Originally posted April 20th, 2014
Ankle boots; black dungarees; Sam Jones belt with cuffs and mace and other tools of the craft; bulletproof vest; sunglasses; implacable stare.
And a gun, holstered at the moment.
The nametag says “Ortiz” or it could be “Gomez” or “Gonzalez”
Or whatever you want it to be.
He’s standing in the parking lot
Guarding the bank where inside there must be more money than Mr. Ramirez will earn
In his lifetime.
The origin of all that he protects: Where did it come from? And then this is the part Mr. Garcia always returns to, like a reliable reading spot: What did all those people streaming through the doors
That he oversees and protects, how did they get it?
What did they do? What was their trick?
Besides being born here?
He . . . → Read More: Poem: How the Revolution Started (First in a Series)
Originally posted March 30th, 2014
whatever passes for Nature
in Hollywood,
I – which means you-me-we-us – you were doing what you always do on gentle mornings
cinematically sunlit from the back:
you were noticing. Walking and noticing
energy organizing in most attractive and repellent ways. Seeing a fraction of the all and, overwhelmed
by the majesty and the emptiness,
the majesty of the emptiness,
you sigh smile
stepping once more into the opposite of the abyss.
Earlier this morning you returned the phone message of
someone who calls you only when she wants something.
(She wanted something; you tried to be generous.)
Later today you’ll rendezvous with
someone who meets you only when he wants something.
(You will try to be generous.)
Now you’re at the stoplight, waiting to cross the Boulevard thrumming with the echoes of Kenyan feet.
Karmic accounting . . . → Read More: Poem: Better Angels
Originally posted March 22nd, 2014
inextricably entwined.
Without a brain there is no thinking,
no motoring of the mind.
Fret not about the end impending
when you suppose you’ll not be able
to kiss and laugh – oh, all the pleasures
almost justifies the pain.
Without a wound there is no succor,
unwelcome drought, cherished rain.
Call it fated, then call it luck, or
consign your dance to humble measures.
And loving oddly. And now
you see that when the playing concludes
what’s left is not about how
or when you tamed unbearable moods.
No. Embrace your death – and life – proudly.
Originally posted March 21st, 2014
When we make contact
with the extraterrestrials, the Aliens as they’re called – the Other in its most foreign form –
when we do, what do you think will happen?
What will you feel?
Relief? Fear? Bewilderment? Ecstasy?
Will they be exactly like us, much improved? Or – and this seems more likely – will they
be nothing like us, magically so?
Who will be more intelligent? More evolved? Who will have
figured out the mystery of the universe most fully?
Could it be us? Would that make you happy or sad?
Will black holes and fifteenth dimensions and all that’s sublime and inscrutable
become known and understood?
Would that make life better or worse for you?
When we make contact with whoever is out there,
anything could happen.
Anything might happen.
And though we can’t quite yet hear their calls across the galaxies, maybe that’s . . . → Read More: Poem: When We Make Contact
Originally posted March 20th, 2014
a bit premature for a fellow not quite ready,
I should like to look backward
on the imaginary continuum of then and now.
How marvelous it would be
to gaze beneficently
upon my childhood,
smiling
and maybe weeping softly
at all that’s been lost.
We called it the Court. Forty yards of hard-packed grass.
A giant elm was one goalpost, and a shorter piney thing was the other
and there was an asphalt ring around it
for racing and chasing
and we spent our childhoods there,
inventing games, skinning elbows, making friends, running away and running back
being boys
unable to imagine we would one day miss it all terribly,
as though it were dead,
as though it weren’t still there,
where it’s always been.
. . . → Read More: Poem: Nostalgia
Originally posted March 19th, 2014
behaved with an absence of cool
failed to set a good example for her precious offspring
neglected to teach them the importance of thinking
about others
as though they were sisters or brothers
not competitors at a shrinking trough
she was at that moment a suckling sow
and knowing that this was known and henceforth always would be
by those who had seen her dereliction of parental duty
she lashed out at the one most aware
of her pugnacious absence of care
yelling almost screaming but not from sheer bliss
instructing onlookers to mind their own business.
Originally posted March 18th, 2014
said: “The three words that define Los Angeles are
Why Not Me?”
The correct question, as any enlightened person could tell you –
and probably would if given an opportunity
no matter how slender or conversationally tenuous, like a run-on sentence in an increasingly ponderous poem – the correct question, of course, is
“Why Me?”
