for R. Buckminster Fuller

July is gone, and the pecans
have now begun to set
on the old tree along the bayou;
sometimes, we forget
the simple things that mark the seasons.

We've no need of clocks
or calendars. Whatever reasons
we invent to block
the infinite expanse of time
into convenient lengths
quite often rob us of our prime
and downplay our great strengths:
such as the art of observation,
which serves to remind
us that the root of our frustration
is failure to find
the purpose for our human lives
in seeking power and might,
whereby our cause alone survives,
and therefore is proved right.

That humans are endowed with minds,
foremost, and only minor brawn,
should give us pause, and some new kind
of goal to focus on:
like seeking prominence through thought,
and sharing of that wealth
by proving wrong what we are taught
that profits just ourselves.

31 JUL 2005

What happens if, as a martyr in training,
you learn self-abandonment, lose fear of death,
imagine your sacrifice each waking moment,
practice your from-the-flames speech in the mirror,
give not a thought to your present or future,
trust that your cause will provide and protect you,
turn away mere earthly love and companions,
scorn little day-to-day dreams as unworthy,
then find the required persecution won't come?

What happens if, as a rebel in waiting,
you learn discipline, self-denial and hate,
imagine your enemies each waking moment,
practice your from-the-front-lines stance for hours,
give not a thought to your present or future,
trust that your cause will provide and protect you,
turn away mere earthly love and companions,
scorn little day-to-day dreams as unworthy,
then find your great revolution won't come?

29 JUL 2005

What price paid by a pawn who makes,
if merely by sheer luck or chance,
its way through fields strewn by mistakes
in focused, single step advance
to the far end of what it knows,
where all the trappings of a pawn
must be forgotten, and the clothes
befit a king must be put on?

28 JUL 2005

I understand the Midwest: there is no substitute for work,
labor being the sacred art that transcends even grief.
What is madness, but belief that toil will not resolve conflict,
and an aversion to the sweat through which the Holy Spirit flows?

I understand the Midwest: no outward sign of strife or tears;
the stock pot never brought to boil that simmers on, each passing year.
The art of work is Midwest art; a beauty to be utilized,
from steady hands held firm despite a frailness to be disavowed.

I understand the Midwest, and the metaphor of Luther's hands:
despite the drudgery entailed, the Lord's work will be done.
And those whose hands are smooth, without a callous or a scar?
They tend to the demented souls who cursed, are unemployed.

I understand the Midwest: Sandburg's rough Chicago smile,
the farmer's tan, the sweat-stained cap, the sun-bleached overalls.
What is madness, but excuse for someone else's hands
to lift your shovel, tote your bale, store up your share of coal?

I understand the Midwest: steam that blows the whistle there
must be imported from the coast; what's native turns the wheel.

28 JUL 2005

(subliminally, to repeat Dante's Inferno)

I am an arctic gypsy
come hither to enjoy the warm, crackling fires of Hell.
I have ferried
across the Mississippi with a hooded man;
he had a record deal
and told me he once had played the drums,
mentioning that the sticks had given him his lively hood.

I nodded,
more to appear polite than out of genuine interest in his dilemma,
and asked him
if his place had air conditioning.

I got a piece of yellowtail
from a girl hanging out at the barbeque grill;
she said it was the in thing,
and would I please stay outside
while she pulled herself apart.

I read briefly
from the book of the dead
(which she had in translation)
and waited for the morning
for her to come to life.

She said it could be a really cool town
if you liked to see red.

I met a man who had composed
a benediction using a stanza or two
from Rushdie;
he sang it in a delightful monotone
while reciting his intention
to duplicate the splendor
of Gregorian chanting.

Although it was hard to decipher,
and now I am rather confused;

I met a man named Lucy -
Lucy Paul Smith,
and his neighbor, Lucy Anna Reed;

as a matter of fact,
everyone here seems to have the name
Lucy.

Not wishing to pry,
I asked a red-faced gentleman,
"What's Lucy for?"
and waited
while he had a fall
and then recited something about needing a light
and meeting a lot of smokers.

I signed a petition
and walked down a forked path
where a door said,

"Tonight Only -
Glad It's Night and the Pit,
with special guests
the Beezle Bubs."

All hail the contract players.

