jack says...

why bother to ask if the answer is always "no"?

2009 April 5

Hope is not wishes beating wishes

breaking on the shore so many

rocks eaten by Kronos

nor is it too practiced prayer

benefiting no one.

 

Can you hear the word

moaned imploring a thousand years ago

somewhere in northern Germany?

“Hoffen… ”

 

Hope is the clash of seasons

warring to stabilize this thrashing

twirling ball where all of life

aims for eternity.

 

Hope is the rain

on bright new leaves

and the girl in the red dress

walking.

.

coppery or irony?

2009 March 4
tags: ,
by doc
opened ears behold with tears
what is whole, yet broken.
what’s to say when all was said
from whence the Word was spoken?

you say christ, 
you say allah,
you say nothing at all,
and yet we speak again and again
of that which eludes our call

with fingers aimed about a center,
no two, the same, to see
idols erode and start to splinter
when our i’s peer upon Thee

Version Four Thousand Two Hundred Twenty Three

2009 February 24
by romare

OK, listen up.

I don’t want to have to write this

Same goddamn poem again and again

There are other things to do

Of much greater

Unimportance.

 

I have pushed and pushed

Like a mother giving birth timelessly

To the same ugly breech born baby

Blue from lack of air

Tearing at my flesh

Over

And over.

 

Crept and cried at the door

Of experience

Rarely realizing that both sides

Were the same.

 

Awakened from fantastical dreams

But failed to harvest the crop

Letting weeds grow instead

Go to seed

Milkweed and mullein

The more beautiful to me

For their striving.

  

    If you want to know

    Man’s future

    Ask the crows.

 

As for me,

Society has no hold

Nor will I bow

To a king.

I reserve my allegiance

For those I have supped with

By the fire.

  

I have been out dancing

With the stars

In the far field.

To come back to the messy world

Of anxious inconsolable humanity

Requires a concentration

That evades me.

  

    I play

    Like a child

    With pretty stones.

 

What do you suggest

My fair friend?

I have helped the stranger

Hurt those I loved

Addressed the room

And hidden my face

While alone.

 

Sat at sumptuous tables,

The next night dined

On beans and bone.

Left lovers in the dark

For the solitude of sky,

Played at dice and darts

Against the grim angels themselves.

 

Listened to fools repeat themselves.

Sat at the feet of purported masters,

Smiled at the joke.

Some of us spoke to small folk

On the mountain.

So what would you have me do?

  

    The leaf will always fall

    Until the tree

    Is gone.

  

Please don’t misunderstand.

I hope to live

Until the spirit can’t be summoned

By a sunset or the moon

Or a woman’s round bottom

Or a whiff of skunk on the breeze at dusk.

These are no suicide notes.

 

Selfishly or not of course

Is all perspective,

Just another word for

Distance from the object

Affectioned or reviled.

No two orbits

The same.

 

The air is cold outside tonight

Only a few more days until spring

Wraps green arms around us all.

My father the sun

Accepts again our offerings,

Our faces raised,

Our throats exposed.

  

    Watching her sleep

    My heart and mind

    Made sad love.

 

But stop a moment and listen.

When I pass,

And I will pass,

I hope to walk away quickly with a wave

Over my shoulder

And no long goodbyes.

 

We had years for this

And for that,

Now we have only

What we have always claimed.

This moment.

  

There is to be no culmination

Of thought no

Do-over-wrought

Manifesto

No word-wracked

Xplanatations.

 

We will either see each other later

Or we won’t.

If you say yes, I will

Go along with you

And not even mention

The evidence.

 

    The fly on my sandwich

    Saw god’s face, multiplied,

    Yet like me, lived.

  

So listen.

Close your eyes,

Hold in breath,

Push your soul

Through the top of your head

And feel the silver pour.

  

Even now tears wet my face

But not for losses incurred

Nor my many failings of both

Flesh and spirit.

I have just wasted too much

Damned life with a pen

Or my dick in my hand.

To finally write a two-word poem.

 

    Ineffable.

    Unutterable.

 

 

 

My Digital Dreamscape

2009 February 16
by doc

 

deep into sleep, i see electric sheep leap, 

vaulting voltage, my dreamscape c.d.

a magnetic surge, the blood, voltaic,

varicose throughout my dense circuitry.

 

the drone and humming of my static rhythms 

drawl out the remote and muted void

with fine-tuned arithmetic algorithms 

to mask what my senses strive to avoid.

 

feedback advances the strangest of dances,

chattering teeth cast an electric mayhem, 

the cybernetic shimmy, fused of mind and matter

hardwired into my delicate brainstem

 

thus welded with organic computations, 

i print out a litany of mechanical sensations 

till my metal skin exudes a glorious radiation 

of bright colors and aural permutations

 

synonyms for calculated are ‘conscious’ and ‘premeditated’

our distant cousins, the ape, means to cut and paste, thus duplicated 

as intelligent mechanisms of information processing,

i swim upstream the river entropy towards my singular salvation.

