years ago
from the Big Bang
singularity.
Our galaxy with 100-400
billion stars is one of two trillion
similar sized galaxies
in the observable universe.
The human race began in
the womb of a black Eve
who lived 200,000 years
ago in an African Eden,
not a blonde, blue eyed
Caucasian paradise.
Mammon’s relentless
pursuit to create more wealth caused 98%
of old growth forests to
be cut down, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”
Because of our species
“dominion over the “fish of the sea”, “
fowl of the air, cattle
and “the beasts of the earth”, 94%
of the large fish in the
oceans are gone, 82% of birds on earth
are chickens, and of all
the mammals on earth today, 60%
of them are livestock,
36% humans and 4% wild.
We are a part of nature,
not separate from it.
If you fuck with Mother
Earth, you sure as hell gonna get fucked back!
As Chief Jacqueline
Thomas’s Grandmother told her grandchildren,
when we take care of the
land, the land will take care of us, but
if we destroy this land,
we will destroy ourselves.
Genesis 1 and the first
three verses of chapter 2 was written not
by a scientist or
historian but
a priest who wanted to
include in holy writ a liturgical chant
revealing why the
Sabbath is a day of rest and worship.
AHHHH-MEN
Famous Amos and
MotherEarthFuckers
While snacking on Famous
Amos chocolate chips, the Lord appeared to me as I was working on a
pastoral sonnet
and said, “Hey, boy, you
got a lot of fools on your planet who’ve been messing with Mama Earth and I
want you to tell them if you want your so called homo sapiens
species to last a little longer than the approximately 200,000 years
of your existence than you sure as hell better change
your Mother Earth
fucking ways!”
“But Lord,” I said “I am
only a humble country poet, not some big shot cosmopolitan poet like Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Who in hell is going to believe me?”
“Look, boy, humans are
in danger of becoming the only species ever to cause their own
extinction, so my question to you is, “What in hell are you going to do
about it?
So I stopped working on
my pastoral sonnet
and began to
write—
Thus says the Lord,
“Even though earth's land has warmed by 1.5 Celsius over the past 250
years, the coal industry has blasted off mountaintops in West Virginia
and strip mined sacred indigenous lands in the Southwestern United States
for more coal generated electricity to turn on skyscraper lights which
obscure the starlight of 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
Ex-President Donald Trump calls this crap, “clean” coal. I call it ecocide
and environmental racism.”
Thus says the Lord,
“Even though Exxon knew about coming climate catastrophe in the 1970s,
they lied about it for over 40 years and along with the Koch brothers
spent billions blocking any congress action on the climate change crisis
while spreading false science denying it and although in 1988, the carbon
dioxide level in the atmosphere was 350 parts per million which credible
scientists said was the upper limit for life on earth as we know to
persist, these Big Oil pissants continue to treat land, waters and skies
of Mother Earth as private sewers. Hey, Man, deny all the science you want but
your greed ain’t going to win no argument with physics.
Thus says the Lord,
!Even though Mother Earth is experiencing her worst spate of species die-offs
since the loss of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, every hour 1.5 million
pounds of plastic are dumped into the ocean.
An island of 30 feet
deep plastic debris twice the size of Texas floats in the middle of the
Pacific, and unless these petrochemical pendejos stop their Mother Earth
fucking ways, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.”
Thus says the Lord,
“Even though a third of food humans eat pollinated by insects like
honeybees, America"s bees are dying at alarming rate from neonic
pesticides.
Twenty years ago monarch
butterflies numbered nearly one billion. Their number has dropped 80 percent as
the Glyphosate roundup of milkweed has left them little to eat on their
migration from Canada to Mexico and back.
What say you, homo
sapiens endangered species yourself? Better a world without monarch
butterflies
or one without
Monsanto?”
Thus says the Lord,
!Even though carbon dioxide rising to Father Sky metamorphoses into heat
causing ice to melt, oceans to rise and storms to gather, the United
States continues to use 340,000 barrels of oil a day for 800 military
bases around the world to fight wars over a fossil fuel moving humanity
ever closer to chasm of runaway climate disruption.
Hey, man! Like I said in
Deuteronomy, #Chose life over death." Convert your rockets and guns into
solar panels and windmills and troops into the Civilian Climate Corps.”
Thus says the Lord, Even
though the Amazon rainforest is the “planet’s lungs” supplying 20% of world's
oxygen and home of almost 390 billion trees divided into 16,000 species,
around 2.5 million insect species, one in five fish species, 428 amphibians,
378 reptiles, one in five of all bird species, 427 mammals, and
approximately 32,000 indigenous people, land owners use slash-and-burn
fires to make way for cattle ranching.
What in hell are these
MotherEarthFuckers thinking?
Losing forests means
losing the fight against climate chaos and putting biodiversity at risk
of extinction.
As the grandmother of
Jacqueline Thomas, past chief
of the Saik'uz First
Nation told her when she was a child, ‘when we take care of the land, the land
would take care of us; if we destroy this land, we will destroy
ourselves.’”
Thus says the Lord,
!Even though 2016 was the hottest year recorded on your planet, over those 12
months the four networks devoted 50 combined minutes to the existential
threat of climate change. Although climate science says 80% of existing fossil
fuels needs to be kept in the ground, and atmospheric levels of carbon
dioxide could reach 1,000 parts a million by the end of the century if
they don’t, 20 banks across four continents, eight countries and 50 U.S.
states fund the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline which violates Indigenous
rights and if built, would release as much greenhouse gases as 50 coal-fired
power plants.
There’ll be no economy
on a dead planet.
What part of climate
change emergency”don’t you MotherEarthFuckers understand?”
On May 7, 2021,
Indigenous rights and climate activists protest at the branches of of
these Mother Earth fucking banks. “Stop the Money Pipeline,” says the Lord.
