Spring Medley

Easter

Beltane 2004

daydream

Wedding Song

Welcome to Summer

Moon Child

City Summer

Caress the Moment

Somewhere

A Dog Carrying a Frisbee

Sun in Leo, Moon in Libra

Virgo/Libra

Autumn is for Dying

Autumnal Vision

Indian Summer

Juicy round autumn

A Vignette

Diamonds and Rust

Ah November, time of Wonder

Hurrah the Saturnalia!

Christmas trees enthralled in light

Hope has a season

Christmas 1990 (Welcome to the Future)

Winter Solstice

For this season's greeting

Holiday Giving

Thank you all for being

Twinkling snowflakes

For Julie

winter

Trying to remember fall

A Sad Song for Cathy D.

Mississippi

Falling in love

Memories

a minor interlude

Reflections

Come Join the Dance

For Michael

For Steve

Neptune in Libra

July 8, 1981

Love Song to a Lost Generation

S.F.

Snapshots

Love is a shadow

projections

Here at the bar again,

Section eight, section eight

. . . And my heart is breaking,

Gemini Eyes - Phase I

Little Love Poems

My Firefly Heart

How that felt:

Just Another Love Story

Long ago and far away

epiphany

Venus Guide Us to Peace

lark tavern

Power

politics

Study War No More

For the "Boston 18"

Somebody wrote a letter to the Times

To the Military/Industrial Complex

Ballad of a Modern Hero

Not in Our Name

Timothy McVeigh Is Still Dead

G.J.'s Lament

Life, the Universe & Everything

Approaching Millennium

Servant to the Holocaust

nuclear quiet

Patty We Hardly Knew Ya

Capitalism

Dumpster Baby Blues

Three Penny Opera and Grateful Dead

Random Notes

Bad Seed

Talking of politics past

Punk Rock

Just Like on the News

A Kodak Moment

dogma

To Victory

Ode to Apathy

New American Anthem

My Heart Doesn't Bleed (for you)

knife's edge

thoughts provocateur

Spiritual

Sea Change

Chironic Vision

The Lay of the Land

Ride the seasons of the moon

Manhattan Night

Philosophy

Musings

This Is the Way I Communicate

And Why Not Now?

The Ties that Bind

Sun in Pisces/Moon in Aquarius

Andromeda Unbound

Neptune in Aquarius

Roadrunner

descent

Quicksilver Reflections

Instant Sensory Gratification

Take Two Aspirin

Joint sessions

Lifelines

After Oregon

Close to the edge, so close

Or Maybe Cincinnati

A Light Glows

Listen

Lullaby of Light

Ecstatic Burning Elementary A, B, C's

Twice Lazarus

Many Voices, Part II

Waiting for Godot

thoughtdreams

Purity of Essence

deathdream

For Larry

A Very Hindu Song

Simple Things

In becoming I became

I chase a marvelous goat --

Starchild

Rainbow Shop

Celebration

Villanelle (for Miriam)

9/15/79

Revisions

Walls

Ghostlike I wander

tempus fugit

The Page of Wands

Escape Velocity

He calls on the strength of oceans

Blue, blue waters before the dawn

A Winter Parable

Blue Moon

Movie Themes

The Druid's Opera

For Marian

Thru the Looking-Glass

Air clear as a free-running stream

tumbling over country rocks and minty greenery

Clear soft air of early spring

Breathing satsang, reeling eternity,

While running 'cross the straight-lined highway

-- shouting

"Hey sky, embrace me!" shouting

I embrace the air and call it Love.

I love you, love you, love you, love you

I

Form, Words, Action

I in motion

I in tumbling, stumbling, crazy image

kaleidoscope

over 'n' over

love you, love you, love you, love you

Capture the essence for an almost noninstant

Capture the image of groping, grabbing, grasping

gazing heartfelt on release, but

love you, love you, love you, love you

insane, insatiable

cannot touch release of

love you, love you, love you, love you

Smothering in the too pure air.

Hey, Springtime,

Got some time to be wasting

So I tracked a songbird

on a still bare treebranch

and joined it in song.

What wonder the woods bring

I can't contain it.

Thistle and briar weeds

Capture my imagination

Grow wild and tangly

All through my mind.

Gentle rosy raindrops of a mellow morning,

Children make the day -- it's spring.

I thought of God in Church this morning,

nailed to His cross in long ago Jerusalem,

arising to springtime, the earth's reawakening.

It's a time for children and games of childhood,

a time for playing with love,

secret smiles and daisy chains.

It's a time for the simple and natural

A time for anointing the soul in peace

after the ravages of winter.

A time for gentle things

like newborn kittens

and flowerbuds after the rain.

I am slowly relearning the healing strength of love,

Slowly relearning the simple pleasures of humanity.

Life is sweet, poignant,

a drifting melody.

Bright Moon and shining Jupiter watch and call the tune

First day in May, oh master of the rune

Lightly we dance, and in light cast our eyes

Into the chance, into the future's vast surprise

Undulating to the gypsy, minstrel, evangelic choir

Movement so intensified our light bursts into fire

Protecting Mother Earth envelopes our flame

Gives our lives hearth and home and name

daydream

It was a warm and windy day,

bittersweet in springtime,

the trees, newly leaved,

swayed in the warm, sweet melody.

It was a day to kick stones

along a riverbank and dream,

before a night of jukebox music and cokes

at the local diner.

What kind of day are you?

Whispered in another land

Where flowers grow in the virgin snow

And the rivers flow, long and on together.

They smile, the trees, as I take your hand

And the leaves may sing of another spring

But the only thing I hear is "we" forever.

So let us smile and sing out our song

Sad no more, we've found the door

That opens to one chord that's played by two.

And even when the winter's long

Though cold and snow bury all we know

We'll live to learn and grow, both me and you.

Dream-laced lunar light

Infuse our summer days

With magic and romance

Free in joyous play

Enraptured in the dance

Where fantasy takes flight

Above the rule-bound maze

To wild impassioned life

Created from the Milky Way shining into Mother Moon,

Reflections from that ancient light emerging from her womb.

A sad guitar, a raging sax, emoting through the sea

Of stories sung through ages all, what was through what will be --

Were you the Lady of that lake, were you the piper's reed?

Were you the luscious, sacred fruit fulfilling every need?

Yes, you the child dancing in the fullness of the night

To ring the rune and cast the spell to make the darkness bright.

Of goddess born to keep us safe and sing our lullabies

Till we emerge as sparkling stars to light the dreaming skies.

Let the games begin.

Let the long luxurious summer days begin.

Let us harken back to when

Our schooldays' end

Would send our thoughts adrift through

dazzling fields

of daisies and daffodils;

sandlot games & swimming holes and

endless flights for fantasy's fulfillment.

And let us not forget the nights,

The hot & sticky summer city nights

That send us to the streets in colorful array

like firefly lights

Joking & drinking and starting sudden fights

'Til the thunder rumbles through and blessed

cooling rain relieves hot-headed strife.

As the heat-soaked summer skies once more descend,

Let us drift down sleepy sun-drenched streams

till summer ends . . . .

Caress the moment

Let it rain and whisper gentle melodies,

lusciously over your skin

and tingling nerve ends.

Lap happily of the sweet, sweet honey

that this time drips

freely onto your tongue.

Be aware of the hopeful breezes

and busy butterflies

of sane emotion

fluttering around and about.

Caress the moment as it caresses you

And care enough to share it

And help it grow into forever.

Somewhere

in summer

days are catching up to us

All those silent moments

When we would shout out our being

but

better not.

Sunny Sunday, summertime seaside breezes

Bicyclists, joggers, old men asleep on benches

Rollerskaters, sunbathers, and sailboaters

A dog carrying a frisbee is a very nice thing

As are the shade trees and greenery

and rippling blue river

under a blue and white sky

overlooking Cambridge, MA.

I tell you this to let you know

There sometimes is a perfect day.

Sitting here, in the cluttered fan-cooled kitchen

While a storm-brewing wind rustles

through the garden below.

The California wine tastes tart and sticky.

The wine tells me stories, you know.

It's the redness and the way the light reflects

against the glass, along with the drug.

Hearing voices in the silent darkness,

I listen without question.

As the night slowly falls,

I envision fantasies of former lives:

Glistening ball gowns and a smiling orange moon

in a starlit sky appear in my mind's eye

along with

jugglers and dancers.

A fortune-telling maiden in glorious rags

places cards upon a table:

"The red one is Death; the white one is Honour;

the green one is Fortune; the blue one is Love."

She lives in a log cabin with a unicorn and goat

who feed and clothe her and keep her safe.

There are many things I need to know

and few to tell me.

So I listen to the wine's stories.

I wish it were my garden, below.

I would go out barefoot and gather ripe vegetables

under the moon,

breathing deeply of the cool night air.

Ceres, mother of the Earth

Athena, of cerebral birth

Juno, queen of all the gods

Vesta, pure against all odds

Virgo woman, life bequeaths you,

Standing proud amongst your sheaths,

Wisdom, loving gifts of grace,

In all fields is your place

To give of virtue, mind and soul

You plant the seed. You help it grow.

You till the soil and prune and weed.

You are the soil. You are the seed.

A snow-white light on field's relief

To countenance divine belief.

The image of a wishful star:

A steady shine -- but still so far.

The nights of hope; the days of pain

And on and on, that old refrain

We are the heart, the soul, the spleen

We are all we've known, done and seen

We are the time that marches on

With much to do before we're gone.

Libra

The scales of Justice

Yin and Yang

The interchange of love

A world in perfect balance

Twixt summer/winter extremes

The perfect beauty of sun shining

on rainbow puddles

reflecting the brilliant colors

of changing leaves.

Spring is for being born;

Autumn for dying.

Spring is for being born

(or maybe sometimes Winter --

something has to take you through

those long cold months of snow and ice).

Spring is for being born;

Autumn for dying

(when the leaves change colors

and fall and blow

into the frost and first fall snow).

Spring is for being born;

Autumn for dying.

(Why do you weep for me, sister,

long heartfelt sobs of dismay?

Why do you weep as I drift off to sleep

for many and many a day?

Today I shall die so tonight I may fly

-- with the leaves I'll be scattered away.)

Spring is for being born;

Autumn for dying.

(But I only die today that I may be reborn

tomorrow, when the warm kiss of Spring

touches the earth,

bringing promise of joyous rebirth

and months of summer sun,

when leaves turn green again.)

Spring is for being born;

Autumn for dying.

Wind, rain: a snuggle under the covers morning

Dreamtime --

"dreaming of the way things might have been"?

Someone asked: What short of revolution could remake

the world to be

more fair, peaceful, more encouraging of love?

My new mantra: "lighten up":

Eyes upward, facing mysteries of stars and heavens

Heart lightened, to more merry, merry be

I lighten the load to my aching shoulders, and find

worlds of light and joy easier to carry

I look to ancient wisdoms to enlighten my soul

And I laugh, lightly, brightly,

let loose too tightly inheld breath of

fear/hate/judgment.

Breathing freely, I inhale

the exhilarating scent of changing leaves

In a time of awakening;

In a season of wild abandon;

In a moment of sensation -

In a flash

In a long and luscious indian summer of my life

Glorious dreams were made.

Sound doctrines magnified.

Quick impulses of insight found light and sparkled

long into the autumn night.

I will remember

the chill of golden woods

the fairytale rolling mountains

the days upon days of cool clean crispness

like the sweet/tart fruits of harvest.

In a clearing

Along a riverbed

Furry forest sounds and scent of moisture

Early morning dawn awakening

to a season of wild abandon

a golden moment of sensation

In a flash -- alive to an open season

Alive to a new awakening

Alive

Juicy round autumn

Juicy round autumn

burnished red and golden

mesmerizing quality of time today.

Hunger forgotten when life is a garden

sow and weep

while you sleep

a new day grows.

Getting our time together

Getting in touch with weather again

And there's been so much to weather

Again and again and again.

Sunrays are playing

Warming the walkways

Flashing out rainbows

in random puddles and streams.

Clear skies and starlight

Awaken the night hours

Expanding the time to harvest our dreams.

It was a simple house in a simple town.

The road was long and winding.

Two men sat on the road.

They were playing cards.

One man had a bottle which was occasionally passed.

They were not playing for any stakes,

But as an excuse for companionship.

It was a simple house in a simple town.

Old gnarled, stately tall trees formed a woods

that lined the roadway.

It was noon, but the day was overcast;

not dark, but pleasantly muted.

It was autumn.

The trees were proud of their majestic leaves

of gold and magenta which covered their branches

and sprinkled the earth.

Small furry creatures occasionally could be seen

amidst the trees, leaves and earth.

The two men were aware of all this in the

backgrounds of their minds.

They were also aware of the pleasantness

of their peaceful companionship

as they played cards, passed the bottle

and made casual conversation about this and that.

It was a simple house in a simple town

by the side of a long and windy road

which was surrounded by woods.

A plane passed overhead

and was briefly a part of this scene,

before moving on to more important places.

"Diamonds and Rust" like Joanie says

memories, I mean

lovers.

I saw you tonight with your San Francisco cut

and that old double-edged blade

went piercing through my heart

leaving me bleeding

memories

long through this autumn night

of no-sleep blues and golds

and rusty burnished reds

that cut like diamonds.

I call to you in fevered dreams

that leave me gasping,

haunting all through the dreary day.

Can't escape that sudden urgency.

Just like days gone by. You don't answer.

You don't hear me through all that mass

-- your own driving imperative.

We meet so seldom

separation so long.

We are like strangers.

Yet times we have touched, one to one,

to perfection,

have been one strength and impulse

have known such intimacy . . .

I call to you now,

Hearing your voice in every song of romance.

Ah, November, time of wonder

How now shall you cast my dreams asunder?

And weave your captive hypnotic spell

That I have learned to love so well?

You'll tear my defenses, unbalance my soul

And leave me feeling purely whole.

Dear November, so like love and lust

entwined

Drug maddened dove,

I've loved you dearly in my past.

Why does not your magic last?

I feel so weary in my mind

I tend to hide behind a blind

And live in dreaming wondrous free

While building barricades all through me.

If this be trap, then where's the spring

of Autumn that migrations bring?

When thoughts of leaving soak the brain

And all proclaim themselves insane

And revel in the loss of rules

'Til fearing that we've become fools

We hide again 'neath winter's frost

And count the moments that we've lost.

Hurrah the Saturnalia!

Hurrah the Saturnalia!

Bacchus reigns on high

And all the world's a feast of fun

So pass the pipe and pour the rum

And flash a smile o'er everyone

A twinkle of the eye.

Hail the merry Season!

A boost for love & joy

When packages that yell "surprise!"

May dance before our merry eyes

from "Santa Claus" that merry, wise

& venerable old boy.

Joy to all ye revelers!

It's time to join in play

where roles are dropped and laughter raised

We're all buffoons, so clowns be praised

It's time to shout out loud, ablaze

"Joy to all today!"

A very merry holiday

to each and all I say!

Christmas trees enthralled in light

Christmas trees enthralled in light

Bright red and green displays

Shopwindows adorned in frosty scenes

Concerts, Carols, Plays

Santa's sleigh displayed on lawns

and rooftops

Holly! Mistletoe!

Christmas cards arrive each day

with memories of long ago.

Welcome to another season's

greetings, parties, gifts and cheer

Make it wonderful; make it grand!

For you and all whom you hold dear --

Merry Christmas, once again;

And dreams of peace for the new year.

In dark of night and winter's cold

We sleep to dreams of warmth and love.

From fire smoldering in our hearts

Our hopes for prosperous peace take hold.

Then why awake so cold and lost,

Unwilling to believe in grace?

May love and warmth regain our hearts

To melt the ice-shards there encased.

May laughter cleanse and reunite

As wisdom's spirit returns to light.

Hope has a season

Hope has a season

Love has a season

Good will and warm wishes have a season

A time of good cheer to celebrate

The greatest gifts of life on Earth.

Peace has a season

Joy has a season

Sharing plenitude has a season

In winter's dark and cold we create

A warm rebonding to true worth.

Let that warm bright feeling glow

through every moment, every day.

Help that shining vision grow,

that all of us may find our way.

Sitting in my living room

While all about me rearranges.

Wondering if it's late or soon

While trying to adjust to changes.

Sometimes something old and sacred

Helps to show us how to cope

When we're feeling lost and naked,

Without a pole upon the slope.

So every Christmas season wakens

All our strength and hope and cheer.

Reminds us that we're not forsaken;

Renews our hearts -- for the new year.

Hark, another festive season,

Hailed by silver bells a'ringing,

Reveals to merry souls a reason

For partying, dancing, singing,

Sharing laughter, food & cheer.

On Dasher, Dancer -- Yuletide's here!

Winter Solstice

The darkness descends.

As we cry out for warmth and light

Our voices turn to spirit-imbued song

Our frantic movements against the cold

turn to ecstatic dancing.

We take comfort from each other's warmth

and celebrate the life within

struggling to survive.

'Tis the season to relearn the magic

As we share our heavy burdens

of fear and despair.

Joining hands, dancing 'round the fire,

we raise our sight to the sky

and each day,

the days get lighter.

For this season's greeting

I give the gift of joy.

Hold it close and wear it well.

Share it with the ones you tell

Your season's greetings to.

Open wide your heart, your eyes

Breathe deeply, smell the warming spice

Reach out, reach up, reach to the skies

Believe again in "fellow men"

Believe in wisdom's beauty

Believe in joy -- and tell your friends:

"This is our greatest duty."

For as joy fills our hearts, we leave no room for

doom/destruction

As joy fills our lives, we learn to live in peace.

Keep me safe

Keep me warm

Keep me close, away from harm

Give me Hope

Give me Love Give me Peace

Life is good

Life is fun

Life's in love with every one

Give me Peace

Give me Hope Give me Joy!

Merry Christmas

Happy Solstice

Every day of light and play

Every shining holiday

Open up your heart

Make yourself of part

of the living

of the giving

My inner voice sang to me

I give my song to you:

Live in joy Live in peace Live in love

Thank you all for being
-- as another year retires
All the hearing, tasting, seeing
All the wishes and desires
All the fear and pain and heartache
All the joy, laughter and smiles
In which you've had to partake
In all your various styles
Thank you all for being
in my life.

Twinkling snowflakes in cold dark night
Wishing, dreaming, taking fancy's flight
What are the dreams your snowflakes bring?
What are the songs your carolers sing?
Where is that land -- secret in your mind --
where the seas are strong, the winds are kind
and everything turns up right in the end?
Where is that place, and who is the friend
counting snowflakes across that cold blind sky?
Who is the playfriend
who is the I?
Twinking snowflakes, I wish I may
Send warm, healing visions by dream-drawn sleigh.

The Temple Bells sound clearly

Early morning misty mountain rising

Of pale moon to misty alpine sun

Of blues & golds

throughout the Valley

And, hark! Hear the bells

over the hillsides, rockslides,

snowpeaks and skis

& snow held skies.

The frost smell, plainly

On that open mountain day

& no one around but that feeling and odor

of clean virgin snow

And the darkside of the moon facing plainly

Smiles a frosty smile

Virginal & pure with mirth

& Night comes quickly

Icy stars blank out the pallid sun

And moonbeams twinkle - oh la!

The mountain creature stalks

pawprints in the snow

But soon hides & shivers

in the dark crevice of warmth

And white reigns high

crystal-clear

crystal stars

crystal sky

shattered mirror-images & gone!

Into snowflake crystals and dust

no more; no less

Eternally.

Yeah, I wanted to tell you;

but there just wasn't time to listen

And the snowlined streets

called you away from my door

And I just couldn't scream out

over your brilliant white plans and schemes

that I needed you to hear me.

Besides, what was I going to say?

That life was becoming too much with me?

That people were becoming

both too dull and demanding

That drugs no longer filtered the pain &

all my dreams had turned to nightmares?

You had no need to hear it.

And what was the point of burdening you

with my melancholy love

(tho my spirit keeps promising me that love

and only love can kill the melancholia

and reawaken me to joy.)

So what could I say?

That winter has frozen my tears inside my mind and

only thoughts of death still bring me solace

and the night seems too cruel and empty,

but the too brite days are worse and I love you?

You are right not to listen.

I am right to disappear into the darkness --

leaving me to make my peace alone in a cold

and lifeless cell --

escaping memory.

And the tears inside my skull

speak of belief that has died

and wonder overcome by a desperate apathy

and that place deep within my heart that love

alone can reach -- release

That secret life-affirming catalyst which remains

solidly locked away --

I cannot ask you for the key.

Trying to remember fall

Trying to remember fall

-- secreted mad memories

My life revolves with the seasons.

Now is the time for seeking, searching

sitting in dark cafes on snowy Sundays

and listening to sad, dark tunes

while remembering

yesterdays' madness.

I have decided to learn happiness.

I have decided to learn your essence

to keep with me.

Happiness is not as costly as despair.

Love is easier apart from needing.

Summer Sundays we would meet

Upon a local gothic street

Behind facade of bustling town

Where lifesongs made the only sound

We'd meet on morns of summer sun

And share the weekly deeds now done

And share the breath of flower and pine

More heady than the barroom wine

of yestereve

And all the weekdays' woes were burnt away.

But now that winters' cold's descended

Our carefree ways have been amended

No more your loving smile I seek

Upon a snow and ice bound street

My tales are told only to me

And those that now and then I see

Lost is the magic we once shared

In knowing someone truly cared

But I don't grieve

But dream, in limbo, of those summer days

Riverside romance one dusky June

Turned into a winter poem

By firelight - light of the moon.

We loved and parted all too soon

Each to return, a separate home

Riverside romance one dusky June.

I catch a glint, a ring of spoon

Flashing through the tale I spin

By firelight - light of the moon.

Sometimes at night I hear you croon

"We never had a chance to win."

Riverside romance one dusky June

By firelight - light of the moon.

Falling in love has a lot to do with the MEETING

That special configuration of time and space

and receptive psyches.

It only happens when you least expect it

And are most ready.

Getting ready consists of getting

Totally involved in your own thing.

Digging on yourself,

Being in tune with the universe

And being very horny -- if you can dig it.

Least expecting consists of

Being perfectly happy and

At one with the moment --

Neither expecting nor fearing anything.

At this point, you are ready for the

MEETING

And it will flow along so smoothly

and just rightly

That you won't even notice til much later

Just how magical it was.

There is still plenty of good old-fashioned magic

about, if you can hitch onto it.

Magic is what love is all about

-- that cement that binds

Freely floating atoms or organisms

Against all logic.

The

MEETING

consists of you

And another

And everything around and about you

From the beginning of time until now

Which has been gathering forces

To bring you and that other together.

And you know each other without explanation.

And there is that special THERENESS

And you both have everything to say

And explore at once.

