In my mailbox today:

Hello my name is X and I have a little problem with my beliefs. I have been a pagan since I was 14, and I was raised in a metaphysical household.{ I am not a flake I promise. } I have had many occult experiences in my life. I am 22 now and I have been doubting that Any of what I have experienced is real. This is probably due in part to the overly rational environment that my college trains a person to be. (for the record I am a sociology major with trust issues.) Well throughout my college carrer I have been getting less and less proficent at my abilities to where now they are almost nill. I can't feel anything anymore when it comes to psychic energies. I am having trouble believing anything anymore and It is killing my spirit. NOTHING seems to be working and it continues to make me frustrated dispirited and sad. When I try some energy work or something it doesn't seem to be very effective. I just can't rid myself of that part of me that says; :This is stupid, I cant believe I am still doing this. What if there is no form of divinity and no such thing as magic." I am not trying to have yo
u solve all of my problems or anything I would just appriciate some kind words if you wish to give them. Thank you for your time and concern.

Here's my response:

I don't know if I'm really the right person to ask. It sounds like the first place you should go for advice might be your metaphysical household. Barring that, it sounds to me like you are experiencing life as a typical 22-year old, at least based on my own experience. When I was 22, what I discovered is that my capacity for doubt really expanded. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing --- but it certainly can be overwhelming when the questions outnumber the answers at a greater ratio than they did in the past. I wish I could tell you that the answers come quicker as you get older, but that would be a lie. The fact is that what becomes more important is that you really understand the questions. As for problems with workings, the only things that I can immediately suggest are to change, as much as possible, your environment. Start hanging out with people who intrigue you, who challenge your curiosity and are likewise searching for answers to the big questions. Take time out to simply "be" with nature. Don't stress over controlling the energies of the universe, or focusing them to do your will. Seek to understand the balance, and to see the energy that by necessity inhabits everything. To paraphrase a Buddhist teaching --- seek the sacred in the little things, the rituals you do every day without calling them rituals and isolating them from the "mundane". There is no mundane. Every act is a deliberate thing, with consequences and learning wrapped up in it. The little rituals we do without thinking --- like changing the mood of a room simply by smiling when you enter it, by saying hello, by being interested in other people --- have much more effect that we typically acknowledge. Find music that speaks to your soul --- not specifically "pagan" music.

Sociology is, in my opinion, a field that looks to find ways to help other people. But it often crosses the line of personal responsibility and does things for people that they really need to be doing themselves. And it often finds problems simply to give sociologists something to talk about and draw salaries for analyzing. Try to step back from the study in a dry, academic sense and think about what you can really do to help others. The first step in changing the world is to change your perception of it. That is magick in its most basic, fundamental form. Changing the world by changing yourself. That is the true meaning, for me, of "as above, so below."

Finally, remember that in truth, nothing can kill your spirit. Because it is eternal. The problem that so many face is that they think so small. It is not just YOUR spirit. It is the spirit that indwells in every thing. The things you think are important, and the things you assume are not. The things you see and think you understand, and the things you don't see and can't even imagine. The world is bigger than you. And it doesn't necessarily have a plan that is perceivable to you. All you can do is start where you are, today, looking at where your foot is on the ground. That is your path. And nobody else's. That's what makes it absolutely essential. Only you define it. And in the process of definition there are of course missteps, wanderings, periods of drought and flood. That's balance. To understand that balance, and to strive to achieve it, is for me the essense of what being a pagan is. Not thinking metaphysically, or magickally, or religiously, or philosophically. Just thinking, and acting.

The real problem for you right now is not that things are not real. It is that they are absolutely real. And the illusions of ambitions of what could or should be accomplishable with energy workings, spellcraft, psychic energies are fading into a much larger, much more vibrant reality. The reality of being. Just being yourself. And figuring out who that is in the process.

Hope this helps.

