New Poem: You Are Not Here

You Are Not Here
***
town dump gulls, foraging
like Rio kids in a mound of garbage
looking for edible discards, and
"everybody's lookin' for a
free ride," shallow mockery cries
echo "get a job" = "work for free"
echo "protect & serve" = "neglect & sever,"
and even the gulls are crying,
dying for a seashore
without a high-rise.
still, hear
"quit givin' people handouts, and those
______s will have to
W.O.R.K." = Worry Overpay Rich Killers,
but
would you pay your tithes
if they weren't tax write-offs, or
would you crawl on the floor,
squall, bawl, and bemoan
that lousy 10%
that you didn't get to spend
on Lotto & Beer?
chickadee, chickadee in the trees,
backhoe-fart, no more trees,
so no more chickadees,
no more cock-a-doodle-doo
until the backhoe man goes home,
jacks off over internet porn
until his cock crows,
silently disdainful of the dreadlocks
and cornrows
of kids busted for spray-painting
a new Picasso
on a gray underpass, "Hi,
i'm a cop, and
i can kick your ass and
get a free pass
when i flash my badge."
and it's no need explainin'
that the ones who get paid for complainin'
on talk radio or teevee
look like the fattest gulls in the dump,
knee-jerk reflex action-figures
that aim kicks at anybody
bent over to scrounge nickels from the gutters
or half a sandwich from a garbage can
in the park
where "rummaging through rubbage"
is punishable by law,
you may have to pay a FINE, tee-hee,
from nonexistent funds
stolen from your wallet
by tax-cuts for the rich,
the wealthy Bible-thumpers
who've forgotten how to read
about the widow's great gift of 2 pennies
or the warning about serving Mammon.
for every white suburbian girl
who gets into a stranger's pick-up truck,
a thousand non-white non-suburbian kids
get written off as acceptable losses
in wars that are more about profit-margins
than about the boys * girls who die on foreign soil
to pave the way for those
to arrogant to fight & too rich to care . . .
and you are not here
and you are not seeing this
and you aren't to blame
and you aren't doing anything wrong,
and you aren't doing ANYTHING
and you are WRONG
and you ARE to blame
and you ARE seeing this
and you are HERE
right where the arrow points down
and nails your insignificant mortal speck
to the spot.

New Poem: Breaking Day

Breaking Day
***
poised, walking the ragged edges of the world
like a man standing in the bow of a ship
riding into a stormbrewed night.
calamity's hand strokes my forehead damply, feverishly;
dangers amply apply their pressure.
ever-present, the desire--like Simon Peter--
to boldly stride across the waters;
like him, my steps falter
when i look at the storm
and lose sight of my Father.

i could cry myself to sleep at night,
curled in my curdled blankets,
huddled against the haunted dawnlight
afraid to walk the streets in the face
of what's hunting me, terrified
of hurling feeble words in the face
of what's haunting me, unable
to describe in plain language the face
of what's hurting me . . . .

what use am i to God, to humanity,
scared to death in my tattered jeans,
clutching with desperation to ragged dreams,
ribbed as sails to tug my boat
from the grip of the undertow?

around me, jackals bow to a sacred cow,
a bull they both worship and hope to feast on,
the ancient golden calf given a different cast . . .
though scores of them have been torn
on the horns of their Master Dilemma,
the sight of blood only excites them,
delights them, whets their appetites, and
ushers in the next atrocity.

the towers i wander among are already doomed,
ever civilization ultimately ends up in ruins--
but that's a poor excuse for speeding up the process
and it may look like they're building an empire
but it will only amount to a funeral pyre . . .
aspirations and transitory glories lined up for their graves
followed shortly by fools who were their slaves . . .
we've plundered the Heavens, sundered the Earth,
measuring down to the molecules for material worth.

