Saturday, November 26, 2016


revolution
is a one eyed horse
who thinks he sees
the all
and follows only
what he sees
unable to perceive
the circle
for the slightest changing
of the ground

if you want an evolution
you have to open
both your eyes
and follow the path
beyond what those eyes see

you can drop your shit
in the circumference of a pattern
revolving like a carousel
that keeps the people riding
for the promise of the token
of a brass ring
they are never meant to reach

or you can set out
to find
what lies beyond the hills
of how far we have dreamed

but to see the path ahead
you must open
the blinded eye
that can see the evil
in the good
and recognize the saint
was part a sinner too

you cannot turn your ass
only to the black
and your strong eye
to the white
because the path of evolution
is a twisting trail
within the spectrum
of the greys


Friday, November 25, 2016


I was just a girl
when I found out
the hard way
that I belonged
to no one

but somewhere
between the images
of fatigues and cigars
came the rising
of the power in a voice
I could not understand
that whispered just beneath
in my own alien
and native tongue
that I could belong
to the people
still

and then it became my truth
and the only dream
I had to ration
to get me by
so that every step
connected back to that one path

I am no longer a girl
and somewhere
I got lost
so that I stopped
belonging
even to myself

and if you can't stand
for yourself
you can't stand
for anyone

you told me that

when all my inspirations
and heroes
are stepping over
to the other side
and the clock has come
to strike
the now or never time

we are the prayers
our ancestors have sent
cloaked in the wishes
of our own children's hearts
and carried over
into this world

if not us
then who

we are the poets now
and the ones
who must decid
the measure and the weight
of what we'll contribute
to the ongoing
of the evolution

and it all begins
when we claim back our voice
and learn to understand
that we belong to everything

and it isn't in redemption
but through the sacred
of connection
that we stand our strongest
when we can remember
we were all born
to this place
belonging not only to
but also of
the people


Sunday, November 20, 2016


my heart retreats again
from this reality
defeated as something
that waited too long
to breathe
not knowing it was stillborn
before it reached
to meet the light

there is only a hollow now--
a dark and unceremonious
cavern of memorial
for what
cannot be remembered
anyway

and somewhere in a dream
the ghost of the heart
dances
with the ghost of optimism
that followed
on its heels

once the flower
that waited too long
to drink
until its mouth
shrivelled closed
and it could drink no more

now the lips that lick
the shine of stars
and drink the dew
perspired from the moon

somewhere in a dream
where how to love
need never be forgot
as unnecessary to it all
as how to drink
or breathe
and yet everything
that birthed the light
of Creation into life 








I didn't set out
looking for the answers
when I have always known
the the world
rests in delicate spin
on the axis
and the precipice
of the questions
that we each must ask

do not paint for me
landscapes and portraits
gilded in the simplicity
the romantic plaster
over the texture
of the truth

but baptize me in
the bitter waters
that flow with mud
and too much wine

and submerge me
to drowning
in the questions
that have stolen
your peaceful nights
and wakened you
to dream
nocturnal and burning
beneath the stars

bury the illusion
of the manipulations
that have been conjured
of the tricks
my mind can make

and let them sprout up
from the seeds
of something
humble that grew
from dark

bearing the fruit
that only makes me hungry
for more questions
to the questions sowed
by all that has been asked

when my life
should be a lover
that leaves me
naked and seduced
back to the only answer

which is

what I came to ask






dance
when it's time
to dance in the snow

there were nights
when the crickets
made symphonies
and nights when the leaves
whispered poetry
as they sailed
to their death

but look
how the streetlight
makes falling stars
of every flake

and before the feet
a fresh canvass
where the language
of movement
is paint

and destiny is a thing
that will be hidden
by other tracks
and one day melt away

but the dance
will dance itself
far from that place
before it is muddied
and loses the quality 
of the crisp in the soft

and all that will matter
of the moment
the sky snowed stars
was how we danced
for the contribution it made
to where the dance
is danced in the now




Thursday, November 17, 2016


the flag
is a spotless sin
hiding her crimes
parading as the sacred virgin
who infects the population
with the vd
of her pristine
and fascist pride

rallying men beneath
her skirts
just to watch them
kill the men
beneath another

when the blood of Sand Creek
can tell you
where the stains are hid
and that her faithfulness
is a lie

while she whispers
her excuses
to blinded lovers
that they should rip
the children
from the earth
even as they suckle there
so she can find the room
to spread her fattening ass

while Africa starves out
waiting for the circumference
of her berth
to bring the peace
she promised

and those without her favour
or a lover to call their own
are chased from one whore
to another
trying to find the mother
who will take them in
their children drowning
on her doorstep
for the illusion
they came from
some arbitrary
and disfavoured womb
that takes the credit
for Creation and the Source

and yet it is a crime
to burn
what scolded Nagasaki
to the ground

what has turned
the children in the holy land
to ash

what erased the memory
of civilizations
in the name of gold

a piece of cloth
woven in genocide
and greed
and decorated
with the entrails
of all that freedom
is at heart

what is sacred is
and what is not
must call on wars
to protect
the illusion
that it is not
a greedy 
and jealous
whore