Why have I been so extravagantly blessed with every single thing I have and
don’t have?
Originally posted March 17th, 2014
On the dark?
All right.
I’ll say it again: All right.
All right. You know it’s gonna be
all right.
Everything is gonna be all right
even when it’s not.
And that includes you, fool.
Perfectly imperfect worry machine,
forgetting to clean
behind the scene, where we find your centrum, the magic locus,
the secret room where you choose to focus
on the one or the other, the either or the or,
the acceptance of less or the addiction to more,
the sympathetic fight or flight,
the brooding darkness and the eternal light.
Where you want to put it, fool?
On the light?
All right.
Yes. All right.
Originally posted March 16th, 2014
While you sit in a chair
Pay this person less than their labor is worth
Add value to their labor by doing clever things
Such as advertising and storytelling
Conjure fantastical tales of how beneficial and sexy it would be to drink
South Pacific water shipped across the ocean
Arriving like salvation
Making the drinker’s life altogether better and certainly more sophisticated than
The average tap-slurping worker type
Who made the plastic bottle and put the liquid inside and carried it to a truck
Unloading it and loading it and unloading it until
Something that started out being free
Now magically costs several dollars
Because you have to pay for quality
Stories
Originally posted March 15th, 2014
The higher the thread count the better the suit.
Extraneous issues pretend to be moot.
But inside our dreams they squawk and they hoot.
Now you want to challenge me?
Pay the fee? Catastrophe
of misunderstanding and misoversitting
of petty hair-splitting and imprecise fitting –
it’s coming our way like a tropical storm
heaving and howling and breaking the norm
the usual form
once hot now warm
dispensed with gleefully, wistfully, fitfully, cheerfully.
Knowing the new means knowing the free
means knowing you’re part of the air and the sea
and everything then and all that will be
means knowing that you are actually me.
Thought Of The Week Poem: How the Revolution Started (First in a Series) Orginally posted on April 20, 2014
He’s outfitted for combat:
Ankle boots; black dungarees; Sam Jones belt with cuffs and mace and other tools of the craft; bulletproof vest; sunglasses; implacable stare.
And a gun, holstered at the moment.
The nametag says “Ortiz” or it could be “Gomez” or “Gonzalez”
Or whatever you want it to be.
He’s standing in the parking lot
Guarding the bank where inside there must be more money than Mr. Ramirez will earn
In his lifetime….
Read More-->
Recent Thoughts
Generosity Generosity makes everyone involved feel good. Both the recipient and the giver derive pleasure from the act of sharing, albeit in different ways. (It’s better to give than to receive?) Generosity is one of the easiest ways to instantly manifest joy, to create what’s commonly understood as “good energy.”
We…
We’re No (April) Fools In the spirit of light-hearted playfulness of April Fools Day, the Los Angeles Times tried to pull one over on their (dwindling) readership. But the cleverest among us realized their ruse, and instead of feeling perplexed and outraged we enjoyed a hearty chuckle. All in good fun!
The April 1,…
Poem: Better Angels Out on errands, out on foot seeing and breathing
whatever passes for Nature
in Hollywood,
I – which means you-me-we-us – you were doing what you always do on gentle mornings
cinematically sunlit from the back:
you were noticing. Walking and noticing
energy organizing in most attractive and repellent ways….
Honestly Folks who begin sentences about themselves with the word “honestly” are subtly implying that there are times, perhaps many times – this particular time when they’re talking to you being an exception, of course – when they’re not honest. That’s why they’re prefacing their personal revelation with a qualifier, a…
Poem: On Watching a Bee Expire in the Garden Death and life are interchangeable,
inextricably entwined.
Without a brain there is no thinking,
no motoring of the mind.
Fret not about the end impending
when you suppose you’ll not be able
to kiss and laugh – oh, all the pleasures
almost justifies the pain.
Without a wound there…
New Discoveries The North Orginally posted on April 22, 2014
The descriptor “easy listening” connotes saccharine elevator music, and “goes down easy” suggests diluted medicine. The debut album from The North, a Brooklyn-based piano trio, is called “Slow Down, This Isn’t the Mainland,” and the entire recording is indeed easy like Sunday morning and smooth as a polished seashell. But there’s nothing insipid or cloying; [...]