and, confronted by this,
i'm expected to speak the oracular in the vernacular,
to engrave the turbid air with measured beauty,
to blow away the smong, even briefly,
long enough to provide a glimpse of the Divine
that works often behind the scenes,
beyond the screens of tawdry mortal schemes--
put this into words? better words?
these thoughts, translated, would
tear the air itself to shreds,
and though i maintain it's a necessary art,
a survival skill,
i can make a map of my scars and show you
where words kill!
pray to God every drop of blood i spill
will be to deface the iconic mortal dreads
that the Master Manipulators maneuver like chesspieces
to keep their pawns in line.

swords of Spoken Word, warriors of the Last Frontier,
ragged kings in rugged garb
carrying white fire in Numenorean hearts,
we bear the brunt
of contemptuous tongues
who would silence us while we breathe,
and only speak well of us when we're gone,
safely in our graves, our words enslaved
in backwards-masking to sell blue jeans
and tennis shoes.

the gifts we carry are perilous fire,
tools to dismantle the status quo:
neglect them, and they become lead weights,
deadwood, hindering our steps,
dragging us down to the depths.
arm yourselves.
don't let your minds lie fallow.
don't quench the white flame.
RESIST,
not with fists thrust into the air,
not with guns, bullets, that are ignorant
of causes or purpose . . .
linked arm in arm, forge an unbreakable bond,
unshakeable faith, and march . . .
march . . .
march . . .
towards the dawn.
the breaking day will show clearly
which side we're standing on.

Pseudo-Rant: Paper Talks

Paper Talks
***
how many trees died
so you could send Valentines
to people you're romancing
this year, while
last year's garbage contains
the remains
of the cards you've discarded?
hemp
makes better paper, and
grows back faster
than a clear-cut forest
shipped to a paper mill--
but, back in the McCarthy Daze,
playing on "Reefer Madness," hemp
was made illegal,
and now the War on Drugs continues
the chant that cannabis is bad,
so we can't allow hemp to be grown.
if a tree falls in a forest
with lumberjacks, chainsaws, chippers,
and paper mills all around,
who knows if it makes a sound?
if walls could talk, imagine what paper
would say? the very pages
of my notebooks, crammed full, margin-to-margin,
so another tree doesn't have to fall
for my sake . . .
p.s.--human skin
makes good parchment (and lampshades),
and what remains
makes Soylent Green,
a rather extreme way of "going green."

Putting the X in Xmas: The Blasphemy of Mammon-Worship

Well, it's that time of year again. Time for us to be once again bombarded by advertisements tricked out in tinsel, offering layaway programs, special "deals" if you come into the store at the ass-crack of dawn, and various Christmas carols cunningly recalibrated into musical mantras for what Christmas is REALLY about in America . . . money. Mammon. You know, that thing that Jesus said you couldn't serve if you served God? I know some of you remember this. Maybe it's a good time of year to take a step back and see just how much we pay lip-service to this creed while many of us are sitting in the amen pew of Mammon's unholy cathedral.

First of all, i don't think there's any problem in giving gifts on Christmas. Especially since, the rest of the year, we're a bunch of penny-pinching cheapskates. Do you really need an excuse to give? Has generosity become so archaic that we're only going to honor it once a year, because it might be embarrassing if people did it all year long? And, of course, TRUE generosity doesn't earn dividends or turn a profit, so it's pretty much useless to your generic WASP suburbian family (it's one of the family values that gets skipped over by the pundits when they're pounding the pulpits to push their particular propaganda). Now, if you're reading this, and your hackles are raising, or you're squirming around a little in your seat, GOOD. I'm about to tell you exactly what is putting the "X" in "Xmas." And it's us.

Christmas, at least in theory, comes from the words "Christ's Mass." We can be relatively sure that Christ wasn't actually born in December . . . the time of year was chosen to coincide with certain pagan rituals (the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, etc.); theoretically, this was to make it easier for pagans to "transition" into Christian practices (what it produced instead, in many cases, was a synchretism that blended a lot of traditions). Nonetheless, if you're going to celebrate Christ's Mass, celebrate it to Christ's glory! That means, of course, to be more concerned about others, so when you're giving gifts, don't just run out and buy something that the person is apt to exchange as soon as you're out of the house . . . put some thought into the gift! Remember, Christ taught us to figure out what we would want someone else to do for us, and then take the initiative by doing it for them! And don't be overly concerned with the "dollar value" of the gift, whether you're giving it or receiving it. Nothing is uglier than a person receiving a gift who later complains about how "cheap" the giver was.