Greyhound
Night
I can’t remember where
you got on,
Flagstaff...
Albuquerque...
I was traveling from
Pasadena
to Midwest City,
Oklahoma
I can’t recall
if your hair was blonde
or brunette
your eyes blue or
brown
or you were wearing a
dress
or jeans but I do
know
I was most fortunate to
be sitting
beside someone so
pretty
I can’t
remember
what we talked
about
or recall if you told
me
you were a student or
worker
or I had said I was
going
to Fuller Theological
Seminary
but I wasn’t really
sure
I wanted to be a
minister
As darkness
deepened
into a rumbling bus
silence
I can’t remember how it
started
Your head on my
shoulder
My arm around
yours
Your head on my
lap
My hand on your
waist
I remember
we were soon trying to
sleep
in each other’s
arms
on two cramped and
creaky cushioned seats
of a Greyhound cruising
east on I40 at 70
miles per
hour
and despite the layers
of clothing between us
how exhilarating your
breasts felt
pressed against my
virginal chest
I don’t recall
where you began
and I ended
but I do remember
that I didn’t get any
sleep that
night and I never
wanted to wake up
I think
you got off in
Amarillo
You looked like you were
still
trying to wake up
I can’t
recall
if we said good
bye
For a long time I felt
dirty Bible
Belt Jesus had told
me what we
had done was illicit sex
even
though both of us
were fully clothed
I no longer think that
way
Now I feel so
blessed
for the night we spent
together
under a galaxy of
rolling stars
The Liver of Mother
Earth
I
Between four Sacred
Mountains
Mount Blanca in Colorado
Mount Taylor in New
Mexico
San Francisco peaks in
Arizona
Mount Hesperus in
Colorado--
Four Corners Universe of
Diné and Hopi people,
dwells Roberta Blackgoat
in her Hogan home
She knows each tree and
plant growing there
And they know her
II
Peabody Coal does not
know
each tree and plant
growing there
And each tree and plant
growing there
does not know them
What Peabody Coal does
know is
close to 20 billion tons
of high-quality, low-sulfur coal
lies under Diné and Hopi
land
Thus in the holy name of
property rights and profit,
a "Navajo-Hopi Land
Dispute" is created by the US government
followed by more than
12,000 Diné relocated so they could
strip mine Black Mesa's
vast mineral wealth for more
air conditioning in Los
Angeles
neon lights for Las
Vegas
heated swimming pools in
Phoenix
and power for concrete
and asphalt urban Eden
rising ever higher upon
Southwest desert plains
III
Roberta Blackgoat
refuses to sign the lease relocating her
No one thinks how earth
or sky is sacred anymore, she says
If you keep mining, you
are excavating
her peoples’ ancient
songs and prayer chants
Coal is the liver of
Mother Earth
Mining cuts into her
flesh...her abdomen
She is in tremendous
pain
How would you like it if
I cut into the outer flesh
of your mother while she
is still alive?
It needs to stay in the
ground so she can be healthy
She’s forbidden to
gather firewood or maintain a pair of outhouses
Her sheep and goats are
subject to impoundment
But this 4’10” giant
stands her ground
She holds up sign in
front of Hogan home:
The Creator is the ONLY
ONE
who’s going to Relocate
me
IV
Roberta Blackgoat walked
in beauty through her life
At the age of 84, she is
laid to rest in power
in the soil where her
mother had buried her umbilical cords
and she had buried her
children’s
Christ and Newton*
Then the devil took him
to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you
are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his
angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you
will not strike your foot against a stone.’
Jesus answered him, “It
is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ Matthew 4:5-7 New International Version (NIV)
You guys have been
fighting this losing battle
against science since
Galileo
You would not look into
his telescope because it was clear
the sun revolved around
the earth, not vice versa
You rejected Darwin
because his theory said humans were not
created in the image of
God but only another species of ape
You believed the story
of Adam, Eve and a speaking serpent
was history not myth
You were confident the
world started thousands of years ago
not billions because the
Bible told you so
Despite record heat,
melting ice caps and rising seas, you didn’t
believe in global
warming because Trump said it was a hoax
You acknowledged the
coronavirus outbreak was a “real issue”
but suspected the media
was using it to hurt the President
You feared no evil
passing through the valley of the shadow
of pandemic death to
preach the gospel in New Orleans
As long as you walked in
the light of the Spirit of life, surely
no germ would attach
itself to your body
You missed the point of
the second temptation when Satan tried
to con Jesus into
showing his faith in God by defying gravity
He didn’t take the
tempter’s bait and put God to the test
by throwing himself down
from the highest point of the temple
Your lord and savior
doesn’t save from ignorance
and you became another
fatality of COVID—19
*Based on the article,
“Christian pastor who thought COVID-19 is just ‘mass hysteria’ among the first
in Virginia to die from virus” Written by Sky Palma / Raw Story March 27, 2020
Wonder
We know there are at least two trillion galaxies
in the observable universe and that most of them
have super massive black holes at their core
around which a few hundred billion stars spiral.
We are also aware of inner as well as outer space.
Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us, “There are as many
atoms in a single molecule of your DNA
as there are stars in the typical galaxy.”
So we know about the universe beyond and within.
Pascal said, “in relation to the infinite I am nothing.
In relation to the nothing, I am everything.”
Tyson says we are in a universe which is also in us.
Thus I can’t help but wonder--what, if anything, does
this infinite and infinitesimal cosmos know about us?
