Baldwin encapsulates

I sit listening to Baldwin

hearing him speak of the lost American soul

of the Negro few and the majority, whew

who believe and stink-think their color is right

their White is right out of the mind of God

I sit list'ning like a lost child

searching about for the door 

to break through to freedom of some sort

to another religion of land where all might be right

I sit in my ageing age, staring 

into the ancient journey of the Afro race

of our trekking toward some ground of freedom

to some place we'd find ourselves free

I sit and look at us as we grovel along

as we kill each other and support with arms

as we lean into the future with tears racing down our backs

and our eyes attempt a smile that only death will bring

I sit waiting longing empty-prying and applying

tired from the journeys the struggles from family freight

and family gain and mourning and hate 

and all dysfunctions of our mates

I wait for sweet-life to arrive 

knowing there we'll be free

freer than our imaginations-care breathe and long

where brother/sisterhood is one for sure

with all who harmed us and all who loved

with the gods of our making and the God that's LOVE

I await sitting sitting-sitting sitting-still

staring into the Now that is forever to begin

to begin begin-again in the NOW what will never end

Life is a gift.  Celebrate it.
Food is a nourishment.  Share it.
All humans are bonded.  Love them.
Every life has its sadness.  Weep.
Can you see see the parousia?  Look.

the a-no-ing-thing

go! stay where the grey walls crumble

go, without looking back to view the struggling-steel

and watch the shocked ones churn, smothering their face

new foundations are rising on the soap in the tub

holding its theme like billboards fighting for glue

stitching seams as machines watch the tumbling poles

the letter-writers' words fly toward some gigantic day

absent as they crawl along the white concrete wall

chewing at their knees that leave decorative blood behind

the silent faces of shame mock the burgeoning crowd

waiting for some hero to enter and free them from the smog

engulfing those laying their hopes on some blob: the a-no-ing-thing 

You can't be a saint being a copy-cat.

Your Fire

burns away brush.

The forest blooms.

commander

the commander's head

filled with empty dreams

of a special joy

bobbing in anxious tones

over dead men's bones

being carried home.

midst shattered nerves

and tainted hope

hyped by the illusions

of a superficial faith,

mourning morphed

into empty feelings

of noisy drunks.

nervous throats

coughed discomfort

as if toxic smoke

from aborted hope

lay o'er the graves

of these recent dead.

bearing in himself

the burden of squandered hope

he shuffled to depart

gathering his notes

like scattered jacks.

poised to depart

the monotony of those

clothed in the earth

a nervous switch of irony

greets him at the exit door:

a patient parent pleading

he'd bring their children home

outside the flag-draped coffins

and preferably close to whole.

*Sometimes you gotta get mad to do somethin'!
-San Francisco street-prophet


*God is a God of the present. God takes and receives you as God finds you; not what you have been but what you are now.
-Meister Eckhart

Sometimes

Sometimes 

I feel myself committing suicide

in this maddening crowd

as if a god beyond recognition

living our pretences and lies behind murderous sounds

screaming and yelling and cursing oft times

stressing the point that we're the gods of the streets

goddesses of airways of screens and coffee machines

What matter does it take if this space is not ours

if the streets are of cornflakes and air is of blood

cause we'll spill all of it there if we are in charge

pretending that we are when brandishing our gun

When we sniff our cocaine or force someone to be smug

it's the sane madness we've been harboring as we hunger for jobs

We labor for space to rest our heads

when we long for a bed without chinches within

We swallow down shit in the liquorish state

shouting brother sister come bring me some cake

Oh I feel like committing suicide as if it was all

all that was needed to salve headaches in the American Mall

to heal racist rhetoric from the political stalls

aching breaking the humane-wonder of all

So what shall I do as I wiggle and crawl

attempting to stay sane in the insanity hall

Rise up I hear rise and install

install some new vision for yourself and for all

a street without garbage a yard as a park

abort ourselves from the puritanical dark

for Death has destroyed our sense of joy

Death, the bearer of the puritanical pall

smothering embalming the most humanistic call

from the God who redeemed us by forgiving us all

Forgive forgive that's the refreshment we need

saving ourselves from panic and clearing our heads

I don't know

I just don't know

where you'll hide when...

I can't say

just can't say

if that's what you'll do

All is strange

strange like pussy-willows

sprouting in corn-rows...

Who knows who or

what might whisper you wisdom

nourish your truth...

If it begins to sprinkle

on your way too lunch

perhaps you'll stop and...

But life doesn't operate that way

We are stranger than you think

and you're one of us, you know

I wish it were possible for me

to inform you of the miseries in life

before...

What wisdom can be passed on...

What truth can be found...

What do you think I've been...

Move on

move on to where your spirit leads you

and then...