Putting this back in a contemporary perspective, and having worked in retail sails for the previous 6 Christmas seasons, i'm well aware of the over-eager nature of the sellers to "push" Christmas merchandise. Some of the merchandise will even brandish the appropriate religious references (anything that will convince more people to buy it). This attitude, and everything that participates in it and supports it, is almost a ritual honoring Mammon. I'm reminded of the terrible "accident" not so long ago when a man was trampled to death by a horde of shoppers in Wal-Mart. It was an ugly, hideous thing . . . did not one person in the mass know that they were stepping on a living human? Or was getting inside to get those early-riser deals more important than stopping to help, or at least trying to stem the lemming-like tidal wave? I can hear some of you saying, "Yeah, but if they stopped, they'd have been trampled, too." SO WHAT? Listen, if we're saying that we're Christians (those of you who aren't Christians are excused from this part of the rant, if you haven't already tuned me out), then a Christ-like action in that scenario would be . . .WHAT? Christ, who sacrificed His life for ALL of us, would surely have risked His life to help that man. Surely, there must have been SOME Christians in that herd!

This could be broadened into an indictment of our culture's approach to money in general. Sorry, W. Bush, a bailout for banks and automakers at the taxpayers' expense isn't the answer. Neither is a "stimulus program" loaded down with pork projects, Mr. Obama. MORE MONEY IS NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION . . . and you know what THAT means. On Wall St., there is a bronze image of a rampaging bull, supposedly to represent the "Bull Market" that everyone craves. But, i look at it, and i see the golden calf that the Hebrews made while Moses was up on the mountaintop. THAT is what is being worshipped. Everybody likes money, right? More money means more THINGS, more access, more votes, more bulwarks and barriers to keep the "wrong kind of people" outside. I am currently unemployed . . . not for lack of trying, but right now, the job market is tumbling . . . the "stimulus program" doesn't seem to be helping much in that response. Obama's meeting with a number of industry leaders to "create new jobs" was a joke considering how many of them had been cutting jobs before. You create a horrifying chasm doing this . . . making a bigger lower class, while somehow expecting these people to support an economy that sucks them dry and then demands more. When you look at the disparity of this circumstance, it's a wonder you don't fall down on your knees and pray for mercy, because generating a larger group of "outsiders," of people who are oppressed (and, yes, economic oppression counts) is certainly not going to please God. I'm sure a lot of you tithe 10% . . . and keep a careful record of it so you can get the tax write-off. Is this the future you want to hand to your kids? An enormous tax burden to pay for the mistakes of super-wealthy people who, for the most part, STILL ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF THEIR WEALTH? We teach our kids by example . . . and everything seems to be telling them "More MONEY is the answer to your woes. More MONEY is better STATUS, and therefore you're less likely to get convincted of crimes . . . if you have MONEY, you can get away with ANYTHING. You don't want a job that makes you happy, you want a job that gets you more MONEY, and if you have to swindle, backstab, or mistreat your co-workers and employees to do it, SO BE IT." I don't see any politicians on EITHER side of the whole Coke-vs-Pepsi political stratum volunteering to take pay cuts, to not use limousine services, to brown-bag lunch instead of having a 3-martini-lunch with their cronies . . . perish the thought!

