If words alone could change the world
the poets would still reign as kings,
and those who may rely on swords
would spend their time on lesser things.

The lure of verse, both blank and rhymed,
would tempt young minds to greater heights;
to cast aside appearances
and reclaim beauty as their right.

If words alone could change the world,
then love would be the ruling act;
for more has been said on this verb
than said on any other fact.

The search for meaning would consume
that span that runs from birth to death;
and those who would conceal great truths
would waste both time and precious breath.

If words alone could change the world,
each pulpit, podium and stage
would needs be guarded night and day
lest some loose phrase escape its cage

and in an instant, raze to ash
our vain illusions, leaving naught
except the aching poet's mind
that dreams of texts no longer taught.

19 AUG 2007

You call those claws? Withdraw those nubs,
and come back when your talons grow;
I have no time to make retort
against the feeble likes of you.

You say the world agrees with you?
Well, that just proves the world a fool,
that would admire a steaming mass
of horse manure, long as it's fresh.

You say you've friends to state your cause
in fisticuffs and bloody games;
I'm not surprised. Who was it said
of violence, "dullard's last resort"?

Call off your hounds, your hawks, your shrews
(they bore me beyond reason's edge),
unless you mean to (and you don't)
give me respect you have not learned.

05 AUG 2007

I would admit a lesser crime
if only it were worth my while;
but in these days when wish makes fact
the simple notoriety
of having lived will sentence me.

There is no justice in the world
when thought alone is quite enough
to stripe a convict without bars,
at least the steel variety,
and clang the door shut on their cage.

What bargain would I strike, besides?
Admit the world is right as rain,
that equal opportunity
exists to knock on every door,
and offers all their dollar's worth?

What kind of poet would I be,
were that the case? What kind of man,
to live and breathe among such lies?
What shame that such a bold offense
results in nothing but fools' praise.

I would admit a lesser crime;
but what's the use? The truth will out,
and I would rather form the noose
from my own actions, my own words,
than feign guilt worth a coward's mind.

05 AUG 2007

I don't begrudge a twelve year old
their wish to idolize
an artist of their own time-frame
with the same likes and sense of space
that come from being twelve a while.

But for adults to seek the same ---
to push aside their own age peers,
in some great quest for "the next big,"
neglect those like themselves

who've worked for years
to understand and know their craft
and bring to it a wealth of time ---
who treasure the precocious youth

that somehow came forth from the womb
with an "old soul" or some like crap,
who'd rather find a young maybe
than risk an older yes,

who stoop to conquer, so to speak,
their greedy eyes upon the prize
of novelty to hawk their wares,
it seems like pedophilia.

03 AUG 2007

(Original Goth, that is)

Pondering my life from 1985, and the scene thereof, including but not limited to hairspray and black eyeliner nights at two of LA's famous goth nightspots, the Crypt and the Scream, and the music to be found onstage, on the dance floor, or on the home stereo, provided by:

45 Grave
Bauhaus
Black Sabbath
Chameleons UK
Christian Death
Cocteau Twins
The Cult
The Cure
Dali's Car
The Damned
David Bowie
Depeche Mode
The Dickies
Downy Mildew
Echo and the Bunnymen
The Fall
Henry Rollins
Iggy Pop
Japan
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Joy Division
Kommunity FK
L.A. Guns
Love
Love & Rockets
Mission UK
New Order
Peter Murphy
Richard Hell
Rollins Band
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Sisters of Mercy
The Smiths
Sonic Youth
The Swans
Television
Tones on Tail
Velvet Underground
Wire

My old friend RJ Vasquez was there as well --- former lead singer of the LA goth phenoms Corpus Delicti, the short-lived (but promising) Faith Assembly (of which I was a part), and now fronting a very good band called Why?Things Burn. Check him out, ya'll.