The Postmodern Generation

A generation beginning
Kerouaced in the head,
High road hippies
Goovin' to the music
Of The Beatles and The Grateful Dead,
Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida,
A generation living hypocrisy,
Living the lies of their ideals--
Ultimate conformists
Masquerading as individuals
Now showing themselves
Now openly conformed
Set loose their collective crisis,
Psychoses leagalised and loves
To then be contended and cleaned up--
Not by them; no, never by them--
T0 question is to grow--
But by a new emergent order

Melina and the Origins of Art

When you first became bipedal
You held your arm up high
And spread apart, in movements which belie
Our orangutan ancestry.
And now you think that you can wheedle
Your way with hugs and kisses--
You bring me shoes to put on your feet
And point at the "bir" that sits in the tree
And toss your plastic dishes.
Your arms are loaded down
With bracelets of all colors and designs--
Yes, decoration is the seat
Of art, I see the signs
Of how we try to make
Things special for each other's sake
And not just for our own renown. 

Where the Vanilla Grows

Each step lifts you up to the arcing sun,
Above the jungle trees in orchids draped,
Bromeliads and ferns suspended, spun
With roots upon the limbs bark-, lichen-creped.

This pyramid is rising to the gods
Demanding sacrifice in chocolate, blood--
The priests who stood here we believe are frauds,
And yet we worship demons in the mud.

The emerald quetzal's call is sorrowful,
Its ruby belly is resplendent, king
Of birds, the feathers crowning kings who mull
Over their roles the jesters mock and sing.

The frogs are guarding the north, south, east, and west
As we are dancing, dancing without rest. 

The Leisure Classes

In idleness and boredom comes the song,
The music and the poem, every art--
In utter silence, that's where we belong--
In noise, cacophony Muses depart.

In idleness and boredom births the crime,
The theft, the murder planned and carried out--
The criminal must fill the constant time
The Devil gives him, dissipates his doubt.

In idleness and boredom every plan
To plan your life and subjugate your souls
Is found--they'll place the boot on every man
And you will live according to their goals.

Submit to crime, submit to awful duty,
Or live by virtue, justice, truth, and beauty.

Psyche

The butterfly is on a leash, a chain
That loops back on itself--the butterfly
Controls itself or it controls itself
And this is something only fools deny.

Sometimes the chain is long, or it can grow,
And then the butterfly is mostly free--
It flits from flower to new flower, tastes
The nectar, flits now to persimmon tree.

Sometimes the chain is short--the caterpillar
Can only eat the leaves of one small plant--
It chews its way along the leaves, pupates
Upon the food it ate in rhythmic chant.

The butterfly controls the butterfly
Upon the winds that waft it here and there
It must control itself upon the winds
It can't control to reach a goal, to care.

The butterfly does not dare blame the wind,
The butterfly does not complain it eats
One kind of plant or has to fly for nectar--
The butterfly shows beauty in its feats.

The freedom of the butterfly is real
Because it has to live with real constraints--
This does not mean no freedom of its will--
The only real restraints are your complaints.

Transmission

Who did you choose to die this afternoon?
The spider feels the web with its foreleg
And waits for the vibration as the moon
Refracts the silk to silver. None will beg.

The poison goes from fly to spider, bird
To snake to fox to cougar lying dead
Among the granite snowfields--nothing heard
Their deaths they suffered, all because they fed.

The empty roads, the empty stores, the poor
Who die in illness and abuse, who die
Of hunger and disease--behind your door
You're safe, you're always safe. Enjoy your lie.

Believe the beautiful--it's always true--
The test of virtue, showing what you're due.

Dawn

You look upon it and you stare
As nervous as a hunted hare
And, looking longingly, aware
That you have done
All that you could, and yet you swear
You need a gun.

If only you had done your best,
Enjoyed the sunrise's warm breast
Then you would not feel so oppressed
By riches earned
By others, making you a pest
With nothing learned.

You look upon it and you find
That all your life will soon unwind
Because you thought you should not bind
Yourself to one
That wound into the mind,
The rising sun.