And it's so exciting

And you're on a cloud

Miles above the Earth

And Everything is somehow beautiful.

What happens next is up to you.

Memories, they weave a silken web in silence

We talk of times past in gently measured tones,

sometimes bitter humor.

We watch a bird circling in the distance,

and build patterns in the clouds.

Last year I spied a mole burrowing in

the unmelted snow of early spring.

Today I tend to think of you

smiling as you did last night

when you first saw me after parting.

He came for the music. And the romance.

Summer at the big international jazz festival. He had decided to go,

not because he was secure in his tastes and passions, but to help create

his burgeoning self-definition -- the true function of the summer of our

lives. It was time to escape the endless malls and predigested

televised opinions into the heart of a city that pulsed with life. And

here, where no one knew his name, he was finally free to become what he

could be, wandering unfamiliar streets and imagining himself to be, at

last, truly home.

He was staying at a cheap little student-ghetto hotel, barely more than

a hostel, in a compact room with a cot and bathing facilities down the

hall. There was also a breakfast room, where complimentary coffee and

pastries were provided, along with the chance to meet and greet his

fellow travelers. Many of them were musicians -- not the big names that

drew in the international aficionado crowd, but someday would-bes, young

folks, like himself, trying out their talents on the streetcorners, in

the parks, in the breakfast room of their temporary quarters. Some knew

of local bars where for the price of a pricey beer you could hang for

hours enjoying the late night sets of local talent, more intimate venues

than the big street-stage and theater performances of the daylight and

early evening.

He loved her wide, infectious smile, and the sparkle in her dark,

shining eyes. He had noticed her immediately at the bar, sitting with

her friends, enjoying the music, and at his hotel where she worked as a

desk clerk on the day shift, making the place feel more like a happy

home. She worked there for a small room and a smaller salary and

waitressed at a nearby coffeeshop for meals, tips, and a small hourly

wage -- altogether it worked out for her, and life was mostly fun, with

occasional high drama. So she smiled, widely, infectiously, so that

everyone loved to be around her. Looking at her, he felt so overwhelmed

with joy that he wanted to cry -- like at the end of a truly meaningful

book or movie that touches you so deeply that it seems to speak to you,

to speak only to you. He looked deeply into her eyes, dark and shining,

across the room, where she smiled and swayed to the rhythm of the band,

lost in the music. Saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, keyboards, backed up by

a big, bass fiddle -- sometimes wildly raucous, sometimes slow and

dreamy, as each soloed, duoed, came together in soaring syncopation,

dropping in or out with inspiration or exhaustion, all so achingly

beautiful -- the music, the soft summer night, the girl.

Because he was the kind who stood back and observed life without really

taking part in it, he could see and admire her propensity for jumping in

with both feet, never looking back. He watched mesmerized while she

danced and flirted to the music, making it her own.

Being a true student of life, he carried with him always a small journal

into which he would write quick impressions, ideas as they occurred.

So, now, as he sat hidden in the darkness, allowing his imagination to

sway to the rhythm of the band, he wrote:

"They would have to find a way to come together, he and she. After all,

if there were no meeting, how could the story begin? From where would

the story come, to be told? The 'jazz scene' is not enough. We need

characters to form a plot, the experiences from which those characters

can develop and grow. We need relationships in our lives within which

we can learn to become ourselves. And all this is just deep

philosophical shit for the basic premise that, hey, I am drawn to this

girl, more than just attracted by her adorable appearance. I am

developing an actual need to get to know her, to learn about who she is,

and who I can be in relation to her. So why don't I just do the prosaic

thing and go ask her to dance?"

So he did.

And they danced. And laughed. And kissed on the dance floor, hugging,

and laughing, and dancing -- just like young lovers to be.

"Come back to my room with me." he murmured into her ear, as it

conveniently came into contact with his lips.

"Can't do it. How would the other guests feel, not getting room service

and all."

"Then I'll go back to your room."

"Hey, I'm not that kind of girl. Think of my self-respect. Besides,

what would our kids say when we told them."

"So far as I know, we don't have any. And what about my self-respect,

being shot down when I've finally gotten up the nerve to ask you."

"Tell you what, then, tomorrow happens to be my day off. I'll let you

escort me to the Festival -- a date like."

"Sounds like fun. I'll meet you in the breakfast room around 11:30 and

treat you to your second cup of coffee wherever you suggest."

"It's a deal! By the way, I'm Celeste."

"A pleasure to meet you, Celeste. You can call me Paul."

And so they went, twirling/embracing in a romantic daze to the

ever-changing, expanding band of after hours musicians, until at last

they walked each other home, separating at the stairs, parting with a

kiss "to seal the deal." -- a very passionate deal, indeed.

The day dawned bright and warm, but by 11:30 had deteriorated into

overcast and sweltering. She took him to a corner cafe for iced

cappucinos to go, to keep them more comfortable on their walk to the

Festival grounds -- several blocks of temporary music-mall on streets

closed to traffic for the occasion, dotted along the way with stages and

concession booths centered by a large, flowing fountain which was

surrounded by chairs and umbrella'd tables, surrounding several

temporary out-door cafes and bars. The music was everywhere, from lone

guitarists plugged in to mini-amps along the fountain to big, shiny

bands taking their turns on the stages -- so that as you moved far

enough for one to fade you came into the aural purview of another.

The crowds of revelers made a colorful array -- many of them dancing to

the music, individually, in couples, and in groups. Children squirting

each other with their water bottles darted in and out amongst the

longer-legged. The concessionaires were in their glory selling cold

drinks, snow cones, commemorative clothing and cds. Despite the heat,

everyone was taking full advantage of the party atmosphere, joining in

the general soundscape with their own gleeful screaming and applause.

It seemed like the perfect time to be in love. Celeste and Paul found

themselves falling into that marvelous, magical natural high, and

gladly, giddily, let it carry them bubbling above the crowd into the

pure realm of jazz vibrations and each other's eyes.

It was the one perfect moment in my life. In the dark winters of my

discontent, I am always trying to go back to it -- my own transcendent

summer of love.

Thunder and scattered raindrops had them dashing from the festival

grounds and, as the downpour hit, ducking into a neighborhood bar to

stay dry. They ordered beers and punched up some dreamy tunes on the

jukebox. Then sat for hours talking about everything. It all seemed so

important -- giving each other the gifts of all their hopes, dreams,

experiences.

They wanted to say there forever, to Vulcan mind-meld, to touch and

never let go.

As it got later into evening, the bar started filling up. A band set up

and a chanteuse came out to sing hauntingly beautiful songs of love.

Eventually they walked each other home, but did not separate at the

stairs. There was still so much they needed to express. So much that

they didn't sleep at all and never separated until Celeste had to leave

for work, leaving Paul to think deep thoughts while luxuriating in the

magical spell that seemed to surround him.

At that age he should have been free, open to limitless possibilities.

For a time he was able to fool himself, to believe that life should be

that way. He hadn't intended to fall in love, only to flirt with

romance, the romance of anonymity, of, for a short time inbetween, the

chance to reinvent himself any way he might choose.

But now, here was this cosmic gift, this beautiful woman -- not only

beautiful but intelligent, funny, incredibly fun to be with, a

powerhouse of energy with a smile that could transport him directly to

paradise -- this woman whom he could not help but to love in ways he had

never believed possible; and she loved him, mind, body, soul, exactly as

he was, here and now. He had not even realized how lonely he had always

been until now that suddenly that burden had been lifted. He felt like

he could fly on wings of song, and never, ever need the touch of land --

only the touch of Celeste to keep him flying eternally.

Once she set her mind to something it never took long to have it done.

In a few days time, she had quit her hotel clerking position, and gotten

a full-time waitress job at a place where the tips were good. Through

her vast social network, she found him various odd jobs, under the

table, and a small furnished apartment, just right for young lovers.

She was even able to find a local arts rag that would pay him for his

stories, albeit not much. It helped them afford the beers and munchies

at their favorite neighborhood bar where they could share intense

conversation with her friends, who in deference to her were now becoming

his as well, and dance intimately late into the night to the local

bands. An idyllic life to settle into, filled with love and fun and,

for Paul, a great adventure.

For several weeks he just went along for the wild ride, thanking his

good fortune, learning about the ways of love on hot, sultry nights.

Perhaps he was at heart a coward. He hadn't been raised to the wild,

but carefully taught to honor responsibilities. He knew he had a future

to go back to, one that revolved around college classes, a part-time

job, studying and making contacts, occasional dating of course, but not

these new found friends, his new found life and love. His parents had

sacrificed to give him a better chance, a high-priced, prestigious

education. He was expected to take this seriously, make the very most

of it, make them proud. Perhaps he just did not have whatever it is

that it takes to stand in defiance of all that one has been taught to

honor. When the time came, it wasn't even a decision -- he just did

what he had been programmed to do, with wrenched heart and staunchly

blankened mind.

They said they'd keep in touch. And from time to time they did.

She runs a successful bed and breakfast in a tranquil resort town, along

with her ever-cheerful husband and their two cuddly kids. The place is

somewhat famous for its largely musical clientele.

He is a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper, covering the local jazz

beat, without an alter-ego as a caped crusader.

The music keeps me sane.

Walking long mornings into sunrise

You stood by and took the earth into your arms

like grainstalks

I called you my Degas print.

You spoke of the moon.

21 days and nights we tarried.

Almost single, almost married.

I loved you.

You spoke to me in words of magic.

Will you speak to me again?

Hollywood houses and Paris cafes bowed to us.

You said you needed work and companions.

I cursed you in my mind, and went off

seeking other follies.

The days look longer now, feel somehow strange.

Love is like a looking glass, reflecting change.

Believing it to be the right and just consequences for actions taken so thoughtlessly, Jeffrey mildly cursed himself for a fool and continued through the night-darkened streets. Wanda was not likely to repeat their conversation of earlier in the day. It would, distinctly, be not to her advantage.

Wanda had never been a ballerina, or even a dancer, but she adored watching them. Above all, she adored the ice-dancers -- gliding as they did in perfect grace, never seeming to feel the cold.

Wanda was an old woman who took advantage of the prerogatives of a long life. She felt fully justified in all her years; she had worked hard for them, and had no need to apologize to anyone. Wanda watched the ice skaters on her old yet serviceable television and admired skills she would never possess. The years in which she might have learned them had been given over to other things. Private things. The little day to day triumphs and encounters that make up so many lives -- no fanfare, no publicity -- just all those tiny moments with so much private meaning. That was how Wanda had lived. Entangled in relationships of various kinds and doing her daily chores and getting by.

Jeff was a young man of great impetuousness. He rarely made the same mistake twice, but not for lack of trying. Or lack of mistakes. He drank heavily and forgot a lot -- though he did not drink to forget. He drank because he enjoyed that feeling of power that came with the loosening of inhibitions, the loosening of his tongue. He became, so he thought, so clever and eloquent with proper lubrication. He loved the bar scene. It was his element. And the girls. He loved the girls. Who wouldn't? They'd do most anything for a guy who could show them a good time. A guy like him with manners and grace, fairly good-looking, at ease with dancing and romancing, he could be on easy street.

Wanda too stopped in occasionally at the neighborhood bar. She liked an irish whiskey on those dark, cold nights that she stopped by on the way home from shopping or visits or the odd job of work. (She sometimes supplemented her pension with a bit of housekeeping or babysitting or even some office work when it came about.) She preferred the friendly camaraderie of drinking at the bar to imbibing alone at home. It gave her a bit of social life outside of family and old coworkers and such.

Jeffrey had seen better days, and even a few worse. Why they were worse he was not entirely sure. The fact that he was without negotiable funds was not the source of his problem. He was, in fact, very rarely financially solvent. The fact that he was suffering from a head cold probably made everything seem much worse. The immediate source of his problem, however, was that LuAnn had not taken kindly to his entanglement with Wendy; and Wendy was particularly offended by his involvement with LuAnn. The result of all this disharmony was his present lack of a suitable abode or even drinking money. Further, his rotten mood was occluding his ability to come up with an appropriate solution.

Wanda, who had seen quite her share of men come and go through her life, was listening in an early evening glow to Jeffrey's troubles as he tried to cadge a drink, now and then successfully, from the other patrons. The television was tuned to the evening news. Some politician, over the airwaves, was explaining why he was not a crook and why the people should believe in him. Wanda did not care if we were a crook, she didn't tend to believe in anyone on tv unless they were dancing. Jeffrey happened to be sitting beside her now, talking to the bartender about the current political hopefuls and Jeffrey's opinions of them. (He had, by now, managed to inveigle several drinks and was therefore fluid in his mannerisms and speech.) Wanda enjoyed watching him, listening to him. He reminded her of other young men she had known in her now distant youth. She invited him home for the night, once she was ready to leave the bar.

It was a cold night; and there was no need for him to sleep it off on the streets when she had a perfectly good sofa to lend.

He was grateful. This old woman would not demand much of him; and he felt he badly needed a rest. They watched ice skaters on the old tv and she made popcorn and hot cocoa and, now and then, they talked.

Jeff and Wanda became friends. He would stop by on occasion, and tell her of his activities and dreams. She would reminisce sometimes, which he enjoyed; sometimes she'd tell him what she thought of his conflicts. Sometimes she imagined with him the outcome of his dreams. She too had dreams, though she no longer expected them to come true. He would listen to them and smile -- not in derision, but in appreciation of her inner world.

Wanda's dreams were still a young girl's dreams. She dreamed of perfect romance, as she had never known it. Of floating safely within a lover's arms, totally embraced in perfect love and understanding. She dreamed of a fulfilling career, perhaps doing something that the world would consider great -- inventing a cure for some horrible disease, or a plan for peace, or something marvelously artistic and beautiful. She dreamed of having wealth and luxury -- certainly something more than this small one-bedroom apartment, the old tv, the miserly pinching out of her small pension trying to keep ends meeting each month. She dreamed marvelous adventure -- travel to exotic lands, new and different experiences -- something beyond the visits with family and friends, the trips to the market, the occasional stopping in at the local bar on cold, wintry nights. She dreamed and found great joy and solace in her dreams, even knowing that they could never become true. No lover waited for an old and ill-kempt woman with wrinkled skin and thinning hair, faded clothes and slowly failing health. No great career would open up for one with little education or training beyond a 40 year simple office job. No wealth or luxury or adventure was left to her to miraculously lift her from the settled daily routine of her final years -- none but what she could find in dreams. She knew this and accepted it. But now, at least, she could share her dreaming. In Jeff's company, their conversation, the sharing of dreams brought to them a semblance of reality, brought them in some sense into the real world.

Jeff too had dreams, a young man's dreams, suitable to his age. Though he rarely thought of or put into action suitable means to their realization, coasting along as he did on a glib tongue and good looks, on his ability to take advantage of the yearnings for romance of gullible young ladies, coasting on his youth and dreaming more for entertainment than attainment. Still, now sharing his grand illusions with Wanda, he began to believe, from time to time, that, perhaps, something might be made of some of them. Perhaps there could be more to him than he had so far made. They watched the ice skaters on the old tv, gliding effortlessly, oblivious to the cold, creating an image of perfect beauty, and spoke of their dreams, creating for themselves a new reality -- a sharing, a friendship, a place in which they could be themselves more fully and be understood, accepted, affirmed.

It was no longer really winter. Spring was sneaking up in the form of more and more warmer days, longer days, baby budlings sprouting on the trees. Jeff met a new girl who lived in a building very near Wanda's. Her name was Nancy and she worked in an office at the hospital, but she was saving for training for a better job, perhaps as a nurse or a physical therapist. She had ambition.

"You certainly have a knack for physical therapy," Jeff said as they lay in bed, she having told him of her ambitions. He said it because it seemed a witty thing to say, and kissed and tickled her to make his meaning clear. He really liked Nancy. She was bright and vivacious and fun to be with. Somehow there seemed to be more to her than most of the girls he knew. Being with her, talking about her plans and all, the idea of making something more of himself slowly became more real, more possible. They were seeing each other more and more. She even helped him to get a job at the hospital, moving patients about and such. Strangely, it felt good to have a job to go to, his own money in his pocket, a steady girl to come home to, all those prosaic comforts he had always thought himself beyond.

Jeff took Nancy with him on his visits to Wanda now. The three of them quite enjoyed each other's company. They would sit around her small dining table, drinking irish whiskey and trading small stories of their various lives. Sometimes they listened to old jazz records that Wanda had kept through the years. Jeff and Nancy might dance to those records while Wanda watched and listened and remembered other nights long ago.

And suddenly it was Spring -- warm, wonderful Spring! Walks in the park and necking on the benches and playing kids' games for the joy of it Spring! Wanda would spend warm afternoons wandering about the park feeding birds and watching the children play. Flowers were sprouting out from the ground, imbuing the air with a lovely perfume. Ducks swam happily in the pond and robins chattered about on the ground and tree branches.

Jeff and Nancy too were enjoying the new sprung Spring -- enjoying picnics in the park at lunch time and long and playful walks in the still light early evening. Young and in love is the perfect condition to be in in Spring, and they took full advantage of that condition. It seemed like happiness bubbled up from their hearts, lightening their heads, promoting prodigious giggles and playfulness. It made Wanda's heart glad to see them so, as though she too had a special secret bubbling within her. They took to bringing her flowers to brighten up her dingy rooms; and, for her birthday, they got tickets for the ballet.

Wanda felt like a young girl, dancing, pirouetting through the open fields in her mind. She was drifting, wafting, unconscious of the hospital room and its noisy routine. Jeff had called the ambulance when he found her, fallen on the living room floor. She had yet to regain consciousness.

Jeffrey stopped by to see Wanda, who had reportedly gained consciousness, at his afternoon break. She was awake; but tubes came out of her nose and arm and various other parts of her body, hooking her up to a barrage of hospital machines. She looked so frail and helpless lying there. His own mother had looked like that, shortly before she died, in another hospital room many years ago. Of course, Jeff's mother had not been anywhere near as old as Wanda was now; but he had been a young child then, and not really aware of her age.

Jeff panicked and began shouting:

"You foolish old woman! Silly Old Woman! Couldn't you take care of yourself any better than that!" he cried and stormed out of the room, out of the hospital building, and on to the street. There he walked in a daze until he reached a bar. He went in and sat there drinking for hours, until he ran out of cash and the day had turned into night.

He wandered out into the night, the thoughts circling around in his still dazed, and now drunken, mind.

"God, I've really blown it now. They're sure to can me at the hospital for acting so irresponsibly. And Nancy . . . she's not going to want anything to do with me now, after she got me that job and all . . . I've really blown it this time."

Believing it to be the right and just consequences for actions so thoughtlessly taken, Jeffrey mildly cursed himself for a fool and continued through the night darkened streets. At least, he thought, Wanda was not likely to repeat their encounter of earlier in the day. It would, he thought, distinctly be not to her advantage.

But she did.

When Nancy arrived to see Wanda after her day's shift of work, the older woman was still frightened and upset from Jeffrey's visit. She told Nancy what had happened.

"Go to him," she told the younger woman, "He needs you."

And Nancy went.

She too wandered the streets for hours, until she found Jeff; and when she did she grabbed him and hugged him for all she was worth. Then, taking his hand, quietly, she led him home.

You were a mystery to me.

A sensual stranger in the night

Who brought me ecstasy and fantasy.

What we shared wasn't love --

but an adventure -- and the love of adventure

draws you near me in certain dreams.

And you are still a mystery, a symbol in my life

for certain exquisite longings.

The time we were together was a magic time.

I'm looking for that magic again.

I am looking for another magical romance,

as I remember you and smile

without wondering where you are.

Dreaming, I sit here,

Wondering, remembering your past

As you've told it to me in hours of easy yarning.

You look so young, asleep and dreaming

beyond my touch.

Do you know that I think about you,

Watch for hours, wait for your step at the door?

Do you know that thoughts of you,

silent dreams and yearnings,

Are easily taking over my mind?

You said that men are romantic,

And women are strong and practical.

I don't feel practical or strong,

Just dreamy, and slowly

Obsessed.

I catch clouds and hold them for awhile in my mind

they keep me drifting.

I catch minds and let them float behind my eyes

They keep me sifting through thoughts and moods.

I catch you for awhile, drifting through my mind.

I catch your smile, your thoughtstreams, your

ups and downs.

I catch you for awhile and let you linger through

my moments.

I catch clouds and shape them to your form

they keep me drifting.

I dream forms and demons and fleeting glimpses

of your mind.

I dream while clouds drift away into formless

wispings.

I catch your eye in the corner of my mind

In drifting, shifting dreams that float away,

Yet stay -- yet linger,

Always thinking you.

We have these moments we may share, my friend

We are not here to judge or blame

We'll join our souls in song

Our steps will blend into the pattern

of the game we play

It's all a game we play.

I've often watched the stars and thought of you

Although I didn't know your face or name

I've followed in your form in all I do

You see, we're all the same

It's all a simple game.

The days are long, the nights are longer still

We've learned to play outside of time

Just passing through each moment as we will

Falling in and out of rhyme.

Perhaps tomorrow we will meet again

And, never having met before,

We'll have our interlude of love, and then

Depart, each through a separate door.

In 1967 when the world was young and new

we died a'borning.

Our drug-swept minds we left to weep

a burial parade to the new morning

That dreamed us in our dreams, but never wakened.

Oh yes, there was a time when time was young and

open, free to wander.

Oh yes, there was a time when time was young

and ready there to squander.

Oh yes, there was a time when nothing seemed

beyond a new direction.

Oh yes, there was a time, but time has died

and none are resurrected.

It's a sad song I'm singing

of dreams that might have been fulfilled

if only . . .

A sad song,

like leaves blown from a tree

to find that they are lonely,

but winter's coming

& there's no returning down that road

once the snows have rearranged it.

What happened to our plans for peace,

for sharing bount beyond belief

for blazoning the dawn with youthful fire . . .

Can these short years now find us old

withered spider webs of gold

spun so fine that none would think to see us.

Our voice is gone.

Our fire has died.

And all that echoed deep inside our hearts

to march eternal now eludes us.

In spiraling we've lost our thread

We've become the age to dread.

Like this last poem, we soon are dead,

forgotten.

I weep for the child almost born.

She showed a promise now unfulfilled.

Perhaps someday again may she find us.

San Francisco

Cool, crisp, mist.

Oh, Westland.

Your merry rhymsters of beatdom's domain;

Your music in the streets;

Your vibrant hills rising skyward.

In my youth I dreamt of you,

And made pilgrimage to your golden gate.

San Francisco,

A hope, a dream of congregation.

Oh, City of Light.