Yes, it's strange

All's strange

like porcupines shaking tail-feathers to guide you

Jesus is the trigger in the trap that brings down those values and principles upon which our systems stand.  He forces us to re-think our relationship to the divine, religion and the state.

African mask at the Museum of African Art (Smithsonian), Washington, DC

"Don't make me come down there!",
signed, GOD, on some sponsor's mega-billboard.

I cursed at what I had seen:
the failure of eyes to see Presence all-around,
exciting ev'ry molecule and atom and sound.

I could have wept but pitied instead
the blind believers framing God so frightfully mean,
hatred hot in his eyes for what he sees,
poised to rip his beauteous creation apart,
tearing us to shreds for our few or many sins.

But sighs arose from my mouth instead,
watching light fill the foggy morning sky.
It felt like the other side of the Deluge
and I was Noah, blessed to hold the messenger dove.

the tears of charlie

his life unheard, now shared
for ears perked, open to hear his tales,
his truth gathered in his breast years long:
these now tease words from his trusting lips,
lips that had long awaited someone  to enter the garden of his heart,
roam there, lay on the lea, picnic beneath his bleeding tree.

charlie's tears leaked quietly down as joyous drops,
assured that he was heard through once buried words,
and in this friend-padded embrace of the revelations of his heart,
he was free to be the story-teller of his life.

it ain't what it used to be

cause nothing's like it ever was

...before the Fall

...until the Parousia

we crawl on

inch by inch

toward the whatever there is beyond where we stand

where we crawl

where we curse each other full of hell

oh i wonder where to go

and how to get there

how to make some meaning in the meaninglessness of the here and now

of existence itself

facing God

facing the gods who hound us

and pound us into smaller smithereens than we are

or we'd like to be

i don't know

[that phrase again]

i don't know where or how to flow

but look forward to a newness sleeping on the horizon

beyond death

beyond the non-foreseeable

beyond the blind in our hearts and minds

in our soul

with a longing for the new

on the premise promised to...

and simply wait

and live

and love as best i can

on the trash-heap of today

the gift of tomorrow

whatever it might be

Today 

in life, many tortures
many crucifixions
many massacres and death
defying imagination

the human is boxed
frozen in ice
buried in hell
stirring the atrocities

we open our mouths and scream
to break the grip of death
to wed a voice to pain
to set a face on humanity

Justice may be slow but it is inexorable.
                               -Ignacio Ramonet

You have to forgive yourself first for being human, because to be human is to have lots of faults; so you have to forgive, and then the love flows in.
                    -Marion Woodman

sitting with my private self
within a private room
i see Mys'try walking on air
and i scream in silence
as the dark light passes

is mine a call or summons
a panic-plea, a desp'rate sign?
who knows as my mouth shuts
about the soundless wonder
hollowing my throat

mute, i'm thrown into the dungeon
of lone communion, where the
hunger for words is something
more than for food or fluff
passed around as super-substantial

this is no carnival, nor circus
where clowns induce laughter
by falling on their heads

this is blind sanity, incomparable
madness made sane by seeing
the touch of the Invisible holding
ones attention beyond the skies
for the viewing of visions
revealed to the patient-waiters

There is an interaction between seeing and being. The kind of person you are effects the kind of world that you see.
-Simon Tugwell


Bottles of feeling explode within
a fireworks display, tangible yet screened
my skin popping in cosmic directions
along ev'ry nerve trav'ling my spine

These are untranslatable words
whose deeper voice rises not from thoughts
but inflamed-flashings needed to be heard

What needs be said are budding as tears
bearing pain reluctantly 'neath the scales of my eyes

I stay with the burgeoning cry until its day of freedom
shoves it out beyond the windows of my flesh
for one day my words will be heard
my lips unlocked to release its shackled cries

The dungeon will open where gold is hid
and what needed to be said becomes a fire-words display

The unexamined life is not worth living.
                                          -Socrates


Weakness is not wickedness.
                -TD Jakes, bishop


*The cross is a knife cutting through all ideologies, logic and myths, destroying the foundations upon which their religions and societies stand.

In the "mean-time" time
when life is not always
what it seems nor is,
when what is, distant is
from ideals and time's ideals:
we trudge in the mud
from rains of tears
from heavened eyes,
falling from fallen clods
of fashioned dirt and clay.

Life is not all that we want
or dream.
Mud slows the pace of feet
and wheels.
We a-search flow'rs,
less thorns, yet find thistles of beauty.