1993

Lobotomy perhaps provides the clues:
that with what meager portion of the brain
society encourages us to use
and education bothers us to train,
we think, and therefore are, so far reduced
from what potential might be in the whole
that in our ignorance we have deduced
the object and observer's separate roles.

What lies beyond? The best minds only guess,
and courting madness, let conjecture fly:
that limitations serve, under duress,
as a protective shield. No one asks why
in fact such armor should be status quo,
or further, why we seek to find defense
against a world we barely even know,
imagining it a cruel experience.

Let science define borders, create lines ---
the territory is more than a map
that presupposes theories of design
and satisfies itself merely to slap
a label on a place or thing, and feel
sufficiently content it is defined.
Such actions no more help divide the real
from the imagined than a sandy line
splits an expanse of beach neatly in two,
or marks a boundary between mine and yours.

Besides, conditions in the lab are too
unnatural and sterile. To use "pure"
as a benchmark for quality or right
when we our ourselves are amalgam and blend
is to constrict the possible so tight
that we are left with traces, and pretend
our grasp is all the world extends to fill,
our footprint covers the whole earth entire,
our mind a mirror of some Divine will,
and all creation slave to our desire.

27 JUL 2005

If knots formed in the wood
have turned the grain in a maze
that wanders no continued line
nor runs a cogent phrase,
then those who go against it
are not veering from a norm,
but rather seeking patterns
in the absence of pure form,
like turning in the skid
or tacking sails into the gale.

The true adventure starts
when more conventioned methods fail.

The salmon fights its way upstream
against the current's flow;
a planet's arc seems retrograde
to us, from down below;
our martyrs, saints and mystics
tap a source we do not know;
and we obsess on only what
the surface cares to show.

26 JUL 2005

His speech was almost poetry;
I say almost, because to claim
such subtle acts of sophistry
as conscious art is to enflame
the ire of critics, who exist
with their sole purpose to decry
encroachment on their world as lies,
and play the constant pessimist.

The world's not ready, they proclaim,
for such a mix of show and tell;
for movements that defy a name.
The vanity of hope won't sell
a single copy on the coasts.
Besides, a voice we cannot tell
"be silent" is quite mad; to boast
its worthiness despite our well
intentioned praise, or degradation,
seems to smack of heresy.
I ask you, in this situation,
would you dare let such things be?

In these and other ways, more sly,
the world prefers its genius mute;
no small surprise that you and I
give up such goals as our pursuit,
and gambol, as if without care,
through life without a moment's thought
to who built our cage bars just there,
or for what purpose we were caught.

25 JUL 2005

Why must "human nature" be
considered some mad blasphemy,
an otherwise repulsive state
save for its chance to teach us fate

and providence are not without
a sense of humor, lest we doubt;
and if not heresy gone wild,
the beast corrupting meek and mild

behavior we think suits us best,
that soothes the fire within our chests
and bids us be compliant, mute,
despite our nature's wish: pursuit

of happiness, right here and now,
unsatisfied with learning how
this world is just a proving ground
devoid of anything profound

or sacred. Human nature begs
us not to settle for these dregs,
but to enjoy the life we're in.
There was no fall. There is no sin.

23 JUL 2005

Listen in the dark, and follow
where my voice leads on, away,
through the woods beyond the hollow
where the cheerful sparrows play
on into the mist that thickens
where the Spanish moss hangs low
on the spreading live oak branches
as we pass, silent, below.

Here the sun makes no impression,
for the canopy is thick;
mossy roots criss-cross the pathway,
mute our footsteps; here, the trick
is to remember without seeing,
gauge by sense of smell and touch,
so that if you feel like fleeing,
you cannot reveal too much.

Listen, can you hear the whisper
of the almost stagnant breeze,
like the faintly fading flicker
of a hair bent on your knee?
Your own breathing now is heavy,
louder than the crunch of leaves,
than the slow lap of the levee
echoing the distant seas.

Listen in the dark, and follow
where my voice is almost gone;
feel your face find the cool hollow
in the air it lingers on.
Listen for the fading footsteps
that leave no trace on the ground,
only soft and silent shadows,
memories lost to sylvan sound.