Bright Blessings to you.

for Memphis

in the undertown around the middle
earthen jars the senseless struggle:
i shall be released from this
before the current pulls me

undertown, around the rooting rockets way
before the dawn of timing, when
our cultured throats scream out so that
the horse-drawn whispers drawl
their quiet haunting innuendos.

in the undertown beside the river
runs the hiding seeking slumber:
i shall be awakened from this
just before the nightmare finds me

undertown, beneath the covered bridges burnt
before the gods of ego's altar, when
our cultured pearls slide out so that
the tenderloin potential plays
its game of spattered caulking.

in the undertown below the wasteland
roving scarlet head supporters speak:
i shall not believe in this
until the dream has drowned its dead in

undertown, before subtle shaded sadness swells
its mottled cracking smile, and then
our cultured throats slide slow so that
the sword-clamped teeth can grasp
their severed thoughts' aboutness.

1994

OK, so projects such as Poets Against the War and Voices in Wartime are pretty good ideas. They tout such noble themes, ponder such meaningful quiestions like "The terrible beauty of the poetry is our guide, leading us to the deeper questions of the origins of war is it innate in human beings? Do the warlike societies succeed? What is the human experience of war? Can art illuminate politics? And, in turn, can the grim realities of war teach us about the delicate and important role of poetry?"

But there is a different point to be made here. How many poets REALLY give a damn about anything but their poetry? How much attention to events that do not directly affect their me-o-centric, angst-driven, destined to die young-and-leave-a-good-looking-corpse fueled by the twin beacons of Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas lives do they really pay? Sure, there are specific poets that when called upon to address a certain political issue gladly push pen to paper and come up with something that can be used to further a campaign speech or lengthen lines at a booksigning.

But where, pray tell, were all these poets BEFORE 9/11? What were they using their sprawling notebooks of pseudo-verse to accomplish, other than blocking the landlord's passkey by laying them against the door, or bartering a few odd lines in exchange for a double espresso? The question I'd like to ask, rather than the mawing query quoted above is this: do we have no sense of history because we have no poetry, or do we have no poetry because we have no sense of history? Or even, do we have no history because we have no sense of poetry, or do we have no sense of poetry because we have no history?

How many poets fill copious overpriced Moleskin notebooks with their innermost, dankest most feral intuition on the dangers of their own all-to-human failings, but reject as inapplicable the advice given to young guitarists --- if you want to play like Eric Clapton, don't listen to Eric Clapton, listen to who Eric learned from -- BB, Otis Rush, Freddie King, Robert Johnson --- and rather than seek for their pop icon poet's sources, seek to emulate only the most recent iteration of over-hyped style and end up as poor, weak, undisciplined and sloppy hacks who don't even have the imagination to imagine their own potential?

How many poets, I wonder, who channeled the inner turmoil of their apathy and the nation's sleepwalking into projects like those mentioned above, have ever written, not about the War on Terror, but the War on The Things That Make Terrorism Seem Like The Only Option?

Where in this feeble, grasping, quip-throwing, cliche-burning circle of "Show, Don't Tell" has anyone bothered to change their own reality?
There is a commercial on television lately that really makes me mad. If only because it is so truthful in the message in conveys about the current situation --- ostensibly about politics, but ABSOLUTELY pertinent to the arts. To any artist --- or to anyone who even thinks about themselves as an artist (or writer, or painter, or what have you, bearing in mind that the most true definition of a REAL POET is a writer with a day job). The commercial goes like this:

A bunch of people are in a communal lockerroom. A faucet is running. People look at it running, comment on how horrible it is, look askance at the flowing tap, shrug their shoulders. They do nothing. Then, in the midst of the milling crowd surrounding the offending faucet, a person enters, calmly, and in a quick motion turns off the tap, then goes about their business. The complaining, wondering, apathetic, bitching, kvetching, confused, and otherwise useless masses are amazed.

Of course, the commercial is about voting.

But it is really about ART. Like the grunge movement, which was obviously very able to acutely document the evil, dark, and wrongness that everyone with half a brain could begin to grok, but obviously unable to come to any kind of consensus (collectively or individually) on how to proceed to solve that wrongness, the arts are a self-aggrandizing, self-promoting, self-serving, self-absorbed pursuit of self-pleasure.