It's perfection and right,
right now,
all heaven, now.
But Adam and Eve arise
each day,
mirrors we can't break
or broken, can't repair.
We try forgetting
but need rememb'ring,
for to do so might help
living in the mean-time,
in our muddied selves,
redeemed
and of earth,
now and forever,
Thank God-

la nina, la puta, la cruz

the soldiers marched in the early morn

to stir the roosters, to shoo the hens...

no! to kill the mothers, children and men

but pretty girls were for these uniformed men

the sought after prize, the golden hen

males they killed, women they penned

the girls they raped wherever and when...

but one young nina, beauteous above the rest

was the platinum prize sought by these lecherous men

for she they raped again and again

while she sang to Jesus for the decorated men

in her weakness these wild men came

and she continued singing before each of them

till fear masked their face with the pallor of shame

and they thrust her through with dagger in hand

still she sang from her cross of  pain

till the frightened soldiers severed her head

con ninas y puta they bloodied their hands

but en la cruz de este nina, she branded their heads 

shoving the poor into the ghettos of our contrition
might trigger a long lost compassion, warming the breast
like a bright orange ball, full of sun
shivering in the coolness of our embrace

is this the peace we're aching for
savoring the crumbs, the poor of the world?



awaiting liberation

who'd say it
who'd spit that word "liar" out
clenched behind false teeth

biting themselves to avoid release

for it is a lie
spoken with such grace and deliberation
that the detractors fool by the trembling in their throats

what assurance!

i am betrayed
and sulk like soaked peas waiting to the thrown into the pot
a pris'ner of incompetent words and thoughts

a diagram of dismembered smarts

words were said
their stiletto-style stuck to subjects without verbs
incomparable sounds against truth

but it's truth i desire

that longs for freedom now
bound in the  throats of liars
diverting it to the killing fields

where the lovers of death yet dwell

zombies fixed on harm and  shame
and the burden of gross falsification
while here i lay

a bound body

sweating beneath the heat of breath
filled with untruths that slay with skill
awaiting the liberation that truth would bring

even though in prison i die

*Each day is only itself and I can't make it other than what it is.

*All out God-talk doesn't mean we are God-imbued or God-focused because God can still be used as a gun to keep people in line or be eliminated as we envision they should.

Art ain't about paint.  Art ain't about canvas.  It's about ideas.  Too many people died without ever getting their mind out to the world.
-Thornton Dial, Outsider artist

Slavery was an insult to dignity because it arguably obliterated persons: it erased them from the space of value.  This is not only wrong, but vile.  Only once we begin to internalize the meaning of this have we made a start.
                                                                                                                                           -Remy Debes

*It's not the date of my death that's important.  What's important is the quality of my living, what I take to death with me.



Gaps & Hushes

When...

And there  is...

You begin to wonder...

Bombs are falling...

People running...

Sirens wailing...

It's a nightmare...

The president has fled
and his households flown
and the congress sits
frozen...

I can't believe it...

What are we to do...

Where are we to go...

I...

I can't believe it...

The horror of it all...

Is this...

I'm not ready...

I must get to the store...

The children at school...

I don't under...st...

Awe-full...

I can't believe...

I don't believe
the horror of it all

Violated Bones

The trailing exhaust
that covered him in its haze
one brisk autumn morn
was a convenient screen

He dashed across the street
where care's absent need
scoured the street with eyes
long deprived of love

He hungered for care
searching for eyes to heal him
touch him with a savior's glance
bind his face in a smile

Not much, just a touch
a friendly glance, without the lust
that need and that alone
would soothe his aching and violated bones

the new new

there is...or there was
whatever we thought was going to be
but...didn't work
nor mature
cause the world has changed...is changing
is different than what we were forcing it to be
cause life was growing larger than what was
larger than the dolls we dressed
grander that what the rich regret

all's changing...avidly, rapidly

shifting the minds of international idealists
seeding the wombs of a million minds blooming
with dreams beyond reason
with hopes borne deeply
with loves un-thought by regions gone greedy;
for something unknown in a world now creating
the hungry future birthing as it peeks

we look at danger and we laugh our heads off
                 -saying on a Congolese tee shirt



crawl through your cross
wait for Easter
a poem will greet you on the Way
listen to its music
dance like a baby
Adam will catch you
when you fall

don't panic
it's been entered before
hug it like a favored toy

it is your face
your face that draws
and i yearn to touch it
then you
all of you
as if a magnet
pulling me to steel
melting into passion
burning love

*The distance is nothing; it's only the first step that is difficult.
                                                                 -Madame du Deffand

*What's important in life is not to become some body but to know and be ones self.

WHAT TALES ARE SPREAD
AMONG US AND THEM
THAT CAUSE FEAR AND TRUTH
TO MEET AND KISS
THEN SAY FAREWELL
TO ALL THOSE GATHERED FOR ONCE?

More than ever, we will need to constantly keep in mind that memory, like liberty, is a frightening thing.

