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Two Arrows
The first arrow being some current ailment
The second arrow being directed at the unknown
cause and reason for the first and concern
for its future course Know that one arrow
alone is more than sufficient in that
it was fired by other than myself
The second would be launched by me
were I to choose to do so Don’t
- Ed Coletti
What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?
What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born?
What if the story of America is one long labor?
What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind us now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, detentions and political assault?
What if they are whispering in our ears “You are brave”?
What if this is our nation’s greatest transition?
What does the midwife tell us to do?
BREATHE
And then?
PUSH!
- Valerie Kaur
Of course, on our duality plane much will depend on our interpretation of "PUSH"....
Hope for most it means letting in new Life that sparks our Vision and our Intention to bring more love, peace, joy to all... a reminder of our Truest Selves and our greatest potential....
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The summer fires of aught eighteen
How terrible the acrid air,
how terrible the summer fires
of aught eighteen—
yet, what incredible beauty is there
in the muted, late summer sun,
casting a magenta-tinted light
upon the structure I gaze at
each afternoon, sitting in my garden—
this giant white oak—
upon the column-like limbs,
stretching skyward,
whose light beige bark, now visible,
through openings among the leaves,
reflects an eerie, other worldly,
deep, pink patina—
as if the smoke-filled sky
were the rose window
of Chartres itself, at sunset—
and the fires then become
our own judgment day.
- Bill Denham
Smoldering
I’m on the street
where you took me
in a summer of wildfires
we’d dined on red meat and
a white sickle moon
cut into the dark
illuminating our innocence
it was simple at first
we found pleasure with
fingers searching for skin
beneath our clothes
you fragrant of dog
apricots and brine
our nails driving in and Hello
our mouths and tongues
tasting love
we mined each other tenderly
in the heat
our long limbs paused to stand
when we couldn’t
a handy chain link fence
helped us push closer
into a mystery
melting us
into something else
brightening our path
of embers
into gold.
- Danielle Bryant
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
- W.S. Merwin
Zen Lunatics (a term coined by Jack Kerouac)
Even in 1954 Kerouac Jack had the knack of knowing that a spirited Zen
pack would one day emerge and finally tear wide open the star-spangled
puritanical gunnysack that was strangling the American promise. It’s our
calling through outrageous tacks and random acts to bring down those
heat-seeking missile epistles that deny all who display any figment of dark
pigment, a face too tannish or an accent too Spanish.
Yes I’ve had the good fortune to hang with such a gang of jacks, of kings
with spades, and clubs that transform into talking sticks for Zen lunatics with
bright diamonds and open hearts, that make an end run around a ten-ton
anchor of the putrid civil rancor and then fly into an end zone far beyond
what’s known . . . or owned . . . or cloned . . . towards a different way, where
there exists a gateway of genius and justice, adorned by crimson roses, a wide
welcoming gateway, that never closes.
- Bruce Silverman
God In Drag
A star-studded night sky...
Mountains blanketed in fresh falling powder...
Meadows splash with brilliant wildflowers...
The mating call of a bugling elk...
The cacophony of song and sound of birds at dawn...
Baby elephants cavorting with delight...
The intoxicating fragrance of a stargazing Lily...
Peacocks with feathers and full fan...
God in drag, all.
- Kristal Parks
the yo-yo
her mind rolls back to 1953
the year she wrote the poem
for the McKinley Magpie
she was learning tricks with
the Duncan yo-yo
its string looped loosely
around a thin wooden spindle
slip knot around her middle finger
just enough slack in the string
wooden dowel spinning
she learned to walk the dog
rolling the Duncan yo-yo
across the floor
an inch a foot
yanking it back up
up and down
rolling and yanking
she learned another trick that year
grabbing the string in two places
swinging the Duncan yo-yo between the cradle supports
rocking the baby to sleep
back and forth
wooden dowel spinning
yanking it back up again
up and down
though she tried to control it
the yo-yo had a mind of its own
defying gravity
defying order
she wrote about polarities that year
for her elementary school newsletter
the McKinley Magpie
her poem was about fire
how it was our friend and warmed us
how it was our enemy could kill us
at eight years old she liked extremes
she wrote about water
then about salt
but those poems
of too much and not enough
were mere copycats
the fire poem was selected for
the McKinley Magpie
could she have foreseen how
decades later
the yo-yo would become fire
up with its crimson flames licking the sky
down with blackening trees and chimneys
rolling and rocking
and crackling too
defying gravity
defying order
way too hot for the McKinley Magpie
way out of control
she searches for homes now
wandering up and down streets
after the firestorm
which did not kill her
it didn’t warm her either
maybe if the Magpie
had spread the word about
water and salt
the yo-yo would have become ocean
she rocks forward now
quenched and bobbing
rising and sinking
up and down
without a spindle
or a cradle or
a slipknot around an anchor
- sharon bard
another dark love
the climate is changing, seasons
rearranging, the specter of venus haunts
hydrocarbon dreams. no one believes
the disaster of 4-6 º centigrade, the apocalypse
of a few drowned cities.