Mixed Blood
I had one ancestor--
Grandma’s
great-grandmother who
survived the Trail of
Tears
However most of my male
settler-colonial
ancestors
probably voted for
the President who signed
the Indian Removal Act
which
forced her to relocate
from
sacred ancestral
homeland
and to endure icy winds,
heavy rains
and snow while on this
death march
She collapsed and lay
near dead
along trail before her
rescue by
some hard working tenant
farmers
Nursed back to health,
she married one
of those farmers who
became my
grandma’s
great-grandfather
No doubt some of my
Anglo-
Saxon ancestors also
fought on the
Side of the Confederates
during the War
Between the States to
defend the freedom
Of plantation owners
like Old Hickory
To have slaves do their
farming
The Green Dream or Whatever They Call It
I voted for Hillary
Clinton
I prefer Obamacare to
single payer
Medicare for all is not
realistic
Especially to my
corporate donors
I walk straight down the
middle of the road
over yellow stripes and
dead armadillos**
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a moderate
I jeered during last
Presidential election
for all of the Russian
tampering
Foreigners invaded our
democracy
Putin’s puppet now
thinks he’s a king
But it’s not the same
with Venezuela
Our oil happens to be
under their soil
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a moderate
Although our troops have
fought in Afghanistan
for 17 years, mainstream
media pundits
still say we need to
understand
terrorism wins if
there’s a quick exit
Besides endless wars
mean endless profits
for military industrial
contractors
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a moderate
The IPCC has warned we
have 12 years to
keep earth within 1.5
degrees of warming
We’ve got to take bold,
drastic action
to stop our climate
catastrophe direction
Nancy Pelosi says global
warming’s no hoax
but states Green New
Deal’s only a suggestion
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a moderaten
I Dream of Luke*
December 22, 2007
Luke is in his grade
school years.
He has bangs
and wears a striped tee
shirt.
He does a lot of whining
and craving for
attention.
I am feeling irked at
the former
and guilty for the
latter.
I then stop what I'm
doing
and take him for a walk
along
the Hahamongna River
between
South Pasadena and
Pasadena.
Earth and sky purified
by
recent rain, the air
smells fresh
and crisp as we walk
along
the concrete river
banks.
August 2015
Luke and I are walking
together
through a shopping mall
We walk through one
store
after another bypassing
any corridor
All of a sudden
Luke is no longer beside
me
I return to the stores
where we walked
and yell, LUKE
I come to a an empty and
dark loading dock,
stand near it’s concrete
edge and scream
at the top of my lungs
into the darkness--
JAMES LUKE STILWELL
December 23, 2016
Luke follows me on his
ten speed bike
as I ride mine home from
work.
The road is slippery
The traffic heavy and
rapid
Somehow my bicycle
manages to keep up
with all the speeding
automobiles
I look back and see Luke
is still
riding his bicycle close
behind me
August 25, 2017
I am driving on Hyperion
Ave toward
my teaching job at King
Jr. High
Some of my boy students
are with me
We come to a curve and I
stop my car
I get out but forget to
put on the parking brake
and my automobile begins
rolling
Luke, who never learned
to drive,
suddenly reaches over
the front seat
grabs the steering wheel
from his back seat
and guides my auto
safely to the curve
* James Luke Stilwell (March 20, 1968-November 1, 2015)
Ghost Story
I was
walking by
my house.
And all of
a sudden
I hear,
“Ghost!”
And I
looked
and I
see somebody
and I didn’t know
who it was.
“Com’ere!”
they say
and they
keep on
getting closer
and yelling
“Ghost.”
And then
they say,
“Where’re
you from?”
And I say,
“Nowhere,
homes.
I don’t
bang
no more.”
“Where
you from?”
Nowhere.
And then
I hear,
“Ghost!
I thought
I knew
you, fool!”
And then
they shoot.
BAM!
And I
could see
my body
on the
floor.
and then
they come over
and say, “See
I told you,
I fuckin’
told you...
STUPID!
See I
told you.
Fucking
told you.
Fuckin...”
BAM!
Reel Injun*
Stark
tough 6th grader
with steely blue eyes
stalking
Stilwell
scrawny 5th grader
Why?
Nobody would tell me
We both attended Washing
Irving Elementary
a few blocks from
downtown Oklahoma City
The next day while
walking home from school, he caught me
like at the end of a
vengeful cowboy posse chase
Surrounded by schoolboy
fight fans, he grabbed me
by my neck and took me
down to the sidewalk
in the lock of his vice
forearm grip
I couldn’t breathe and
gasped,“I—give…”
I cried all the way home
still not knowing why
Stark was mad at me
Later I found out I’d
called Ronald Harris a name.
What name had I called
him?
No reply
Walking home day after
street justice had been meted,
it hit me
I had told a few
classmates about a recently seen
western movie where
these blonde, blue-eyed pioneers
in covered wagons were
massacred in technicolor blood
by those who Thomas
Jefferson had branded “merciless
savages” in the
Declaration of Independence
and I had called “DIRTY
INDIANS!”
I certainly did not mean
Ronald, one of the five
full blooded indigenous
kids in my class
He was a REAL
INDIAN!
Even though these words
were meant for movie Indians,
I still felt like shit
for having spoken them
But If Ronald had been
hurt by these bigoted remarks
from my abysmal movie
review, he never let me know.
He was my neighbor as
well as classmate
and we continued to play
together as we had done before
One day in front of his
home, we put on boxing gloves
He was Joe Louis and I
was Billy Conn
Bop! Bop! Down I’d
go...Get up
Bop! Bop! Down I’d
go...Get up
Bop! Bop! Down I’d
go...Get up
So much fun!
