art music poetry 60

                 seximus automaticus

Corporate Suckered Us

 

Back when there was time, when one parent

Was always there to guide a child, schools were

Not blamed for bad behavior, partly because there

Was so much less of it.  One job per house meant

Security, health insurance, a nest egg, and plenty for

Suzie to go to college on.  Forget the bridge club now

Dearie, everybody works.  Corporate has found a way

To thrive in the post-liberation era:  reduce middle class

Pay to the point of nudging, nay forcing the Moms to work.

It’s not about reduced free time, it’s about no time left to

Even get to know our own children. Since profit is king,

The new world order is thus: No assistance if the Dad lives

With his child, No benefits to any temporary workers, No

Labor jobs that pay a living wage north of the Maquiladoras,

No wins for unions since 1980, No affordable day care

For working Moms, No federal money for states with less

Than seventy five percent of the welfare recipients working,

No job training money left after building bombs, No incentives

For employers to pay better, No company loyalty, No profit

Sharing plans, No safe pensions, No guaranteed retirement,

No Social Security, No public transportation in many

Towns, No decent schools for low-income neighborhoods,

No safeguards for the food we eat, No plan in place to

Save the environment, No cash to save the mental hospitals,

No handouts to the homeless veterans, and No jobs at all

For those who work with their hands. None, zero, zilch, zip!

art music poetry 59

Opus 1802

Jesus is a Liberal

Jesus Christ would not be proud

To see religion in this state.  (Virginia that is.)

TV evangelists preach a canon of intolerance.

Jesus never expected people to hate in his name.

Building amusement parks in homage to God

Makes as much sense as waging war for Christ.

A god who attracts such diverse attentions

Is not a nice god or even a holy god.

He must be the god of money, or,

The god of land acquisition, or, perhaps

Even the god of death.  Now that should

Set bells ringing in your bible-belt ears.

The god of death destroys life and love,

The god of death is worshipped in Lynchburg.

Low Rider

Woman catches 300 pound jumping tuna

Play

Brandy barks at swooping swallows,

Life, lowered to one foot or so

In summer time is simple,

As the lure of tired dogs and clover

Greets only those who need to play.

Scampering down outside stairs

Past the skidding bicycle marks

To a tumbling fit of joy

Goes the only daily memory

Of a happiness once known.

Landing in a pile of limbs,

Which includes the golden hair

That shines of wetness on the

Back of Brandy, the player

Laughs at the summer sun.

How long will it be

Before the play begins again,

Before the youthful joy

Once known appears, before

The love, if ever, returns?

written at age 14

Love in the age of slaughter without remorse

  Happy whale swims the yellow sea

Oncebush

A oncebush, nowtwigs

Juts into the plane of

A window.  Someone cut off

All the flowers, leaving

Sticks in the air.

I would have thought

This to be wise

Except that this is April.

Gray shadows interrupt

A piercing spring sun.

Spiny arms reach out

From a hanging plant.

Uneven knots combine

To hold the pot, attached

By rounded hook to roof.

Shy little light pokes

Out of the wall, its

Shadow doesn’t cause a stir.

Oncebush nowtwigs solid

In its presence stays.

Note to friends:

What if your best friend not only committed a verifiable slander on you in a nationwide newspaper, but also mentioned extremely personal things in this published article?

Some would go to court and win.

Most, if not all,would wipe the offending party off all contact lists.

In my case I gave the rascal a chance to make ammends.  Stay tuned for the results.

In the mean time, enjoy this:

Two needless chairs expire,

Water drops on rust.

New color happens.

Man-made polyethylene lasts

While metal slowly syrups

To a puddle on cement.

The splashes splash

Much smaller in the

Thicker, sadder pool.

At the time of April

Water (loving self)

Splashes higher into water.

Needles drop on scene

On time, from pines.

Dark and bending branches

Promise further litter,

It changes green to tan

Then brown amidst the rain.

Sand is hardening, to

Become a crystal image.