She should be carved in wood

The fine grain lines of her hair,

her form

coppery contours

exquisitely rendered

She should be as an inspiration to art,

a fine thing valued

sitting so austere

and gracefully

Emily is a garden

She grows fine long tendrils

sparkling in the sunshine

and dainty pearly flowers

for bees to hum over

and the long daylight and beaming stars

share the fun of a summer day.

Emily grows well underground

in the long, cold winter

and brightens eyes once more

in early spring.

Brian, quick as a flash!

He's a cat man

slinking in to saucy societe

with that big flashy grin (ain't it a sin, man ...).

Life is smiling at him in the morning

And sometimes in the evening he's still flashing

into your life and mine.

(I call that a fine thing, man ...)

Yeah, keeps me ringing

Like the telephone...

Love is a shadow

Love is a shade

Love is a magic

Love is afraid

Love is a fantasy

Love is a fear

Love is potential.

She's cool, just the right amount of calculating, and oh so deferential to the code. He's crude, patronizing, but affable; you can't help liking him. They live on a quiet, tree-lined street just behind the main thoroughfare. You'd hardly know them if you saw them every day.

She was wild and wind born, a creature of seasons. She blew into their lives and opened their windows and doors. Did you see her flying through town, smile wide eyes flashing in the distance? She's a creature of seasons, comes and goes through changes, rides high and low on the wind. They would have smothered her in confinement just because they are that way. She would love to be brilliant, but her flame is too blown about, so she lives in a fantasy of exquisite pain. "You will love her; she knows how to suffer," cries into your ear over telephone wires, into your eyes from the printed page.

"My God," the priest intones, "Look over my congregation. Each of us a sinner on the path, answer our prayers for forgiveness. Absolve us, we know what we have done, and would assuage the guilt upon our souls."

They go to bed each evening, shortly after ten. What can they be dreaming?

She takes off, racing through town on a stolen motorcycle, out to meet her lover. They always meet outside of town and travel into the city. They always giggle when they meet, out for a night of fun and laughter. Laughter always becomes erotic after awhile. It's a night of racing madly against death, of Experience. It's a night that lasts for days, until exhaustion makes it end. They are well known in this city that they go to, though strangers in their own homes.

The jukebox music blares and voices shout over. Psychedelic lighting and elaborate costumes make everyone a figure of fantasy. It's a high time for pill poppers, powder sniffers, and mainliners: a high time for all. I see you and wave across the room, "Hey, man, come on over!" General roughhousing, laughter, some surreptitious snorts from a vial. ~"Hey, man, what's happening? Gi'me five!"

She sees you and sidles over. She's on the make all the way. She loves a challenge, can't turn away from one. She speaks her mind, brash. She would love to be brilliant, but her flame is too blown about. You give her your attention, as much as you have available on your high. She smiles, eyes wide and flashing, begs you for a kiss with those eyes, reaches for your hand to read your palm lines, says they show great physical prowess. You are enchanted and thrilled in your response. I stand by and watch you, delighted.

They are dreaming words, kind and harsh, and numbers. They are dreaming situations with predetermined conclusions. In the morning, like well-oiled machines, they will roll along to work. If you look, you may see them on the highways, behind the wheels and shields of their cars. You wouldn't know them if you did.

She licks the inside of your earlobe, her hands tightening on your chest. You are hardly aware of the world without her. I am still watching you, from the corner, highly amused. The music blares, an everpresent background, foreground, background, foreground. It's all so intense, you smile, the agony; the pleasure. I am waiting for a sign.

They murmur uneasily in their sleep. There are signs and portents, to be felt around them, in the cool night air. They stir uneasily, but do not waken, hiding more deeply in their dreams. They would not know how to deal with it all awake.

We have left the bar, walking in the late night rain to your apartment. It's not a long walk, nor a short one. The rain doesn't permeate our highs. We laugh a lot over nothing and smoke cigarettes. You're cool, supremely aware and together. We giggle our secret jokings in the rain; your arms unite us, one around each. Finally we reach the building, doorway, stairs, stairs, stairs, room. Double lock, and you're ours. We will play lovingly with you, a new toy. We love to share our toys, she and I.

"Dear Lord," the priest closes his sermon, "We have sinned and demand forgiveness. We have played by the rules and will enter the kingdom of heaven when we die."

You give yourself over completely to the pleasure which we know well how to give. We blow great wafting billows of smoke from our lungs into yours. We breathe heavenly white crystals into our veins and yours. We all three enter each others' bodies through every orifice, merge through skin and immortal souls, experience climax upon climax, ever greater the heights.

They dream of liquid floating in suspension and do not understand. We are the product of their dreams.

We suck you of your life fluids, moving mouths on every part of your body. Vampires of experience, we will not let you go till we have sucked you dry. Like a vampire's victim, you will crave the life, the experience of others, will suck them dry to gain eternity. We suck you and lick you clean, fondlingly. We again enter you through every opening, cleaning you through. You have been exhausted. We complete our ritual cleansing as you lie immobile, beyond response. We symbolically cut off your genitals, cut out your heart. We now own your soul. It has been a good night.

Dawn has long since risen; they will wake soon. Soon they begin again, another day of their busy aimless lives: rise, work, unwind, sleep, and, oh yes, consume those predigested market-attractive packaged products of the mass media, the mass brainwash, the mass society.

We leave you sleeping and run gaily, arms linked, along the city sidewalk. We stop for coffee at a corner cafe and rolls and donuts. We no longer giggle, but speak sensibly; it is daylight. We go to the park to sleep by the water, surrounded by greenery, curled contentedly in each other's arms. Our easy breath is the summer breezes.

Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.

Early Scorpio warm, warm village 2 pm poetry reading

at Chumley's

Searching for bargains, found a Paul Goodman book

with cat and dog and baby photographs

to give to Cindy

a gift of love for a fragile child

stranger/sister.

Still afright from last night's heavy scene

Wherein the police took my man away again,

This time with my blessing and accomplicement.

. . . A man is a hard thing.

Also a drag on my developmental aspirations

When all he does is cry and threaten

Big Brute Violence

To storm my sensibilities.

(What's frustrating is he doesn't hear me cry.)

Laughing in the park we loved

Crying in the night we parted

Oh, beseech I, god above

Why must you leave me broken-hearted

(and I know he'll be returning with more disregards

and diatribes and possibly pistols drawn to fire.)

So I sit here in the bar, again

Drinking sweet Kahlua and awaiting the poetry

Taking a respite, you see.

Oh, god, for this while,

Bar nothing to this troubled child

(for child I feel, though woman grown)

Let peace alone assail me.

Section eight, section eight

Section eight, section eight

Asks you for a date

Watch him wriggling, wriggling, wriggling

babbling about his fate.

Wake on the morrow

Full of much sorrow

Knowing you can relate.

Honesty tells you to cry.

Misery tells you to die.

Your mind reels' spinning

will keep you from winning.

Your inner confusion

makes sure you keep losing.

And only your dreaming has

kept you from screaming

And smothering under your hate.

... And my heart is breaking,

It's broken.

Shattered into tiny pieces,

fallen on the floor.

& all the king's horses and all the king's men

Can't put those pieces together again.

Tho they try Lord, they try.

So I pick up the pieces & wrap them in a sad

silken handkerchief

& lay them on the mantle for remembrance

And on dark winter nights

I will sit beside the fire

drinking bitter sweet wine

and remember you.

You hurtled me into a faithless dream

All my demons I'd thought I'd quietened

Sent my thoughts down a lustful stream of music

Gemini eyes talk of treacherous love

and I'll never win

Gemini eyes false promise of love,

and I'm caught again

How can I hold you?

The time was weak, my body hurting

It's a time I'm sure the years will soften

You offered all I wanted to need and I wanted

Your Gemini eyes to talk to me of love,

and I'll never win

Gemini eyes, please answer mine with love

Oh, I'm caught again

and I just want to hold you

and let the passion melt my tears

Tear the demons of all my fears

Tear me to destruction, Gemini eyes,

cause I'll never win

Your Gemini eyes got me caught again.

Please let me hold you.

Passion Plays

Sidewalk street scenes

Commercialized love-ins at the five and dime.

It's getting so you can't speak of intimate feelings

Without sounding like a third rate flick

Or pocket novel.

So we go cold in protest

And that is the evil

Of obscenity.

I fell in love once

Now they just take on different

Faces and Forms,

These objects of my passions.

It's all the same fucking merry-go-round

Of rapid pulse beats

And hot and cold flashes

And none of it seems very real or sane

Or even, at this well-worn point,

Romantic.

You said you loved me,

And it made my world.

I called you my lover,

And felt secure in the race to conquest.

Yet lately, when I'm alone

I feel an urge to leaving;

And when I'm with you,

I'm not there at all.

Love is a word people use a lot.

I love you.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not five minutes,

But right now

You touch me

Through a look, a phrase, an expression,

The way you stand so firmly on your ground,

And I respond

With the hot flush of love

In a smile.

My firefly heart burns cold

flickers of remorse, of holy terror, brutal pain

My firefly heart bleeds for you, but you don't listen

don't see or hear, disdain to know how I need

your mirror of my flickering light, my

howling darkness of remorse, holy terror

My firefly heart yearns to fly away, always onward

never resting, beating, beating, ever further

never resting but open alive to the passing

wonders flickering light and dark and

arrayed in colors so bright so

breathtakingly heartbreakingly

My firefly heart beats into a thousand rays

striking out into the stratosphere playing

with the sunlight, prism bright rainbows

beating, flickering, cold and hot and

How can I make you see?

That icy black cavernous feeling

That falling and screaming mad panic feeling

That oh so languid nothing matters slow scorch

That "where is all the newness, the magic?" feeling

That "too bad, so sad

(goddamit! I'm shaking mad)" feeling

That horror in the night

when I know I'm sinking feeling

That tight black knot

clenching my aching muscles feeling

That I'm strong,

just stay out of my way I don't need you feeling.

That empty feeling.

It was a brisk, bright-mooned evening in mid-Fall -- the sidewalks and trees decorated in crackly orange leaves, which blew helter-skelter in the excitement of the wind.

Marie, pretty little Marie, danced along the sidewalk, pranced across the streets, dressed in deep velvet and sparkling finery on her way to a night of music and joy. Perhaps he would be there -- the he of the moment in her heart -- a still unconsummated romance, which, of course, added to the excitement in her eyes, the dancing of her feet. She was sweet twenty-two with long brown hair and big blue eyes and out on her own for under a year now, learning about life outside of school. By day a temporary secretary in various city offices, waiting for the big break to appear which would launch her career; by night an energetic blithe spirit of the local cultural scene, looking for Mr. Right who would make her feel warm and cozy and loved.

Warm . . . and cosy . . . and loved . . .

John H. O'Connor -- Johnny O' -- less than dapper man about town, scheming and scamming and looking for his lucky break, also had gentler feelings. Just because he'd been knocked about a bit, he wasn't bitter, just wise to the ins and outs; and he wasn't one of the ins. So he looked for the wide chance, the long-shot with the heavy purse, and meanwhile dreamed big-time, often with chemical aid; and looked for that special someone who would believe in him the way he wanted to believe in himself.

And they thought they'd found each other that bright, crackling Fall.

She was shy but forward. He was brash but shy. So they engaged in bantering small talk, while burning into each other's eyes -- everytime they encountered each other at the bars and parties and concert halls, for something over a month now. And tonight once more. But tonight was special. Tonight was magical. Crackling energy erupted and there was so much more between them -- like telepathy. They kissed. And walked each other home, hand in hand. And ended up in her apartment,

where her roommates were conveniently out. They told each other their souls and enjoyed bodily bliss and felt very, very special and blessed. And Marie, sweet little Marie, knew deep down for the very first time that somebody loved her all the way through, without reservation, without condensation, and with only one condition -- that she love him too.

So let us leave these new lovers to do as lovers do and visit them later down the road of life. Not too much later, for things move fast in these days of high-technology and mass mediated culture. Let's look in on them, say nine months hence, in the long, hot summer of their lives. And they're sharing a small apartment on the wrong side of town. (What makes it wrong -- well the glaring glass and excrement on the sidewalk, as well as the occasional passed-out drunk or junkie might hint at a less than luxurious lifestyle for the local hoi-polloi.)

Well, how could she believe in him, fastidious little Marie, who may have been emotionally starved, but at least was always fed and clothed among the middle-class. And he loved her, yes he loved her almost feverishly, but he couldn't control her; couldn't own her; and the fear of losing her was more than he could bear.

What had started out as a glorious adventure had turned too starkly real.

And the real world, in fact, has become much too stark and drear. What do we see on the tv and newstands but nuclear this and bacterial that and crazy folk erupting into murder on the streets and schoolyards and AIDS-infected rapists and child pornography rings and arson and bombings, and man's most brutal retaliation unto man, woman and child. A long, hot, greenhouse-effectuated summer indeed.

So he hit her, once or twice, or maybe, yeah, he went, a bit, out of control. He beat her, pummeled her, showed her just who was boss-man, upper-hand, in control of the situation, able to rule her life. And did she leave?

Hell, no. Where could she go? There is no safe port home, you know. Not when Mom and Dad have split long since and communicate mostly by holiday phone calls and birthday greeting cards with a twenty-five dollar check enclosed because they've both known better days.

And friends, what friends? He's alienated all those who are less worse off than they and she, so blindly attentive in the early days of bliss, had barely noticed. That brilliant career has yet to materialize. We must admit she'd not really been pursuing it lately. And he's pissed away her weekly paychecks on deals made of daydreams and the occasional rent, utilities and food. But, hey, this is the latter part of the twentieth century. Aren't there "Women's Groups" and socially conscious organizations to come to the rescue? Well, maybe somewhere; but not here where it counts so far as she can see. She's alone. Except when he loves her in the warm, soft night, singing poetry with his eyes and hands and mouth -- giving and taking and being all she could imagine. Oh, for those warm, soft nights . . .. But she's got to go. She must escape. The total desperation of the situation has come upon her. Nowhere to go . . . nowhere . . . nowhere . . .. But go she must!

So she waits 'til he's out on the town, scheming and scamming and giving his all just to try to make it for her, to be somebody in her eyes. And she just starts running, in no particular direction, no thought in her mind but escape. She runs, then walks, then runs again, through the town, through the city streets, with no certain destination, desperate little Marie, living on the hope that something will occur to her as she runs. And, running out of breath, she stops at a newsstand where the headlines scream of horrors far beyond what she has ever endured. But she's out of breath and out of options. She's got about $5.00 in her pocket, so she goes into the nearest bar to use the facilities and buy a pack of cigarettes. And take some time to think.

Pretty little Marie, they come up to her and offer to buy her a drink. What the hell. She drinks. It makes her feel less. Notice less. And some sleezeball carries her away, arm around her staggering form. And when she tries to scream, he covers her mouth and nose and face with the pillow. So she screams and screams inside her mind. And in the bright, hot morning, they find her, what's left of her, in a scuzzy alley. The headlines talk of her tomorrow, but it's too late for her to care.

Long ago and far away

Long ago and far away

In the inner plains of time

A fair voice was heard to say

We will meet another day.

Through the days of waking dream

Many songs have shared the rhyme

Each meeting, new though it may seem,

Another pattern in the scheme.

Running now through you and me

A thread, a wisp of fleeting song --

An ever-mending tapestry --

This treasured bit of life we see.

Look at her there --

She can't see you.

She's lost in a daydream

and miles away.

Can you behold her beauty and love her,

though she knows not that you may be?

Can you behold her beauty and love her;

then turn

and forever leave?

Not just sweetness and light

There is a strength; there is conviction --

there is a vibrant dedication to true worth.

If we can but believe again

in all the humane virtues --

Love is sharing,

in kindness, understanding, supportive regard.

Love is forgiving and being forgiven,

when it is clear that malice was not intended

or malice has been exorcised

-- an acceptance of the positive power

of change, of growth in spirit.

Love is the assumption of "we."

We are doing being going having creating

We are able to exchange our labor, knowledge,

possessions, positions

We are able to take in more than I -- to synergize

our fortunes into wealth and integral well being.

Love is not just a song -- a pretty set of symbols

Love is a power and a glory

and an all encompassing truth.

Love is addition and multiplication,

not division or subtraction.

Love enriches and inspires us.

Love is not blind, not foolish.

Love is not denying the self or self interest.

Love is seeing clearly, knowing wisely,

understanding and expanding the self --

expanding outward to take in the universe

of interconnected, interdependent being.

Love sees the ugliness; and loves sees the beauty.

The ugliness saddens; the beauty invigorates.

Love is to peace as music is to harmony.

But how are we to love in a discordant world?

It is within us to pick out the true,

enduring melody

to which our essential selves are tuned --

If we but look to, listen to, open our selves to

Venus, the Goddess of Love,

Peace, Justice, Harmony

as she manifests within us all.

red tabletops think of cold

black floors w/ objectivity

thin red lines emotion says

dividing blocks of SCREAM!

black. so back off --

striped drapes objectivity

old newsprint think of

wallpaper cascading blood

an atmosphere of severed limbs

antiquity shots and swords of

of people gathered murder

for raucous amusement held in stasis

i drinking molson's think of revolution

-- discriminating in this albany tavern

distinction plots and politics

think of eisenstein as argued long ago

in post-revolutionary revolution

russia in form and style

"mother russia" that's all that

visions of snow and ice changes

cascading water are they here tonight

held in stasis fomenters of tomorrow

brutal massacre on the would I be of them

steps (steppes) if i knew?

What is power?

Power is a word.

Power is an idea.

The Word is power.

The Idea is power.

Power is a distribution of energy, wealth, strength:

Physical, material, mental, metaphysical,

social.

Power is that which allows us,

Or we allow others, to have

sway over their/our actions, emotions, limitations.

Power is a rush of air, of water, of electrons,

of words,

of weapons, of will

-- the force behind movement

or stasis.

politics

infinite regression of change and resistance
multi-rhythmed rhyme
singing into the winds of change
to move their vector more in line
with where we wish to arrive

What lesson can be applied?

When imperialist troops crash down upon a people's pride?

When might as right meets the instinct to survive?

When Midas greed lashes out to destroy?

We've been here before, o my brethren, o my children --

repeating the fouled lessons poured into our thirsty minds,

pushing back the horror before our eyes with blinding rage

forged into weapons by mortal foes

who hide in plain sight.

The only thing I know --

The lesson repeating agony in all our souls,

Haunted by the pleading eyes and bloody hearts

Of the slaughtered sacrifices to malignant gods --

There is something vital here to learn.

Look, this is dangerous

Making martyrs of the peacemongers may have

a long and honorable tradition

in Latin Jurisprudence.

But look where it leads.

Or do you so blindly worship fear

that you find solace in repression

and believe free thinking sinful?

Do you resent being born human

rather than a purely wrought machine?

Forcing your suicidal projections on the world,

is this your sanity?

Would you pluck out your eyes rather than

admit the light?

Turn a deaf ear upon all protest

while the screw turns ever tighter?

And when violence wins the human race,

will you go out smiling in triumph,

or quivering before your Lord,

or protesting

too late?

Somebody wrote a letter to the Times

demanding relief

from the endless splutter of bad tidings

which made their morning train ride so despondent

that they bitched at their secretary

and had to eat yogurt rather

than gin for lunch to soothe their ulcer

and kept them from smelling the flowers

in the park and gave them

a sour look that made children poke fun.

It was such a poignant letter

that Russell Baker wrote

a column about Pollyanna reporting to cheer our

overwrought executives who of course have so many

aggravations that they might make decisions

out of spite to blight us poor working

and non-working class folk

who must depend on executive class decisions

as to how we may run our lives.

Those who read the Times on these days

made mumbled comment

on how the world was in such a state as to give

any man indigestion and perhaps a stop at the

Full-Sensual-Satisfaction-Guaranteed Massage Room

would be just the thing

before the evening commute

back to the wife and kids.

Those who didn't read the Times

remained ignorant of the trends,

just got high and watched tv.

You lost your faith, Peter Pan.

You lost your wonder

Who told you to sell out to your father's dream

-- Amerikkka?

Where loyalty to the God Success

overrules loyalty to the tribe?

We never believed in you,

the admen laugh.

Do you laugh with them?

At the poor deluded dreamer.

Do you cry inside in anguish over

what you've lost?

Is any part of that dreamer still alive?

I cry for you.

I was a child

Young Julius Jones

Born in the month of his naming

Trained in the fine art of gaming

Grew in the wilds of Manhattan

Among the sticks and stones.

Young Julius Jones

Learned soon to hate with a passion

Whoever was most then in fashion

Learned soon to pummel and flatten

Whoever was not of his own.

He grew swift and strong

A fine looking man, and a tough one

With women was always a rough one

But knew how to use all to please him

Sure of his own right and wrong.

He went off to war

Glad to be raising his station

Proud to be serving his nation

He'd ne'er let the enemy seize him

Of this he was sure.

He shot proud and true

And sent letters home to his mother

Of how he had killed yet another

Taught those damn Commies a lesson

Gave 'em what they were due.

He died in the night

And when, in the morning, they found him

It was nothing new to astound them

Someone just said, "What a mess."

And soon he was out of their sight.

Young Julius Jones

Born in the month of his naming

Trained in the fine art of gaming

Gone from the isle of Manhattan

Among the sticks and stones.

Young Julius Jones

Had learned well to hate with a passion

Whoever was most then in fashion

Learned well his lesson and that

In the end justified his bones.

Not in Our Name

Nobody wins in a war
(well, maybe a few financiers of war industries, but)
Not us, not them, not humanity
Not the dead, not the living
Not the yet to be born
Not the land, water, air, our natural resources
Not the roads, buildings, pipes, utility lines, the infrastructure
Not love or peace or morality
Not human nature
Not Right
Not Justice
Not God
Not the battlegrounds or the cemeteries, or the unhealable wounds in our souls
Whatever we may hope to accomplish with war,
There are better ways.

Quantum leaps

Of conversation

And you know that I know that

What a show!

Full-feather display in livid color

"Hey, man, another beer, and for my lady . . ."

"Bug off, Creep! I ain't chore lady."

"Oh, ain't I grand. Hey, bud, I'm grand

Really I am. Let me tell you one about me and the:

1) local pigs

2) welfare pigs

3) high falutin' professor pigs

4) landlord, loan-adjuster, tax collector, last year's lover

So when I go home alone at closing

Having blown my whole week's slave dues

Maybe I can stave off the blues

With the tales I've laid on you

Of my grand illusions.

"Hey, man, another beer, and let me tell you

'bout my baby who left me last year . . ."

Oh, yeah.

Let's talk about life

the one you have and the one you imagined . . .

With all the world of possibilities,

what have you settled for?

Waking up in the cool, cool morning

Autumn crisp -- as your lungs reach for air

The sounds, the smells, the awaited adventures

Anticipation . . .