1950
Five years after atomic
bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki near end of
World War II
One year after Billy
Graham made national headlines by
preaching at LA revival
meeting held in circus tent, I along
with rest of junior high
basketball team was invited
to New Year’s party
Had not scored one
fuckin’ point but initial spin
of glass milk bottle
pointed to me
First kiss
That May Mom and
stepdad, Jim, bought me first suit
and tie for junior high
graduation ceremony
During summer, Korean
War broke out
and I got religion
Walked down aisle of
Southern Baptist church as they
sang invitation hymn,
“Just As I Am” and accepted
Jesus Christ as personal
lord and savior
Quit saying “shit,”
“fuck” and taking God’s name in vain
Learned evolution and
communism were of the devil
Stopped going to movies
because they were worldly
and dances since they
made you lust
Born again
At 16, sophomore in high
school
Got A’s in Latin and
Algebra
“Them grades show how
intelligent you are,” Jim said
“Shit,” David,
unreligious younger brother said! ”You may be
a smartass in school but
you’re a dumbass everywhere else!”
Wise fool
Jim Thorpe voted best
all-around athlete of mid-century
I played on high school
basketball B team
Blocked a shot but like
in junior high didn’t score one
god-uh doggone point!
Never could get up
enough nerve to ask
any crush out for my
first date
Teen angst
Ten
Existentialists
Ten existentialists
looking at the abyss
One fell asleep
And then there was
Nine existentialists
viewing the abyss
One watched TV
And then there was
Eight existentialists
observing the abyss
One went shopping
And then there was
Seven existentialists
studying the abyss
One got a job
And then there was
Six existentialists
meditating on the abyss
One got religion
And then there was
Five existentialists
beholding the abyss
One voted Republican
And then there was
Four existentialists
peering into the abyss
One voted Democratic
And then there was
Three existentialists
gazing into the abyss
One got married
And then there was
Two existentialists
staring into the abyss
One’s eyes blinked
And then there was
One existentialist
looking ever deeper into the abyss
And then he leaped
To be continued
All Hail Rock
and Roll!
We didn’t rock around
the clock at Bob Jones University
or any hour of the day
for that matter
It was more than the
beat...the beat...the beat...
It was the music of
rebellion against God
Every time Teen Adam and
Eve did all those suggestive dance
moves, it was eating the
apple again...and again...and again...
Thus I couldn’t believe
when I heard, as I entered my dormitory,
roommate, Bear, singing
from our second floor, shower, another
Elvis hit “Don’t be
cruel to a heart that’s true...”
Bear was fearless
He also didn’t care much
for BJU’s rigid piety
Pray because you want
to, not because you have to
One night while I was
kneeling during a prayer meeting
each cluster of three
dormitory rooms were required to have
before light’s out, he
grabbed hold of my right toe and twisted
it like he was going to
yank it off
It was all I could do to
keep from both screaming and laughing
Bear was the best
college and seminary roommate I ever had
Yeah, Bob Jones didn’t
take to youth’s inclination to rebel very well
They let us know that
while they welcomed constructive suggestions, no
griping was
tolerated
We had this joke about
two students who were expelled from BJU--
one for griping and the
other for lying
The one for griping said
he didn’t like the grits students
had to stomach every
morning
The one for lying said
he liked them
They also didn’t
tolerate kissing and holding hands on campus
Next to questioning the
infallibility of Bible Belt’s paper pope, the biggest
no-no at this institute
of higher learning was the usual sex stuff
So if you didn’t want to
be expelled from this fundamentalist
paradise, you kept your
hands to yourself
I was one of the waiters
serving said grits for breakfasts
in addition to other
grub for lunch and dinner
It was one of my
co-workers who introduced me to Carol who
was from from Eureka,
California and a junior at the university’s
adjacent high school
Oh, man, did she ever in
the words of Sam Cook’s classic
send me!
She couldn’t wear “tight
dresses” of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen
at BJU but still looked
good “sportin' high heel shoes”
We had a few things in
common.
Like Bear and me she
rebelled against Bob Jones’s religious rigidity
and agreed that fundy’s
weren’t much fun
But I was over my head
as far as class differences go
Her father was a
P.G.& E. executive who gave her an allowance
which was twice what I
earned working 40 hours a week
at a department store in
Midwest City
I was flattered that
someone so wealthy and attractive had shown
interest in me and
enjoyed my company
One night we went to an
opera at the university auditorium
As the lights went out
while stage crew changed scenery, I reached
for her hand and she
mine and our fingers intertwined
Later, Carol, was to
dump me for another waiter and like
the Everly Brothers put
it--”Bye Bye happiness
Hello emptiness”
But at that very
instance when eternity intersects
with the time-space
continuum, a jolt surges through my body
like the one Adam must
have felt in Michelangelo’s painting as
the creator with his
finger touches his hand and I become
a born again fornicator
A Bible Belt Polonaise
I met Richard Brand
while we were both juniors
at Midwest City High. He
was playing a Chopin’s
Polonaise on a Steinway
at a church social.
As his bony shoulders
pumped, his long fingers
flew furiously along the
length of the keyboard
with a power I wouldn’t
have believed possible for
someone with such a
frail frame. It was the first time
I had ever liked
anything classical.
The last time I saw
Richard, he drove me home
in his ‘40 Plymouth
Coupe. I had just returned
from Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago and looked
forward to telling him
of the white bucked college
quarterbacks and
high-heeled blonde beauty queens
I had seen testify at
Youth for Christ rallies about
the unspeakable joy they
discovered the moment
they bowed their heads,
closed their eyes and asked
Jesus to come into their
hearts and take total control.
I knew Richard was
“madly for Adlai” when most
of us “liked Ike” and
that he might’ve believed Evolution
was true but I still
wasn’t ready for what he told me.
He could no longer bend
his knees to the god of our
Bible belt fathers...
His eyes had been opened
and could never be
closed again... He recommended
I read J.B. Phillips’
book, Your God is too Small
Before I got out of his
car, he placed a hand on
my left wrist and
pleaded in an anguished voice,
“Please--don’t pray for
me.”