Chipped-off paint adds

Yellow to a widening

Scope of dismally

Contradictory experience.

written at age 20

art music poetry #58

Opus 1788
Background so good I made no splash upon it

                Last Night in Rochester

 

Rolling Stones 1-4-5 through well-hung speakers

At the Rose & Crown.  William no longer haunts

The thin aisle behind the bar.  There are nights,

Oh there are nights.  BrowneDog as a

Walt-Doug-Mike trio:  beers.  Many beers

And many happy drunken songs they cheered to.

Six long-toothed chrome handles jar to reveal

Refrigerated wine, and occasional beers for those

Rude enough to eschew pint-sized draughts.

Now Iggy Pop, then, a sputtering Greek-vacationing

Green card candidate.  The new waitress stretches

Which changes the angle on her heaving breasts.

Sickly sweet cigar smoke wafts olfactorily:

Then cool air radiates off a fresh skirt,

Through the crowded bar, to push at you.

Is it the hands or face that hold it?  Maybe it

Takes a certain perfume.  This bird smells good.

The special tonight, like every night, is Foster’s,

But isn’t it great the way breasts, in profile

Stick proud nipples right at you?  Now Gina

Arrives with a guy I haven’t seen named Mingo.

I sit on a beaten stool, attempting smiles,

Waiting for a ride from town to Dianne’s suburb.

You know how it feels to be leaving

Your home town and sitting in a now-strange

Bar?  How many times has the world

Evolved while you sat quaffing a pint?

Just when will it turn your way?  Or if it

Has already turned, will you notice in time?

Someone throwing darts hits a low C, and

Carlos, the young man who stands in

William’s stead, draws a Whitbread that

Rounds out your tour of British Pub Pints.

Still, the people you’ve come to meet will not

Attend. A skirt offers one last sniff, quaff, laugh.

art music poetry #57

Small Opus 1780

Armistice is only Words Away

Red and yellow leaves smash above remaining green

On brittle trees stressed by drought.

The fall crop grows together from fear.

War ruins the party here, starving refugees move out.

Warm sun parches grass to dust in Chapel Hill.

Light kills.  News disrupts gentle walks.

Two thousand one claims close lives, no way to hide

The reign death’s image starts with superficial talk.

Peaceful winds entice lovers bent on keeping war at bay.

Rice is blown to bits, extreme starvation, war means war.

The dissidents’ Gulag hut awaits activist Americans,

And “your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore.”  1

Three deer caught in lights that look like monster’s eyes.

Nature, fraught with tarmac, endures another “bombs away.”

Scream , young angst poets.  Wipe the cynical smirk off and scream!

One life to infect your neighborhood.  One chance only:  today.

1- John Prine, 1969.

art poetry music #56

Opus 1648 Large
a true expressionist moment

16 July 2001, Room 6, Groveland Hotel

An iron door clangs,

One bat flaps over the roof

As Blythe, not snooty,

Retires after a summer-soup day.

The old jail emits the ghosts

That still haunt the top of

The hill.  Imagine traveling so

Far only to be squeezed out.

Too many men, not enough

Gold, but these days, plenty

Of jails.  You stake a claim,

Dig best you can, only to get

Flea bites, blisters and no

Way home after you trade

Your last mule for two

Week’s slop.  We don’t

Know anything like that

Now.  We’re soft, getting

Softer every year.  But bats

Flap, doors clang, and the

Flow of visitors provides

A few steady jobs.  Is

This the last fling for nature?

Do we extract what we

Can and move on, or is

Our new way even more

Exploitive?  Tomorrow we’ll

See things we’re not

Likely to see again in

This life.  So here’s to the

Friendly folks who spread

Joy with small porcelain

Dolls, antique surroundings,

Creative meals, funny

Ghost stories, and the humanity

To remember how it was.

Alerta de Tsunami / Tsunami Alert

El espacio de Chus

©Foto: Ezra Shaw

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art poetry music #51

Opi 1821 1790 1832

htt

                          No Boundaries, 2001

Gayle paints poems in the butterfly breeze. Two boats

Shimmer in the morning sun.  Evalyn drops in. . . to clouds forming

On the western bank.  Last night a raccoon scurried. One deer,

Off the hill, looked, charged and jumped onto the dunes.