Or merely another day?

Do you long for love in the dark, dusky evening?

Do you count the countless stars,

knowing a miracle is on its way?

Has the chill of eternity captured your imagination?

What anchors you to Earth?

What makes you want to stay?

A journey of a thousand destinies

Written deep within your soul

Traveling daily through all the possibilities

Which are the parts that make you whole?

She sits in an old rocking chair

And questions the silence of night.

As the waves blow, the winds flow,

the sands sift with sea

And faraway stars shine in soft mystery

Her eyes shine with starlight and stare at the sea

Asking questions as ancient as night

Expecting no sign to appear.

In the village, at noon, on the square

Beneath the near blinding day light,

Sits a man with a plan he's no means to play

Wondering how he will get through his day

And just where, this night, he will finally lay

(Yes, beneath which exit light?)

Expecting no sign to appear?

I questioned myself on a dare

Tell me: What's wrong and what's right?

Have I caught a new thought that God has no mind?

We search for salvation that's nowhere to find?

or merely grown tired of life's daily grind,

Not caring to search for the light,

Expecting no sign to appear.

We children of flowers and light

Have we turned to dour-faced fear

Our dreams sacrificed to the night

Expecting no sign to appear?

Servant to the holocaust

Tremble in your harried cell

Invoke the curse ye know so well

To take you from your dreams of hell

Into the quiet place of never after.

Anger bore you out of pain

To call the power of poisoned rain

Upon the ruined wasted plane

That once had known the merry song of laughter.

Oh, nightmare's man,

I beg you in my future's heart

To leave this plane before the start

To end the practice of the art

Of vengeance cold or horror hot

As melted earth:

Servant of the holocaust

-- Deny they birth.

Tremble

Terrible holocaust

Gravestones attest to the sight of horror

beyond any concept of fright.

Tremble

Desirous of destruction

engulfing, eclipsing, destroying the night.

Ghastly retrieval to contemplate.

Holy emission of erupting planet

engulfing, engorging, destroying the night.

Terror behind closed eyes of terrible fire

destroying, enjoining, resplendent in blazing

agony;

transcending the night into deepest & deadliest

terror.

Yes, tremble and think not of that night.

Caught in a thread which ravels to end in

throat-clutching screams.

Send terror escaping into sad streams made of tears.

Endless, enduring, yet rent past all mending.

Quiet, so quiet tonight.

Kept closed -- quiet tonight.

Unable to scream; unable to cry; unable to go on

-- But, God, I don't die

just seeing the fire descending and screaming

without a sound.

Tremble, just tremble -- there's no soul around.

So they took you from your lover's home -- Steven

who treated you like a child & later wrote memoirs & told them to take anything, but to leave him alone

& they took you.

& they locked you in a closet & used you for a media campaign to feed the hungry.

You had never known hunger or privation.

You were a princess of the ruling class.

But you had known loneliness.

You learned, finally,

away from your university walls, about revolution.

They called you Tania & plastered your picture on front page reports & post office billboards &

the Six O'clock News.

Your father wasn't the only Hearst

who could make the papers.

You became a phenomenon. You became a star.

And the question on everyone's lips was:

"Where is Patty Hearst?"

& some were arrested & some were destroyed & the LA siege was just one of many brutal episodes in a bloody war movie, but you were a star.

& all the "little people" -- the housewives & the students & the laborers of the working class took you as their own & discussed your motives & some applauded you & some said you deserved to be spanked & some said you were just a pawn, but pawn or queen, you were a star -- a media heroine & no one could ignore you as they had

ignored your wealthy and powerful family.

Month after month you led the headlines.

The FBI was embarrassed

by false leads on your whereabouts.

All those trained bloodhounds searching for one

little girl playing revolutionary.

It could have been made in Hollywood,

But never in CUBA or CHINA or Viet-Nam.

You were so bold, standing in your beret & rifle

in front of the SLA trademark

(and we still may wonder on the significance of

"Symbionese")

Robbing banks in the tradition of Dunaway and Beatty

-- a whirlwind crime spree

to the glory of the "people."

What did you know of the "people?"

Those who cheered for the circus & those who condemned you at their mid-morning coffee breaks.

Yes, now you belonged to them --

no longer the sheltered heiress.

So they found you, the pigs, really quite by accident (the whole investigation being a gaily colored comedy of

errors)

& brought you to "justice."

& Justice took its time-honored time drawing out the headlines -- arraignment through appeals & exposes

("New Times features Bill & Emily Harris:

at home with the fugitives")

And when they asked you for your profession on the

official forms you ingenuously proclaimed to be

"an unemployed Urban Guerrilla," which is certainly as valid as an unemployed newspaper heiress.

And Squeaky Fromm tried to shoot the President,

but you were still America's sweetheart --

poor little rich girl gone guerrilla.

But then you were reprogrammed and reneged on your revolutionary ways. You cried for joy on being reunited with your "capitalist pig" parents &

the family dog --

Just like any Long Island JAP or Sacramento

newspaper heiress back from her hippie jaunt.

And they locked you in your "country club jail"

like they send a naughty child to her room --

"just to teach her a lesson."

And still the interviewers came

to continue the media comedy.

What fun you had with your "Pardon Me" teeshirt & your jailhouse romance with your guard.

(And Jerry Ford, who Squeaky tried to shoot, had

pardoned Trickie Dick. And Susan Ford, the First Daughter, married her Secret Service guard.

And it was the era of Post-Watergate when nothing could be too absurd for a world weary public worn out by the Stagflation Wars)

And Waffling Jimmy Earl of the Georgia Peanut Dynasty was in the Whitehouse.

And China was finally invading Viet-Nam

And a fast-talking Orkian

was the rage of prime time.

And discomania mixed liberally with coke and 'ludes had taken over Amerikkka's youthful zeal.

And Werner Erhard replaced Che Guevara in ex-Yippie Jerry Rubin's heart & so the wheel turns.

& five years after the kidnapping,

Patty Hearst finally went home.

Capitalism

Capitalism

All well and good

But we are not always

(thank god)

driven by profit.

We have the capacity

to be driven by all kinds of motives

and to act sometimes

for quite foolish reasons

when looked at objectively.

It is not all black and white

neither is it plus or minus

for we are not logic machines

but human beings

creatures of passion:

capable of intense emotions,

unreasoned behavior,

and not always

predictable.

Really, I had never thought about it at all until after I found the baby in the dumpster.

I was on my way back home kind of late at night, humming "My Heart Doesn't Bleed (for you)," and mulling over various business possibilities as my cash flow was getting to be dangerously low. The hottest prospect was in distribution of nicohol, a beverage made from fermented tobacco with all the addictive and psychoactive properties of both alcohol and nicotine. Not paying much attention to my surroundings, but I started to notice what sounded like a cat crying in the low-rent apartment complex dumpster I was passing. I was in no great hurry to get back to my empty apartment (really just an unfinished basement in the warehouse district with jury-rigged bathroom and kitchen equipment I was renting cheap and with no questions asked), so I went over to the dumpster to check it out. No cat, but what appeared to be a moderately healthy newborn human was crying atop the trash in the dumpster.

There was no one around but me and the kid, so I scooped her up and took her home with me. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I don't know much about kids, but a smelly, vermin infested dumpster did not seem like a very good environment to leave her in. However, this act of good will now left me with several new problems. I mean, what was I going to do with this kid? I wasn't even doing very well in supporting myself. And it became evident right away that I would now need supplies of the diaper and baby formula (and bottles, too, I guessed) variety.

Well, I left the kid in a box in my basement and went to the all night convenience store to pick up supplies for both of us -- beer and chips for me. I realized that I would probably have to invest a hefty percentage of my dwindling resources if I intended to hold on to the kid for any length of time. This is what got me thinking. I mean, when one makes an investment, one expects some kind of return. There must be some way I could turn this liability into a profit. I let the problem settle into my subconscious (where I do my best thinking) while I diapered and fed the kid, consumed my snack, and got to bed.

The next morning I was awakened long before I was ready to the kid crying again -- who knows for how long before I was willing to concede it was not part of my dream. I changed and fed her and left her sleeping in the box while I went out to the local library to check out childcare information on the World Wide Web.

So there I am web-surfing away when my eye catches reference to a newsgroup, alt.pedophile. Well, something clicks in my good old subconscious, and I get one of those "aha" feelings, which always feels so good. So I click on to alt.pedophile and start browsing through the posts. I have found my market. Now I need to arrange for the necessary advertising -- a very delicate operation as I am aware that my proposed business venture is not in any way legal. Then again, most of my business ventures have not been overly concerned with staying within the law. I find my profit margin to be better that way. Besides, I'm the kind of a guy who likes my independence; and I'm wedded to my privacy. On my side of the law I make my own rules; and I report to nobody. So I have to find a way to advertise to my proposed client-base while maintaining my low-profile.

But then, I start thinking in earnest. Before I contact said clients, I should first have a pretty good idea of just what I am offering. Some of the posts have indicated a liking for activities which would not allow for more than a one-time use of my resource, which is not the kind of business I am looking for. However, there are certainly other activities described which would not overly harm the merchandise. And what about price? I don't want to price myself out of the market; but neither do I want to short-change myself. I am taking a considerable risk here; and that should entitle me to a good bit of profit per transaction. So it looks like I've got some planning and research to do before I can actually open for business. I mean, nothing ventured, nothing gained; but it makes sense to cover the angles.

From the information I've also gotten from the web on the care and feeding of human infants, I realize it must be time to get back to homebase and do some maintenance. I stop on the way to pick up supplies so I can bathe, dress and provide bedding for the kid along with more food and diapers. Once I've taken care of maintenance chores for both of us, I head back out to track down some former business acquaintances who may be able to help with my advertising campaign.

Well, as per usual, nothing goes smooth -- but it goes. A couple of weeks later I find myself with a going concern. To avoid invasions into my privacy, I've hit on the idea of renting cheap motel rooms in the no questions asked district, exchanging the key for my price in unmarked cash and then staking out the room from the parking lot to make sure no one tries to leave with the kid. I ask the clients to leave the key under the mat when they're done -- privacy all the way around. But I make sure they know I'll be watching them leave from an undisclosed spot and that we are all clear on the rules in terms of the condition I expect to find the kid in when they've left. So far it seems to be working out just fine. In fact, after a while, it all seems to be working out too well. Between repeat and word-of-mouth clientele, I'm getting swamped with business -- even after raising my price a couple of times. Apparently I have hit on a badly needed service.

It's time to expand. And it occurs to me that my kid in the trash was probably not a one-time fluke. So I start checking out dumpsters late at night, expanding my field of inquiry into various parts of the city. And, wouldn't you know, it pays off.

Hey, the way I figure it, I'm providing several public services all the way around. These kids had nobody and nothing; in fact, they would probably be dead and unmourned if I hadn't happened to find and rescue them, and given them a shot at a productive life. I am now

becoming an experienced child care giver; and with the bucks they're bringing in we're all able to afford the good life. The gig is easy -- they just lie there like they do anyway and let the big guys have their fun. Life is good.

I once had a girlfriend, a beautiful, smart, funny, crazy lady who was my life. Unfortunately, she was having a hard enough time being her own life, and didn't really need me along for the ride. It was a bad scene all around, and I haven't even heard of her in years. Sometimes I remember and am sad. But I really haven't got much to put into a relationship -- and mostly I like it that way.

Time passes and I pretty much stay the same. But babies do not. They grow. They gain competence in all kinds of motor skills and do not docilely stay in their boxes, or even (as we grow more upscale in our wealth) cribs. They demand more and more attention and potentially find more and more trouble to get into. Who am I to judge? But I am a low maintenance kind of guy and not into complications. Now I have a problem. These kids are great little money-makers, but with all this dough I want to buy into more of a life. I do not want to devote my time to raising kids. And I can see a whole lot more complications down the road. Nor do I know anyone I can trust to take over child care for me without a lot of questions and hassles coming my way.

As it happens, I'm jawing with some business associ-ates about my newly developing problems. This guy tells me he's got a solution that will make us all a bundle. Seems he knows this shyster who deals in private adoptions. No questions asked. I hand over the kids; he makes the deals and gives me my cut: quite a bundle indeed. And yes, there's plenty to give my connection a sizeable cut without leaving me any the worse. Who knows what kind of homes the kids go to -- what kind of folks are into paying that much for slightly used merchandise? It's not my concern. I am happily, officially out of the baby rental racket. And on, I assume, to bigger and better things. After all, I've got quite a bundle to invest, and all the time in the world to enjoy it.

I was listening,

under a shadetree on a summer evening,

To the morals of our time as displayed

in popular music

And thinking of the many tiny travesties

of personal moments all around me.

The seatide ebbing/flowing of the music

more than hypnotized

as I watched people flowing

through an inner newsreel

of pride and misery

People marching in various uniforms

To a beat of pride and progress in the marketplace

and war zones;

People marching or being trampled or

sniping from the rooftops

All in rhythm.

And a friend said to me

on a starlit evening,

"It's so hard to know anymore what to do."

Random notes

Spin and float

And echo through this day of harvest.

National news

And lines from blues songs

Hover 'round me as I work.

Love's a word, a concept,

I sometimes believe in.

But when tension holds me like a sieve,

I can't believe in anyone.

A child grows

And learns to know

The Norms and Bounds and Social Graces;

Learns to see a world that we

Have carefully wrought and framed.

We grow old

And feel we've sold

A hope, a dream, an inspiration

To more comfortably fit into

The slot above our name.

Bad Seed

Guilt as a constant drip of toxin
a constant flow of tears
a constant beat of blood
pounding behind my eyes
exhorting me to arise
to rise to the occasion
to fall upon my knees in shame
begging for any scrap to salve
that gnawing, angry pain
a constant burning drip
a ring of fire -- pass not beyond this point
for life is not a journey
but a downward spiral.
What could such an open, curious, loving child have done
to merit such punishment?

Talking of politics past

We are so unsure of the future

And so enmeshed in the now.

The territoriality of time is fading

Like Janis said: "It's all one fucking day."

But the morning was so long in coming

So Bloody Long

I saw the first bright rays of dawn emerging

from beyond the horizon through my window

I try to tell you this as the long afternoon

drones on and on

But you, in reverie, do not hear me

So I'll write my poems for other ears.

You found out that things can't always be

just neat and clean and bright.

You found out that sometimes right ain't strong

and wrong is right.

You found out a lot that Ma and Pa'd

never want you to know.

You're found out in the streets in the snow

with nowhere to go.

Ain't it a bitch, what you've found out.

Ain't you a bitch when you're found out.

You ain't so sweet and true anymore

The world ain't pink and blue anymore

And you're living in a world that

wasn't just made for you.

It was the summer of '89. Me and Jake was looking forward to a couple more months of hanging out without much to do 'cause in a hick town like ours there just isn't much doing 'less you have a project or a job or something, which we didn't. Mostly we'd just hang out at my house while my mom was at work, watching tv and playing videogames and such. At 17 we felt like we were too old to go out on day trips on our bikes; and being without jobs, we didn't have the gas money to go out driving in the old car that Jake had bought this spring from money he had saved working summers before.

"We gotta find a way to get some cash," he told me this particular Tuesday afternoon, like he had so many times before. But we had already come up empty looking for even a day's work mowing lawns or cleaning out trash and the grocery store where we had worked as baggers last year was letting their customers bag their own stuff trying to save where they could to stay in business. Lots of places had gone under over the past couple of years and any kind of job was already taken by people needing it more than a couple of high schoolers.

Well, Jake's always been a bit of a daredevil -- like sneaking into the movies after the show started or sneaking beers and cigarettes after his dad had passed out, coming under my window and whistling for me to join him drinking and smoking out back under the cool, starry night sky -- stuff like that. Maybe that's one of the reasons I liked hanging out with him, 'cause he'd help me try out stuff I'd never dare to on my own. I mean, he wasn't a bad kid or anything. In fact, he'd do most anything for you if you needed it and he could be a real hard worker, too, when something needed doing. And I liked hanging out with him for those reasons too.

Well, like I say, I'd known that Jake was a daredevil, but this time he went well over the edge.

"I been thinking," he started, looking kind of dreamy, with a strange kind of excitement, "Like, we could rip off like a 7-11, a convenience store or something, you know, like you hear about on the news; but we could really plan it out right and get away without ever getting caught. I mean, we wouldn't hurt anyone. And it wouldn't be all that much cash in a 7-11 register. But we could sure have a good time with it."

Believing that he had to be joking, I laughed. "Good joke, Jake," I told him, or something equally dumb.

"No, I mean, look, we could really do it. We cold wear like ski masks so no one would be able to give our descriptions to the cops and like stake out the store till no one was around but the guy at the register."

"Right, Jake," I said, getting into what I had to

believe was just a cool mind game to while away a hot afternoon. "And we're just gonna walk in and say 'gimme all your cash!' and this guy's gonna just hand it over? You know, those guys on the news generally have a gun or something to threaten the store people."

"Right. And so do we. You know my dad's got that handgun he got in case of a burglary or something. I know where he keeps it and the ammunition, in his

dresser drawer. I can sneak it out while he's at work."

"But you don't know how to use one of those things, I mean you never shot nothing or anything." I pointed out, nervously now.

"Hey, we're not gonna shoot anyone. We just need it to scare him."

"Right. And then what? How're we gonna get away before he gets the cops to come after us?"

"Look, we'll siphon some gas out of some cars in the neighborhood and get enough to get to the store and get away. We can hit that 7-11 over by the county line -- there's nothing else out around there so there won't be so many people around. We can hide the car out in the woods behind the store, so no one'll see it and get a description or a license number or something. We can even bring a change of clothes, so if the store guy describes us by what we're wearing, we won't be, you know?"

This sounded sensible to me, in fact I was getting so hyped up on the plan that I was forgetting all my objections to robbing 7-11s and messing around with guns and all. It was just, you know, exciting. An adventure even. I mean, I wasn't taking any of this seriously. I was just getting into the plan, and getting carried totally away.

We decided it would be best to wait till after dark, but Jake had to get his dad's gun before his dad got home from work. So we went and got the gun and ammunition and put it in the glove compartment of his car along with a couple of ski masks we found in winter storage. We also decided to wear very nondescript clothing, so we put on faded blue jeans and plain tee shirts and packed a paper bag with cut off jeans shorts and tank tops to change into after the hit. Then we went about our usual business till about 10 pm, when we scoured the neighborhood with a hose and a gas can till we had what we figured was enough gas, poured that into the gas tank, and threw the hose and gas can into the trunk. We were ready.

We drove out to the 7-11 and hid the car in the woods out back, all according to plan. It didn't take long for the area to be empty of customers.

We pulled on the ski masks and walked into the store, running on pure adrenalin. The guy behind the register was a little older than us, probably someone we'd seen around at school, though we didn't specifically recognize him. I hoped the ski masks would keep him from recognizing us if he had in fact seen us around. Jake pulled the gun and I demanded that the guy get out one of those paper grocery bags and empty the cash register into it. He did. I grabbed the bag of money and we turned to go.

It was then, when Jake's gun was no longer on him, that the guy pulled his own gun from somewhere behind the counter and yelled: "Freeze!"

Jake didn't even take a second to think. He just reacted; spun around and fired the gun at such close range that he had to hit the guy even without aiming. We ran.

Into the car and out of there as fast as we could go. We didn't stop to change clothes, but did manage to pull off the ski masks and throw them in the clothes bag along with the gun and bag of cash. We were tear-assing up the back woods roads -- neither of us having any idea where we were going, with just the thought of getting away. It was a long time before either of us said anything.

When I did, it wasn't much. "Geez!"

"Yeah," Jake agreed.

"What are we going to do now?" I got out about a minute later.

Jake just turned on the radio, flipping frantically through the stations trying to find the news. The news wasn't happening just then. In frustration, he turned the radio off. It occurred to me that we were fugitives, desparados. It was not a comforting thought.

As far as I knew Jake was driving aimlessly. But after a while, there seemed to be a purposeful pattern.

"Where are we going?" I inquired.

"This place. I remembered. We used to go here sometimes when I was a kid. It's like resort cabins on the lake. Maybe if we're lucky we can find an empty cabin to hide out in till we figure out what to do."

By the time we got to the cabins it was like midnight and everything was dark and quiet. We were also

basically out of gas. In fact, it was a wonder we'd made it this far. It seemed like it was do or die time. Like for god knows what reason we were fated to be here and now. I just knew I had to pee.

We got out of the car and relieved ourselves in the woods, as quietly as we could. Fortunately, it was a clear moonlit night, so we could see our way around pretty easily. We walked out on a dock and sat with our feet hanging in the lake, being eaten by mosquitoes, not even trying to think, but just feeling the cool night air, just being alive.

There was a boat tied to the dock next to us, and I guess that gave Jake the idea.

"Hey, look. We could take that boat out on the lake. There're islands out there that people camp on. We could get out too far to be seen from the shore and no one would know where we were. At least we could find

somewhere to sleep."

This sounded good to me. We pushed the car where it would be covered by the woods, and took everything out of it -- even took off the license plate -- so no one could trace it to us if they did find it. We put everything in the boat and took off, searching for a likely camping ground. It didn't take too long to be way out on the lake where, sure enough, there were plenty of smallish islands. We pulled up to one, got out, and pulled the boat up on shore where we could hide it among the trees. This was hard work; and by now all our adrenalin must have been used up. We made beds of soft pine needles and fell asleep. The next thing I knew, it was daylight.

I got up, stretching, and was hit by the sensation: 'God, I'm hungry!'

"God, I'm hungry," said Jake beside me. This presented a problem since we didn't know much about woods lore like finding food out here in the wilderness. We decided all we could do was explore the island and see what we could find. What we found was a cabin.

"Hey, maybe we're in luck," Jake whispered. "There could be provisions stored in there for the campers who use it."

"Yeah, and there could be campers in there, too."

We decided we may as well chance it as our prospects for breakfast were otherwise slim. As quiet as we could, we walked in; and it looked like we were in luck 'cause we didn't see anyone. Then, a sleepy sounding voice called from what I assumed was a bedroom, "Bill, is that you, hon?"

We froze. I don't think we were even breathing. Jake had the gun in his hand. He had taken it along, I guess, thinking he might be able to shoot a rabbit or something.

She came out of the room and saw us, especially Jake and the gun, which he pointed right at her and said to me, not taking his eyes off her, "Go see if you can find some food."

I nodded, though he couldn't see me, and went for what looked like it should be the kitchen. It was. I got a big metal pot and put in easy access food like bread and cheese and salad stuff. We were ready to go.

Just then the door opened and I guess "Bill" came in to the middle of this scene. I hadn't paid attention to what I now figured was the sound of a boat engine

coming closer a moment before, what with all the excitement. I guessed Bill had been out on the lake for an early boat ride and now had come back to a bit more than he had expected.