I’d like to visit that
North Carolina oak grove
where Richard shot
himself, kneel before a mound
of brown and yellow
leaves piled within a circle
of ash-white stones and
let him know
I never prayed for him
I read J.B. Phillips
I’ve yet to hear anyone
play
a better Polonaise.
A Question to the “Pro-Life” Governors of Bible Belt States
Why
do we kill people who
kill people
to show that killing
people
is wrong
and why,
if we kill
people who kill people
to show
that killing people is
wrong,
do we kill
poor people who kill
people
but not
rich people who kill
people
and why,
if we kill
people who kill people
to show
that killing people is
wrong
are we four times more
likely
to kill
people who kill white
people
to show
that killing white
people is wrong
than we are
people who kill black
people
to show
that killing black
people is wrong
and why,
if we spend six times
more
to kill people who kill
people
than we do when we
imprison without
parole
people who kill people
and why,
does a country which has
more
people who believe in
God
and who kills
people who kill people
to show
that killing people is
wrong
still has a lot
more
people who kill people
than countries who have
less
people who believe in
God
but imprison people who
kill people
to show
that killing people is
wrong
and why,
if our country has so
many
people who believe in
God
and so
glories in the cross on
which
Jesus was killed
but that cross was
how
Roman people killed
people who they
believed had done
something wrong
and why,
if killing people
who have done nothing
wrong
is wrong
and we kill people who
we later discover
did not kill the
people
we believed they had
killed
and/or kill people
who had not been proven
beyond a reasonable
doubt
to have killed the
people
we believed they had
killed
and we are not
GOD
but people
do we kill
people who kill people
to show
that killing people
is wrong?
TRANE RIDE
“The main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture
to the listener of the many wonderful things
he knows of and senses in the Universe.” --John Coltrane
and the Great Spirit
breathed into John Coltrane and he blew into
his saxophone sheets of
sound with light year speed through
the spiraling dark hole
of his horn, drawing the atoms of body and soul
whirling into a cool
fusion and spinning them out
in a fiery fission
exploding us
imploding us
dividing us
uniting us
while ridin’ the Trane
to places far away
and
d
e
e
P
w
i
t
h
i
n
touring soprano sax
lands of a few of
our favorite things
our
favorite things
our favorite things
exploring and probing
with Coltrane ALL
the Universe means to
him
but abruptly losing our
way with bursting
tenor sax
shrieks
McCoy Tyner’s keyboard
crashes
Elvin Jones
thundering
drum rolls
but brought back on
course as Jimmy Garrison with closed eyes
and sweating forehead
throbs bass strings in a
trance
dance
traveling the Trane
where no one’s been before while the Creator
exhales through him and
we inhale
a love supreme
a
love supreme
a love supreme
Centered
Linked
by umbilical cord in
womb
of woman on planet
orbiting
star in elliptical
spiral
with over 200 billion
other stars
around
supermassive black hole
of Milky Way galaxy,
one
of more than
100,000 galaxies
whirling
inside Laniakea
supercluster
within universe
somewhere
amidst other
universes,
fetal child, with as
many
atoms
in single molecule
of DNA as are
stars
in typical galaxy,*
sucks thumb.
*Neil de Grasse Tyson Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Why?
Called fag, whore
or wetback?
Branded sissy, wimp
or crybaby?
Mocked because dumbass
or smartass?
Asked at what thrift
store Mommy
bought funny lookin’
shoes?
Told favorite singer
or band sucks?
Who knows
or cares?
Bout of day
at boring school.
Depression Kids
This photo was taken
with a Kodak box camera
I can’t remember who
took it, Roy, Dad’s brother
or Minnie, his
sister-in-law
That’s their clapboard
house behind dad’s car
Apparently the oil wells
in the Oklahoma City skyline
didn’t pump enough oil
to pave the dirt road running
between them and their
home
As you can imagine, they
could get quite muddy after a rain
We were living with Roy
and Minnie along with their son,
Ronald Dean who was
about my age
David and I slept on an
folding bedspring set up in the
dining room every night
Pretty cold linoleum
floor to walk over on a wintry
predawn toilet trek
That’s my big sister,
Dolores, between Mom and Dad
She was ten and in the
5th grade at Wheeler Elementary
That’s me with the cool
hat, plaid jacket and hickey overalls
beside my little
brother, David, with same hat and jacket as me
We were all born during
the Great Depression--Dolores in 1930,
me in 1934 and David,
the baby of the family, in 1937
Dad was a truck driver
while Mom worked as a seamstress
The only time I remember
riding in Dad’s car was the time
he took me to St
Anthony’s hospital for an appendicitis operation.
While I was recovering,
I noticed Dad wasn’t at Mom’s side
as she read to me from
The Wizard of Oz
World War II began as
Mom and Dad divorced
Mom met a sailor from
Dallas, Jimmy Dalton and they married in 1943
He was to become the
grandfather of Dolores’ four kids
and the two children
each of David and me
The last time I saw my
dad was at my grandfather’s funeral
He moved to Wyoming and
lived there till his death
The last Stilwell I saw
was Ronald Dean
He was living with Uncle
Roy and Aunt Minnie with his three kids
in the same home my
family once lived
(My grandfather’s name
was Charles Brady Stilwell.