No wonder we have no FUCKING culture. We've been satisfied with canned tuna --- Andy Warhol, Britney Spears, Thomas Kincaide, Jessica Simpson, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Wham, Madonna, wow the list goes on --- for so long that not only can we not fish, but we don't know anyone still alive whose willing to teach us how.

Bah. Enough ranting. Go to sleep now, John.

for Jim Morrison, who I very liberally paraphrase and augment: Why are songs and poems important? Because songs and poems are the basis by which culture is passed from generation to generation. No one sits at their child's bedside and reads them War and Peace; they teach in rhyme, in meter, in short works. In the building blocks of culture.

There is no spokesperson for your generation;
it is a hoax that you want to believe ---
that someone else will speak for you,
explain those crazy thoughts of yours
that keep you awake late in the night
questioning first, your sanity,
then next, the sanity of those who judge sanity.

There is no great role model for your age;
just another media frenzy led by old, tired sharks
who want to find a way to package
some elixir of youth, then age you before your time
and hook you on the stuff, too.

There is no voice crying out from the wild,
no magic bullet or single dosage
no seer sage poet priest politician messiah.

There is just you.

And the dreams you don't express.
And the others you let speak for you.

Throw away your radio,
your Billboard and Rolling Stone,
your solid gold subscription
to someone else's Top Ten List.

Speak your own words.
Speak your own mind.
Teach yourself how.

20 JUL 2004

In the most recent issue of American Poet, the journal of the American Academy of Poets, there is an advertisement for a book, Coming of Age as a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath, written by Helen Vendler, who seems to have written a great number of books on poetry.
The blurb in the ad, which probably comes straight from the jacket sleeve (although having not read the book, I can neither confirm or deny this), starts with the following sentence, which I found most intriguing:

To find a personal style is, for a writer, to become adult; and to write one's first "perfect" poem --- a poem that wholly and successfully embodies that style --- is to come of age as a poet.

To come of age, to reach maturity as a poet. Hmmmm ... I wonder if that achievement is self-measured, or if its length is drawn against the yardstick of others. Which brings me to my current train of thought: as a Druid, I am more than a poet. I am a poet, musician, historian, philosopher, teacher, and priest. How does one come of age in a single discipline if one's life path is multi-disciplinary? Does not maturity (or immaturity) in one area affect one's level of achievement in all others? And what is the purpose of that maturity? For me, the ultimate goal of poetry is not simply to influence other poets; neither is the goal of any preacher or priest to influence only other preachers. At least, not that alone.

My audience is humanity. My goal, I suppose then would be to assist humanity in the recognition of that humanity. Or something like that.

Perhaps my self-questing is the result of having recently started rereading Plato's Republic. Resulting in the question, what is the ultimate purpose of performing any action?

What is the reason a musician plays? A poet writes? A preacher preaches? A philosopher ponders? A teacher educates? Who is really their audience?
It boils down to a quip that I made several years ago when I contemplated writing music reviews. In order to change the way people think about music, first they must be thinking about music in the first place. So how to ensure that prerequisite dependency of thinking on a subject before launching into said dissertation? Who really cares if people who are on your wavelength are already listening? Aren't words on their subject extraneous, like coals to Newcastle? Dr. Gene Scott, a Los Angeles based preacher, once said that there are two kinds of people in any congregation ... there are saints in the making, and there are preachers. If you're not a saint in the making, and you don't like what the preacher in front is saying, you are obligated to form your own church. How that relates, I leave you to decide, dear readers.

So many poets trace, or seek to trace the root
of their art back in time, but just so far;
and would attempt to judge all verse to suit
their own agendas. Doing this, they scar

just the veneer, the surface of our craft,
by quoting others' rules, like "show, don't tell";
throughout the ages, true poets have laughed
at limitations that disdain the well

of inspiration that knows not of schools,
of petty squabbles that divide with scorn
the select few from all the rest. What fools
think they decide what makes good form?