Jake panicked, turned and shot at the guy, wildly, but I guess it hit his arm or something and there was all this blood.

We ran out the still opened door and got into the boat out front, untied it and took off out of there.

This was all getting to be too much for me; and I told Jake so.

"This is getting pretty stupid. I mean, what are we gonna do, keep shooting people and running till you run out of ammo? We gotta go back and turn ourselves in. We at least gotta get medical help for that guy back there."

Finally I was doing the talking, the planning. And Jake was the one who couldn't come up with an argument.

"Yeah." was all he said, as he looked nervously out on the horizon.

So we drove back to the mainland and found a phone by the camping area. I called the cops and told them about the guy on the island. Jake took the phone and gave 'em directions, since he knew the area better. Then we walked up to the road and waited for them to come pick us up.

A Kodak Moment

Picture you in a fairy-tale moment

Picture me as I was always meant to be

Picture us rolling through green meadows

Picture everybody happy.

In my life of quiet desperation

I still try to find the time to dream

Look at us, we're quite a combination

Wonder if we'll be happy.

Picture love as quiet desperation

Picture life as where we have to be

Picture time away from aggravation

Picture everybody happy.

Picture you in a fairy-tale moment

Picture me as I was always meant to be

Picture us rolling through green meadows

Picture everybody happy.

So they lost him

On the cross

And several wondered what all the fuss

had been about after all

And some just shook their heads and went back

to tilling the soil

And the prostitute laughed and ordered another

pink lady to go with her boa

While tinkly music played on the jukebox

And after hours male animals

considered their needs.

And The Few Who Had Been United

closed the bookstore and split for the coast

to try the beach scene.

So they lost him on the cross

And maybe someone wrote a letter to the Times,

And several called their representatives

to lodge complaints

That always got lost in the shuffle

of paperwork

And a few young ones mourned in silent vigil

Holding candles 'neath the moonlit sky,

Praying for strength and enlightenment

But they were only going through a phase.

Beat Time

4/4

Tempus Fugit

We are all fugitives from time.

Feel it; hear it; deliver it; swear it.

Syncopation

in and out of phase

new dawn deliverance

new light on age

it's only what you agree to

so don't sign no dotted line

don't sell your soul to time.

Break free, run for it.

Run for your life.

Past the speed of time -- break all barriers.

And don't look back into measurement.

Know no limit.

Beat Time.

Lately I've been doing apathy

And, it doesn't matter, you know

No one gives a thought to what I feel.

And I find that not caring

makes life so much freer.

No conscience to consult, no worries to be felt.

It's as if I'm on a Librium cloud.

Lately my sorrows and tragedies

Have been looking humorous or dull.

The cares of my neighbors and woes of my friends

give no thrill.

Content to view the world through

a monotone spectacle.

When the megatons hit

I'll be calm all through it . . .

Lately, I've been doing apathy.

After Shock and Awe
It's a transitional time
Of untidiness

We bombed in Baghdad
Now we have no idea how
To clean up this mess

Forget peace on Earth
Let the common folk suffer
And not have a say

Since god is with us
Against the rest of the world
We'll just have to pray

Life is perverse

God is a cad

Here we're working so hard to be happy

It's really so sad

My heart doesn't bleed

My heart doesn't bleed for you.

You're down in the dumpsters searching for food

Cause you spend every nickel to alter your mood

As the nights go by flying into days without end

You know you'd get better if you could just find a friend

My heart doesn't bleed

My heart doesn't bleed for you.

The news isn't good, but it's certainly hot

Cause we love it when someone gets put on the spot

We're all politicians; we all play that game

Running and jumping into passing the blame

My heart doesn't bleed

My heart doesn't bleed for you.

What you've got going's so desperate and sad

You couldn't be good, but you're no good at bad

And you haven't the sense to come in from the rain

Cause just going numb's so much better than pain

My heart doesn't bleed

My heart doesn't bleed for you.

You're lost in the alley with the rats and the fleas

Don't matter no more once you've caught that disease

You know in your soul that there's no one to care

But what you're not sure of is how you got there

My heart doesn't bleed

My heart doesn't bleed for you.

My heart is on the edge of a knife--

not licensed surgery

just self-medication for pain.

What else is true?

Betrayal by the gods can result in confusion.

Sometimes it all seems clear and clean and real --

When sensation makes sense.

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen,

'cause they're all busy looking at their own.

Knife's edge -- the end of the rainbow

See the shining beatitude, the joyous reunion.

When all the lonely, separated strands and coloured bands

finally find their proper placement in celestial harmony.

Oh, the trumpets will sound calling all to glory.

But what else is true?

Are there cries for war throughout the land?

Are there crises crying for attendance while our leaders are otherwise involved?

Are there cowering souls, beyond earthly torment, crying for release

while hiding in cubicles or corner offices or ivory towers

playing at mind games, convoluted strategies, never quite sure

who they are?

Are there banners flying, urging all to attend the great banquet?

Is this the feast for which we've come?

The knife cuts both ways.

Does it matter why we bleed?

Listening to daily news reports, I am assaulted by the effects of unnecessary poverty on a populace more and more driven to senseless acts of violence and despair. It has been occurring to me that our world need not be such an ugly and hopeless place for so many of our citizens. With the technology already available, we could easily provide the means to happy and fulfilled lives for a great many more of us, thereby ending the bulk of beastly behavior engendered by squalid environments and the anger/apathy reactions to a dearth of meaningful alternatives in ones life.

The media is full of woeful tidings about young people

involved with drugs and inappropriate sexual experiences -- an

outgrowth of the glorification of such activities in the same media, but also the reaching out for some kind of experience in a world that allows very little in the way of achievement or fulfilling activities for our young.

Young children are subjected to all kinds of horrible experiences perpetrated by their so-called caretakers, both abusing parents and those in whose care their parents mistakenly leave them in order to go to jobs to provide for the material needs of the family.

People in many parts of the world suffer basic deprivations of food and shelter. Many children face lifelong handicaps resulting from early malnutrition. Many are left with lifelong emotional and physical scars from having to fend for themselves on the streets from an early age.

Violence is learned as the appropriate reaction to anger and frustrations. In the media and on the streets, violence is glorified and rewarded. Love is seen as being linked to pain, of betrayal, of loss, and the love/pain link experienced in abusive family relationships.

Poverty both material and emotional is endured, but not quietly. Violent reactions are visited especially on the families and neighbors themselves subject to these brutalizing environments, as well as upon those who are materially better off, in the form of all manner of violent crime. The criminal justice system seems to only reflect and propagate the brutalizing conditions which do nothing to ameliorate the hate, pain, frustrations in an endless cycle of violence, victimizing victims and perpetrators and numbing the sensibilities of the professionals who attempt to work within the system.

The education system fails to educate in most of the areas that we need to understand to function in our world. How much do we learn in school (or even at home or on the streets) about basic health and safety, financial management, childcare, legal rights and responsibilities, building meaningful relationships, building self-esteem, building and maintaining a home? Instead, most of what our young people learn in the schools that they must spend most of their formative years attending seems to be more destructive and counterproductive than truly useful.

Like it or not, our children (the children of our world, be we parents or not) are our future. The quality of life we can look forward to is the quality of life we teach our children to expect and produce. And in the present we live out the expectations we are producing today. Do we really want a world based on violence and ignorance? I don't. I want a world in which I and my loved ones could live in relative peace, security and well-informed choice. Yet, what am I doing to promote such a world? I see the misfortunes around me, and feel hopelessly frustrated, beyond any attempt at change. "I am, after all, only one relatively powerless person," I say, and go on with my daily chores, which, after all, leave me little time or energy for doing battle with the powers that shape my surroundings. I bemoan the lack of time or energy I have even to interact with my own child, and see his life and values being shaped by so many factors beyond my choice or control.

I have come up with several ideas, fantasy scenarios, which I believe would, if implemented, result in a happier world. I do not expect you to agree with these ideas. In fact, I would be highly gratified if you would disagree, and in your disagreement develop or expand ideas of your own which you might share, thereby increasing the energy expended toward positive change in opposition to the apathy or uselessly expended anger against vague or inappropriate targets which, I fear, are overwhelming our healthier impulses. And, if by chance you do agree with any of my ideas, perhaps you could expand on them or help to devise more effective methods of implementation than I have yet been able to imagine. It is said that imagination can be a powerful tool toward change. Perhaps the opening of channels of communication for our positive imaginings might help us to create a world in which we could be prouder and happier to live.

I would like to talk for a bit about the complex interconnected issues of poverty, population control, the right-to-life campaign and birth control. Let me start by stating that per se I have no problem with the existence of a serious campaign of conscience by those who sincerely believe in the rights of the unborn. I firmly believe that we all have a right to our deeply held beliefs and to communicate these beliefs in public forums. I simply want to point out that not everyone shares these beliefs, nor should anyone feel compelled to do so. Furthermore, the issue of a right to life is certainly more complex than the media image that right-to-life groups portray. Totally apart from the issues of women's rights over their own bodies and the morality of sexual activity, there remains the very compelling issue of quality of life. I am speaking here not only of the quality of life potentially available to the unwanted yet to be born child or the potential quality of life for the mother to be and other members of her family, both very important issues indeed, but also of the quality of life for us all in the extended family of society, including those children who are very much wanted. I am talking about finite resources and how they are to be distributed. I am talking about child abuse and its far-reaching effects in the escalation of violence and misery. I am also talking about the messages we give to people, young girls of child-bearing age in particular, but all the rest of us as well, about our responsibilities, to our children, to ourselves, to our communities, and to our world. There are, of course, many reasons why a particular pregnancy may not be appropriate for a particular person at a particular time. Among these are the age and health of the prospective mother, the circumstances surrounding the conception (such as incest or rape), the career goals that may be shattered, the existence of other children or dependents whose demands of time and energy may be usurped, and, certainly, economic factors precluding the proper care of mother and child. Regarding these economic factors, a question I think appropriate to ask those who carry the banner of right-to-life is, who is to pay these costs to create a real life for these children that you say should be saved? Some may be adopted into families who have the means and desire to raise them, but certainly not all. I know I would have a great deal more respect for these crusaders of conscience were they to contribute a sizable percentage of their formidable resources -- time, energy and cash -- toward a right to quality life campaign for these children: providing quality childcare options, quality living spaces, quality medical care, quality educational opportunities for both children and parents, quality nutrition including prenatal nutrition, quality counseling for troubled families, etc., etc. Can you do that? Can you truly take responsibility for your beliefs? Or is the extent of your commitment merely to make life more difficult for those already facing insurmountable challenges?

As to the mega quality of life issues represented in questions of population control, myriad stances could be taken. As the world population grows and natural resources are expended, we face greater deprivation for greater numbers of us. One tactic is to find ways of renewing, expanding, and substituting for the resources we all need. To an expanding extent with greater knowledge and technology this becomes more possible. However, population control is also a factor that can help in this equation. This can be quite a sensitive issue in that there have been historical incidents relating to genocidal plots against various population groups. Within an ideological framework that perceived all human cultural groups as valuable components of the "family of humankind" nonsense of that kind would be unthinkable. Population control must result from individual personal choice in family planning on one end of the lifeline, and in such medical decisions as euthanasia on the other. Public opinion and media campaigns can and will affect personal decisions, but public fiat can not be allowed the deciding voice. Quality of life issues have already been seen to have a dramatic effect on birth rates. Community and media support of such decisions can help to continue this trend, as community and media support in the past and in other cultures has encouraged different personal decisions in this area, resulting in our current large population. By showing people their options and encouraging small families (or so-called alternative family structures, such as extended family groups sharing childcare responsibilities, childless families, adoption and foster care options, etc.) as contributing to a better quality of life for these families, individual personal choice will tend to move in that direction. When scientific breakthroughs in safer, more effective means of birth control are made, the societal atmosphere prepared to take advantage of these will further encourage an ecologically sound population profile.

Right to Death? Assisted Suicide? Organ Donations? A plan: A committee can be formed in each community, self-selected by volunteers from various segments of the community. Right-to-Life advocates would be encouraged to take part as well as members of any other group with particular interest. Perhaps rotating groups of five members each could be formed. Anyone seriously contemplating suicide would petition the committee, which would have office space at a local hospital and would advertise in the local telephone book (and other places, as the committee decides). Seriously ill people, already hospitalized, who wish to end their lives or want assistance to do so would have immediate access to the committee. The committee members would discuss options with the petitioner, giving whatever arguments they like. If the petitioner still wants to die, they can sign a statement witnessed by the committee to that effect and, after a 24-hour waiting period during which the petitioner can rethink his/her position, assisted suicide would be available at the hospital to be carried out in such a way that any usable organs would be kept in useful condition to then be available for those who need them.

Love Sex Marriage Childrearing -- these are four distinct areas of human interaction. Unfortunately, in our society we tend to see them as being responsibly undertaken only as a package. In reality, characteristics which one may find attractive in another for any of these relationships do not necessarily make for positive relationships in the other categories. This results in enormous amounts of human misery. Why not just separate them. We love who we love. We have sex with those with whom we are sexually compatible. We marry those with whom we wish to share a life. In the area of childrearing, we can develop extended family/community living arrangements wherein all the children of the community are cared for. Biological parents could certainly play as much of a role in raising their children as they wish to. But a child's well-being would not be limited to what their biological parents are able or willing to provide. Living arrangements allowing for both privacy and easy interaction could be devised. Once the change in paradigm has been accomplished, the day-to-day functional aspects of these new kinds of living arrangements could be worked out over time.

What is money? You can't eat it. You can't wear it. Money in itself has no real worth. It is a medium of exchange: it only has worth when you exchange it for something that is of real value. Yet people act as if money is worth killing for, dying for, selling their souls for. Of course there are other symbols that people think these things about: our flag, our nation, symbols of success, symbols of religion. Money is a symbol of power -- the power to make marketplace decisions, which ultimately shape the marketplace. The daily economic decisions we as consumers make, taken all together, act as votes for what products and services will then be made available to us. Economic decisions are political decisions. Wealth is power. Does this say something about the supposed godly link between capitalism and democracy? Capitalism is an economic system which favors the accumulation of capital -- negotiable resources (such as money) -- in the hands of a knowledgeable few, who then control by force of their economic "votes" the lives, the available choices, of the many. Capitalism favors decisions that are income positive, as opposed to decisions that are say humanitarian or environmentally sound. Ultimately decisions that improve the lot of the human resources (people), say in terms of better, healthier living conditions, better educational opportunities, etc., and decisions that improve the natural environmental resources, that allow for regeneration of these resources rather than their destruction, are the more economically sound decisions. Improvement of the lot of humanity and our planet would lead to an economically expanding spiral of better workers, better resources to work with, more usefully creative ideas and enterprises and a generally higher level of life and choice for the present and the future. Unfortunately, what would be the more positive economic choice in the long run would not necessarily allow for the highest profit margins in the short run. So, those who would scramble to the top of the economic heap today show little regard for true cost-benefit analyses on a long-term, planetary level.

On the other end of the economic spectrum from those who are in positions to make the decisions are the economically powerless, the poor. As the current economic distribution would have it, the poor seem to be an expanding resource -- as more and more of the world's wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a small elite class, who tend to use their power to continue this trend. Meanwhile, in this country where we claim belief in the virtues of equality and opportunity, those who find themselves at the bottom of the economic heap, for whatever reason, become subject to the so-called Welfare system. Under the assumption that in "the land of opportunity" those who haven't "made it" are in some way less deserving, or under the assumption that people in general are dishonestly out to "beat the system," people who need to access the system for help in survival are often treated cruelly, or at least with great disrespect, in return for the grudging handing out of pitifully meager funds. Moreover, an interconnected array of political, economic, social, emotional, and personally idiosyncratic factors often tend to keep these people in poverty despite their upwardly mobile desires.

Science fiction writers and political thinkers often put forth the idea of a guaranteed minimum income. (One example of this in science fiction can be found in the book, A World Between by Norman Spinrad [Pocket Books, New York, NY, 1979], in which a planetary economic system is based on all citizens owning a share of the planet's GNP.) Another possibility for upgrading the opportunities available to the poor has been explored in such programs as the Depression era public works projects and the more recent CETA job-training and development programs. A scenario I have been toying with is that of a "civilian opportunity corps" or "unarmed services," loosely based on the national armed services: a voluntary program which people could join to learn job skills which would benefit their communities. During training (on-the-job and in classrooms and laboratories) the recruits' needs would be taken care of as they are in the armed forces. Once on the job, meaningful wages and benefits would be provided, as in the armed forces. People could sign up for a predetermined term, as in the armed forces; and once their term was completed, they could use the skills they had learned to find jobs in the civilian sector, or sign up for another term, as in the armed forces. Of course, this program would be funded by general taxation, as in the armed forces; but the taxpayers would be seeing a much more visible return on their investment in their own communities as needed services which might not be cost effective enough to be taken on by the private sector were provided. Furthermore, people would be given a tangible chance to serve their country in peaceful ways, and to feel a greater responsibility for -- to have a greater emotional investment in -- their communities.

Speaking of investments in community, what about the children? We worry about the crimes committed by youngsters who lack the mature judgment to understand the consequences of their actions and lack adequate recreational outlets. Kids want status with their peers; and when they can't get it for being who they are, they attempt to get it with daring deeds and flashy possessions. But who is concerned about these children who will, after all, be the leaders and workers and tenders of the society of tomorrow? Who takes the time to work with them and teach them to be concerned about our world and our/their future? We hear alot from activists about environmental problems which may seriously shortchange our children's future; and about such potential horrors as nuclear holocaust, or even the ravages of more conventional warfare. Here we have a potential army of pro-environment, pro-peace workers who have a vested interest in keeping our world safe, sane and sanitary. Yet this group is left to waste their time and energy or misuse it in pointless activities which teach them the skills of hate, violence and destruction. It occurs to me that a corps of activists who really care about our future could do well to organize the children into groups (perhaps along the lines of other youth organizations, like the scouts) of young environmentalists, young pro-Earthers, who, once taught about the potential dangers to their futures and about various effective strategies to counteract these dangers, could well be our/their salvation. These kids have energy and ideas and a new outlook to offer. They need only leadership and direction and an understanding of the unfolding dire situation which they are being asked to overcome. They need some dedicated older people with education, skills, caring and clout to help them to get started. Then they can develop their own projects which they could be proud of, which would enhance their future coping and managing skills and enhance their self-confidence and self-respect: all tools they'll certainly need to create the better world we all hope for in our/their future. Funding for these projects could be raised in the ways that children now raise funds for other projects: door-to-door and shopping mall solicitation; car washing, leave raking, and other chores; running errands for the elderly and others who can pay small amounts for these efforts; bake sales; sponsored events; etc. One possibility might be an environmental-skills camp where the kids could gather in the summer in wilderness areas and learn about the natural environment and how it works and how to keep it working. Kids could even learn skills to repair the environment where damage has been done. They could learn to work together in gangs devoted to improving their collective lot, rather than ganging up against each other out of fear and boredom. Wouldn't this sort of activity do a great deal toward reaching the activists' goals -- much more than mail solicitations, media demonstrations and governmental lobbying?

The plight of the homeless has become an in theme in the media. Then there are people with various situations that could be greatly helped by having a safe place in which to stay: battered women and children, former mental patients and prisoners trying to relearn how to get along in the world outside the institutions, people with various family problems who need to get away. On the other hand, we hear often of properties that are confiscated due to nonpayment of taxes by their owners, or, more recently, due to criminal activities taking place in them. Perhaps, instead of auctioning off these properties to those who have the savvy and cash to take advantage of their availability, we could develop a system whereby these vacant buildings are turned over to agencies which would make them available to people who need a place to go. This would not allow the government to make a profit on these properties; but then neither would tax money be needed to purchase the buildings needed for these public-benefiting purposes. (And, if you don't want a shelter or halfway house in your neighborhood, you could always pay off your neighbor's back taxes.)

On the subject of taxes, not so long ago there was a radical change in the U.S. tax laws. I think they have gone far from far enough in reforming tax liabilities. I especially cannot countenance a tax system that would allow the loss of a home that one has worked for a lifetime to own when financial reversals result in lack of the wherewithal to pay off the taxman. Furthermore, why is it that we hardworking paycheck dependent folk who are hardpressed to make ends meet end up putting in a larger percentage of our hours to finance others' politically motivated objectives? I have already written to the tax authorities about allowing us a line on our tax forms to tell them of particular government expenditures we do or do not want our individual tax bills subsidizing -- ultimately it would probably all cancel out and the resultant budget be no different, but at least we would have a chance to make our preferences known in a more specific way than by the ballot -- of course this has not been done. However, I suggest a much more sweeping reform than this. I suggest that we do away with personal income tax and personal property taxes on single family primary residences. I suggest that we try financing our governmental projects via sales tax. After all, we do have at least some control over what we spend in terms of keeping within our family budget. Certain necessity items would be exempt from taxation: food, basic clothing (say items under $100 retail), medical supplies, heating fuel, childcare, education. Items in a luxury category might be taxed at a higher rate. All commercial transactions involving nonexempt items, at all levels along the process from manufacture to retail, could be taxed, as well as all service transactions (excluding necessary services, such as medical care, etc.) Business people already must keep tax records and many states already have sales taxes, so the recordkeeping aspect should not be a problem. Regular wage earners, as opposed to those who sell products or services, would no longer need to be plagued by the need to keep records of all their financial transactions, nor would employers need to keep tax withholding records for their employees. High duties on major purchases brought in from other countries could help to keep those with the means from buying abroad to avoid taxation (or perhaps other countries could also adopt this means of taxation). Savings on the government's end might be effected by doing away with subsidies for certain groups, such as farmers and oil producers, when they have the advantage of tax exempt products and fewer taxes to pay in production. Hopefully, this would also result in lower prices in general for such commodities at the consumers' level. Therefore we could have a turn around of the present system of the lower income people supporting the higher in terms of tax liability. Another suggestion I have would add greatly to the national income and lower the high costs of prisons, courts, law enforcement, and social services.

