Sopa Strike

I couldn't get the link-in to the Sopa Strike to work on my blog - so I have pasted up the black banner used by some websites and The Oatmeal's black-out page to show I am participating in the strike against SOPA which I suppose in itself could be construed as an act of piracy...



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Feeling Creative Lately?

Like they say, life looses its mystery when you're hungry and it's hard to be fancy free when you're footloose and it's winter and being without a home was not by choice. You see people enduring this every day. It troubles you and you can't forget about it when you turn your hand to your work. Fantasy still has its allure because it's cheap but you fantasize about turning the heat on full blast and to hell with the bill. Appreciation of the Theatre of the Absurd was never more appropriate though it's hardly light reading and your mind is absent. You find focus by cataloging life's inequalities, the more recent the better. Your dreams rarely soar and you are suffering a materialistic bent so that when you search for beauty in the humans around you, you suspect it's being concealed in the possessions and lifestyles which others hoard, the greedy bastards. Furthermore, the most accessible of all beauties, Nature, is being diminished every passing second through human machinations. You find comfort in the recognition that more and more people are loosing hope because validation is a comfort, of sorts. Then, as if that isn't bad enough, mainstream media streams through your life in amnesic inducing wave after wave after wave, each leaving in its wake a stagnant setting, a saturated environment where only the likes of ignorance and idiocy can find bliss...you have been sucked in and if you are not blocked off, your work either looks to you like a Hallmark greeting card or you have been 'getting involved' by writing stuff that increasingly resembles the rants of a madman...woman...

So what do you do? You tell yourself that some of the world's finest inventions, works of art, literature, music have been created under worse conditions than these - be they in reaction to, or in tribute to, in defiance of, or seeking refuge from...so what? You know this. This doesn't help...but at the very least, the creative works of these people are more deserving of attention than the destructive psycho...no, I haven't found a solution. I'm still caught up in the problem, but I'm not giving up. 

Drumpath

Drums beat steady

one upon another

not far beyond

a stone's throw away.

You wade into the river

and lie down

in its mossy shallows

the floating green

curls and shapes around you

like smoke

your thoughts fall

into the haze
dreams fill the places

your thoughts

have been.

They are just as vague.

Drums beat steady

one upon another

not far beyond

a heart's beat away

Drums beat steady

one upon another
true memory follows 

the path of dreams.

(in loving memory of Bryan Osper)

Trees' Roots

each tear a story tells
every tree the story knows...

Lean your head against 

a tree to cry

 and know

trees' roots go far down

and take your tears

to all the waters

that carry all the stories

and tell them back again

so as to know

you do not cry alone.

Self Adorned

I was once a rock embedded in stone.

Now, I wear rocks on my fingers

with the help of metal

pounded thin

in the hollow shape of a ring.

This one isn't heavy, that I notice.

It matches the solidity of my bones

the rock does. The metal 

bends and wraps around my finger

now that I've embedded 

a rock within its coil,

polished as a precious stone.

The Fool

Oh, you fool

Magician's Robe

is it a cloak, a veil, or a shroud

or simply a likeness

of that which was

drawn before

...

Pride in the Wind

Wind blows readily through the broken windowpane.

The curtain stands back from its gaze upon the shadows

its own lacy pattern makes upon the moon

because the moon

is high and big and yellow, pale yellow,

and perfectly round.

Broken bits of glass have been picked out of the wooden molding

so no one can tell at a glance the window needs mending.

At night, on a night like tonight, the curtain

puffs in and out the broken window.

 If one were not proud one could board it up

at least on a night like tonight,

 the wind is cold,

or tack up an old blanket

but it isn't done.

They pull on knitted caps. Push the bed away from the window.

Climb onto its high wooden frame under blankets,

many wool blankets, and watch the wind

back and forth

 cradle the moon

back and forth

in its lace covered arms.