You have not done the best you could
And now you won't do what you should
Despite the fact it only would
Bring happiness
And beauty, justice, all that's good--
You wanted less.

You look upon it and the glow
Of wisdom you will never know
Is vanishing in its clear glow,
Its fortitude
Defying everything you show
In attitude.

Throes

In rainbow pools the body will dissolve
To nutrients for ancient organisms

The geysers burst from fissures cycling water
That rains down cool but came up scalding hot

The earth is swelling, cooking trees beneath
And nothing rises higher than the grasses

The heat and ash will rise and bury life
In gray cocoons the future will unearth

The heat of summer brings the fever pitch--
Cicadas singing, buzzing in our ears

The singing, singing, voices rising, rising
And everything we sing is deafening

The earth is shifting--boulders break to rocks
To sand containing cosmoses alone

The grunions surge onto the shore and writhe
Into the sand, moon shining off their scales

A surge of crowds, of herds, of prides destroy
To resurrect, to sacrifice, renew

A single man, a paintbrush and a canvas
A single woman, pen to paper, sings

A single stone rotating silently
Toward the earth and heating up the sky

The comet once foretold disaster--star
That comes negating all we think we know

The river swirling gently on our feet
Will rush destroying our homes behind us

A woman, pregnant, giving birth--that's you,
That's me--we're begging to be born, reborn

Be Like Water

A dew is resting, glistening on the grass
It is soft, it gives way to your touch
The splash of water from a struggling bass
Is the water held back by the Dutch

In torrents water rolls the house-sized boulders
In the rapids the swiftness can raze
High walls of hardest stone that would not smolder
If a fire were to rush in a blaze

The way is water--that's the way for you
To discover the flows of your life
You have to learn to flow in all you do
To be hard, to be soft, love and strife

Pie Chart

You spend a third of every day in bed
You spend a third of every day at work
You spend most of existence being dead
So loving others you should never shirk

If twelve percent is spent in eating meals
Then twenty-two is all I have that's due
To read and watch some shows and spin my wheels
From home to work and work to home, and you

And so I ask for two percent each day
And spend more time than that just to persuade
And often fail to get some couples play
When tiredness or soreness make you fade

Beloved, heed the math--A half percent
Is all I need--the rest for you is meant

My Tale

I found no cacao tree--yes, that's my tale.
I gave mankind no grapes--yes, that's my tale.

When opportunity arrives, I fail
To recognize his face--yes, that's my tale.

A sack of wind, a hurricane, a gail
That spins, winds me off course--yes, that's my tale.

It's sitting round upon a hill, my pail
Or jar that leaks, is cracked--yes, that's my tale.

I do not even hunt for a white whale
Or tilt at windmills, brave--yes, that's my tale.

An albatross, a kraken, filling sail
That keeps me off my course--yes, that's my tale.

An empty theater where I regale
My fans and followers--yes, that's my tale.

A bush, a brown-tipped hill, a rusty nail
That holds me up, alive--yes, that's my tale.

I burn a bitter flame, exposed like shale
That never truly dies--yes, that's my tale.

In shallow puddles I fear death and flail
In all initiatives--yes, that's my tale.

I'm loved and loved and loved behind my veil
As poet Zatavu--yes, that's my tale.

The Storm

The very wind has turned us timid--trust
In madmen, liars, power-lovers blows
Strong off the coast. We're lost. Our limpid lust
Has lured us to these Sirens, black as crows.

The sands are shifting, houses twist and fall
Into the frothing sea. There's monsters there,
Where once was only weather--hear the call
Of dragon-voices, snakes replacing hair.

We cower now below the rocks that roll
Into the sea--we pushed them there--we freed
Protection from the sea--we found our goal,
Destroyed our heroes, reveled in the deed.

Distrust has now become for us so strange--
Become the hero to become the change.

Social Distancing

I have to stay at home--now I can work
On all the projects I've delayed from all
The work and everything the children must
Be doing. Some good projects must, then, fall.

But, no. It's online meeting after meeting
For me, my wife, my kids. I can't home school
The kids because of busy work the teachers
Must send. The internet's become a tool

Destroying time to work on anything.
No Newton will create a calculus,
No Shakespeare will write a brand new King Lear
Because we have to drown in all the fuss

Of people who cannot imagine you
Could make good use of time for thinking, work,
Or creativity, or do a thing
Of value unless they're there, always lurk.

