The Poetry Marathon

IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE

Next Sunday A.D.

Hey dude you found my frequency, I’m so grateful you’re here

You sure might not believe me but I’ve had a crazy year

I’m trapped up on this satellite with all these crazy bots

and this maddened lady scientist who’s calling all the shots

She makes us watch bad movies and it really is the pits

You gotta send some help before I up and call it quits.

Help me man, I’m SOL on the Satellite of Love!

No don’t sign off, I’m not insane, you can queue it up and see

It’s a madman’s own experiment and it’s on Netflix TV

She monitors my sanity to see if I’m still here

and even when I do comply I live each day in fear

The bots are here to help me and we have a lot of fun

Inventing things and playing skits to cheer up everyone

The bots, man, they’re all really great, see for yourself, it’s true

If you’re the man to get us out we’ll all come chill with you.

Help me man, I’m SOL on the Satellite of Love!

Look I don’t care ‘bout all you say that’s going on down there

I’ll risk riots or pandemics, I don’t need to cut my hair

I’ve just gotta get out of here before I’m really nuts

I can’t watch one more cheesefest dude, no ifs or ands or buts

I’ve built us all an escape pod, our plan is grand and new

So if I get us out of here, can we come crash with you?

Help me man, I’m SOL on the Satellite of Love!

POINT-OF-AWARENESS PARADOX

half the moon is always full

not just one night

not just one day

half the moon is always full

not only what we see and say

when we think the moon is dark

the dark side has become the light

and when we say the moon is full

we see the side that’s shining bright

but half swells full each moment, friend

half the moon is always full

or maybe if it’s more your style

half of light is in denial

so you’d choke and snarl and bark

that half the moon is always dark

I don’t measure my glass that way

but what you see is what you say

so half the moon is always dark

and half the moon is always full

not just one night

not just one day

what we can see

makes what we say

the truth itself will be, will be

whether we’d have it either way

01000010 01100001 01100010 01100001 00100000 01011001 01100001 01100111 01100001 

or, Binary Baba Yaga

beyond the silver treeline

to a cottage made of bones

I let a strange bright firefly

show me Baba Yaga’s home

in my bag I had a bottle o’ mead

my eyes peered through a mask

I hoped an answer I would find

if I could only ask

the buggy brought me to her gate

she beckoned me inside

she sat and topped her porridge bowl

with spiders, lightly fried

“What have you come to ask me then,

and rouse me from my seat?

What could you need to know,” she said,

“To make you brave this heat?” 

she grinned wide with her snaggled teeth,

to her oven stole a glance.

I thought if I did not leave soon,

I’d surely miss my chance.

“We brought you some fine mead,” I said,

“A question for to ask.

How can we rouse our lethargy

to help us meet our tasks?”

she roared and rocked with her delight

changing her form, she boomed,

“You WILL all do good work, children,

or I’ll find and eat you, all through Zoom!”

YOU’RE SHEEPLE TOO

the whole world fits between your fingers

and that’s OK by you

the sheep tread up the corporate ladder one by one

mothers making daughters, fathers making sons

a million obligations

creep up the shores to drown you with a shrug

a pregnant pause before every agreement

you might resent them for asking

but you hate yourself for saying Yes

so you drink up today’s obligations

a sheep stepping steeply to success

with endless voids inside, 

hungry chasms gnashing madly

they whisper within you and they multiply

you scoff and look around the supermarket

“what a bunch of sheeple,” you think.

SEASON OF THE WARRIOR

we aren’t afraid to live

we aren’t afraid to die

we know our value

and we know yours, too

where rich men count their money

we find hands and hearts longing for liberty

where poor men cry out their lamentations

we find hearts and hands worn from their labor

where unity is devoured to serve the powerful

we find hungry minds ready for a free life

we know what we’re living for

we know what we’re dying for

we’re coming for your traditions

we’re coming for your forefathers

we are so hungry

we have been starved

we know which hands starved us

we know which hands will latch the locks

we are not afraid to live

we are not afraid to die

we will swarm in your streets. they are our streets.

we will read Baldwin and Chomsky in your cafes.

we will rise up from the asphalt and swell around you

we will not stop until we find a better way than our history

we know what we are living for

we know what we are dying for

we are the warriors of our new season

we are only just beginning to bloom

EVERY DAY IS PERFECT

no curtain for the sunrise east facing window

light splashes right in my sleepy eyes

maybe an arm around my waist will buy another hour 

warm cheek on a cool pillow

a hot teacup against warm hands

ticka-ticka-tacka-tacka

clicka-clicka-clacka-clacka

giggles welling up even when I’m alone

soft friendly glowing 1s and 0s  

Error 404 file “alone” not found

threads connect eyes to content to eyes

strain aching stomachs and cheeks

swirling smoke vines across the afternoon light

slanting in through old blankets, cutting up the living room

light / shadow / light / shadow / light / shadow / light

rainbows splashing through a crystal

like any other weather

within / without

rain is to tears as thunder is to leaving

sun is to smiles as snow is to loneliness

misė en place like a kitchen within a heart

comfort and nostalgia wafting up to a nose,

sliding down an esophagus into a belly

the warmth and the aching of a full life

an idealized experience within each moment

HOW IT REALLY IS
A Zen Story

awakening into the twilight of the morning

I take my boat to fish among the silent mists

as the sun contemplates the course of the day

night playfully rousing daybreak with sweet kisses

light & shadow parting like a tender, long goodbye

mists dancing with every element in breathless balance

as I watch entranced

across the swirling sea-sky a shape emerges within the mist

I am halted in my dawning reverie, peering through the shadows

as the shape is delivered to me from the darkness

It is another boat.