we all know how much worse.
the savviest liberal is hardly more realistic
than the bible capitalist.
we scurry like denial ants, each with our
destined grain of sand.
& yet the breath of earth stirs us.
the winds of trees penetrate the gossamer
of unending connection. engineer to grub
to crab grass to mackerel to bread mold to
melting icicle to water rounded stone.
there is a voice singing inside every.
there is a hearing within the vast deafness.
aberrant cells in the sweet earth body,
we bend & shudder to some collective immune
response that calls us back, calls us.
greed is not the inner nature of any human being,
nor any kind of being. shark & wolverine
& kudzu vine are more complex, ambiguous.
even the corporate ceo fracking us to hell
is a patchwork story with unpredictable twists.
the sun doesn’t feel so warm now as threatening.
what happened to double hung windows & a thousand
clever passive devices lost to witness technology?
screw the supply side. whittle the demand to
so little even a caddis fly is cradled.
she is calling, she is calling. maple winds &
supersized hurricane waves become symphonic.
someday the dance teacher will no longer strike
the iridescent wings of a wandering fly. the oil magnate
will protect tar sands flora with his life.
all the things we have to have
become a joke, obscene but easily forgotten.
to touch lichen growing on bark brings us to our knees,
worshipping & awed. glaciers can grow again,
only one venus circling our sun.
- Sandy Eastoak
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...1_14-14-23.png
Barking
The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn't die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.
- Jim Harrison
True or False
Real emeralds are worth more than synthetics
but the only way to tell one from the other
is to heat them to a stated temperature,
then tap. When it’s done properly
the real one shatters.
I have no emeralds.
I was told this about them by a woman
who said someone had told her. True or false,
I have held my own palmful of bright breakage
from a truth too late. I know the principle.
- John Ciardi
Inversnaid
This dark handsome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O, let them be left, the wildness and wet.
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
Imagining
What if God isnʼt a noun
to be empowered and worshiped
but a verb of creation
powered by love?
What if every single tree
drawn in primary school
is a sacred work of art
worthy of joyful notice?
What if our lives are built
on a web of kindness,
a net,
which holds everything living.
What if the rocks are alive
singing strength and courage;
vibrating
from our feet right up to our heart?
What if we loved ourselves
as deeply as the mountain
who,
caressed by water,
surrenders herself
into sand?
What if our most loved,
intra-national pastime
is a game of entertainment
where we all win?
What if no one aspired
to be a millionaire
and money no longer had power
but was simply a means of tender-ness.
What if transforming our world
by imagining it
can
actually make it happen?
- Deborah Rodney
Shirt
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band
Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze
At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes--
The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out
Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.
A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once
He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers--
Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt
ballooning."
Wonderful how the patern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked
Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans
Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of
Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,
Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
to wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,
The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the
sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:
George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit
And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the
characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.
- Robert Pinsky
Late Ripeness
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
- Czeslaw Milosz
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Giving Myself Up
I give up my eyes which are glass eggs.
I give up my tongue.
I give up my mouth which is the constant dream of my tongue.
I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice.
I give up my heart which is a burning apple.
I give up my lungs which are trees that have never seen the moon.
I give up my smell which is that of a stone traveling through rain.
I give up my hands which are ten wishes.
I give up my arms which have wanted to leave me anyway.
I give up my legs which are lovers only at night.
I give up my buttocks which are the moons of childhood.
I give up my penis which whispers encouragement to my thighs.