We have been hearing for quite some time about drug abuse and the so-called war on drugs. Governmental interferences in our lives of absurd proportions have been suggested and implemented in this mad campaign. In response to those who blame illicit drug users for the growth of the "drug problem" on the demand side, you are entirely missing the point. Look into history or psychology and you will clearly see that people have always used the substances available to them to ease their anxieties, self-medicate for chronic or medically untreatable pain, relax, recreate, celebrate, become more sensitized to art/beauty/relationships, become less sensitized to poverty/ugliness/hunger, search for spiritual fulfillment, change their consciousness in one way or another. For most of history this was an incidental aspect of human behavior. The problem with the illicit drugs (not to be confused with the drugs this society condones, for whatever accidental reason) is the profit motive resulting from their artificially inflated prices (a direct result of the laws and enforcement of same against their use or sale) which lead to bloody battles among those who want to make those profits, and between the profiteers and the law enforcement personnel who harass them. What most people who complain about the "drug problem" are afraid of is the violence and street crime resulting from this profit motive. Profit-driven violence is only being exacerbated by law-enforcement's efforts to crack down on drugs. To lower the incidence of serious abuse of drug use, wouldn't it be more practical to control the legal use of these substances? We could heavily regulate sales centers for those substances we choose to designate. Perhaps limit the number of such centers in each given area, regulate their locations (say not within a certain distance of schools or other chosen community facilities), regulate the age of patrons with mandatory ID checks, regulate the amount to be sold per transaction, regulate the prices while still keeping these prices well below those of the current illicit market, include heavy taxation and use tax revenues from the sale of these substances to fund various treatment centers, substance use/abuse education and medical programs (after which any additional tax revenues may be used to help pay for other desired programs), disallow advertising of these products, stringently disallow public use and driving under the influence (along the lines of current policies against drunk driving, we could have laws against driving under the influence of any debilitating substance with stringent penalties like loss of the driver's license and car and substantial fines.) Drug bars could be licensed to give people a legitimate place in which to enjoy these substances with others, and regulated to disallow minors, require that sales be only for on-premises use, etc. (We could also require for the staff of these drug bars expertise in controlling and mitigating conflicts, both physical and psychological. There are many trained counsellors who would enjoy this work if paid appropriately for their skills; and it would benefit both the community and the customers of these bars to maintain a positive environment.) Through tax revenues our government programs would benefit from those who desire these products, rather than organized crime. Meanwhile, a system of highly regulated legal distribution would allow for the kind of knowledge and control which is impossible under the existing situation of uncontrolled illicit transactions. Educational programs against drug use could be refined and expanded. Minors would not be pressured into drug use or sales by criminals seeking expanding profits or seeking less legally liable dupes to do their work for them, or by their own desires for otherwise unimaginable wealth; and people in general who use these substances would not be forced to deal with profit-hungry, unscrupulous criminals and possibly tainted products. Drug treatment programs could be made much more available; and without legal considerations some secret drug users might be less intimidated about going for treatment. More room would be available in prisons and courts for other kinds of criminals if less were taken up by drug-related crimes; and there would be less violence in our communities without drug-profit related crimes. If we like, harsher penalties could be legislated against criminals who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs (including alcohol) to both prevent these criminals from trying to use their drug-induced misjudgment as an excuse for their crimes and increase the general idea of responsible use of mind-altering substances. Public resources now being desperately and ultimately ineffectually thrown into the anti-drug "war" would be available for use against the social problems we all recognize such as homelessness, poverty, intrafamilial violence, lack of quality education, et al., the root causes of addiction. Furthermore, a more enlightened attitude toward drug use might allow for those who do choose to make recreational use of drugs to be better informed about the consequences of their choice and, therefore, allow them to pursue these activities more safely and responsibly.

About the criminal justice system generally, our societal response to crime: Crime can be divided into two distinct categories of violent and nonviolent -- to be handled in very different ways. People who impose violence on others when considerations such as self-defense or defense of others are not involved are dangerous, and in most cases need to be removed from society. People who break laws for the protection of society or various groups within the society, but who do not impose violence on others, can be dealt with in various noncustodial ways, depending on the circumstances of the individual cases. Within the framework of these two distinct categories, there are various levels of seriousness which should lead to various levels of response. On the other end of the criminal-victim dyad, is the currently underrepresented victim. For true justice to be effected, the needs of the victim need to be addressed and redressed. We speak of criminals "paying [their] debt to society." Wouldn't it make more sense in terms of justice, retribution, punishment and deterrence (theoretically the reasons for criminal prosecution) for them to, in a very real and financial sense, pay their debt to their victims? As part of their sentence, perpetrators could be required to return to the victim that which their crime took from him or her (to the extent possible). One way to do this might be to include crime-related debt, as some child support payments are handled, within the purview of the IRS (which seems better equipped than the criminal justice system to see that payment is made). In any case, society must see that the victim is taken care of, as an integral part of the criminal justice system.

What about a revamping of the entire legal code? Many laws made in earlier times are now seriously out of step with our current way of life, written in language that is cumbersome and difficult to understand, in direct conflict with other laws or could easily become addendums to other laws which would make for a more efficient and more easily understood legal code. Why not put expiration dates on all laws, far enough into the future to avoid constant updating, but allowing for updating on a regular basis. Before the expiration date is reached, legal scholars, legislative aides, and other interested parties could work on the eventual streamlining of law into a code that would be more efficient, relevant, and easily understood.

In regard to preventing crime in the first place: most schools have "guidance counsellors" to help students plan for careers, choose courses, and sometimes with personal problems. Why not expand this service to truly provide guidance for people in a community who may have personal, family, health, psychological or just growing up problems of all sorts. These counsellors could be primarily community volunteers who are trained as active listeners and equipped with referral sources, but who are basically there to be there, to give people somewhere they can go, easily, with no fuss or embarrassment that might be associated with seeing mental health professionals. We could provide space in the schools and hospitals and whatever places in the community people gather. School children would be given an orientation about these counsellors and told to use the service frequently, whenever they just need to talk. Expense in funds, space or whatever would be comparatively small, could be paid for through community fund-raising efforts, and would certainly be repaid many times over in the help to stop potential problems within the community when they are still in the formative stage. Part of this program could also deal with dispute mediation between neighbors or within families or between students and school personnel, etc. Letting people know that their problems or disputes are being taken seriously and that their community cares in itself could do alot to defuse antisocial feelings. It could also help to bring together people into community, in contrast to the current seeming disassociative trends, which could spiral into all kinds of intracommunity projects for the improvement of lives and society in general.

Just about whenever a proposal is made to improve social/ ecological conditions by making changes in some industry we are subjected to a ballyhoo about the potential loss of jobs which may ensue. Of course nobody in political positions of authority seems to mind that jobs are lost everyday due merely to economic considerations of the employers having nothing to do with improving our general lot. It would make more sense and be more sensitive to the needs of both our world and the individuals concerned if provisions were generally available to make involuntary unemployment less hazardous. For instance, various jobs become obsolete as new technology or new perceptions of consumer needs, etc. emerge, which also can lead to the creation of new classes of jobs. All that is needed to bring the employee from doing job A to job B is training in the new job. Contrary to the popular myth that long years of schooling are necessary to learn skills relevant to employment in most fields, most actual day-to-day job skills are learned on the job. Whatever background knowledge is needed can generally be learned concomitant with job skills in on-site training classes or in specific job-related training programs. These need not be particularly expensive and could be funded as part of employer overhead along with lower salaries while the employee is in training and perhaps tax advantages or other public incentives. Small businesses could be funded to train or retrain unemployed people for the jobs they need filled. Unlike large corporations, small businesses would find it difficult to pay for job specific training, thereby limiting their employment opportunities to those already having specific skills. Since most new jobs are with small businesses, people laid off from other work or otherwise unskilled in the specific areas needed by these small businesses are at a disadvantage in gaining employment. Job training funds could be distributed through tax incentives, local jobs-related agencies, the Small Business Administration, or even retraining grants given directly to the job seeker through unemployment compensation offices. Projects beneficial to communities could be undertaken by local small businesses and paid for by government grants, including monies for hiring and (re)training workers. The businesses would then be able to complete these projects, and still have their systems in place for continued employment of people for other, private or public, projects. For those who may lose highly paid positions, a private unemployment insurance investment might be advised. For those in low-paid, high-turnover jobs, the public schools, community centers and other groups might provide low or no cost training linked to local business needs. In fact, high school job-training programs linked with local businesses could provide incentive for teens to stay in school and give them opportunities for immediate earning power, which could have the added benefit of lessening teen crime. Another system for job skill and readiness training could be overseen by private enterprise. Private employment services providing career counseling, personal empowerment counseling and interface with agencies to provide for the clients' needs both while in training and while in transition to employment, along with specific job skills training and general employment skills training could become commonplace in every community where employment is an issue. These services would be available to anyone needing them and paid for by the individual clients, either through their own resources or through government loans (to be repaid when the client obtains employment, at a fair rate). These employment training services would only be eligible for government loans if they could prove a consistently high percentage of their clients had success in obtaining and keeping employment. The training offered should be in a variety of job skills keyed to individual aptitudes and the kinds of jobs generally available or projected to have a high potential for availability. The employment training services could negotiate contracts with members of the business community to train for specific jobs with guaranteed employment to qualified graduates. They could also provide business skills training to help and encourage entrepreneurial talent. Meanwhile, it would behoove we-as-society to provide a cushion of financial resources to get all of us who for any reason may face financial instability through our individual crises without turning to crime, begging or a condition of hopeless homelessness. The current social services complex and unemployment insurance system are not working; and neither is the current attitude of holier-than-thouness towards those of us without financial resources. Perhaps, rather than acting as if those with jobs were entitled to keep them no matter what the social cost, we could develop an attitude of real economic consciousness and plans to safeguard everyone's right to a livelihood, not as charity but in the original sense of insurance to provide against calamity. We could also aim toward more flexibility in employment-employee relationships, more community awareness and involvement and a real commitment to community/work/industry/ economics as if both the Earth and the individual mattered. For instance, it would be universally beneficial to do away with the standard 9 to 5 work hours. Many industries already have shift work, flexible hours, etc. Use of resources generally could be more efficient and workers' individual schedules better accommodated if individually-based work hours were the norm. We could certainly do away with the rush-hour traffic situation we all loathe. Those who function better at certain hours of the day could work during their hours of peak performance. Childcare arrangements could be more easily accommodated. In that regard, there are many jobs which could be done wholly or partially in the home, allowing for both dependent care and paid work, geared to the mutual convenience of the worker and employer. For site-specific jobs, on-site dependent care would certainly be helpful. Currently employed workers could also benefit from flexibility allowing for expanded skills training to prepare for a greater variety of possible jobs. In other words, it's time for flexibility rather than rigidity in the structuring of our work lives. Tangentially, why not make it simpler, easier for independent small businesses to get going -- simplify the regulations, not in regard to true safety or environmental standards, but in regard to economically engendered standards. Keep the rules clear and simple and easy to access, understand and implement. Make it easier for people without means but with ambition and ideas to get low cost loans, business management training and whatever other foothold they need to develop truly local, community businesses keyed to the community's needs and desires.

As we know, money is just a symbol agreed upon within the socio-economic structure of society. Governmental bodies have as part of their role the creating, distributing, evaluating of this eco-symbol. We have seen monies based on gold or other precious commodities, but these commodities are also in this sense symbols for a rate of exchange. We do not need these commodities, or even printed paper, to have a rate of exchange. It is all symbolic. It is all in our heads, our collective agreements. In fact, to a large extent today our economic transactions are based on computer files in cyberspace. We have evolved a credit economy with an awful lot of accumulating debt on national, business, and personal levels. Much more Neptunian than Saturnian. Are there good reasons not to, are there not excellent reasons to, overhaul the underlying economic structure to create one to better fit with the goal of creating and distributing goods and services? Instead of collecting taxes to pay for their workers and projects, why should government not simply pay their own workers (and here I refer to civil servants, not politicians. I believe political office holders should serve temporarily, even part-time, with no pay beyond a stipend for expenses, but that's another rant.), pay for needed materials, with funds created by the government for this purpose -- to arrange for the creation and maintenance of a proper infrastructure? The symbolic means of exchange could then be distributed through these workers (trickle down with a twist) when they pay for goods and services of the private market. If the true wealth of a nation is the value of the labor of its citizens, this would be a more logical and effective method in accord with that consensus reality.

I have a lot of problems with the US school system and have long thought that a better way to educate our kids and ourselves would be more on the 60's "free school" model -- community storefront schools where people teach what they know and learn what they want to learn. A lot of that so-called laziness is simply nonengagement in boring lessons without much immediate relevance to the student. A lot more is probably general fatigue from lack of exercise. Kids should be out burning off all that energy doing and playing and hands-on learning. And we all know that the best way to learn is to teach. Furthermore, community in general would be greatly strengthened by having this kind of helpful, enjoyable, sharing interaction and a place for such gathering. Any group that considers itself a community could put this kind of thing together, even in a small way. We could just develop workshops/learning groups (however the individual group wants to conceive it) in our homes with our cohorts and teach and learn what we are interested in. We could use the home schooling exception to compulsory education to teach our kids the way we know is best for them. Even if we send our kids to public schools, we can provide these kinds of experiences for them during their off-school time. And even if we have no such community project available, we certainly have the opportunity to teach our kids the truth and how to find it for themselves as a normal part of our daily relationships with them.

Recycling. The state legislature passes a bill that includes: 1) Mandatory recyclable material tax on all items made of or packaged in recyclable materials (maybe 5 cents per item like the bottle deposit). The revenue so generated would be completely dedicated to funding the recycling process. 2) Recycling centers are created as needed per capita where recyclable materials are brought, sorted, processed in whatever way necessary to make them available for use. 3) People are paid by weight by material for turning in recyclable materials to a recycling center. (Either the consumers of the products made of or packaged in these materials, or, and this would be encouraged, people who develop the business of picking up these materials from households and businesses and taking them to the recycling centers.) 4) Manufacturers are encouraged to buy and use recyclable materials by the low (subsidized as necessary) price of the recyclable materials as compared to the price for the materials they would otherwise be using. 5) As it becomes common practice for manufacturers to buy these materials from recycling centers and the centers eventually are able to make profits, the state will be required to sell the centers to for-profit enterprises (at the best price the state can get); recycling will be taken over by private business and the recyclable materials tax rescinded.

Environmental Cleanup: To finance the making right of all that industrial and other polluters have made wrong, a tax could be levied on all companies who manufacture and/or sell the problematic products, as well as a special sales tax on those who buy them. Hopefully, as well as financing the clean-up efforts, this added cost would encourage the development and use of more environmentally friendly products.

For the development of innovative policies and programs we need to become a more beneficially functioning society the key is not money, but leadership and good ideas. To promote such leadership and creativity, the key is self-confidence, instilled in people throughout their educational careers, along with the personal energy and interpersonal skills with which to put projects into motion. Unfortunately, these are qualities that most of our current educational institutions tend to drive out by not recognizing the ultimate importance of every person's best development as self-confident, energized individuals able to creatively interact. Instilling these attitudes would not cost anything nor add to an overburdened curriculum, but would be an underlying theme to every aspect of the curriculum. In fact, those who would first need to learn these attitudes are the teachers, who would then be able to develop amongst themselves means for imbuing them into their classes and spreading the word about methods found to be most effective.

For no apparent reason I am being intrigued by the Andromeda myth
(or maybe it's subconscious suggestion from "The Andromeda Strain"
and the Gene Roddenberry tribute show "Andromeda" showing up on my
tv listings as I drifted in a semi-conscious state).
Andromeda, as I understand the myth, was a victim of her parents'
sins (most particularly hubris), and was chained to a rock --
helpless, without any power over her fate -- to be devoured by a sea
monster (the sea represents the unconscious, the monster our
repressed anger and fear). Fortune smiles and the brave hero
arrives to save her, defeating the monster with his mojo (or the mojo of the
dead Medusa's head) and marrying her. Marriage here, I assume,
meaning an integration of the masculine and feminine, anima and
animus. All ends well, as the parents' kingdom is saved from the
wrath of the goddess, and Andromeda goes off with her hero husband.
I have been experiencing an understanding that the depression and
mania of the bipolar syndrome are both reactions to unprocessed,
suppressed anger -- helpless bound anger perceived as Saturnian
chains from traditions of proper socialization and punishment for
the parents' sins of dishonor to their role as sacred stewards. The
anger is primal -- the monster of the deep and the damsel in
distress different faces of the same dilemma.
Where is the hero, and how might the monster be slain and personal
integration accomplished?
Ok, I know I'm totally projecting, so feel free to debate or
contradict. I am coming to a new understanding of this story. It
is a Goddess myth. The men are basically ineffectual. The king is
unable to protect his kingdom or his daughter from the Goddess's
wrath. The hero is a pawn of the Fates and a conveyor of the true
power of the gorgon, still fully powerful even in death.
As in dreams all of the characters are parts of the dreamer. The
female archetypes play out a psychic drama. Hera, the angry
Goddess; Cassiopia (sp?), the evil Mother; Andromeda, the dutiful sacrifice;
the monster, seething anger, revenge; Medusa's head, pure power,
able to turn the monster into stone. Again, Saturnian images -- the
monster (Neptunian emotion) turned to stone, unprocessed anger
metamorphosized into a pillar of experience built from the trials of
the past.
Hera, the wise Goddess wants to sever Cassiopia, the vain Queen,
from her dutiful daughter. But Andromeda is dutiful; she will not
willingly leave her role as servant to Mom's needs. She must
suffer, pushed to the brink, her life in forfeit, to develop her own self.
Cassiopia willingly gives her daughter in sacrifice to save her own
skin.
Andromeda has repressed her anger. She is chained to the rock of
her own felt duty to her mother's responsibilities. The repressed
emotion, sent unprocessed into the nether regions of the
subconscious, rage and arise from the water against the rock. There
is a fierce storm that can ebb and flow for quite some time. There
is the repressed anger as defeated depression, resigned to, even
eager for the restfulness of death. There is the unprocessed rage,
rising up revelrous, hungry for elation, for expression in any
excessive display available.
It's not just anger. It's feeling powerless in the face of the
situation causing the anger. The depression is the anger turned
inward, with no outward outlet it feeds on and mutilates the
subject. The mania is defiance. It is the whipped child lashing
out against the much too powerful adult by saying: I can do anything I
want, I am omnipotent! It has to do with obstacles perceived as
overwhelming and an indomitable, yet sorely confused injured spirit.
If the anger, the emotion, could be contained and safely examined,
so that the subject could work with it instead of bleeding life force
in despair and defiance, it could become a useful fuel.
Perhaps Andromeda in her extremis, or perhaps a compassionate Fate,
calls forth her hero, her inner strength, her self-respect, that
piece of her Self that knows it has reason to survive. The hero
carries the gorgon's head, a pure and unambiguous power beyond the
judgment of good or evil; it is a power of pure lifeforce that can
turn the flailing rage into impotent stone. Now, with such an ally,
the princess can be freed, integrate with her shadow which carries
the traits which will allow her to become a whole person in her own
right. She is freed from her mother's curse to make her own way,
complete with the wisdom she has learned from her trials. Andromeda
becomes the star, indeed the constellation, of her own myth,
immortal in the heavens.

To be continued . . .

Jordan, I'm a comin'

Ready to cross that long last river

Ready to plunge my soul forever

into your cleansing depths and sever

from all these worldly ways.

In insanity lies our one true

hope for freedom -- from all the social

norms that bind us into who we are.

Jordan, I'm a comin'

Hold me well, you ragin' waters

Reunited, all your daughters

Freeing us from he who slaughters

in all those worldly ways.

Love is the lie supreme that binds us

into belief that sacrifice must be our

noblest ambition; into belief that fulfillment

comes only in living death.

Jordan, I'm a comin'

Fill me with your ancient beauty

Releasing me from binds of duty

Caress me in your primal crooning

far from all worldly ways.

All the bridges crumbling,

we are falling to the sea.

-- Tumultuously ripped & rocked

beyond all sound foundation.

Tossed adrift, lost and lonely

Crying out in fear and pain

To what gods may be, if only

what we've lost might be again . . .

And the sea erodes our souls

as the waves have rocked our faith

No more when we could be secure,

firmly anchored to the past.

This is what it is, to undergo a sea change.

This is what it is to dream a new awakening.

This is what it is when what has been forsakes us.

This is what it is

when what's to be must start to form.

Part I

The future descends
from the fear-embroidered skies
the vision is of holocaust -- when everybody dies
A new day is dawning, but is it sun or storm?
We have a chance to make our mark
but is it right or wrong?
The military marches
The anti-warriors too
We take our stand in battle
The many and the few
Spinning tales of magic, of wizardry and fate
We want to know just how it ends before it's all too late
We sing our song too late
We right our wrongs too late
We want to know the date
To find a better fate

Can I tell you?
Can I help you to know or understand?
Can I utter the words that will make you see me?
Standing here before you, I want to take your hand
to be swirled up into a magical dancing
to be taken to worlds of beauty entrancing
to give you the will and the wonder to set you free.
Can you see me?

Plutonic Verse

As long as it matters that I exist
As long as I've something to go back to
As long as there is a community of which I am an integral part
The rest is just details
And though "the devil is in the details"
So are the gods.

One Hand Clapping

Is a reflection in a glass,
like moonlight,
half empty or half full
or, like moonlight
filled with the stuff of dreams?
What is the sound of moonlight
dripping onto the earth
down a silver stair?
What is the demand of dreamlight?
Emotion spilling onto sand or clay,
roaring like soundwaves?
Light coalescing into sound into waves into sea?
What is the demand of sky of sea of fire
dripping through the twilight?
Reflections
half moonlight, half mind.

Revelation

Weave into the fabric of a tribe of artistic dancers.
Fall under the spell of pure magic.
Silent night, peace and cold
Imbue me with music
In ecstasy, I dance to the stars.

From your smoke-coughing cities

to your desolate plains

The children of Midas have taken the reins

And left you besoiled in blood-splattered stains

With none fit to wash you to purity.

The air-waved cacophony pleads for a song

That will once more unite you ennobled and strong

To take back the glory to which you belong

To wrench freedom from dreams of security.

The old man, he wanders through librium clouds

The young take their distance

to move through the crowds

And every one fitted for life-draining shrouds

Reflect only on death's dance of conformity.

While poisoning rays permeate land and air

The high class step out like they haven't a care

They're bound to discover their world-rending tear

But can they comprehend the enormity?

Ridiculous sages exhort peace and love

Say we each have our choice of reality

So we fight over contexts and deny what we can;

But reality marches on.

Journeyman upon the road

Listening to the jungle drums

learns to bring it all together

as nightly his guitar he strums.

From the Woodstock Nation on to '84

With his banner of music he learns to keep score

And the score, as it's written, keeps costing him more

But it's also what's keeping him dancing.

With a beat in his heart and a song for his soul,

it keeps him journeying on.

Winter creeps whitely over streetlamp and spire.

Muted to whispers the Grand Freedom Choir.

A clattering chatter overtakes the high wire

Pure white like the night of beginnings.

The children have nestled all snug in their schools

In joyous rote marching, they take in the rules

Determined to never be taken for fools

Or give back an inch of their winnings.