another boat on this flowing nebula of mist and stars

obscured except its vaguest outline in the sleepy morning

another boat, right in the way of my course

I flap and squawk, shattering the sunrise harmony

“Hello!” I cry and “Turn Aside!” but from the other boat

there is no reply across the shimmering water

I’m appalled by this cretin

I raise my voice again in contempt to condemn him. Who is he

to steal my glorious dawning? Who is he to make me turn aside? and then

the curtain of fog rises in the sublime sunlight, and finally I see

The other boat is empty.

DEAR MAMA DEBBIE

I borrowed a towel from my buddy Alyssa, but

oddly enough it doesn’t smell like her. Somehow

when I dry my face and inhale deep, I’m in your kitchen

with your bright smile so huge I’m worried you’ll tip over

you’re so thin, and walking is difficult but you never stop smiling

somehow hauling that grin around doesn’t take you any extra effort

Even then how grateful I was to know you, faintly aware

that someday you’d be gone and I’d be remembering 

your smell or your smile or the screen door swinging open

welcoming me into to my best friend’s home

like it’s my home

like she’s really my sister, like I’m really your daughter

like we’re sitting here remembering my father together

We laugh and cry together like I’m doing now

so grateful, so grateful, for every little moment

like how you loved the tuna sandwich from Panera

like how we sat and talked for hours and as we did

I remembered who I was when I was young and didn’t realize

how lucky I was with a whole extra set of parents who loved me too

So I’ll never be on another casino floor without thinking about the selfie

we took when we went out in the snowstorm and had a blast

snapped a neon-lit pic and sent it off to your daughter who asked me

if I was being a bad influence on her mother and we just roared

and I’ll never play Jenga without wishing there was alcohol involved

and I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you, and I know

neither time nor space nor death can keep your love from us.

I WANT YOUR #REALNESS

there are other humans in the world with me

sloppy, uneven, unnerved, smushed thru today’s garlic press

not one of them is perfect / not one of them is imperfect

striving falling straining in a heated scream hushed out to chuckle

absurdity beyond our comprehension / much less our making

so who are these scrubbed automatons I see on this portable screen?

I know you’re my neighbor, friend, but are you Jones or Rogers?

if I tried to keep up with your makeup crew I’d fail, so I don’t.

if I talked in that News Tonight Tone I’d scream, so I won’t.

Rogers had a soft tone too, with no demand for me to fall in line

we could take neighbors to mean friends not competitors

if we were hurting he would listen and take us to the Land of Make Believe

don’t trip, your sweet talk takes us there too — but to stoke a fear instead of calm it

We’re looking for the helpers but all you’ll show us are the riots

We’re looking for a leader and all our choices left are rapists.

I know you’re my neighbor, friend, but are you Jones or Rogers?

listen could we just quit the bullshit? I’m in love with humanity

every enlightened being comes to wholeness through ignorance

I never needed my models photoshopped and I never asked for a superhero.

If you believed in your best then I could too. I’d even bet we all could.

I’m not in competition to “keep up with” anyone, not even myself.

No hands will come to save us, whether perfect or imperfect.

I know you’re my neighbor, friend, but are you Jones or Rogers?

RECIPE FOR BECOMING A PSYCHIC

1. Books
2. Clouds
3. Trees
4. Childlike Curiosity
5. Suspension of Disbelief

       Marinate liberally in 1, preferably for many years early in life. This will be easier if you naturally gravitate towards the wildness of life, because you will unnerve your peers and thereby acquire very few friends to distract from your marinating. Intersperse intense marination with 2 and 3. Make sure you spend time walking, and sitting, in relationship with 2 and 3. Do not add 4 or 5 yet, you must develop your relationship with 2 and 3 first, for at least half as long as you marinated in 1. As you incorporate 2 and 3, as you sit and walk with them and deepen your relationship with them, you will begin to notice that they draw out the flavor and images of 1. This is when you should begin to incorporate 4. Allow 2 and 3 to call back to 1, and encourage this interplay, getting the first three ingredients thoroughly mixed together in 4.
       It may take you a long time, but eventually you will notice that 2 and 3 appear to add to your understanding of 1. They may even seem to shift and move in answer to your own thoughts. THIS is when you should VERY LIBERALLY apply 5. You will think you’re crazy. That’s OK. This world is insane, so if you’re sane in an insane world you’re actually already crazy anyways no matter what you do. And that means you’re free! Through 5 and 4, 2 and 3 will continue to collaborate with you. First it will be in brief conversations. If you continue to mix all of the ingredients together, they will lead you all the way back to the beginning, and you will generate a 1 of your very own (though you, of course, will know that 2 and 3 were indispensable in the process, so they are just as much the authors of these new 1s as you are.)

       *If ever you lose interest in continuing to marinate 1, go back to 4 and liberally apply.

       *If you gain the ability to converse with 2 and 3 but then lose it, go back to 5 by way of 4.