I give up my clothes which are walls that blow in the wind
and I give up the ghost that lives in them.
I give up. I give up.
And you will have none of it because already I am beginning
again without anything.
- Mark Strand
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Democracy
It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that it ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall,
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the sorrow on the street
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of G-d in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
that the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming to the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
I'm sentimental if you know what I mean:
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
- Leonard Cohen
Imagining
What if God isnʼt a noun
to be empowered and worshiped
but a verb of creation
powered by love?
What if every single tree
drawn in primary school
is a sacred work of art
worthy of joyful notice?
What if our lives are built
on a web of kindness,
a net,
which holds everything living.
What if the rocks are alive
singing strength and courage;
vibrating
from our feet right up to our heart?
What if we loved ourselves
as deeply as the mountain
who,
caressed by water,
surrenders herself
into sand?
What if our most loved,
intra-national pastime
is a game of entertainment
where we all win?
What if no one aspired
to be a millionaire
and money no longer had power
but was simply a means of tender-ness.
What if transforming our world
by imagining it
can
actually make it happen?
- Deborah Rodney
Prisoners Cinema with Saints Catherine and Lucy
“Prisoner’s cinema” is the term given to visual hallucinations reported by prisoners confined to dark cells and by others kept in darkness for long periods of time.
Lit by a million specks of light,
all your dust turns holy.
What’s rotten in you burns
and burns. You, a shadow-
you, gone glowing
Catherine wheel, a spoked
gloaming. You know lead can lodge
into an animal’s skull, turn
the skull into a lit temple
of its wanderings, and this is how
you understand the fabled bowl
a saint carries, its hollow lit
by the eyes it cradles and the saint
eyeless and God-filled. You are not
eyeless and God is nowhere
to witness how you become
the wheel and the body it breaks,
a spectacle of light you cannot fathom
until you fathom it—flooded
as you are with shadow, darkness
taut as an animal’s shank
until it ripples at your touch. Pools
in the bowl your hands make.
Then breaks.
- Susannah Nevison
The Signings
Lies can be charismatic, the truth is cloudy,
With its traditional testing place a body.
I cross my heart and hope to die. The breath,
One hand on the book, one raised, exhales the oath.
The bully making a club of the victim’s hand,
“You hit yourself”: Falsehood asserts Command.
Mortgage papers declare and hereby pledge
That money is money. Sign here, page after page.
The President holds up for the camera’s eye
A paper with his signature, two inches high.
Times when he lied or cheated, the Director
Made longhand notes. Now the Director’s an author
On a bookstore tour. He produced his clunky book
Himself. No ghost. In a defensive joke
At signings a writer I know likes to set up
A jar he labels “For Tips”: wry overlap
Of Truth, Marketing and Art. Any collector
Knows to pay less for copies with a signed sticker
Than one with its title page directly signed:
Authentic, true. But on the other hand,
Inscribed to someone’s name is somehow worth less
Than simply Signed, out here in the marketplace —
But why? The blemish of the particular?
Or truth too a commodity? Flailing for air.
- Robert Pinsky
(Listen to Pinsky read it himself: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...d1#pg-benfolds)
Attack
My wife is 25 years younger than I.
Whenever a man grins at me
and says "Way to go,"
I want to smash my fist into his face.
Yesterday our much-loved dog died.
My wife took our shovel
and dug a 4-foot wide
2 1/2-foot deep
grave in our garden.
After my father died
I kept feeling a gun
tucked under my belt
at the back of my pants.
I hoped I would find someone
who would make me say
"Go ahead
and make my day."
Dulcy said that death
can sometimes feel
like an attack.
If someone looked at my wife
in our dog's grave,
and winked at me,
I would want to take her shovel
and crush his head.
- Trout Black
True Colors
“Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.”
~ Robert Frost
As trees prepare for winter
fall colors pour
into my eyes
Lush true colors
long hidden under green
call to my soul
Soft voices of colors
blown on the wind say
“Remember me, I’ll soon be gone.”
As I approach my own certain winter
what colors long hidden
will I reveal
Can I be like the leaves
radiantly shine for a time
then quietly fall away
Why not
- Doug von Koss
September
September first comes round in my cold knees.