The work of poets starts first with the tale,
spoken aloud, and then put down in books;
to show, not tell, like television, pales
its gift for message, and relies on looks

to transmit to a world that cannot see
beyond its own small, self-enamored frame;
into this setting, the false sense of free
expression is not proud and strong, but lame.

For poetry is far more ancient than
the movement touting art for just art's sake;
it must encompass all that is human
experience, or it is a mistake.

And it must tell a story, even though
there is no audience that seeks to learn,
and stand its ground, despite foul winds that blow,
to keep alight what flame in us still burns.

As for the countless journals, zines and such
that would critique using a focused knife:
To poetry, they do not matter much;
They represent its corpse, and not its life.

16 JUL 2004

To be a cynical writer is to never have been in love...well, to never have been in love and have it endly up other than badly, I suppose.

To be a romantic writer is to forever be in love - not so much with a person, or even an ideal, but more or less with the "idea" of love.

To be a "political" writer, one need only suppose that the ideal of love, while perfectly described in the theoretical world of legislation, has never been capable of reaching its ivory tower notions.

To write action and adventure, the required modus operandi for the scribe is to capture the impossibility of eternity, save through a well-placed legend or two.

To contemplate science fiction is to see love for what it is, a means to a more harmonious future, or the chaos that engulfs the order of probability.

To be an historical writer, one need only remember, with love, the periods of time with which you have no natural connection, or have imagined a connection of such magnitude that it engulfs any such intellectual advancement that may have occurred between the idealized era and the current one.

To be a motivational writer is to disregard the spirit of the times, to insist that love is to be found and described as you find and describe it, that it is to entertain your minds and not your hearts, to make by the "power of positive thinking" the lessons to be learned by losing seem the source of all true evil.

To be a nihilist writer is to never see love at all. It is to experience rejection, but not hope. Fear, but no courage. Reason, but no faith. Grounding, but no earth.

1991

Thinking of Richie Havens (thanks to poetbear for dutifully transcribing "Younger Men Grow Older"), I reached into the deep chasm of the archives and pulled out the only Richie Havens-inspired song I ever wrote. It dates from about 12 years ago ... imagine all kinds of "Freedom" like strumming ... not my usual subject matter, but I was extremely irritated with some right-wing Christofascist ideology at the time, and it sort of just came out ... it was probably a combination of Freedom Fighting in Nicaragua, Freedom Fighting in the Falkland Islands, and Freedom Fighting in Belfast.

God, it seems your houses are the very first to fall
Explosive words in your foundations leave most wicked scrawls
And your small children, those you haven't time enough to save
Are gone, and your own armies lay your sod upon their graves

Please tell your children this is not how it should be
We cannnot kill each other off, and still claim to be free
Each day another heathen soul climbs nearer unto thee
But for myself, here in our hearts is near enough for me

Women and our children are the victims of this war
But that is nothing new, for it has happened here before
Perhaps the grail was something Arthur never should have saved
Before the world believed in You, and by Your will enslaved

Please tell your children this is not how it should be
We cannot hate with hatred and believe in love and peace
Each day another murdered soul cries nearer unto thee
But for myself, inside my heart is near enough for me

We sit upon the left of you, or perhaps on the right
Far from the door so we can ignore wailing in the night
From those gnashing with their gums because their teeth have fallen out
Your word has so deafened us that we can't hear the shouts
Of your unbroken followers who toil within our jails
And keep our cross-constructors stocked with wood and sharpened nails

Please tell your children this is not what you had planned
We cannot draw the line between two kinds of fellow man
Each day another holy fool runs nearer unto thee
But for myself, here in my heart is near enough for me

1982

The difference, in a nutshell, between what Michael Moore is saying and what I'm saying:

MM: The emperor is naked!
ME: That naked man is NOT the emperor!