23 JUL 2005

The blood that courses through my veins
has been diluted; I can sense
its former potency at times:
remembering my father's strength,
my great-grand sire's blind wandering
(which was itself a pale claret
compared to further back in time
when his ancestors sought freedom
in the New World, alone and broke),
the continents and oceans crossed
in times of war, in famine's peace,
must have required more courage,
gumption, even, than I now possess.

Your plasma, too, is watered down:
in veins passed down from one who preached
the merits of peyote worship
to the Great White Father in the East,
and made the exodus, on foot,
from Canada's Acadia
down to the Deep South's draining heat.

How weak the strain our genes might mix:
like royal hemophiliacs,
or hypochondriac offspring
that dare not risk a paper cut,
or need a day of rest to cure
a sniffle, or a broken nail.

21 JUL 2005

As if the hazel mud
its edges flecked with dull green
and salt-stain,
cracked and peeling along
the summer dry edges
of the viaduct
that ran its length,
a brittle concrete spine,
down through the
creosote valley
from cinder block to overpass
were somehow host
to hordes of unseen ghosts
where once the heartless roots
of dandelion split
the grey white skin into
psoriasis scabs and lesions.

That's how the city's heavy
mid-July became a poem;
rending itself, in slow catharsis,
from some meaningless
overpass photo op
into a metaphor
of urban blight.

As if that were enough:
to use each word from that
threadbare thesaurus,
marking up the boring proof
that being marble, made a statue,
with no sign of art
beyond the lexicon
of vague pretension.

That's how you become a writer:
just convince yourself
your vision isn't just another
meaningless sight.

In your world, I can never be a poet.

20 JUL 2005

a sestina

To look out at the stars at night
against a distant tapestry
of endless black, that seems to spread
beyond our fickle sense of time
and stretch the limits of our sense
to breaking, is to feed a dream.

No simple, selfish kind of dream -
the kind that wakes you in the night,
half-conscious, where you only sense
your astral footprints on the tapestry
like sand grains, swept by tides of time
into the ocean's ancient spread;

nor nightmares through which are spread
vile creatures half-real and half-dream,
who live to devour all, in time;
dividing sunlit day from fearful night
with claws that rend that fragile tapestry
between unconscious fear and sense.

No, this dream gives to us the sense
that all of what we know, if spread
out on the floor, or hung as tapestry,
would seem as fleeting as a dream,
a single faint star on a full moon night,
a mere second in the endless hours of time.

The palimpsest we know as time,
the fickle moments with which we try to make sense
of what seem random shifts from day to night,
great gifts and curses wrapped and spread
like shiny baubles on a blackened velvet dream;
on our illusions hang life's frail tapestry.

Yet mixed among the threads that weave our tapestry
are warp and woof from far beyond our time;
alone, under the stars, sometimes we dream
of ancestors and progeny, who sense
our presence, head back, legs and arms spread,
offering ourselves, and them, back to the night.

At the tapestry's frayed edge, we sense
an end to time; and hopeful spread
this dream, in silent prayer, each starry night.

20 JUL 2005

When right-wing zealots take control and change the living here,
in bonfires roasting unfit souls with smoke that never clears,
to forgo the auto-da-fe I'm sure will be required,
where can a person choose to move and still remain inspired?

Some place where there's still rule of law, dividing church and state,
without a bloody history or spineless legislate;
where there is culture, and some sense of personal dignity;
where healthcare is informed, supplied, holistic and sanitary.

Some place that doesn't want to be a member of G8,
that doesn't stand a chance to share a superpower's fate;
where military spending isn't more than art, or schools,
and where technology is not the end, but means and tool.

Where nature is important, and where reading is still done,
and entertainment does not mean six kinds of VH1;
where extremists of any kind are not staging a coup,
and perhaps things could be improved, but in the main, they'll do.

An anti-theocratic place, where tolerance is taught,
and peaceful ways to solve dilemmas at all costs are sought;
where freedom of religion means freedom from such things, too,
and how another leads their life has no bearing on you.

Of course, the weather must be good, and winter's not too cold;
because I like the beach and summer now that I'm grown old.
Fruit that's fresh, and leafy greens from gardens close to home,
good food, good wine, good bread either in public or alone.