He was called Happy)
PREFACE TO A HAIKU
Maiden voyage to Santa
Monica on Metro Expo line
Get on at Metro 7th St
Standing room only
Compassionate commuter offers me his seat
Rail ride almost as bumpy as bus one to same city
Forever and ever like rolling over slow tide
Wonder if it’s worth it
But after nearly two hours on rail from Pasadena
and I step out under blue skies with white flowing clouds
while inhaling salty ocean breeze
as I walk to Santa Monica pier,
there’s no doubt it was
Walk over rugged pier planks to Coffee Bean
Order coffee with blueberry muffin and take to outdoor table
Read Luke’s poem about how his wife, Masami, as a child of
Hiroshima Prefecture,
was shipped out to the Peace Park every
year along with her
class to go through the Museum there
It was a non-stop tour
of the horrors that began on August 6, 1945
with plenty of gruesome
photos and exhibits
She couldn’t take it and
kept her eyes down the whole time
Every year after, she
found some kind of excuse to miss that trip
I had never cried
reading this poem previously
but on picture postcard day over Southern California shore I cry for—
Massami’s loss of innocence before unconscionable evil and suffering,
the loss of my firstborn at 47 from rectal cancer
and the human sacrifice
of over 140,000 in Hiroshima
and 70,000 in Nagasaki
to the hellfire god of nuclear war
Then across wharf
from man of Asian Indian
descent between
white-blue speckled sky
and sandy earth
comes to me
sitar music
Pulling laptop from
backpack
I begin to write—
To sitar beat from
Santa Monica Pier
waves dance to beach
Summer of ’66
One year after the riots
or uprising
depending on your point of view
I attend the Watts Jazz
festival
In the afternoon under
the junk sculpted tower of Simon Rodia
the drumming is like a
flower power fiesta at a love-in
and DEEP in my
heart I do believe that
ONE DAY
WE
BLACK AND WHITE
TOGETHER
SHALL OVERCOME
But as Hugh Masekela
trumpet fanfares
West Coast sundown,
majority of minority
Euro-Americans leave
festival
and l am left with
a few whites bobbling
like a fishing float in
an African-night ocean
War beat takes over
drums
Flash backs to year ago
unrest follow
“BURN, BABY, BURN.”
“GET WHITEY!”
“BLACK POWER!”
Suddenly blonde Euro in
bare midriff
stands up in spotlight
and shakes blue jean booty
to roar and laughter of
crowd
A jazz brother needs a
ride
and in my ’53 Chevy, I
drive him to his ghetto home
My fading blue clunker
could have broken down there
but it didn’t
And even if it did
as Miles Davis might
have “kind of blued”
with muted horn
“SO WHAT”
Christmas of ’68
The first time I
traveled by plane was the Christmas of ’68
when Cheryl and I took
Luke, 9 months old, to visit my mother
and stepdad, Jimmy, who
he would later call Mo and Po.
Luke was born two weeks
before Martin Luther King was assassinated,
one year from the day he
spoke in opposition to the Vietnam War
from the pulpit of the
Riverside Church in New York City.
In June that year, just
when it seemed Robert Kennedy was on
the verge of ending the
war in Vietnam after winning the California
Democratic Presidential
primary, he was murdered like his brother
and the greatest
obstacle in the the way of the “Masters of War”
continuing their
bloodbath in Southeast Asia was removed
Jesus Christ, I
wondered!
Into what kind of a
world has my beautiful boy been born.
I did not feel like
eating but the next day, I broke my fast
by pigging out on peanut
butter spread on crackers.
In August we watched on
our black and white TV at the 1968
Democratic Convention in
Chicago, Daley’s blue bullies charge
with clubs swinging at
crowd of anti-war demonstrators shouting,
THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!
THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!
Tricky Dick who I voted
for in 1960 was elected
that November over
liberal war hawk, Hubert Humphrey.
Mom and Jimmy probably
voted for Nixon but this was Christmas
and as the head of our
family, Grandma would say for family
gatherings, “Never argue
politics or religion.”
Besides Mom caught the
Hong Kong Flu from Cheryl
who got it from Luke who
unlike Mama and Mo
recovered quickly.
Christmas Eve on Mom and
Jim’s color TV, I watched
world premiere of “How
the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
That night it snowed and
I woke up to a rare
white Christmas in
Oklahoma.
Summer of ’69
Two months before Luke’s
first birthday, Tricky Dick was
inaugurated 37th
President of the United States followed
a week later by an oil
spill on Santa Barbara’s beautiful coast.
Grandma, who had worked
as a nurse in the hospital where Luke
was born, drove her old
Chevy from Arcadia home to our East
Pasadena apartment to
help us celebrate March 20th birthday.
In May Grandma
babysat Luke while Cheryl and I
went to see X-rated
movie, Midnight Cowboy.
During June, gay pride
was born from Stonewall uprising in New York.
That summer Cheryl, Luke
and I traveled in our
‘67 Datsun to Oklahoma,
Dallas and Manistee,
Michigan to visit my
family and her brother.
In Dallas at the home of
my brother and his family, we watch
Neil Armstrong descend
from ladder of Apollo 11 and hear
him say as he set his
left boot on the moon’s surface
"That's one small
step for a man,
one giant leap for
mankind."
This was also the Summer
of Woodstock.
The Eternal Now
Mark was born March 2,
two months before the Kent State massacre.
Mark was redheaded just
like my mother, her half-Irish grandfather,
oldest sister and two
younger brothers were.
After the Sylmar
earthquake shook our once cozy North Pasadena home,
Mark would climb down
every night from his crib, snuggle between
his mom and dad and
sleep with us the rest of the night.
Nancy and Rick with
their daughters, Michelle and Ana
lived a few houses west
of us. Michelle was two years
older than Ana as Luke
was with Mark.
“Go see Ana,” Mark would
say and off we’d go to her home.
One night after
returning home, Mark spotted a full moon
rising above the Camphor
trees lining our street.
“Moon! Moon!” he said
pointing to the sky
and pumping his legs
like they were
a hummingbird’s beating
wings.
Michelle will be killed
at the age of 25
in a freak accident when
a truck
rolls over her car.