LOL

Democracy is dependent upon a single, basic premise: that those with power as a result of wealth and social standing are willing to reject the advantage conferred by the possesion of this power and reject the use of any such advantage in the defense of their position against others with differing viewpoints and agendas who do not possess similar advantage. In short, democracy demands equality before the law. Despite the obvious fact that individuals are NOT equal with respect to environment, education, race, religion, intellect, physical prowess, social standing and/or graces, financial wherewithal, and so forth, the intention of a TRUE democracy is to ignore those factors and regard each person as legally interchangeable.

There are, of course, safeguards built into our legal system to ensure this. But unfortunately, they do not address the fact that there is in practice, if not in the theory upon which that practice is based, a great disparity between the resources available to some versus others. In our democracy, for example, a defendant is provided with legal counsel in matters of criminal court. In a true democracy, it would be either ensured that this legal counsel vouchsafed an indigent defendant is comparable (in education, experience, and expertise) to the counsel for the prosecution, or that the party prosecuting the case would be no better than the individual produced by the defense. Likewise, for a wealthy defendant, it should be ensured that the quality of their attorney should be correlative with the quality of the prosecuting attorney.

With respect to democracy by representation, true democracy requires that the agent, or representative, be truly of the people they represent. For example, a congressman should be of similar educational background, financial status, cultural milieu and so forth of their average constitutuent. That means no congressperson should being wearing suits that the majority of their district cannot afford. Likewise, the salaries of government officials should never exceed the average per capita income of their "flock". In regard to campaign contributions, no political candidate should receive from ANY contributor (personal, or corporation --- which legally is the corpus or body at the head of which is the representative of any number of stockholders who have chosen to invest their individual monies and/or opinions in the legal person thus incorporated) more than the equivalent of one week's salary of their average voting bloc. That would eliminate the campaign finance issue altogether, perhaps --- and salary increase issue as well --- because the only way for a candidate or congressperson or president to get more money (either in salary or contributions) would be to actively improve the living wage of their constituency. Now of course, you might say that will increase the jostling over "prime districts". Well, I think it only need be sorted out at the smaller district level. Larger districts, such as states or countries (i.e., senators and presidents) typically include a wide range of income, including much that is NOT wealthy. In California, for example, it is probably likely that the district that includes Beverly Hills would have a high median income, versus the district that includes Compton and Gardena. For a Senator, that would probably wash out at some level. For a Representative, however, Beverly Hills represents a cushier spot. However, the basic premise of democracy as defined above can be applied here. The point is that financial, social, etc., inequality MUST not influence legal equality. Therefore, the average amount of campaign contributions from the wealthiest quarters CANNOT exceed the average contribution amounts from the poorest quarters. That means that if Pickens County, Arkansas as a whole contributes only $500, then Los Angeles County, California can only contribute the equivalent per capita amount (for example if there are 500 contributors in Pickens County, Arkansas that roughly equates to $5 per contributor; to apply that to Los Angeles County assuming a population of 5,000,000 means that the most that could be used by that constituency is $5 each, or $25M. But that is a VERY wild theory that probably in five minutes will make no sense.

The point is this, I guess. To me, it's like televangelism. There are no circumstances when a preacher should be wearing a Rolex unless the majority of the constituency to which they preach ALSO not only can afford Rolexes, but chooses to spend their monies on such things. By the same token, under no circumstances should an elected official be wearing a suit, driving a car, living in a home, that the majority of their constituents could not afford. Not on the distribution of wealth, but the distribution of numbers. Because, you'll remember, democracy is about legal equality. Which is a numeric base. 1 = 1.

Of course, military service should be determined on the same basis. Particularly in a draft. There is no legal way, in a true democracy, for a wealthy child to get a deferment when a poor child does not. As far as the law of democracy goes, they are absolutely equal. Anyone who bends that system does not believe in democracy. And should NEVER be elected mayor, governor, senator, congressperson, president or even head of a homeowner's association in so-called democratic nation. Or something like that.