-Elizabeth Loftus

...like words we don't remember

like deeds we quickly forget

like lost catastrophes in a sunken ship

down beneath memories of a trawling tug:

don't know what to think

don't know what to say

when the ghosts of the past

slide through the mem'ries of the silent crowd

where mothers stare at the eyes of those they bear

peering through the flesh of their burdened wombs

when fathers walk by, trudging to the tombs

don't know, don't know

just don't know words to verb

as the coffins wobble past

when Time recalls discarded deeds

that summoned all these deaths

as we pass upon the burdened paths 

weighted with our hardened sins

like words we don't remember

for deeds we quickly forget

blue taffeta

covering herself neath blue taffeta
laying upon her quilted bed
she dreamt  herself a Mary
a virgin announced by God

but no Gabriel stood beside her
to view her available or decide
so she shivered herself into a tsunami
till common-sense reoccupied her mind


Old sperm

I see my sperm laying still upon stale urine
and I know that I am old

They longed to live like beer foam
fluffing up for something more

I stare at their attempt to maintain hope
then flush them away toward shore

THE SEARCH FOR SOMETHING MORE

The search for something more
in senses not sensing,
only teased toward sensation,
the cover of The More,
the spiritual divine
clawing for an opening
from the inside (soul),
out of the heart
through what matters
of body parts and being
for exposing God,
to a world unsure,
in denial, in denial
that the more is at home,
one's home gnawing
to break though the cage
where The More is engaged.

*The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence: we are spineless and cannot stand straight.
             -Ai Weiwei

*Art is a lie whose secret ingredient is truth.
                                                -Ian Leslie

i.

broken, battered, clawing with delight
for righteous retribution and murderous revenge
in the name of peace, in the name of law,
in the name of order and and the name of God!

paining with sin, of Cain's, of Abel's,
of Adam's, of Eve's, for theirs and ours,
wreaked upon us In the name of justice,
being punished for what supposedly happened!

those God loves, he beats,
whips them into shape, the shape of his son;
with each crucifixion, new ones arise,
ushering one to hell and back again.

rough riding along the salvational trail
of waterless gullies and hot chaparrals
where struggles fester and weak ones fail
trying to be god instead of Man:

is this the agony, the struggle to be other
when all one can be in life is human
with a bit of grace and help from God,
invisible but felt beneath a baptismal gown

over which waters flowed amidst protest
while adults snickered, shooting film
as you squirmed for space and the Breath of Life?
is this the agony all must face?

ii

i feel the soundless plea from mouths agape
pressing both sky and barren ground
and someone bleeding their haggard blood,
their scars puffed up with puss and pain.

when, o when will the Soundless be heard?
when will Gilead's balm heal our ears?

empty words

words,words, words: empty words
worms from a mouth, stirring dust
crawling about in hollow heads

they long for someone edible
someone to feed a bored life
whose soul longs for revelation

for tidings beyond fortune cookies
for maxims bubbling with spirit
for conversations hungering for meat.

it's dangerous

it's dangerous.  it's dangerous
the kiss is dangerous.

his lips.  my hair.
his body.  my care.

what am i to do?

i brush back my hair
and leaning, trembling,
bend toward his lips.

touch his thigh.  my breasts,
our breath, aching.

we hug.  we tilt.
cuddling, we melt.

how i crave this danger.
feeds my flesh. all wet.

moist and sweet.
hot.  a treat.

dangerous.
the kiss is dangerous.

*Human nature: the beautiful face with the ugly scars.

*Whatever remains unconscious emerges as fate.
                                                         -Carl Jung

I know you, Black-Boy,
corn-rolled, 'froed or skinhead.
I know you when I spot you,
some thing to distract you,
draw you from your insides
where ghosts stir pinwheels of questions.
You wonder if we notice,
catch the girl eking from you,
see you as cotton candy.

I know you, Black-Boy,
when Fear, 'neath dungeon stairwells,
chains and strangles your spirit,
binding you to turmoil.
You'd cry a storm with thunder
if Empathy would hug you.
Then, Springtime would be words, affirming,
and sunshine, a beam from your mouth.

I know you, Black-Boy,
in your cautious steps toward homeland,
to the door of Truth cracked open,
setting your questions free.

*(Humankind) had determined to know good as evil; there could be but one perfect remedy for that-to know the evil of the past itself as good, and to be free from the necessity of the knowledge of evil in the future; to find right knowledge and perfect freedom together; to know all things as occasions of love.
                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                     -Charles Williams

black flight

i should take you away

away

away

but to where should we go:

to Frederick Place replaced

gentrified

sealed;

follow the crowd

escape with them to the suburban-haven

old but safer than the graves we left behind?

i should take you away

but we'd return from whence we fled

cause the cycles of displacement

will bring us here again

*Good Gospel is good psychology.