Silent, the singers are searching for voice

They know in their souls it's a matter of choice

They need to find reason, a cause, to rejoyce,

A newly turned path to felicity.

A new day is dawning, but where is the sun?

Our freedom and faith are defined by the gun.

The symbol of power overrules everyone

'Til we create our own electricity.

But under cover of darkness a banner's being stitched

Of patchwork-bright colors and radiance

To someday soon be unfurled in the breeze

As we march to freedom's song.

High upon a sacred mount,

Hearing now soft strands of sound

Journeyman no more, but questor

Nods benignly; ear to ground.

He's learned his song clearly, and clearly he sings.

Hearing an echo, he knows what it brings.

The time is approaching to fasten his wings

and swoop down to join the festivities.

A new day is dawning, and he is the son

And it's time to rejoyce in the dawn.

But where are the marchers, the pipes and the drums?

Back in the schoolrooms, relearning their sums;

Or sleeping with vermin, despised in their slums

Unable to speak more than mumblings.

From time to time daylight enbrightens their souls

But most of their time's spent enslaved to the doles.

The wonder is not the dearth of their goals

But that they've not given up on their stumblings.

The class struggle's nothing compared to the fight

'Tween having it all and doing it right

'cause whether you're black, brown,

red, yellow, or white

You're hooked on the sweet rush of buying.

But the dollar's declining; and so is the yen.

From swords we'll build plowshares and take up the pen

For here is the where, and now is the when

And the choice is 'tween living and dying.

Is winter receding? Is spring on the rise?

Do we hear on the air a new melody?

Do we strive to accept; do we try to deny?

Or awaken our voices to song?

Having witnessed, having spoken

Having reached the cusp of change

Standing midst the still unbroken

Deploying troops throughout the range

A new age martyr need not die

But only stand beneath the sky

And sing each soldier's battle cry

To emanate strength and courage

To keep them true upon the course

-- An emissary of the dawn!

We shout our faith clearly, without fear or shame

We've learned to play music -- and not play the game.

We've let loose our captors and broadcast their name

That they be captured and cleansed back to purity.

It's a tried and true story we chant here anew

Of a born again many set alight by a few

Remember the Beatles, the Stones, Dead and Who

Back when freedom meant more than security.

We're learning to share in an effort of gain

To harness the sunshine and bring back the rain

To take off our blinders and learn to be sane

Yet maintain self within that conformity.

Each singing in glory, permeating the air

Feeling good to be cared for, and better to care

As we mix up the glue and mend the great tear

Finding courage to face the enormity.

We don't need the sages to find peace and love

We don't need to fight against reality.

We need to learn rhythm and reason and rhyme

And raise our souls with song.

Knowing now his goal completed

Having given all he'd learned

On his private mountain seated

Enraptured in the peace he's earned

He sings his song clearly, with joy and with fire

It's all that he has and fulfills all desire

It's getting him high, and then bringing him higher

And setting his spirit to dancing.

With a beat in his heart

And a song for a soul

Wafting aloft . . .

And he's gone.

Ride the seasons of the moon

Let the moment call the tune

Ramble through the tongues of Rune

Into my empty city room

Where the circus plays at daybreak

And no one seems to care.

The court jester shrieks, the raven she seeks

and the idiot speaks of the secrets of night.

The Solomon sage who owns pretense of age

sits alone on the stage beyond the spotlight

and sings softly the song that says we belong

to one who knows wrong is the shadow of right.

But can anyone know

just what is the show

and what keeps us going back

night after night . . .

Bright lights extend beyond the scope of sight.

Bright dreams played out against

the traffic's blare.

A dizzy sense of power pervades the night.

Caught up in spotlight

of the street lights' glare,

we myriad performers act out in bounds --

a circus squared by concrete, bricks and glass.

The streets, their high tech urban sounds

singing electric chorus to the mass,

awaken yearnings, fantasies released;

new projects and old lusts take flight.

But, bright lights do not the total story tell.

A city's underside is lit in shame.

When daylight's order sounds its evening knell

some players of night devise a different game.

To disregard this face of urban war

would not do justice to the face of pain

that signifies a winning/losing score.

Where many lust for wealth that few may gain

poverty seldom rests in leisured peace.

The shell-shocked walk their nights in hell.

A merry trickster dancing through the crowds,

releasing smiles, enjoining folk to dance,

exuding laughter that dispels all clouds,

turns the mood distinctly toward romance.

In bright-lit cafes, strobe-lit discos, too,

Twosomes stroke and flaunt their partners' charms;

on bright-lit streets and dark-lit alleys woo,

delighting in caressing lovers' arms.

All daytime's trials forgotten for this while,

buried 'neath lust's crimson, silken shrouds

An act played out so many times before:

Young lovers meet in secret rendezvous.

They pledge their love along the river's shore.

But, what! A third's been added to the two.

A jealous rival swears to end their tryst.

He comes prepared for battle with a knife.

And plunges with a vicious twist

to break a heart and end another's life.

Turning to the maiden an evil smile,

he hears not what she may implore.

Tomorrow's headlines may retrace the tale.

And law's swift retribution cage the cur.

But now it's midnight in the jail

where scoundrels dream of what they never were.

The street crowds laugh, in colorful array.

They have no thought of morning's dreary chores.

They've many hours still 'til break of day.

Many hours to drink and woo and score.

For night is made for madness and release

of lust from daylight's cautious veil.

philosophy

What are the words that I'm saying to say

when they're made simply words in a row?

The world is revolving, and people today

are revolving with nowhere to go.

Revolving, revolting, evolving and floating

And never quite sure where we are

I search for definity in the midst of infinity --

a sign in the midst of a star

And wonder if I am a meaning, or why

the whole thing simply exists

It's not that I care, but I'd like to know where

I will be when we've gone thru these twists

and turns

and eternity years

for a meaning beyond being THERE

but where?

Love is like a looking-glass

And Life is a long, long voyage on an uncharted sea.

I don't know what to tell you;

I don't know what to say.

Listening to talk of madness in a candlelit bar/cafe.

The snow outside turns to unhappy slush

on a Sunday evening.

I want music,

but settle for words and imported beer,

watching the players before my eyes,

playing my silent bit part at a corner table --

while those onstage speak their chosen lines.

The beer goes to my head like a tight cap,

as does the nostalgia spouting from the barmaid:

distillations of books and movies

still etched on my brain

from those long-remembered nights

of hipness revelry

Greenwich Village 1960's.

Oh so serious flights of youth awakening

-- Yeah . . .

it all comes back.

Nothing's ever lost, but, like energy,

returns in different forms.

Metamorphoses.

It's a night for musings.

My true purpose? as yet disguised.

Life is like a voyage

and this epistle,

merely another page in the log.

Like light flickering over a piano in a sultry cabaret, like a round blue balloon fitfully drifting out into the storm-laden sky, like anyone you know or I know trying yet again to remember just what it was we were doing with our lives: that's what its all been like. The cat cries, and I respond filled with the illusion of concern. The world cries, and my besotten brain bleeds into tears of angry, chain-rattling despair. It's all about language. It's all about the symbols we choose. A new day dawns cloudy and forbidding.

We are entering San Francisco in the morning fog, early, early, the world still dreaming. Or maybe it was Cambridge, Mass., lost in the fog, unsure of time or space. Sometimes there is singing: something about a "Yellow Submarine" or "Strawberry Fields" or sometimes haunting melodies without words. But it's all about the words, even those implied by the music.

Wine can help. By the gods, wine is sometimes all that can help (tho sometimes even wine betrays me).

The stinking debris of mornings after the night before, or just morning by the coast with the stink of rotting fish, the cries of gulls or sirens, the emptiness without tears, the cold of morning -- I remember that too. That no more mornings could touch me, that I could hide contented in the night dreaming flying dreams so none could touch me. Fragments. Taking life in fragments. Folding each shiny fragment into tender velvet pockets sequined to reflect the light, let them be all right, feel cared for. Let the nights protect us from the days. Like a wandering hermit with a self-igniting lantern . . . .

The 4th dimension that subsumes the 3

-- length, width, depth.

We move as we will in space,

Yet we move always in time

Whether we want or even know it

Ever onward through eternity;

Moment to moment

Encompassing all of our lives.

The only boundary is love is hate is strong emotion.

We are each bound by memories that push us that poke us

provoke us to respond.

Each new day we relive the old, acting out dramas unresolved.

All we need to do is breathe to play to dance into our unbound creation.

Letting spirit out of body

dancing purified energy

merging into music

outside of law or obligation.

Reinstate the time of bright lights in darkness,

of good cheer and boisterous laughter,

of twirling into ecstasy without reason or rationing.

Reinstate the time of quiet sunrise

smelling of pine and wild roses,

of unending sky and majestic formations of earth,

of unbridled adventure encompassing silent reflection,

all orchestrated in bold tones of exquisite complexity

and simple truth.

Take me there. Let me fly

forever undisturbed by a need to touch down.

Primal emergent scene of fear/betrayal/rage

Against prosiac life tuned to a simpler age

A woman and a man and progeny of course

A life tailored to plan, no stranger to remorse

So early in the days of what might hence occur

The learning of the ways of how to be are stirred

So legends have been cast, so myths in mist abound

As some realities are buried underground.

It was a cold and gilded house, camouflaged as home

It was a brutal game of chance camouflaged as life

Chain me to my jagged rock and let me bleed

Let the ravage start, I will not plead,

My tears will only flow when primed by raging seas

They say that life's a school, we must learn or die

They knock into us what, where, when, forgetting why

Each put into our place and left to wait our turn

It's not about what we may be, but what we earn.

Tree-lined sidewalks, car-lined streets, children at play

It seems so calm and peaceful, keeping fear at bay

Do the laundry, buy the groceries, pay the heating bills

Get it done, don't delay, no matter who it kills.

It was a curse hurled from the gods, but it wasn't mine

Punishment for a crime of pride I did not commit

Clinging to my prison door, I hide my eyes

Epecting no pardon from the skies

No where left to go to hide from my mind's lies

What can't be told infects a deep and deadly path

Buried wounds untended surface into storms of wrath

A beaten creature huddles beneath a snarling face

Dying for a welcome smile, the warmth of caring grace

Some doors left open lead to mystic hidden rooms

Of purple velvet drapes, plush carpets and rare perfumes

The tapestry of life upon an ancient wall

Or was it down a rabbit-hole you meant to fall?

I begged a chance to be saved, but it was not my time

The monster's howl a hungry hound denying rest

Lost in a tempest, finding none to care

Petrified by my own inward icy stare

Bound and cursed by the gods, of what use is prayer?

Comes the time in spiraling life of do or die

Take the time to breathe the air, read visions from the sky

Willing change, allowing pain to tell its sorry tale

Rearrange the picture's frame, learn to adjust the scale

The rules laid down to keep us bound were never friends

A hero's quest with divine intent can open stories' ends

Gods inspire nature's desire for beauty, healing, choice

Reclaiming heart, we do our part, obeying our true voice

Opening my eyes, raising my voice, I claim my power

The gods respond not with violence but with joy

Claiming my life as my own, I turn my demons into stone

Free at last my spirit soars as I

dance by day through sweet Olympian fields -- by night among the stars

Zen and the art of waiting for the site to load
A 21st century meditation technique
We are blessed by the universe
Bringing our attention to our spirit's lessons
in the here and now

Ran a race -- was it exhilarating!

Ran through space -- marking only time.

Felt the wind rushing through me

My footfalls singing out a rhyme.

Hoorah! Hoorah! I race exultant.

My body free, and clean, atune.

Singing, singing -- ah, the ecstasy.

As natural as the sun and moon.

I can manufacture energy

Within the furnace of my fire

I can be the most that I can be

-- growing higher, higher, higher.

descent

dark and gloomy

the darkness offers friendship

hiding in empty alleys for a fix of mystery

doodling pentagrams and yin-yangs

looking into empty rooms and projecting fantasy.

I tell you there's not much left to say

and you don't answer.

Twin pathways converge, but still no answer.

The night is made for dreamers.

The dark explains it all -- but in its own language.

The key is not to be found.

Laughter echoes in empty hallways.

Soon it won't matter; but soon is never now.

I smoke burning poisons and cry for death.

Death will be here soon enough

-- now is time for potent dreaming.

dark and gloomy

forecast of an out of pattern afternoon.

Patti Smith echoes coarse dark sentiments

and I feel the blood of conquest

rushing through my veins.

Anything could happen.

Testing survival is the only thrill.

Halo'd in the light of dreams

The old man sits and ponders

Caring not for how it seems,

He'll catch the world in wonders.

Take the left and magic field.

Herald the prancing pansies

who cast their shadows -

silhouettes sealed

In wilds of whirlpool

patterns and rhyme.

I've come to see Venice & Athens & Liverpool.

Can't stop for Atlantis - haven't the time.

Mellow'd in the light of spring

The old man laughs and dances.

Worries are a deadweight thing

Akin to hollow stances.

Take the high and mystic plain

call out to racing rainwaves

As mannequins pantomime stalks of grain

In tempest of turmoil

seaweed and slime.

I've come to see Venice and Athens and Liverpool.

Can't stop for Atlantis -- haven't the time.

Picture a forest

everglades

new spun greenery

thicket brown needles

hoary wilderness

Dance out the tension

play out the dramatic encounters of your society

scream & scream & scream & don't stop screaming

until your throat is sore and hoarse

until the ambulance has taken you

until the straitjacket has been tied

and strapped you in

until the whole scene disappears

Relight a candle

remake a movie

repair a broken heart

realize a moment, an hour, a week, a season

reassure a friend

Absolution Absolution

Create a memory Create a vision

Create hysteria Create a cure for cancer

Create a comedy Create a belief system

Create anxiety Create relief

Sensation

Touch Touch Touch Touch

SmellTasteSeeHearFeel

VelvetDiamondJasminNectarAndalusianGreenWhisperingWillowsLove

Recreation

War Games Lovers' Quarrels

Price Gouging Heavy Metal

Tongue Lashing

Reprieve, Repast, Repenetent

Incision

Typeset Onamotapoeia Poesis Infant Death Mortality

CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored

Rectify Signify Verify

Punk-out

Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning.

We'll talk about how bad it is,

and maybe try to find

a way to survive it.

I can't respond to you tonight

I'm busy dealing with my own fright.

Just cool your head as best you can

And hide in dreams 'til morning.

Maybe then we'll talk,

if we find the time to be together.

Maybe we can plan a way

to steer toward better weather.

Got to run now, parties calling.

Hope your night goes smooth, or if not

You'll make it through to see another day.

Call me in the morning; perhaps we'll find a way.

In a hovel-hole basement building.

We keep the faith and

Drop-in

Turn-on

Tune-out.

And it was told . . .

How the everlasting presence

still isn't very old.

How the Diamond got her ring

How the matchgirl got her king

How we all got everything

And how everything got sold.

Reeds bending in the wind

A haunting sentimental song

Dreams drifting by

The neon letters "LOVE" lit up in the air

A poem in pictures and sound.

Rather like a dream, you know

Those dawning tendrils

Sneaking through my windowshade

But it's much too early to be waking

So I'll dream on of morning romance

Without remembering

That I've no one to wake to

beyond the dawn.

Reaching to the stars,

Tarry in eternity:

This is all.

Soldiers marching in a desert

Remember not their daily cares

Remember only endless marching

Caught in dreaming unawares.

The crackling fire

The sweet cascading smoke

Light another match and start anew

As pinwheels and starbursts float

Through the silent night

And visions of "I love you" gently

Drift through the liquid air.

February snowflakes

Flitter Flutter

Feathery powder

Melt into my mind.

It's a tale many times in the telling

Of wisdom and wonder and enchantment foretold.

Captivating, yes compelling.

But catch it now, before you're old (We're so soon old.).

Cross country wide and free; a gypsy's life by caravan

And what is yet to be is stretching wide, without a plan.

Try, if you can, to imagine just how you're gonna end.

. . . You're gonna end.

Past ships and planes and miles of dusty road,

It's all been told . . .and then retold.

We've lived a thousand lives before, we the vagabonds of Earth

But let me try to tell to you my story, it's all I own

Whatever be its worth.

It started in a coffeehouse so many years ago

Where poets of our century were wont to waste their days

And in those days did bright mindwaves cast their nets and flow

To catch up young unruly souls and charge them with the craze

For adventuring -- for "something new"

To catch a star and follow wherever it should lead

To search out the holy answer to the ache of human need

To be the first new holy breed to wholey shake the Earth

To usher in a promised age, so many years in birth.

It was a time of carousels and colored lights;

A time of feeling grandly strong and right;

A time when Life was just beyond our sight.

What made it go? Which corner was the wrong one turned?

Or is it merely time to take things slow,

To gather up the threads of what we've learned?

The darkness cast upon us, how was it earned?

Oh yes, I meant to tell you of brilliant desert skies

And city street romances that sparkled ere they died.

Of Denver's summer snowstorm and LA's winter flood

And secret, solemn friendship pacts seal'd in summer blood.

Of a much awaited sunrise within a foreign town

Of food and flowers and incense freely passed around

Of turquoise rings & violent springs & jails of many brands

And music wafting through the streets

Of gentle smell of smoke so sweet

And wondrous madmen once to meet who read witchcraft in your hand.

And so much more; yes, lifetimes more.

I would give it all to you, asking nothing in return

But that you seek, in your own style, for yourself to learn

Of corners waiting yet to turn before our time is through.

And perhaps one day you'll say to me:

"Yes, the answer's here! Yes, the answer's clear!"

And you will say to all of us: "Here's what we must do."

Before our time is through . . .

We are calling in the dawn

Calling, gently, our many voices

How do we call thee, oh joyfully smiling mother

Welcome arising in our hearts,

Anointing our many-colored soul.

Take in the day

Rejoice in the sunshine

We are alove and strong

In primeval paradise

Upon a windswept beach

Our eyes, our arms

Raised in blessing

Totality is ours

There is no darkness.

Close to the edge, so close

And the fire's burning.

The music's playing old familiar memories.

It's a grey day in late Pisces

In a year of fear and hopeful reawakening --

Is there hope of resurrection?

In these grim, grim times?

But so grim?

A time to newly discover

The strength within;

To again see life as a discovery

-- can it be done?

On a day so grey, in a year so fraught with peril

and misadventure?

One at a time: take things one at a time,

And they seem so small and easy.

Why hold expectations that lead to dismay,

Hiding from fantasy?

Breathe, meditate.

Build dream towers to climb to,

Not nightmares.

But it seems so safe and easy to hide

In the darkness

To never utter another "I"

To cease.

Why not?

Close to the edge, so close.

The fool looks over his shoulder.

The wise goat climbs with care.

The lonely may jump in despair.

How to be alone and strong?

Ask the high priest --

All is within/without you.

But to find that smile of understanding?

It is a search worth taking

Slow, easy, breathe.

The crowd dissolves

and I am left in a sad corner

holding a wrinkled overcoat

Wishing for warm holiday homecoming goodwill.

But the endless night enwraps my mind

leaving me twisted

jumping here and there without purpose.

Johnny didn't have a penny,

but he had good looks and good times

& Mary had her pimp's abortion to even the score

But no one took the beggar seriously

when he said that times had turned to emptiness.

No one believed in fulfillment;

no one had the time.

& the crowd dissolved

vanished into the fog

tho ectoplasmic energies milled about the mainfare.

It was Thursday in the rain and mist

and sooted brownstones.

And the streetlamps only served as muted halos

like the cafe neon flashing

So I stopped in for another beer and borrowed music

& listened to the couple in the next booth

discuss their barren lives

& thought of 19th century philosophers

who make me sad

& wished for a breezy bright beach in May

& wrote you another letter

to be locked in my diary.

So I'm thinking of splitting for the coast

or maybe Cincinnati

But my overdraft is overdrawn

and I'm not strong enough to hitchhike

and maybe tomorrow just won't happen

if I can find the right door to oblivion.

But maybe tomorrow will dawn bright and warm

and smiling

and the labor pool will call me

and the coffee buns will be sweet at breaktime

and someone will smile at me

and come to my barstool

to shoot the breeze and share my dreaming

And the crowd will dissolve

And the people will emerge.

A small light glows in the square.

The square is one face of a large, dark cube.

The cube reclines on a round, dark platform

on a busy thoroughfare.

As I walk briskly by in my business suit on a

windy Monday morning.

And a small flame burns in my heart

And my heart is a space surrounded by soul

And my soul is enfolded in the vastness of space

And my mind wanders to a secret smiling dream

breathing freely in warm green meadows.

Listen

to the wind

It will caress you

and, lightly, bless you

with its powers of deja vu.

Listen

as the wind

blows the clouds across the stars

in the darkness, it will thrill you

'til those memories nearly kill you

with their powers of remorse.

Listen

to your dreams

blowing waves of solace

to drown the deepest sorrows

in gentle seas of tomorrow's hope.

Listen

don't despair

let the warm sea breezes lull you

let the drug of sunshine dull you

let the emptiness seep through you

till you're back on even keel

till you're sure tomorrow will repay your dues

Listen to your silent muse

and ride the wind.

Ecstatic Burning Elementary A, B, C's

Dancing Magic Life Affirmation

I saw you on a crowded street

and followed discreetly through

the alleyways and traffic,

behind the watermelon stand,

and perusing the soft porn racks.

And I believe that you knew me,

but didn't want to crack

out of your role

Because you laughed at the old billboard

as we used to while looking in my direction

(though I was hidden in a New York Times

behind a street sign).

And I called you on the telephone,

breathing heavy, and asked about your tits

in a sexy put-on voice,

and you didn't hang up, but laughed again,

and passed the phone to your spacey friend

who told me I sounded like

that guy in "Rocky Horror"

and did I dig cannibalism?

And I took another hit off the PCP joint and

melted back to animal

and slithered to the stereo for some Zappa.

And when Tom and Larry dropped by they

said they'd seen you

in the laundromat washing your tie-dyed sheets and

rainbow curtains

but that you hadn't said a word.

Sometimes I feel that we none of us exist

but are just some figment of a pocketnovel.

Then I drink cheap burgundy and play sad songs

on dark bar jukeboxes

and think about the war between us all.

And I try to believe that you believe it too,

but just won't tell me

so I have to find out the strong way for myself.

And I call you on the telephone and cry

and ask to hold you.

And you reappear in my darkened room

like a porcelain angel

And touch my body as if in a dream

so that I only want to believe this dream is true.

Far above the emerald majesty

-- Quick to answer

Sinking in a quicksand hell --

Is there salvation?

Falling slowly into dreams --

I shall awaken.

Feel gently the fire; it walks on crystal tiptoe

Hardly moving, slowly melting

And it comes to you now in lovers' meeting

Makes love to you now,

Singing hymns to you now, of tomorrow.