If you're a Christian, don't expect a financial payoff because of it. Don't expect the World to be your friend . . . Mammon has no friends, just people it can use, and people it can't . . . and if you're of the latter, you're going to run into all kinds of trouble. Someday in the not-too-distant future, you may be found guilty of "not supporting the economy"--they'll make that a crime about the time they start implanting those microchips in the backs of your hands or under the skin of your foreheads. You're going to have to sacrifice some things, make do with less, and if you follow Christ's teaching in the Parable of the Unjust Steward, use the adversity to stimulate you to creative survival. When you step out of the rat race long enough to take a deep breath and a good look, you'll be thankful for the grace that allows that transition. You won't be a "respectable citizen," you won't be spending your days in "conspicuous consumption," and you're probably going to have a lot of people scratching their heads, wondering why you don't play the game . . . but you'll be LIVING, REALLY LIVING . . . not just complacently getting along because (at least for now) it's easy to claim you're a Christian in America, going to church in what's basically a stained-glass social club, insisting on God's name in the pledge, and going along with whatever political agenda has replaced Faith in your life. If you think that there's a political solution, then THAT'S the problem! When your Faith is in Christ, and you apply your God-given critical intelligence to the situation, you'll see how out-of-joint the whole mess is.

My family has a great many "traditions" that go along with the Christmas season. Christmas cookies, mulled cider, decorating the house, and having other family members who would otherwise be alone join us. My parents were always consistent with regards to remembering Whose birth we were celebrating, and teaching us accordingly. Most of my memories of Christmas are warm and pleasant, and i remember being as young as 11 when i realized i anticipated the joy or happiness that resulted from the gifts i gave rather than what i received.
It made me realize that giving was a blessing in and of itself . . . having something to give, to give FROM, and experiencing the happiness in somebody else's eyes. And, yeah, that might sound sappy and sentimental, but if a cynical curmudgeon like me can feel that, maybe you should try it on for size this Christmas. Maybe a whole bunch of Grinches will be getting bigger hearts this year when they realize the TRUE meaning of Christmas . . . hey, i can dream, can't i?

Rearranging the Landscape (Yeah, another long-winded rant, just deal with it)

We've dug a hole, collectively, and we're pulling the dirt in over our heads. And anytime anybody shows us a way to climb out, we take our shovels and kill him or bury him under the dirt to shut him up. You know, I wonder why God always gets our "sloppy seconds." We wheel and deal, and when that doesn't work, we manipulate behind the scenes, and when that fails, we put on the "poor me" show . . . and when everyone stops falling for that, we increase the self-victimization until we alienate even the most stalwart of friends . . . and then we come crying to God. I mean, when He got to me, there wasn't much left to work with . . . so, if what you see before you looks like a wreck of a man held together with spit and baling twine, that's just me. If I seem at all to speak well or eloquently, THAT'S the miracle, that Poetry breathes through the likes of me. The world needs poets who, like outlaws, rearrange the landscape. Like terrorists . . .and although one could argue that plastique and bullets are immediately more impactful and thus more effective, words have shifted spiritual and emotional landscapes like rapid-moving glaciers since the dawn of time, before bigots and tinpot tyrants ever earned the name "dinosaur." The emotional energies that power this machine are furious in the extreme, insatiable, and usually ungrateful of what they receive. It's never enough, is it? Vicarious living at your fingertips, television and world-wide-web, landscapes and terrain erased to create space for a mini-mall that's a clone of every other mini-mall . . . access to goods and knowledge is practically unlimited . . . so why the fuck are you so mentally bankrupt? These are the clinics where they operate on your brain, and with all the assholes out there who throw bombs in response to abortions, how come nobody's bombing THOSE clinics? You catch and cage every thought you have, strangling them with the umbilical cords of your broad-band intentions and short-spanned attentions . . . because if one of them survives, you might develop something like perspective, and if that happened, you'd have to be HONEST and face the fact that you're DAMNED by the very engines you built to pave your way to a pseudo-paradise that was never worth living OR dying for! How many of you are already walking around, bought and sold, not even missing the soul they're sucking out of you from every television set, every political media whore, every Mega-Macro-Store, the whole damn lot of them vampires, and you not only invited 'em in, you let them have a house party! Slap a brand on me, a scarlet P for poetry, make me wear it on my forehead in the streets--right next to the L that's apparently already there . . . not that you'd ever have any trouble figuring it out, when I'm ranting loud enough on the subway to make people back away from me, when I compose poetry while I'm chasing two parakeets around in the pet store I work in trying to convince myself that I'm not just a manager trainee, I'm a POET, dammit, a POET, and someday, if you stupid fuckers don't finish the job of ruining the world, maybe I'll be able to reshape a piece of the landscape . . . not for a monument to myself, there's too many people in that business already, and unlike a lot of others who claim to be Christians, I have some concept of "humility," which is basically "A man's got to know his limitations," and brother, I know mine--most of 'em I learned the HARD way. I've seen the way people bristle, the way they're picking up their shovels and pickaxes where they've been working on that mass grave for humanity, ready to commit murder in the name of the System, the icon of their Idolatry, as related by the Industry Standards and Ratings and Product Tie-Ins, combining to create a revolution-proof culture-condom. I know what it means, and I'll bet YOU know what that means, and if you mean what you say when you say "by any means necessary," then now's the time to start arming yourself with what you know, because the next war that will be fought will be for the space between your ears. Just because resistance is futile doesn't mean that it's not an obligation--it IS an obligation, and even if everything I fight for is a "lost cause". . . at least I know where I am.