Dan has walked this circle thirty times, reminding materialist

Watchers that creation comes, shovel in hand, not from

Piling up, but tamping down. Seeds fall out of him,

Drop to the sand, coagulate, dry up and cause a laugh.

Imagine the control it takes to let it drop without the squirt

Of normal urgings. (It takes more control to deny the gifts:  to

Match philosophies — divine.)  So we march in happy paradise,

Using wits to develop efficiencies that will give our kids

A choice:  more freedom means more obligation, but how do

You get that through to Johnny sixpack?  Where is Jarrie

Going to sit: among the quintessential consumers, or

Back in a cabin, using little energy, but commanding

Electric friends via concepts and inventions so compelling

That, just like Curried Einstein, the tide runs toward new

Shores?  Days go by like blinks, Gayle ponders how

Much longer this slice will go, but she knows her

Evolution is many lives away.  Entangled souls expressing

Love’s constant yearning gather on this sunny island as

Wind and water wash it all away.  Robert, stick in hand,

Walks back and forth, waiting for the change that starts it all again.

Art Music Poetry #49

O’s Square, Jeongju S. Korea, 2013

cosmic swirl

hthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgKEjNBHqM

 

               Space Kiss

Forces larger than yourself stretch

Into the cosmos to find a mate.

The timing Gods convene to swirl

Another soul in your direction.

Somehow this kiss that comes

Allows light, instructs emotions,

Creates a fleeting chance to turn

Years of despair into flourishes of art.

art music poetry #55

contrast

DS

When dungeons
re-emerge, not in
Guantanamo, but
F.E.M.A camps, will some players
be able

to conquer the beasts
save crying
princess, beat
concrete gas lines and
train “depots” that lead straight to

hell, not for
passengers, but for
all humanity?
you sir, have the power to
change lives, live

large, due to lucky
combo of
brains, nerve and
creativity.
What will it be, strawberry-

blonde lover,
or public crusader, beach
lounge, or at
every meeting, all
marches, screaming for

love, kindness,
mercy in the face of such
evil as
no comic has yet
devised. Come join man.

Art Music Poetry #54

this one also works horizontally

February in Rochester

Here where the gray clouds are so pervasive
They effect the way we behave,
A small gift of color replaces the flowers
Long hidden by Winter’s parade
Of snow slush mud, snow slush mud,
Snow slush mud, snow slush mud,
Snow, that comes at us each day.

So, roses go floating down the brown water
Out to the iced-over lake
A week or two after they passed their prime
In celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Which, as you recall, was warm with
The love we have shared for over a decade.
So here’s to the moments when smiles
Follow laughs and soulmate’s connections are made:
Of grow love hug, grow love hug,
Grow love hug, grow love hug,
Grow, that make life just like getting laid.

Waiting to start anew

A friend is having a hard time with love. It swirls around in different forms but she can’t hurt anyone but herself. My prayer is that she snaps out of it, counts her blessings, ducks the absurd things and meets the rest square on.

Art Music Poetry 54

Magnets Sonnet I

We sweat together like delicate chocolate.
The comfortable wrap of ancient money fails to
Freshen a purple Iris. “Would summer boil a
Luscious petal language?” “Only in Peru.”

We conglomerate with threads forgetting friends.
The furniture designer conspired with unknown
Budding chiropractors. “Does singing
Interrupt suburban plight? “Only in Italy.”

Let my moment whisper through the raw heaves.
The guard allows no images of love beyond
Revolving doors, demented. “Would Sitler
Score in time to save our fate?” “Only in Toronto.”

We conspire against the grind, inspiring unseen art.
The joker who still wears hats all year round
Inspires another line: no hate. “Does smelling
Take the place like food of touch?” “Only in Peru.”

We sweat together like delicate chocolate.
“Would summer boil a luscious petal language?”