There's many things my children, I could learn--
There's many things that I could think and write--
But those who think they know how best our time
Is used destroy that time with great delight.

Of course, this poem preaches to the choir--
The only ones who would read poetry
Are those who would agree with all these lines,
And they, like me, are yearning to be free. 

Meetings

How else could you spread out into an hour
A minute's worth of information? Each
Must ask the same damn question, build a tower
Of great redundancy upon a beach
Dissolving in the waves of boredom, speaking
For the sake of speaking --there's nothing new
And never will be past some random leaking
When all our minds are down or each one flew
Into a daydream where there's something real
That's taking place. Stop wasting all my time
With all your self-indulgence, endless wheel
Of wind that wind into this boredom-crime.
The more you blather on informs the earth
How little value your job's really worth. 

The Promised Land of Liberty

And as the waters wash across the army
Pursuing all the prophets who foretold
Their certain deaths, I look up to the rise
That leads up to the mountaintop, the gold

The sun transforms the edge will found the true
And just society that we've been working
To bring into the light. We know the smarmy
Will seek to rise again--there's evil lurking

Within the hearts of every woman, man
To take advantage, take from others, take
Your life if necessary. The demise
Of that will never come--yet, we can make

A place where everyone will get their due--
I see it from the mountaintop. I can.

COVID-19

Succeeding means there's no evidence you
Succeeded--showing that you care brings strife,
Resentment, and all you say could be true,
But nobody will thank you for their life.

It doesn't matter what is, what good
It is, if virus or economy
Or education--doing what you should
Gets few rewards but anger, curses, envy.

The sweet abyss of nihilism lures
Those who would change the world--why not give up
When everyone refuses all the cures
You wish to pour out of your golden cup?

The virtue lies within the very fight
To keep your love and life from ever-night. 

Youth Stigmata

My hand goes to my side
I pull a palm of blood
I look--I see no wound
Red drips into the mud

How can I bleed, no cut,
No pimple burst to bleed--
Why is my palm in scarlet?
What did this doubtful deed?

I sponge my side--the blood
Is gone--I soap my hands--
The water pinks to clear--
The voice, it now commands

I never told a soul
About my bleeding side--
My parents never knew--
I you I now confide

What as a teen I kept
In silence--none believes
Me now, I know--and yet
My memory retrieves

This awesome, awful cures
And blessing none believes
Or would believe--God's voice
And touch God's choice receives

I'm waiting, still, to bloosom
My soul remains a bud
And yet I've lost this mark,
No longer bleed His blood

Fallen

Once Ba'al blew across the desert, dark
And full of lightning, whipping rain--the hinter-
Lands flooded--leaving, he would leave his mark
In summer heat--but he'd return each winter.

But he was wrestled from his winter skies
And trapped down in the underworld--his passion
Diminished, dissipated--a swarm of flies
Replaced his soul and made it dark and ashen.

The one who fought the serpents now if found
Among the company of those who sent one
To tempt with secret knowledge which then bound
Their lives--would he have fought to kill, prevent one?

Oh, what complexity would we have lost
If Ba'al had been on the Earth, not buried
And bade to buzz and rot--that was the cost
We paid for truth and everything it married.

Political Theater

The theater of cruelty lives on lies
We fell ourselves--the actors, heroes, win
Our hearts with promises that those who sin
Will get their punishment, be food for flies.

The theater of the absurd denies
The game is serious--there lies the gun,
Still warm, but we believe it's all in fun--
But streets will run with blood to get the prize.

Commedia dell'arte now rules the day--
No, it's a satyr play, the tragic end
Of tragedy a face, a feast of fools.

Why can't we have a Theatre Libre
Instead of agitprop? We must defend
Humanity from psychopaths' old rules.

Elusive Mysterious Smell

There once was a goddess, Demeter,
And a man who thought he could beat her--
He turned on his charm
And showed her his farm--
But the daughter of time thought him fetor.