Craziness is all you'll ever know.

Take the time to map the way you'll go.

It may come much too fast, or leave to slow

And leave you clinging to hollow meaning.

Drifting through the winds of time

'til all you've left to touch is rhyme

When all your words are left behind,

What will you answer?

I'll only whisper: My song is done.

May we attend the funeral please,

for our sweet sister

Nibble a bit upon her vacant flesh.

The foxes, the dear little foxes.

Mais oui, mais oui, the funeral, please,

for our sweet sister

Mais oui, nibble a bit

upon her tender flesh.

Her day is over.

He's digging a hole in the ground for me.

He's digging a hole in the ground for me

And singing a song of sweet "I love you's"

All the while he digs.

(minimizing his own discomfort)

Mais oui, nibble a bit

upon her vacant flesh.

Waiting for Godot

For that one perfect moment

When every part is in place and the wheels

spin on down the highway, never hesitating.

Waiting for a cloud to drop under me

And carry me, a cushion of air.

And while I wait, I hustle a sometimes living

And give and take where I can, 'cause that's the

game that's happening in this time and place.

Take a ticket, and read your magazine.

It's a place to play out some drama

while the forces gather.

It's a place to dream, until you're ready

to make it real.

far away, windy beaches call to me

their icy freshness calling me

come away

to where the air is clean and waters' deep

come and sleep

we'll melt your cares away

come away.

far away, mountain peaks they call to me

forest greens and far to see

misty freshness calling me

come away.

fortune despises the man who has eyes for

the lower side.

fellowship's handy, but what can a dandy do

when all's behind him

wait and see; look to me.

the writing on the wall's made clear;

it's only us that we need fear.

it's only empty dirty lies

to tell us to ourselves despise.

wait and see; look to me.

and i'll tell you

the words you've been waiting to hear

the words you would cherish most dear

for it's all clear as a mirror, as safe as a dream

i scream and scream and scream and scream

and like just any day

they're running away

far, far away

while here i stay -- crying.

then, all at once in a nightmare

in the midst of a schized-out day

i hear you say

i almost hear you say

but you're too far away

so i run to catch up

and i run like the wind

and i am the wind

and i blow away . . .

"Purity of essence is to will one thing."

Ooze into the dark.

Disappear forever.

No diving necessary.

my life is bare and i don't care and no one knows my mind

the world is old and frigid cold, and there's no one left behind

today's a day that never came

tonight's a dream of death

as I sit beside the fireplace, shooting smack and meth

my mind is dark, my body numb

dehydrated beyond tears

so I'll go on til the kingdom come

who cares? it's only years . . .

Listen then, and hear anew

A melody so swift and free

It's memory can carry you

Floating on a magic sea

To the inner facings of your soul.

Look, and feel with lover's sight

The polished crystal jewels of time

That catch you in your secret night

And send you tumbling down the mire,

Through the rainbow-shining rabbit hole.

Relive the seconds of eternity

And find your way unwinding.

Insanity reigns supreme.

Madness is loose in the world.

And sing and dance and shout and scream

And learn to take a chance on a dream

And laugh and cry all when and why

lose meaning

pure being

no regret.

Do you know what it would say

When all our egos slip away

To come the time of one last day -- eternity.

How it is is not to say

or all our knowledge slips away

of what we are and what we stay

eternally.

Common fellows dressed as cows,

and misses dressed as felines

return to stage to take their bows

it doesn't matter anyhow

-- we're Brahma in our free time.

Madness is loose in the world;

Insanity reigns supreme!

It's only what you feel in a dream.

"We need to believe in simple things."

She said with a curtsy and a smile

And with that proceeded to

change her shoes and dance.

The wind and the waves seemed to chant

in flute and fiddle and drum

played by the white-robed ones behind her

As she danced out a story of love and remembrance

and, yes, simple things.

So a vision was made to appear

before the hypnotized crowd.

The clock struck backwards and forwards

through seasons and ages

Not of Czars and Wars and Events or Inventions

But leaves falling, snow drifting, folk singing,

birds calling, children laughing, bread cooling.

And soon the crowd became a joyous dancing throng

of beaming folk,

each remembering special moments,

breaths of air on dew-dropped dawns of spring,

or the warmth of a loved one's hand,

or a birdsong.

And she spoke once more before dissolving

into the mist in a warm sparkling glow:

"Believe not in salvation nor sin nor in reward --

we must live as we can,

and believe in simple things."

On believing once again

Showed my passcard, wandered in, took a chance.

And though it isn't very clear,

Stayed a week and then a year,

And then forever stayed, a prisoner to the dance.

Once a morning out of bed

Dropped a pill to clear my head

Ate another for the road, and took my place.

Gave my notice to the Man.

Sold my house and bought a van

And ran away to join the human race.

Shine on brightly, great star of gold

Gonna live until I'm old.

Blaze on boldly, great silver sky

Gonna live until I die.

I chase a marvelous goat --

the young idea

frisky and rambling.

I fenced her in with words

A marvelous chase though the whishing wind.

She laughed when I claimed to have caught her

and led me on

through newborn autumn fields.

Looking for repose

Straining for that certain something

which will linger as satisfaction

Waiting for a sign -- a way to go toward unity.

So you think to tame the unicorn

Why not, instead, become one

Wild and free alive with magic

Trotting and frisking through the trees

Proud and beautiful in freedom.

Careening through space

My hair in the air

My eyes in the skies

My mind everywhere.

And where am I now?

This space has no end

This space has no meaning

It twists and it bends

It has no dimensions

Of order nor time

I have no suspension

I fall as I climb

I twist and I spin

So breathless, and . . . Wow!

This space has no meaning --

I'm part of it now . . .

And she sold me rainbows

dancing gaily 'cross the window

windchimes in light.

And she smiled me daisies

and bursting bright blooms of summer.

And she told me, maybe,

if you're looking in

the right direction,

a miracle may grace your sight.

And I smiled

dancing

into the day.

Caught up in the whirl as the world evolves
We weave by the light of the moon
a fabric of fancy, sunbeams, flowers and mist.

A trail of bluebirds embroider your hair.
A veil of gossamer softens your eyes.
A breeze of belief fragrances your breath.

Dressed for the dance in the finest of jewels
Alive to excitement, shining with love

Wrapped warm in a floating cape of wishes fulfilling

The soundwaves whirl inside my ear

I haven't got a thing to say

Sometimes the world is very clear.

I spoke to you of this last year

A different time, a different way

The soundwaves whirl inside my ear.

At times it takes the form of fear

At times it's all a scripted play

Sometimes the world is very clear.

I haven't had the time to hear

The things I know you want to say

The soundwaves whirl inside my ear.

I hold your wisdom very dear

I try to follow in your way

Sometimes the world is very clear.

I listen, but I do not hear

Those things we spoke of yesterday.

The soundwaves whirl inside my ear.

Sometimes the world is very clear.

Rambling through fields of daisies in dreams

Hoping to find a new feeling

Coming to terms with what is and what seems

I'm making a bargain with time.

Not getting tired of running around

But wanting to know where I'm going

Trying to measure my meaning in sound

Trying to keep it in rhyme.

Hoping to answer a call to my heart

Hoping to find a new feeling

Adrenalin pushing, I'm ready to start

Making a bargain with time.

Let us contradict the hours

And walk awhile amidst the flowered garden of

remembrance.

Times so bittersweet and true

Their precious etchings scarring as they grew

into your essence.

Breathe deep. Look inside your soul

For pack rat hidden magic tones of

carefree, joyous laughter

To salve old wounds with tender care.

Awakening, a new self-awareness emerges after.

Yes, let your inner chorus sing:

We are the source of anything

we wish to make our mission.

The key is to relax and dream,

Floating down a buoyant stream

we're learning to envision.

Through weary hours of bitter nights

It helps if we can fix our sight

upon the rays of morning.

Time is not the enemy,

But more a growing friendship

we are tentatively forming.

Enfolding mother walls

Defining my space

Allowing the creative freedom of security

Hugging me to me,

my pictures which I hung

on your warm wooden surface

when first I claimed

this room my womb.

"We're building walls between us.

Walls between us!" You said, you shouted,

"All those words, words, words,

words of analysis and placing blame.

Why don't you just touch me, hold me,

let me get back in touch with you?"

But I couldn't reach you through

the walls of silence.

Ghostlike I wander

Through my lady's chamber

Touching cold hard objects

Without connecting.

Eerie mental voices

Repeat, repeat out of context

And I try again to make sense of

Fragments

Unconnected.

Ghostlike I wander

Cold, hard, unconnected

Eerie mental fragments

Floating through my lady's chamber

Repeat, repeat out of context:

Touching, unconnected.

tempus fugit sic transit gloria mundi

Time flies thus passes this glorious world

Crystal palaces in feathered canyons

Dark journeys through barren wilderness

Crazy kaleidoscope colours

cascading down in torrential abandon

Slithery salamander

slipping through sinuous sense glands

Hail and rain and thunder

Deep deep angular caverns allowing none but the

positive/negative mysterious vibratory patterns

coursing through ion charged airwaves

tension upon tension

creating cracked splintering sensations

warped wires hobbling down fragmented cobblestones

in crescent corners

singeing singing saxophone horning in on the set

tempered tapestry

grating gridwork

alabaster operational almanac battered and bleating

on the dusty wall

tortoise or terrapin toiling to return to tatoine

helplessly hoping here harlequin halts,

then hurries home down the rabbit hole

sinister seeds seeping cyanide

victory!victory!

victimless vipers seethe in pits of venom

rejoice rejoice we have no choice --

joy is dead; long lives remorse.

The Page of Wands

Bearer of tidings

Blessor of all things changing

Definitely five believers

Stand on a pointed mount

Their eyes upon the pyramid

That hovers shining in the starless sky.

Dweller of the desert

Bearer of coded messages that spell

Fortune or disaster

Shadows and lightness.

Two old men share a pipe and tidings

Beside a still river.

Your lifeline runs that river.

The two old ones are you.

Escape Velocity

RRRRRunning--Spinning--trying to fly, to reach

and conquer the sky, the rooftops, the treetops

above the city streets

to fly

escaping gravity

escaping all those petty groundling woes and fears

running past the clouds,

among the stars and moonbeams

catching hold of all

those magic moments seen in dreams

catching hold of tickly, prickly, dancing freedom

catching hold of rooftops, peering in your windows

dancing gaily twenty feet above the ground,

and glancing down -- can't catch me

not you dour, sour,

glum-faced cons out on the street.

learning to fly, to soar, to run above the rooftops

where I can see for miles,

and miles are free to me

learning to say no to ordinary normality

and break free

learning to say yes to magic, and make magic me.

Spinning--running--dancing--flying

unlike anything before

learning to break out of bounds and take in more

Ain't nobody gonna tell me I can't fly.

He calls on the strength of the ocean,

Fire burning in his heart

calls on the spirit world to succor

He who hath known tribulation, but not succumbed

Made stronger and wiser knows power and wisdom

Flow through the elements always there to call on

For the pure though fiery of heart

The saddened but strengthened of soul

The man who would flow with the forces of nature

In touch with the all.

Blue, blue waters before the dawn

Dark, dark night of rain

Can't you see I need a place to go

It's all so strange.

Had a vision, we shared it once or twice

Had a plan to play

Got caught up in the drone of daily life

Can you show me the way?

Had a secret, I shared it with a friend

Had a dream of love

Had some good times, but you know they always end

Don't know what I'm thinking of.

Orange/gold sunrise above the mountain snow

Dried tears from last night's pain

Can't you see I need a place to go

Can you show me the way?

Two old men sit

wrapped in wool contemplating a frozen stream.

Their memories soar out past yesterday's horizon

to youthful pleasures and pains

Yes, life has been harsh as the harshest winter;

but beautiful as the late night snowfall that

covers the world in symbolic purity

and sets off

the strawlike but colorful northern herbs

against a star and moonlit sky.

To know these things, we need not be old,

only of a romantic nature.

To share these things,

we need only be in love with life.

The moon is blue and dreaming

Cry all my children to sleep

In conquest dreams we deem to rule

In darkest halls we plot in torment

In empty caverns we deify glory

Dance, again, dance for freedom

Dance my children to sober dreaming

Of valor and honor and color and pain

Dance and cry and strive again

To hold a mass and state the Name

Call forth my demons from sleep

The songs of old and runes of yore

The empty words we've learned to score

The high and low and even

Listen and you'll hear them moan

It's dark and dirty here below

The emptiness can drive you

To a place you ought not go

You'll die in horror screaming

Cry all my children to sleep

The moon is blue and so are you

You'll hear its song so clearly

And discount it all to dreams

And when you wake, you'll wonder

Why you're screaming

Why you ache in places you can't feel

Why your work and world don't seem so real

Why the voices in your head are screaming

And you'll count the phases of the moon

And wander in the night without direction

And keep a silent vigil in your secret heart

And turn quickly round the corners,

Lest someone see you

And when the curse is cast, you'll hear it spoken

Without bothering to look for the absent speaker

And when the moon has turned its face

To other dreamers

You'll see a vision overpower the sky

And answer . . . when you ask it "why?"

The moon is blue and dreaming.

Mushroom teacups sail in stardust

withered laurels snap in dustwhirls

tethered horsemen roam the skyways

soldiered remnants hiss through brushwoods

All is soon made clear.

Late one recent night I watched "You Can't Take It with You" and "Harvey" on Turner Classic Movies' Jimmy Stewart mini-fest.

Both films had an underlying theme of the guardian spirit taking care of those who dare to create their own way despite social convention. Then, of course, there was the antagonist of the social institutions in place to maintain conformity. Jail or the nuthouse loom for those who step off of the sidewalk, so to speak. Always those equally opposing forces. The angel on one shoulder, the demon on the other. (But Lucifer was an angel, and as we know from the Buffyverse, demons can be like any other ethnic group, so the choice of advisers is not unambiguous.)

I seem to keep running into the concept of living in two worlds (or perhaps many, but that's another story). They can be given many designations, but right now I am looking at a world of my self and one of others, the rulemakers. This is colored by my astrology: Capricorn Sun in the 1st house, Uranus in Cancer in the Seventh -- wouldn't that tend to have me identifying with the rulemakers and seeing the scary other as the iconoclast? Not unambiguous.

I have memories from throughout my life, starting as a very young child, of breathless invigorating ecstatic inspiration standing as my self basking in the universe, too excited to keep from dancing with joy internally if not in actual motion, and yet in a profound stillness of awe and peaceful understanding. And I have memories of profound guilt, depression, boundless anger with no outlet except against myself.

I am feeling lately like I am trying to break through a semi-porous membrane into some kind of wholeness, to a sublime adventure, a living myth of profound beauty. The energy is not quite there -- it surges and fades without regularity like stars peeking through the clouds.

I was awake very late at night, watching old movies and letting them take the place of my dreams. Magic is everywhere, a parallel consciousness to both sunlight and shadow.

A joyous encounter with life

A joyous encounter called my life

I've swung from trees in tropical times

And swum the seas of paradise

And learned to breathe upon the earth

You've got to see me; you've got to listen

To these wonders that I've learned

Traveling, traveling a hard-stoned road

Working my legs, my mind, carrying my load

Journeying for countless years

Seeking out the sea of tears

Eyes blinded by a black lace veil

I break my trail

(As in my mind my thoughts unwind my tale)

A marvelous secret, a hidden treasure trove

While unicorns play harpsichord

Within a blossomed grove

A newborn child with something wild that

plays in rainbowed eyes

Has been declared of druid laird

born to hypnotize

Been borne to hypnotize

Sing lullabies

Reward all the heathen with sleep

And dreaming dreams as such who waken

Find their very core earthshaken

And made to believe in possibilities

They set their sites, reshaping all reality

And of them they've begotten me.

Sound the magic pipes of Pan

All who hear may understand

The fluid waif who walks the land

Spawn of Diana's fling

With the clove-foot forest king

Vibrate to music, music, music

In every cell of living fluid

'Tis alright to be a druid

Of forest borne to roam through future lands

Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me

Become my hands.

Floating, wandering, restless dreams

Call me to respond.

I rode a mountain faire

Picked daisies for my hair

Learned to know the name of every weed

I dwelt the night alone

In a crevice made of stone

And never thought of what I next would need

I dreamt of castles bold

And the language of the Olde

And struggled to bring my dreams alive

And whistled as I rode

The songs I'd oft been told

At parties seen

In waking dream

Another place and time

Another tune, another rhyme

And I'd sit beside my campfire

And gaze into the flames

And yearn of learning other places,

Atune to other names

Traveling over other lands,

Seeking secrets, other plans

Or just remembering another song

For the secret of each soul is in its song.

Blazing all around

Miles from bare ground

Twisting twig upon an aery sea.

Luminescent way

Whatcha gonna say

Songbird, whistle your wisdom to me.

A maid of golden wings

In lullabying sings

Of white sails racing in the wind.

No two are e're the same

Of the tales she can name

Oh, nightingale -- take me in!

Blazing all around

Miles from bare ground

Journeying upon a vessel rare

Silently I sing

To hold remembering

Magic castles in the air.

Getch yer gimme

Pull that file! Collapse that case!

You are obsolete -- unexistent

And ain't no one gonna hire you in this industry.

Whatcha holding on to?

Whatcha going on to?

Whatcha gonna live for?

Got a score to settle while the dying's cheap

Gonna find a rooftop and fire.

Gonna tap a neural gap and get higher.

Gonna hold a seance and retire.

Become a log a'rotting in the wood

Enter eternity a nonfunctioning robot

Captured in celluloid, electronic impulses

Air tremors and interruptions in space.

We make no difference to a meteor --

Any blind force that destroys without design --

We make no difference to our own kind.

Blind orgiastic miasma

Pressing, moaning, sucking in life.

Entropy.

Elegy.

Ontogeny.

Images of innocence float by in my mind

I'm looking for a pot of gold

I never hope to find

And wonder in the dark of night

What if I should go blind.

Today is made of yesterdays,

Tonight of yestereves.

The spoken words I say to you

I hope you won't believe.

We've but so little time my friend,

Too little time to grieve.

And I wonder in my heart of hearts

Just where all will lead.

Will I once more take an oath of pain

And watch my body bleed

Or will I learn that living's

When you take all that you need?

Busy work, busy talk, trying to make time

Talk of energy, talk of war,

Talk of who you're out to score

Learn to love and disremember

Trying to make time; dying to make time.

Try to run and they've got you busted.

Try to hide, try to hide, try to hide.

Everyone's there to be mistrusted.

Try to hide, try to hide, try to hide.

What's left of you inside?

You are of me.

You are one of me.

You see what I see.

You do what I see.

You do what I command.

I've got you in my hand.

I've got you underhand.

Touch me. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me.

You are far away.

You are very far away.

You don't do what I say.

You don't hear what I say.

I'm screaming "go away"

Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away.

I'm sitting in my room.

I've got you in my room.

I see you in my womb.

You got away too soon.

You haven't got a chance.

No, not a bloody chance.

I circle in my dance.

I've got you in my dance.

In a trance, in a trance, in a trance, in a trance

Come on -- DANCE!

Touch me. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me.

DANCE!

Quietly, quickly, without a trace

Annihilate an entire race

Stealthily, silently my poison kills

To cleanse this land of a people's ills.

The key's been cast, so lock the door

On lies and poverty; greed and war.

Purify in red hot fire

Deify the symbol of desire

And when all desire's turned to dust

Etch in fire: "IN GOD WE TRUST."

A sacred trust.

Sound the bell

Sound the bell

Sound the bell slowly

O'er all we've made holy.

Ring bright pure-toned peals

O'er gold flaming fields

In music now seal'd

The end of our fate.

Sound the bell.

Sound the bell.

And now I sail from the sea of Lethe

A phoenix, risen from my death

To journey on through time and space

Progenitor to the human race.

Restless wings: beating, beating

Soundless tales emerge: singing, singing

Muted colors weaving a fabric in time.

Sober thoughts: remembered

Hope and dreams regaining form

Another day dawns and lingers.

We carry on.

Some Sunday Evening

When the sky is still half blue

And Spring is oh so present in the scented breeze,

The mind may take pause from the conventions

of the weekday world,

Take pause from its frenzied hiding,

Peek from behind the metal barricade of

"No, no. No time for that now."

And dream the impossible, unforgettable dream

That brings man above the machines, into humanity;

Above the burdened beasts -- into gods.

Then, tell me your dream, and I'll tell you mine

(Quickly now, before they're jackrabbit scared beyond recall -- such

fragile things are dreams).

It starts on a pure-white, fine-grained beach,

silhouetting a wide blue,

eternal, crystal sea.

A blazing blue and yellow sun-rayed sky overhead,

and sparkling sea shells beneath your feet.

And the sea breeze and lapping waves make the only

sounds (noisy traffic, heated pavement, not

even a memory. It was really such a bad joke.)

There's a girl: long silken hair of sunlight,

long supple limbs of grace.

And a boy

Both clear-eyed, strong-lunged and alive.

See them play.

Air, Earth, Fire, Water

Then transformed above the clouds

In the knowledge of universes

"Here we are to meet our makers"

-- among them ourselves.

Roll call of the gods and goddesses

up for reassignment or rest and recuperation

among the stars.

I dreamed I was on Earth and saw a thing called war

(shudders) -- a psychic trauma

to be overcome.

So let us play in our past

and watch the field unfold

Tanks and Generals and Implements of Destruction

"Why, they're only paper cards."

Pawn to Queen Bishop Three

And check; and mate.

Such silly games we find to play.

I'd rather make love to you.

That's what boys and girls are for.

Slippery union by the seashore

And close your eyes as we make love

amongst the galaxies.

Let me feel you; let me be you.

Your skin merging with mine

So soft and warm,

ah, sensation . . .

floating higher and higher

and higher -- beyond all time or dimension

You know, it's all one --

The rest is a game

A cosmic joke.

"Hear the gods laugh"

You laugh -- delightful.

And now we rest on the beach

under the bright, warm sun

floating through black eternity

amongst the pinbright stars

4th of July sparklers

or Christmas tree lights

Softly floating down and down and

The holiday is over.

As Sunday night turns to Monday morning and

we don our masks and securely hide our dreams,

til its as if they were never seen,

tightly behind their barricades

and a muffled "mornin'"

is all we'll allow in greeting,

eyes shielded, limbs confined,

back into our workaday existence,

reading the war news

fighting our own private wars with the

infernal traffic.

The dense fog descends to hide the sky and sun.

The water's polluted,

The sidewalks encrusted in broken glass.

And, I'd tell you my dream, if you'd tell me yours,

But --

"Don't be ridiculous,

We haven't time for dreams."