If you read this, you take something
made of flesh and bone,
a piece of time and space and breath
not quite a gift, or loan

or even money down upon
some future equal trade,
but more, one part of dialogue
unanswered, thus half-made

To read it and absorb its lines,
then move to other things
without an answer, move or gesture
clips its hopeful wings

Like showing at a picnic
without bringing your own dish,
yet piling high your plate with food
as often as you wish

Without an equal partnership
of muse and write and read
there is no purpose in creation,
just a void that feeds

on what is drawn from single souls
and cast, like nets, to sea
but comes up empty with the trawl.
This then, is my plea:

Who knows how many countless times
this bottle's come ashore,
been uncorked, contents scanned
unheeded, corked and tossed once more

without a single line appended
to its simple verse?
Without some answer, though
it cross the whole wide universe?

If you read this, add something;
a kind of coin, or praise,
it need be no more than a word ---
then send it on its way.

Restuff the contents through the neck
and push the cork in tight;
then watch it float off with the tide
until it fades from sight.

A message in a bottle, sent,
and now, its purpose known:
to speak with those on distant shores
so none may feel alone.

10 JUL 2004

for James Joyce

Daedalus, my father, tried to fashion me for wings
but I, who treasured heresy, had no use for the things
or for the cliff that he had labored at for many years
to leave for me a fortune or a basis or career.

He shoved me off the edge the day I turned a young eighteen,
not knowing really who I was, or what the drop might mean;
to some gods quite unknown to me, he might have said a prayer
then watched with blended pride and sorrow as I beat the air.

Of course, because the wings were made to fit his arms, not mine,
after a brief respite of floating, I made a decline,
and found in sharp perspective with the looming of the ground
no use for most of the great knowledge he tried to pass down.

The sun above shone as it does, both bright and hot that day,
and my sire's mix of wax and feathers sought to melt away;
while from the cliff-side, he looked on, still hoping for the best,
like any fledgling's parent does when they first leave the nest.

But though I am my father's son, his dream was not my own,
that all the miles he ran and walked instead he might have flown,
counter to training, expectation and man's hallowed laws,
I sought to regain life on earth, despite its glaring flaws.

And so we parted company, old Daedalus and I,
my view along the cliff's rough base, and his toward the sky;
and the hard lessons for us both that we tried to avoid
came, in their time, despite the ruses that we each employed.

Now many years have passed, and I've recovered from that fall,
though in some places I'm still bruised and sometimes have to crawl;
my father, disappointed, has retired to his death bed,
and I, instead of flying, have learned how to walk, instead.

10 JUL 2004

Now, watch the eagle perched upon the limb;
his eyes, that seem to peer into the soul,
take in the troubled world that waits below him
and see beyond illusions of control.

How like that noble bird we seek for answers,
and take upon ourselves his inborn traits;
there still upon the branch we preen like dancers,
not understanding our purpose or fates.

Great nations take him for their sacred symbol,
and bid him clutch dual tokens, peace and war;
while discontent to let their future gambol,
they cast aside the instinct borne to soar.

This imitation eagle, one wing pinioned,
is let loose now in low, small circle flights ---
a source of great amused, confused opinion,
with freedom's duties, but none of its rights.

His talons have been dulled on greed's coarse whetstone,
his molted feathers used to plume parades;
and old now are the songs of where he has flown,
for memory of that flight is now charade.

The tree on which he rests? False public service
in obeisance to some unseen lords;
Look, anything that comes near makes him nervous
and strain against his rough, restraining cords!

No eagle can be destined for the showplace;
on such a stage his spirit wilts and dies.
The bird of prey exists for the hunt, the chase;
to posit otherwise is to speak lies.

Who are the fools who seek to tame his spirit,
to bid him dance and entertain their whim?
Look there, not on the tree, but somewhere near it ---
the selfish few who claim to own the limb.

09 JUL 2004

Thinking of Dante, thanks to fool_in_spirit, I dug through the archives and pulled out one of my favorite older poems on the subject of Love.