 

and then i wake up.

when chekhov saw the long winter

2009 February 11
by jack

goaded the horse into a gallop
with a cliched carrot and a kick,
leaned into the wind with eyes
trained on the horizon and the
mane (heh) idea began to formulate.

these puzzles, juxtaposed, the
vertical alignment set, the axes
in four dimensions, it’s all numbers
and equations and mathematical concepts
linked to a genetic makeup, shaken
and stirred by the social contract.

your mores, my mores, i’ll take some more
the merrier we go round.

look between the lines the answer
is always there- you just have
to know what you are looking for
and yes, bono, i know, i know, etc..etc…

the start is the beginning
a journey with a single
step right up and win a prize
if you can guess
correctly (and therein lies the rub)
how we roll, where the music plays,
the calliope churning, the
lights of the bazaar, the smell of
field and humanity.

which is witch and who is who?

enter the clowns, the court jester,
the soothsayers, and let them
spin their yarns and tell their tales
as you are lost in the cacophony
of excessive symphonic and
optical overload, static, static, static.

we drown ourselves in the
prescription of the day,
seeking happiness, seeking
relief, seeking that cozy
leather recliner chair next
to god in the big
living room in the sky.

my sins are somehow
greater than your sins
because i don’t go to church
and someone, somewhere
is really trying to keep score.

look for the moment to
make yourself heard
the time to make your move.

peace can only be found
in the breath, the heartbeat,
the dying of the light.

it’s the quiet you crave
the peace of the night,
the moon and the stars,
the simple smell of pine boughs
burning, the camaraderie of friends,
the taste of life once again
on the tip of your tongue.

but we- HAH!
we are never content to sip
solely from the nectar of
tranquil cups.

so we ride the horses that brought us here
and we endeavor to persevere, this zen
koan, this enigma, this
nut we are dying to crack, forgetting
that all things are rendered unto
dust by time and the creator.

these things we will
hide in the meaning of the way
as tomorrow unfolds
like a mizzen
upon the sea.

i gathered a cup of sunflower seeds

2009 February 11

i gathered a cup of sunflower seeds
to feed the birds of February
and when i walked out back
to where the feeder hangs from the old pine tree
i noticed
there were two dead baby birds lying on the ground

i did not know birds had babies in winter
it was a shock to me
so i scooped them up
(after i filled the feeder with seed)
in the same cup
and threw them in the neighbor’s yard

something – or someone – will eat their tender bodies
and find it a delicacy

i didn’t know birds had babies in winter

somewhere lost in time

2009 January 24
tags:
by moriarty

distilled my piss and vinegar
and hid it in a secret place
remembering who, what, when, and where
helps me to save a space.

these rhymes i cannot lose
unlike all my lovely pens
we trade glory for hyperbole
and miss the point in the end

who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost my mind
who are you
who am i
somewhere lost in time

a good morning sunshine
a simple walk on the beach
before we know it this is gone
the endless summer out of reach

confused i search for knowledge
study texts for some insight
chase icons for their wisdom
against the dying of the light

who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost my mind
who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost in time

so i live and i breathe
with the desire to carry on
listen to the wind cry
and hear that same old song

but maybe its the fine wine
in that secret place i keep
and i sup from the bottle
to prove i’m not asleep

who are you
who am i
somewhere lost in time
who are you
who am i
how about another time?

precious

2008 December 25
by romare

nuggets of joy
filter down
through the master’s mustax
as we sit rapt
and cloaked

next time

I’ll choose better

when picking a teacher

on the eve

2008 December 24
by romare

The twentieth century saw an astounding increase in the United States in the ability to market perceived need to the masses through radio, television and then the internet. Few are unaffected by the powerful draw of keeping up with the Lopezes or the Trans or sometimes even the Smiths. Children are immersed from earliest age in a media-driven consumer culture that insists on presenting product as parity. “If they have it, I must have it”. Not a unique thought, but something that has long troubled me.

In that we are a largely immigrant nation depending on just how far back you go, otherwise a completely immigrant nation, one might expect tremendous cultural diversity, and with it constant innovation. This has been a hallmark of America’s short history, but seems to have gone into hibernation for the past several years. If not hibernation, then subsumed by the corporate created and media driven desire for sameness.  

We have grown fat and lazy even as we bitch. Skills that were critical for thousands of years are being lost in two generations. How many people do you know that can actually grow their own food, clothe themselves, and provide shelter from their climate. Mass transit helped to create overpopulation through expanding physical boundaries just as mass communication helps allow a better industrial worker class by insuring that the same information is evenly programmed into them. The American Dream.

Periodically we are challenged in this country to reinvent ourselves and often for good reason. We tend to latch onto whatever works at a given time and ride until she drops, and then ride a little longer on the carcass. It appears that we may be near such a point. In this Christmas season, historic this year for political and economic reasons, let us hope, and if we pray, pray for a survivable storm, one that prunes rather than takes the tree to the ground. Of course if the tree should fall completely, we could all use the firewood assuming we could figure out how to cut it. 

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