And property --- the right to own it, at a modest price;
these things are the essentials. But some others would be nice:
like making sure America remains the kind of land
where flags are fire-proofed, not by law, but by for what they stand.

19 JUL 2005

Do you really want theocracy,
to thin or blur the line
between what makes us get along,
and what God had in mind?

That means you'll have to tell the truth,
and never get divorced;
make no income from interest
(that's usury, of course);
respect your elders, even when
they say you're full of shit;
give not your coat, but your shirt, too
when the homeless ask for it;
never bear false witness,
which means you'll have to work hard
to learn what really are the facts
beyond your own back yard;
and stealing? Each and every kind
you'll have to forthwith cease;
that means the end of espionage,
sly dealings, and palm grease.

You'll need to give up judging sheep
who come from other folds,
and leave off all interpreting;
just do what you are told,
not by some politician, preacher,
or pope, full of zeal,
but by a judge beyond your ken
who does not hear appeals.

17 JUL 2005

I have heard the mockingbird's own personal song:
late at night when other fowl have found their nests,
the tune comes sweet and low, passed like a hot plate
between two diners at an all-night chop house,
whose whispers barely rise above the constant hum
of the deep freeze and yellow-red heat lamps
on the raised platform between greasy cook and rumpled girl,
whose chewing gum snaps like the second hand
of a battery-powered watch, keeping and doing time.

I have heard the mockingbird at other times, too:
echoing note for note an exercise of Paganini's,
repeating sections time and time again, each trill
rehearsed like a second chair violinist aiming for first.

I have heard the mockingbird, disguised among the trees;
and though the other birds perhaps were fooled,
leaving their nests to search for some Caruso-throated Romeo,
as a musician and singer myself, I could tell it was him,
showing off, pretending like Jack Benny would, to be inept,
and only capable of the rough squawks and whistles
that comprise the repertoire of wrens and crows.

I have heard the mockingbird's own secret verse:
for fellow mockingbirds alone, this song is loosed,
when haughty critics and ignorant crowds have gone away.
Then the Bird drops his subservient tone, and
with Dizzy and Monk, after hours, shows what he can do.

15 JUL 2005

Tonight, I answered questions
from a survey-taking girl
who wished to know where I weighed in
on God's place in the world.
The purpose for the questions
seemed to me a bit unclear;
more fodder for pro-Christian ranting
or control, I fear,
but I took part, and did my best,
although the answers seemed
to only fit such a small range
of my spiritual scene.
She asked after my parents,
and the job I thought they did;
if moral guidance and the Bible
formed me as a kid.
I told her it was by example
that my parents taught;
they did not spell out right and wrong,
and certainly did not
expect that I would blindly follow
their belief or creed,
but rather taught integrity
and finding what you need.
It's odd - responsibility
seemed not to be a part
of the survey; I guess
that would put horse after the cart.
Instead, did I attend a church,
or pray, or fellowship,
believe that Jesus Christ had sinned?
At that, my kindness slipped,
and I said, how would I know that?
I never met the man;
he lived two thousand years ago.
And if you think you can
believe what's printed up in books
and sold like blessed snake oil,
there's not much hope for anyone
escaping evil's coil.
I strongly disagree that evil
is personified
beyond the selfish, clutching hands
who prey on those outside
the mainstream, where the status quo
dictates that blame be found
in others first, before yourself.
You seek God? Look around
and make the world a better place
by caring for more than
your own private and shallow soul.
Try that on, if you can.

Whose God? Whose Bible?
Whose church service
would you have me grace,
when everyone I meet has
good and evil in their face?

Truth is a pathless land;
it wanders beyond black and white.
To posit otherwise is like
a blind man, in the night
giving directions to a man
who cannot hear a word.
One's map is forged, the others' blank;
both seem a bit absurd.

12 JUL 2005

You call yourself an instrument of God,
selected to seek vengeance for some wrong;
I wonder, do you ever think it odd
that retribution should be your sole song,

that God, who has a symphony of life
to call upon or move on His behalf
should need your petty anger as his knife
to separate the good wheat from the chaff?

How brazen, that you think you know what irks
God most, that your convictions reflect His;
How hypocritical to think your bloody works
can ease some Divine pain. What sad hubris!