There is a Persian story that posits that Lucifer loved Jehovah above all things. Lucifer lived to be in the presence of his love, and would accept no substitutes. Then, Jehovah created humankind, and asked all the angels and such beings to pledge allegiance to this new form. Lucifer, distraught, swore that he would not; his allegiance, he proclaimed, was due only and exclusively to his one true love, Jehovah. As punishment for his imprudent action, Lucifer was given the most cruel punishment that Jehovah could think of --- to banish Lucifer forever from the presence of Himself, to never again hear his voice, to live only thanks to the memory of the love that was (and is) his sole sustenance.

I am so in love although I have never seen;
my eyes are full of things my heart denies me:
colored visions wrought in the language of amour,
the word made flesh in the weak metaphor
of wretched, babbling men
whose hollow shoulders form the bowl of tears
in which my true love's face is drenched
(the ablution of loneliness).

The street, narrow and ill-lit, covered windows
blinderized as animals of burden,
where we first met; the oceanside cafe

(do you remember our first vows of constancy?)

where bread and wine were defined and then shared;
the desperate bed that lead our wrung hands
to cartography;

the tiny chapel in the woods we gaily toured
and in our fancy, pretended,
like small children will,
to celebrate our nuptials -

oh, how memory serves its aweful dregs
like bitter, rousing tea.

Remembrance is the greatest tool in love's mad arsenal!

Yet even more wrenching
is the memory of the future,
the once upon a time that hasn't happened yet;

like all loves will, I see my love
in everything around me.

Unlike the simpering, weak, whines
from other lovesick swains and paramours,
who find their 'true love's countenance'
in such a narrow spectrum
of their world

(bah...I laugh at their enfeebled similitudes)

there is no limit to the specters that remind me
of my other half.

'Tis but a rose, you hopeless suitor,
it may never be the cheeks of the sweet face;
only an odor carried on the wind,
a breath of carrion or the opinion of swine,
it will pass for a scent of the alcohol and water bath
which lingers on love's neck,
a neck supporting the fairest visage
since the "real" contests were spawned:

Olympus has been redeveloped,
Atlantis has been drained and reclaimed,
the heartless shores of Troy
have become a resort community
for lost and half-found converts
to the order of a new world.

Oh, pale would-be conquistadores,
your weak and gutless vision of your beloved is nothing.

Would you, as Lucifer once dared,
refuse to bow to any but your true love,
and suffer
the banishment,
the desolation,
the yearning to live
only to remember your lover's sweet "Go to Hell"?

1993

there is a poem
that i will never write down;
words cannot hold it.

there is a poem
that cannot be recited;
it escapes like breath.

there is a poem
in every simple movement;
it is verse, set free.

there is a poem
between the lines written down;
no pen transcribes it.

there is a poem
that transcends literature;
how could books hold it?

there is a poem
behind this very poem;
someone will find it.

in the dialogue
between is and possibly
there is a poem.

07 JUL 2004

I heard the sounds last night of war
outside my window and front door,
wild shells and streaks of fire and light;
and I was troubled at the sight.

No thought of where the sparks might land
entered the minds that worked the hands
that with their matches struck these bombs;
a country of brave automatons.

The flash of light, the burst of sound
and emptied beer cans all around
while through the smoke which slowly cleared
the throng of wise non-voters cheered.

They cheered the colors and the show
and cursed the duds that would not blow
their senses wowed by shock and awe,
and the ends of their fingers raw.

The cost of fireworks? Twenty bucks,
from out the back of nameless trucks;
The cost of freedom? Tears and bone
worth more than any flag now flown.

For what good pomp and grand parades
to celebrate a poor charade?
It lessens knowledge of the cost
if lives in some great lie are lost.

This freedom that we celebrate,
is it a license by which hate
and fear become the only sense
by which we gain experience?