Tuesday, November 15, 2016


you're like a penny
I carry in my mouth
waiting for a rainy day
something that keeps me
tongue tied
but it's a perfect day
to be batshit crazy
so why the hell
let reality
fuck with the dream
I don't live here
and I don't live there
I just sorta migrate
in between
like children who lose
their home
never know
a home again
but only plateaus
that they can explore
and when they are older
they learn to forgo
the necessity
of taking food
to hold the hope
of the nourishment of luck
between their teeth

Monday, November 14, 2016


sometimes in the fog
there is sensing
that something sacred lost
has taken form
yet irretrievable still
across the bridge
too narrow
for anything but song
and light
to pass

and dream gets left
to dream
yet wide awake
and ever nocturnal
in the heart
and silence mutes itself
with patient observation
that erupts only
as the star
that sometimes falls
to fall in love with wish
or the sea that hides its cry
in the song the waves have sung
for the one that crashed

I have adored you
these centuries
never as the muse
that is grateful
to the canvass
but on the other side
of things
the ghost of shadow
more than the paint
the hand might one day
bring to life

I have loved you
as the inspiration
I have drawn to breathe
with the fragrance of you
always spilling from my lungs
in these only words
that maybe
will find their way
across
the bridge
I cannot cross



Sunday, November 13, 2016


talk about building walls
well the most ancient
one there is
is the human shield
the system makes
of the entitled
and disillusioned class
so that we gotta fight our way
up through their parades
to get to where the problem is

angry white aggression
with a bad case
of mistaken identity
for the oppressor
and the oppressed
because it's just too easy
to kick the cat
or beat the wife
or raid the displaced
wintering in tents
for their crime
of stealing the air
that waves some
pseudo-democratic flag

rallies against blacks
or rallies for LNG
or rah-rah with Wahoo
like colour or culture
makes anyone inhuman
and global markets
and world resource collapse
are really on the heads
of anyone asking
for a little water
that isn't wrapped
in plastic first
but anyway
back to the game

and the nationalist wall 
just gets thicker
the us and the them
them with their fists
and us with our arms open wide
and across the divide
they say we aren't
evolved enough
to make a choice
because love always
looks like a handicap
to the wounded
instead of the cure

and history tells us
what happens
when we take on the wall
where new leaders
so often emerge
from our ranks
leaving the us
to be absorbed
as our own human shields
for their new found elite

so let the poets
up to the front
because the only chance
we've got
is to absorb the them
into the us
to turn fists
to open hands
and not let open hands
close into fists

darkness never extinguished
a single light
but light has always
paled the dark
even as a pinhole
in the sky

there are cracks
in every wall
let them build it
and we will disarm
brick by brick with light
until nothing but illumination
stands between us
and the architects

if they can exploit
a human shield
from the wrong dreams
gone wrong
we can rebuild the hoop
with right dreams
gone right







Saturday, November 12, 2016

These Emotions Will Not Be Assimilating Today


the river of apologies
has run dry
my eyes are mutated
with cataracts
from too many Hallmark cards
decked in Gandhi glitter
and some kind of
Dali Lama wisdom on the side
packaged like a latte
made with the same appropriation
that makes a third world
become a trend

give me Steinbeck
or Bukowski
but let me feel
this disillusionment
like a train wreck
on Tobacco Road
at five in the afternoon

if you take away
my depth of dark
you extinguish
all my stars
with neon light

I have nothing left
I can be sorry for
and no more shame
for shame

we have to see
the impossibility
left us in despair
to understand
the miracle
when it arrives

when how does anyone
truly love themselves
and think this is OK
to expose the spirit to

and still
has anyone ever
really known their soul
only to miss the gifts
in every day

I am sad
because I love

this disappointment
wears me
hooding both my eyes
and yet
I do not forget the beauty
of what is naked
underneath
it all




Thursday, November 10, 2016

I don't know what year
but somewhere out there
on the road
I became a ghost
trapped
in a decomposing body
that listens too often
at the intersection
of perpendicular 
and time
travelling somewhere
my feet can't be
fractured between 
the here
and there
my heart missing in action
somewhere
even I can't find
marking time
dancing with the pretty
and the light 
far beyond the fingers reach
and all I have left
to get me by
are the stories 
that make a person's 
lost child cry
with neglect 
of their own humanity
and my need to see the ones
whose hearts have not deserted
like partisans gone 
in the middle of the night
and never coming home
still young and far too old
the way fascism
forges the poets into tribe
the dimensions cannot contain
with feet on the ground
and fists in the air
rotting around their spirits who cry:
we only wanted to love
what the fuck 
are we all doing
here

Strange that this should come a few hours before I heard of Cohen's ascension. After I read it back I had The Partisan stuck in my head. Was the song in my head when I read the news. 

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

the men and children are sleeping
but the mothers are crying tonight
like Weimar mothers cried
like Yugo-mothers cried

and the drug of fanaticism
sells better than Afghan poppies--
the addiction to the illusion of power
where a man can be a man
with the grab of a pussy
or the flip of a switch
or a hammer he can cock
as long as he stays a cog

turning in the machine

for the blood of our sons
for the fear they will take up this fate
and own it one day too

for our daughters we want to empower
but cannot protect

for the children who are standing naked now
without the cloak of privilege

tonight America seems asleep
but around the world
the mothers cry