In voices from the next room, and the body
radiant from a shower.
September comes with the tinnitus of country silence,
the blue bay that keeps things still.
The uselessness of success in spiritual practice
seems lasting. But that’s such a weak account
of the even weaker failure of weakness.
For the fact is if I can’t offer half an hour
to the One who gave me life…
if I can’t listen for even half an hour for Him…
if I can’t offer the One a half hour of gratitude for that…
then immodesty has no limit.
You hear what I am saying, I know.
I am not someone who so treasures his every mood
that he must thrust each precious slice into you,
and I don’t feel bad at all here. I feel good.
Because I know you’re listening.
Maybe.
May Be. The mediation, the message, is:
the embryo of glee.
In September it starts to stir.
Before the end – just watch it –
it wants to be born,
once more.
- Bruce Moody
Mr. Peepers
They’re public punching bags
But someone’s gotta do it
It’s not so sexy, the procedure or the truth
I say God bless the bureaucrat and the lawyer, too.
The House Intelligence Committee piles on
They’d love to know what Rosenstein has on the boss
But it’s just for cameras, yeah, it’s just a show of force
Y’all know he can’t comply
But that’s the point, of course
So they call him Mister Peepers
As the thugs all smash his glasses
Going full Lord of the Flies
Burning this island down to ashes.
What’s the rule of law if we can’t agree on what a fact is?
There ain’t nothing here to see, folks, move along, move along
Thank God for facts.
They’re stubborn things indeed
But little cowboys will try cases on TV
It doesn’t make it so
Because you make believe.
You can’t lose in court and appeal on Hannity
The distinguished wrestler from Ohio
He’s free to lie, he’s not the one who’s under oath
The law don’t suit the boss
This Deputy must go
We got him in the locker room, boys
Start the show.
So they call him Mister Peepers
Send some thugs to smash his glasses.
If he’s gone and peeped the wrong thing
Then they’ll burn his name to ashes.
What’s the rule of law
If we can’t establish what a fact is?
There ain’t nothing here to see, folks, move along, ah move along
They say it dies in the dark
Right now, they’re trying to kill it in broad daylight
Can flashlights really fight bombs?
We’ll see.
Right now
You boys are Christians, right?
What would Jesus do?
Would he bury crimes and carry water like a stooge?
Or smear a family man in case he tells the truth
About the boss?
Yeah, what would Jesus do?
Would he call him Mister Peepers?
Send some thugs to smash his glasses?
The institution’s standing tall
Though we tried our best to trash it
Aren’t we all the keepers
Of this fragile young Republic?
And when all those Mister Peepers people fall…
Lord help us all.
- Ben Folds
The Man Born To Farming
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?
- Wendell Berry
Unsaid
So much of what we live goes on inside —
The diaries of grief, the tongue tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.
- Dana Gioia
Wild Heart
We say to our dog sit and she sits
We say good girl and she wags her tail
We tame our horses by breaking them
In the same way we tame our hearts
Behave we say, good boy
You shouldn’t say that, good girl
We say over and over, I am good
When a part of us believes I’ve been bad
Each belief is a whip to our flanks
Breaking our spirit
Cracking our hearts over and over
You ask forgiveness to others for the gossip,
Indifference and harm you caused them
You forget to ask forgiveness
For your critical self-slander,
The indifference and harm you cause yourself
By not listening to the still small voice within
Stop breaking your wild pony of a heart
Instead say to your good girl and good boy
I’m sorry
This year turn towards that brokenness
See it anew
Look beyond the broken latches and shards of glass
Created by your own sorrow
See openness
Climb through into the heart of your heart
To your untamed and uncivilized heart
Where the thrum of excitement and anticipation is loud
Enter your wild heart where thrives a teaming jungle of life
Monkeys howling with joy, swinging carefree above the
Grinning hyenas of shame, the ripping teeth of self-doubt
Here there are no civilized red lights
Here beyond brokenness only one light shines
The green light of love
Enter fully into the broken heart and you will find
Your whole, wild, untamed, uncivilized heart
Here there is only yes
Yes to love
Yes to life
Go deeply enough and you will remember
Your heart is the heart of the world
The world is the heart of God
- Sally Churgel
The Ode
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
- Arthur O’Shaughnessy
(1873)