Luke at the age of 47,
after moving to Japan
and living there for 13
years,
will die from rectal
cancer.
Nancy and Rick,
Cheryl and I,
will be divorced.
But at this moment which
I believe
Paul Tillich calls the
“Eternal Now,”
the world couldn’t be
more beautiful.
Cantaloupe Island
At 1985 Town Hall
concert in New York, Herbie Hancock Quintet
Be-bop-bop-bop be-bop
Be-bop-bop-bop be-bop
Set sail for Cantaloupe
Island
Double breasted, barrel
chested trumpeter, Freddy Hubbard
Puffs post-bop
apocalyptic beat
Puffs post-bop
apocalyptic beat
Taking us from New York
mean streets
Herbie Hancock, dapper
dressed on Steinway seat
Funk-pluck-pluck funk-funkin
Funk-pluck-pluck funk-funkin
On waves rolling o’er
emerald sea
Joe-Joe-Joe Henderson on
tenor sax
With salt and pepper
bearded lips
With salt and pepper
bearded lips
Wails the way to an
Empyrean Island
Drummer Tony Williams in
turquoise tee
Gong-gong-CLANG and DRUM
Gong-gong-CLANG and DRUM
Looking for Cantaloupe’s
palm tree shores
Ron Carter throbbing
strings up and down double bass
Bum-bum-bum-Bump Bum-bum-bum-Bump
Bum-bum-bum-Bump
Following heartbeat to
find magical isle
Herbie Hancock Quintet
celebrates rebirth of Blue Note Records
Be-bop-bop-bop be-bop
Be-bop-bop-bop be-bop
The destination is the journey
cogito ergo
sum
i am
what i show
what i hide
i am
what i eat
what eats me
i am
young at heart
old before my time
i am
a face in a crowd
a crowd in a face
i am
a piece of the continent
not an island
i think
therefore I am homo
sapiens
when I do
while
homo moronus
when i don’t
cogito
ergo no credo
in any creed
Let Us Go Up to the Holy Mountain
When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
they will ban all
nuclear bombs and hammer their automatic
weapons into mega solar
power plants and wind turbines
They will no longer
learn war
or their feet be swift
to shed blood
Each person whether
Jew or Gentile
Christian or Muslim
atheist or believer
male or female
native or alien
heterosexual, homosexual,
transgender, whatever...
shall go and say, Come
and let us go up to the
holy mountain
where we will begin to
understand--
We do not inherit the
earth from our ancestors
but borrow it from our children
We are not outside the
web of life
but merely a strand in it
and whatever we do to
this web,
we do to ourselves
Endless economic growth
on a finite planet
can not continue forever
And then just maybe--
who in hell knows?
The wolf will then live
with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
The cow will feed with
the bear
and the lion will eat straw like the ox
The infant will play
near the cobra’s den
and the young child will put its hand into
the viper’s nest
They will not hurt or
destroy each other
on this sacred mountain
Everyone will sit under
their vine and fig tree
and no one will make them afraid
Trump Towers Over All
I have the absolute right to do
what I want with the Department of Justice
I am the state
I had to fire Comey
He pledged loyalty to an old piece of paper
over me--his constitutional ruler
I’ll do the same fucking thing to Mueller
if he don’t stop poking his nose
into where it don’t belong
I have the absolute right to keep my money in tax shelters,
my federal tax returns secret and give myself the largest tax
cut ever thanks to my tremendous Trump tax reform
I have the absolute right to ignore scientists’ warning
to keep fossil fuels in the ground and instead extract more
profits from oil drilling, coal mining and fracking for gas
I have the absolute right to nuke North Korea off the map
So if they know what’s good for them, they better
not make any more threats to my country
I have the absolute right to say it’s time
for a change in Iran but not in Saudi Arabia
and not be called a hypocrite
I have the absolute right to move Israel’s capital from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem like my evangelical base
and Sheldon Adelson want me to do
Jerry Falwell Jr. has compared me to King David
In other words, David was anointed the king of Israel
and me--the supreme commander of the American Empire
I have the divine right to do
any goddamned thing I want to do
I am the state
Impasse
or
How I Learned to Love
Global Warming
And Stop Worrying about
Avoiding
Catastrophic,
Irreversible Climate change
Mammon won’t
Give up profit motive
Mother Nature
Her physics
A Million Children
A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes.
Saudi aircraft bomb desalination plant and leave a million Taiz dwellers
without water.
The deaths of these children are not tragedies. They are crimes.
Absence of clean drinking water has helped fuel the cholera epidemic.
Save the Children has said a million children are near death by cholera.
A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes.
Four out of five children in Yemen need some humanitarian aid.
No aid agency can solve this crisis if the war continues.
The deaths of these children are not tragedies. They are crimes.
Over 90 per cent of Yemen’s food is imported.
60% of Yemen’s population doesn’t know where their next meal will come
from.
A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes.
The war in Yemen, prosecuted by Saudi Arabia and backed with weaponry
from the West, has destroyed the country’s food, water and health
infrastructure.
The deaths of these children are not tragedies. They are crimes.
More families marrying off child daughters so someone else can care for
them.
Meanwhile, the West continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes.
The deaths of these children are not tragedies. They are crimes.