What's more, an instrument that only doles
out death --- what a small repertoire indeed!!
To think that funeral march alone extols
the virtues of your maker, or His needs,

supposes Him so helpless, small and weak;
no mountain, but a mere mud-spattered clod.
No wonder that He gives you leave to speak
to call yourself an instrument of God.

12 JUL 2005

The streets are filled with idle, itching hands,
their owners on the prowl in vain pursuit
of some pastime to fill the vacant hours
in darkened rooms enswamped with summer heat.

Without their cellphones, TV sets and games,
and fast-food fare likewise beyond their grasp,
how will the city's folk be entertained?
On what diversions will they spend their cash?

Driveways are strewn with fallen trees and wires;
on front lawns, baking in the noon-day sun,
we sit in wrought iron chairs, and just perspire.
And wait. There's not much else that can be done.

Who wants to light a flame to cook a meal,
and add the stove's hell-fire to this malaise?
It's better to go hungry than to broil;
besides, the food's gone bad. It's been two days.

Tonight, the house is hotter in than out;
by candlelight, perhaps I'll read a while.
I miss the air conditioner's white noise;
Too bad such silence has gone out of style.

11 JUL 2005

If I should choose to force myself to write
despite the lack of something new to say,
would any notice much change in the way
the words embrace as equals dark and light?

And if compressed into some hackneyed form
to serve as a straight-jacket for the mind,
would any reading these words sense, or find,
a difference from the bloviated norm?

Some writers seek for solidarity
among their own kind; that is not my goal,
to praise my fellow scripters, as a whole.
I'm more concerned with who is reading me.

And further, I would rather know each one
that spends the time, by name, than be so known
to millions, on their lips my words alone,
that they sought out my light, and not their sun.

I choose to force myself to write these feet;
a mere ten minutes action on my part.
And yet, from such small germinations, start
the thoughts that make the universe complete.

11 JUL 2005

Volume is no substitute for power;
It's not the loudest shouts that prove most true.
These sounds that shake foundations may undo
in minutes what took builders countless hours,
but mere feats of destruction can't compete
with the small, quiet moments of creation,
wherein the world, envisioned as complete,
becomes reality. And the frustration
of those whose gift consists of only noise,
whose talents lie in laying waste, in spoil,
is that they cannot know the simple joy
of water when it is not brought to boil.

03 JUL 2005

Back in December of 1991, Aaron Flinn and I were attending Berklee College of Music. We co-wrote this song as both a tribute to our main inspiration (the Beatles), and also to reflect our own vision of the world as it could be. I wrote the lyrics, and Aaron and I wrote the music.

Have you looked around today?
Have you anything to say?
Everybody's searching but they just cannot be found
Everybody's speaking but I cannot hear a sound

What is what it's all about?
What is there to figure out?
Everybody's looking but they haven't searched within
Everybody's running but they don't know where they've been

I have climbed the mountain and come down the other side
Nothing you can do or know can counteract the tide
We have got the answer but we're all still mystified
When all that really matters is you try

Love is enough for everyone.

Have you heard the wind today (blowing through your mind)?
Have you found a song to play? Search and you will find...
Everybody's singing but they haven't found the tune
Everybody's worried about coming in too soon

What is there to sing about? Sunshine, sunshine...
What is causing you to doubt? People, people all around...
Everybody's running after someone else's claim
Everybody's different and that's why we're all the same.

I can see eternity inside the children's eyes
Nothing you can say or feel can help us when we cry
We can hold the universe inside a little smile
And all that really matters is you try

Love is enough (love is enough) for everyone.

Have you heard a thing I've said (love...love)?
Have you thoughts within your head?
Everybody's talking but we haven't said a word
Everybody's brilliant but we're all a bit absurd

I have heard the voices in the cosmic lullaby
Nothing you can be or do can stop the question why
We can find the answer in our hearts before we die
Well, all you've really got to do is try.

Love is enough (love is enough) for everyone.

For you and me and I and thee
And he and she and they and we
For every b and g
And all the fishes in the sea
For everyone who can't agree
And all the people on their knees
For all the mountains and the breeze
And all the flowers and trees
For those that dream of harmony
And each and everything thing that breathes
For every single solitary blessed one of these that still believes
The truth will set you free.

Love is enough (love is enough) for everyone.

1991