Our independence, so hard gained,
is its dirge to be our refrain?
I seek, although perhaps in vain,
to define freedom, once again:

Freedom from the right of kings,
in matters large, and petty things,
and from the presumed word of God
that with chains bids man's feet be shod,

and from the whim of landed wealth
who seek first their own fare and health
and from the bane of presumed right
that sees darkness, save its own light

and from the harsh slavemaster's whip,
and fear of persecution's grip,
and from the unseen, hurtful ties
that persecute the meek and wise

and from the threat of hangman's laws
that seek to punish without cause
and from the hand that seeks to still
the tongue, the mind, the heart and will

and from the bloodied, soulless crowd
that sees itself as just and proud
and from the ignorance that seeks
to serve itself, and harm the weak

and from the politician's greed
that dines in pomp, while poor men bleed
and from the engines geared for war
that gnash their teeth, and cry for more

and from the state, that seeks to bind
the tongues of reason, and be blind
and from the cloaked and hidden cause
that bids us follow, just because

and from the forked and evil ways
that seek by bloodshed gold and praise
and from all those who would be kings
and paint themselves with angels' wings

and from our baser natures, too
that seek reward where none is due
and from the impulse not to act
when those who guide us go off track

and from the right to hold one's peace
when liberty and freedom cease
and lastly, freedom to believe
and when that freedom's risked, to grieve.

06 JUL 2004

On Turner Classic Movies this evening, one of my favorite films of all time ---- one that I've seen so many times (probably over 100, actually) that I've got most of the dialogue memorized:

If you are a dancer, or have known or dated or been involved in any way with a dancer, you will of course know this film. If not, and you are interested in the struggle between life and art, between dedication to one's craft and living a life separate from it, this 1948 classic is definitely a must see.

Why must you write, in vain attempts
to capture in mere words the sound,
the feeling, the taste of experience,
when words in the noise of the world are drowned

or lost, their sense fleeting and soon
forgotten, erased by the passage of time,
replaced on the mind's jukebox by newer tunes,
ending up badly quoted, their context maligned?

Why bother with the work of casting
something that will past your life endure
when public fancy, not long lasting
to begin with, seeks to make your work impure

by using it to sell subscriptions, cheap knockoffs,
sugared snacks or politicians?
Why write, create? Why build? Why try?
Because to choose to stop, means die.

03 JUL 2004

One of the ways you could describe James Dean is as a figure standing with both arms outstretched, one side Marlon Brando saying, "Up yours," and the other side, Montgomery Clift saying, "Help me." -- paraphrased from The Mutant King: A Biography of James Dean, by David Dalton

Kowalski was always right, and never afraid. He never wondered, he never doubted. His ego was very secure. And he had the kind of brutal aggressiveness that I hate. I'm afraid of it. I detest the character. -- Marlon Brando on Stanley Kowalski

The last of the icons remaining to us
whose methods have become the norm,
whose portrait of rebellion created the fuss
that pushed us from the eye to the storm

and in just a few lines, or gestures, inspired
a lost generation to gather, and name
its enemies. He watched, and grew tired
of pale imitations, but never blamed

the audience, who were not born to follow,
but rather the great machine churning out trash;
recognized his own failing, too -- that hollow
morality that could not refuse the cash.

The greatness of men is found in their flaws;
there is no perfection that can so inspire,
if only because how we deal with the raw
and festering wounds in our lives, and aim higher

than mere entertainment, or paychecks, or fame
and are willing to risk all of that, for some cause
(which although perhaps shallow or just some wild game,
is the crucible in which our apathetic ice thaws).

So ramble on, mumble on, show warts and all;
The goal is not merely to light up the screen,
but more than that, to illustrate that a fall
is a clear testament of an effort, unseen

to claim an authentic soul, one not for sale
at any price, and through the feral and wild lands
of our dreams, to be willing although sometimes frail
to grasp at a greatness with your own hands.

02 JUL 2004

Guaranteed to offend everyone ... but only intended half seriously.

Kennedy proved that the rich are assholes.
Johnson proved that politicians are assholes.
Nixon proved that Presidents are assholes.
Ford proved that Senators are assholes.
Carter proved that the media are assholes.
Reagan proved that Republicans are assholes.
G.H.W. Bush proved that Vice Presidents are assholes.
Clinton proved that Democrats are assholes.
G.W. Bush is trying to prove that Americans are assholes.