Remnants of Ancient
Flames*
Dark the water
Waist deep I stand
Around me families weep
Over gray flesh fragments of
Loved ones seeping to
Surface from ocean depths
I pick up square sponge of
Cartoon face floating by
Try to toss into boat with no load but
Rowing skipper shakes head
Flip flab instead onto
Over loaded vessel
Tattooed youth
Wail and hug as
One places remnant of
Homie upon mounting heap
Ferry chugs gently away into
Dark the night
*Vereris Vistigia Flammae—Virgil
Lake of the Angels
Sunday morning
Exit Westlake/MacArthur
Park Metro station
On corner of Wilshire
and Alvarado, street preacher in staccato Spanish
bullhorns concrete
congregation to BEHOLD
the lamb of God who
takes away EL PECADO DEL MUNDO
Who died in your place
to save you from the eternal flames
of inferno once you
accept JESUS CHRISTOS as your personal
lord and savior
At Intersection—
Autos reving particles
of carbon dioxide behind and upto skies
pass by
pedestrians walking
between 99¢ Store and sidewalk vendors
oblivious to gospel
pitch
Enter park
Homeless guy on grass
snores under classified section of LA Times
displaying colored
photos of shining new car models for sale
Upon MacArthur
Lake in white sun glare, rest
hundreds of seagulls
poised like foreboding flock
of Hitchcock birds
Near center
underwater fountain
sprays jets upward as in prayer for
a thirsty California
At northern edge
marine green waters lap
against cement bank while bright-eyed
niño in fading Laker tee
tosses tortilla bits to gray gosling
web-peddling before mama
On grassy knoll
on western end,
revolutionary Marxist group begins setting up tables for
free food distribution
Walk across
Parkview
to UCLA Downtown Labor
Center for study session,
"Converging Storms
2014: The Crisis of Energy, Capitalism and Environment"
My Significant Other
No pleasing that woman
of mine.
“I’m getting tired of
same old sex,”
she says first thing
during foreplay
“Come closer. I can’t
feel you.
Why are you hiding from
me?”
So I wrap my arms
tighter around her.
“Jesus Christ! I can’t
breathe.
You’re trying too hard.
Just let us be.”
Gently enter cavern in
quest of desired prize.
“You’re strolling, not
probing,” she complains.
“Exhilarate, don’t bore
me.”
I speed up the rhythm.
“Whoa! Slow down the
jackhammer, Mac!
“Do I look like a
sidewalk?”
I lower tempo to reach
climatic moment
but it still won’t come.
I’m exhausted.
“I don’t think I can.
I don’t think I can.
I don’t think I can,”
I say, ready to give up.
“Yes, you fucking can!”
It comes.
I show her the little
rascal.
“Not bad,” she says.
“See you next poem.”
Funk This Speech!
A noun is the part of
speech
which names a thing like
a ding-a-ling.
An adjective is the part
of speech
which describes a thing
like
“The ding-a-ling is
dapper.”
A pronoun is the part of
speech
which substitutes for a
thing like
“It is dapper.”
A verb is the part of
speech
which tells what thing a
thing does
like “The dapper
ding-a-ling zings.”
An adverb is the part of
speech
which describes how,
when or where a thing does like
“The dapper ding-a-ling
zings here.”
A preposition is a part
of speech
which links a thing with
another thing like
“The dapper ding-a-ling
zings here with zest.”
A conjunction is a part
of speech
which joins the
differing parts of speech like
“The dapper ding-a-ling
zings here with zest but so-so there.”
An interjection is a
part of speech
that expresses a word
which exclaims like
“The dapper ding-a-ling
zings here with zest but alas, so-so there!”
Where Blackbirds Meet
Thursdays at Santa Anita
still free day for seniors
Only day I go now
Shut out since two weeks
ago when I won $35 from
$2 place bet which gave
me winning day on one bet
Blackbirds no longer
hang around northeast corner
of pavilion where we
smoked cigars
and you fed feathered
homies corn chip bits
after we made our bets
They don’t race on
Wednesdays any more
Maybe why I haven’t seen
Angel lately
Hope so
He’d be about 85 if he’s
still around
I see Cigar Bob from
time to time
He’s retired now
Joe just had a surgery
but still in his low-eighties
driving to Santa Anita
and that Indian Casino
Talk about perseverance
David moved to Georgia
with his Dixie blonde
I hope he’s near a place
he can buy his daily pan
dulce
and enjoy good tamales
like we ate at cafe near
the Mercado
You never know
the way the original
people of this continent
are spreading throughout
the land
taken from their
ancestors
Last time I saw David he
flew back here for 2012 Breeders cup
Guess what! I ran into
Trifecta Bob
Never forget the $600
wager he won
during David’s birthday
bash at Santa Anita’s infield
Remember Daryl Hannah—
the mermaid movie star
who sat in tallest tree
on South Central farm
before pulled from it and arrested
by those protecting and
serving the 1%—
It was sick the way
those Mother Earth fuckers bulldozed
the orchards and crops
of over 350 farming families,
wasn’t it?
Anyway she was also
arrested in Washington D.C.
protesting the building
of carbon time bomb--
the Tar Sands Keystone
Pipeline
Some things don’t
change, do they?
Republicans
still against minimum
wages
affordable healthcare
for all and want to
privatize social
security, medicare, public education, everything
except our privacy
Of course, Democrats
aren’t so hot on
last two things
themselves,
are they?
You know Saginaw
who we saw at all those
pow wows
also acts in movies
I read about him in
Native Peoples
He gave the opening
prayer during last pow wow I attended
at the state park near
China town
Longest prayer I ever
heard outside a Baptist church
Anyway when they invited
everybody to join the round dance
I tossed to drumbeat
upon sacred ground last
of your allotted ashes
one week after the first was spread
where blackbirds meet
Four Angels
On southeast corner
of McDonald Park
unseen cherubim swings
as Pasadena parrots off
key sing
On other side
southwestern
seraphim slowly switches
sycamore leaves from
green
to reddish-yellow
Under San Gabriel
Mountains
partly covered by ashen
clouds
northwestern angel
shares
sentry duty with
foothill fir
On northeast corner
aging
archangel stands on
aching arches
and wonders if there’s a
God
beyond chilly gray dome
