i will not promise hate

Prickles soft and wet fill the sky. The hazy mist soaking my clothes making me shiver clear to my bones. All around me the moisture clings as the last survivors pushing to take the morning fight. They will not cower. And I fear they will not fail. Below it all I sit letting my drenched self be forever grateful that nature won’t let the propaganda kill the great orb of the sky. For if it could I would freeze. I would die. But here I sit, my grave below; my chair teetering the edge; my arms flailing for the currency of earth; from my lungs I cry, “bless you sun. Bless you earth. Bless you grass stains streaking my jeans. Bring your heat. Bring your soul. Bring the touch of your ever delicate hand. For you my love will not waiver.” Yet, through the wind, to my heart, the picketed cold screams louder than my voice can bare making the winter stay.

number 465

The fire drawing a line across me parting my body, picketing my soul, so that only my blood dares cross. Who is watching to see if that blood stops sharing its life with both sides of the line. No one. Alone I stand feeling my insides drain. Against my skin the wind pricks raising goose bumps along my surface. How will I live? How will I die? From both I crave those lights that flicker from tree tips to roof tops. And in my final moments the breach between memories come gathering in bursts rather than sequence. I see the witnesses in the room scolding me, my king throwing me from his lap because I race a train across his chest. Notes from napkin used for when words when anger is slapped against my brother’s face. I see games being played in the fragmented bits of my yard. Games my adult self shuns to remember. A fly buzzing killing more of me than I thought it should. Cloak and dagger. In and out. My mother pushing me into a stream; the chill threatening death nearer to me. And yet from the cushion of cliffs my mind rests thinking of the lights flickering in the dark, casting shadows that forever change. Why must this be the last for me? My keepsakes signed, rotted away. One last onset. Interposed with the queen, and I cannot see to see.

there is no color in misery

The wind rising, blowing; a gust swirling, lifting above the trees. From branches hidden inside the belly of pines cloaked in needles, the voices of birds painted blue, green, red, echoed through the air. Their songs lifted, dancing in the wind. While others were left abandoned, forgotten; to spin, twist and die on the bark where they were birthed from. The wind carrying the songs, mingling them in its flurry. Rising. Higher. Higher. And higher. The wind parting clouds. Its soul filled with all the noise contained within the fabric of the world. Its own form screaming its urge, raising its fists to the ceiling of time. "Freedom," it cried. Seconds later its face smashed against glass. Its billows following behind crushing its breath. From its heart the chirp of a thousand voices pried free. Each drifting away dying like their brothers once contained within trees. From the glass drips fell, clear blood seeping to streaks, collecting in patterns, droplets sliding, tumbling as rain to the earth below.

my mind has changed

I read a story once about a white man and a red man. The story was staged back before cell phones, electricity, and even indoor plumbing. Both the red man and the white man stood together on the bank of a river early in the morning while the fish still jumped for bugs. The red man in a loin cloth. The white man in a soldier’s uniform. From his pocket the white drew out a handkerchief to clean his nasal passages, while the red man clogged one nostril and shot his boogers into the grass of the field. In response to the difference between the two men, the red man said, “you white men save everything don't you?”

We do save everything. And it is a shame that we collect and store pieces of life that aren’t really ours to begin with. And the poor beasts with chains around their necks, why must we enslave them? How many of them have we killed to make us kings and queens? The world wasn’t made to be owned. It was made to be free. It was made to be wild. But here we live taming it, breaking it for our submission. Break free young grasshopper. Charge with the north wind. Ride upon the tsunami that refuses to yield. I am not your master.

score one for justice

Let’s all celebrate because I'm mad at this guy, so I'm going to break that guy's stuff. Even though the guy I am mad at doesn’t even know me, and I don't even know him. But he did hurt someone who lived in a neighborhood a lot like mine. And the kid he shot did happen to rob a place beating someone up in the process. And instead of mentioning that the kid that was shot happened to be stoned, let’s say that he was about to start college even though the kid was really just enrolled at a trade school. And let’s pretended, for a moment, that the kid who was shot happened to be a model citizen and that he really was minding his own business as he thrust his hands in the air screaming, “don't shoot.” Because if we pretend all this, we can also pretend that the guy who killed the kid is a gun wielding maniac, and we the helpless citizens should fear him. And armed with our fear we should fight him by burning to the ground the life's work of another guy.

Poetic justice I believe they call this.

from the outside

He sings as he flies. He sings as he sweeps. He sings as he lives the life of the downcast and trodden. You see he isn’t a bird like the others. He isn’t a raven or crow. He isn’t a cardinal, magpie, robin or sparrow. In fact none of birds who have taken the time to know him can even name him. They place him as separate, a bird meant for a different time, a different place, a different forest where the branches are not nearer to death than to life.

But this bird doesn’t heed them. He doesn’t listen or care. He presses his wings while there’s are ruffled. He dons beads to his feathers instead of the dirt and grime. And he sings his songs with a warmth as if someone other than he was meant to hear them.

From a distant land; from across the ocean; on the side of the world were skies are blue, another bird comes. He, too, doesn’t look like the other birds, and his songs are difficult to understand. But he hears the songs sung by the bird living his life in the dying forest. As he hears the songs of the bird, down cast and trodden, he recognizes the voice, the melodies, the harmony, the warmth. With a gentle brush of his feathers he takes the bird back to his land where the birds of his kind have built a pedestal for the voice of this one bird, downcast and trodden. 

For a time this one bird sings for them, selling out shows once, twice, thirty times. The birds of this land hear him. They cheer, and sing, and praise him. Throughout the forest all the birds sings his songs mimicking his voice the best they can. But after two years, three years, four the bird, downcast and trodden, takes fight giving only a promise to return.

With the world in front of him and with the world behind him, the bird, not quite as downcast and trodden, lands again below the trees of the dying forest, setting himself to sing his songs with a warmth that he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to be heard.

find meaning in that

I have a theory on thought, attitudes, opinions, and ideas. I call my theory the Whale Mentality. This entire theory of mine centers around the idea that the whale has no natural predators. The whale in every way is the master of its domain. No matter how bad the shark thinks it is, the whale dominates. Nothing swims faster. Nothing dives deeper. Nothing else can open its mouth and swallow whole populations of marine animals. And another little snit bit about this creature, with its eyes placed, oddly on opposite sides of its head its brain has developed the ability to see, focus, and interpret two difference images at once. The human brain in all its superiority would short circuit under such a proposition. In fact even in having two eyes and inputting to separate images, the human brain forces the two separate images into one fluid image that eliminates the gap that exists within our vision.

And yet, the whale does come with a flaw, a large flaw in fact. With no natural predators the whale has developed a sense of superiority. He can and does look at the world around him as his own person swimming tank. He doesn’t merge in traffic. He doesn’t step aside for old ladies to pass him. He mates where he want. He urinates wherever. Even when he is at his most vulnerable, sitting atop the ocean surface, he says, “I am going to breath my amount of times, and aint nobody going to stop me.” And in his statement lies his weakness. For as he is breathing the harpoon driving sailor saddles up beside him and thrusts his mighty spear through this creature’s skull, puncturing his brain. And if by chance the hunter misses his mark, the whale will not dive. He may swim off, but he will always pause long enough to resume his peaceful breathing; thus giving time for the hunter to retrieve and stab his spear once again. The crutch of the Whale Mentality: if the brute would just dive at the hunter’s first, second, or third appearance there would be no whale killings, no endangered beasts. But alas the Whale Mentality lives, and thrives, refusing to dive. It is sad really.