Why I Shouldn't Run for Office

Okay.

In the following blog, i will probably piss off or alienate plenty of people. It seems to be one of my basic skills, along with cooking and being able to rip pieces out of my brain and put them on paper.

In a recent discussion with my parents, one in which i was (probably accurately) described as being "too extreme" and/or "paranoid," i was ranting (as usual) about the current state of affairs in America, the world, and so on and so forth, blah blah blah, yackety smackety (i'll spare you the play-by-play), i was told that if i didn't like the way things were, i should run for office. Now, that's a really ridiculous idea: me, Todd Pack, aka Grendel, running for public office. Forget for a second that there's a lot in my past that could (and would) be dredged up and media-pumped into a huge scandal. Forget that the people with the most financial resources usually end up winning (like, say, having the manufacturer of voting machines being one of my major supporters). Let's zero in on what most of America totally ignores when voting: the issues. Oh, the candidates will TALK about issues, or take stupid things and transform them into issues, and then make promises regarding those issues that they intend to break as soon as they're in office. But, are the issues what it's really all about? Well, in case i'm ever stupid enough to try a stunt like this, and in case there are people in America stupid enough to vote for me, let me lay out a few of these issues and my opinions about them.

1) The Economy: Economists have been warning us, over the past decade--at least--that the consumer-driven economy (which is not quite the same as capitalism) is doomed to fail. Our current economy is based on consumers and commodities, and assumes that there will always be consumers capable of purchasing these commodities. Basically, the economy is top-heavy . . . those with the most pull the strings on what's popular, what's promoted, what's ignored, and all with the singleminded goal: to earn a profit. So far, so good. But, as we've seen in recent years, the accumulation of wealth seems to reveal a common flaw: GREED. Having more money doesn't satisfy . . . like any addiction, it reaches the point of diminishing returns, whereat the addict requires more of the same thing in order to reach that "high." I have nothing against capitalism in and of itself, but our economy is not BASED on capitalism, but is rather a malignant cancerous outgrowth of it. My attitude towards the economy is simply this: "You cannot serve God and Mammon." Period. The word "Mammon" represents material wealth and the things it can acquire. You might as well say "The Bank," "Profit," etc. I find it ironic (and infuriating) that so many people who self-avowed Christians seem to completely avoid this Biblical truth. It's as if the thought of Christ flies right out the window when it comes to turning a buck. Will the economy recover? Possibly. Will it take another down-turn? Probably. Will it ultimately fail altogether? ABSOLUTELY. I could get on a long side-track here by dissecting what people SAY about money and what their actions regarding money say about THEM, but that would probably turn into another rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth rant, and i do that enough as it is. So, let's turn to another subject.

2) War: What is it good for? Turning a profit (see the preceding paragraph). The United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and China ALL turn a profit on arms sales. They sell to both sides of the fence. Don't think so? Well, those of you who are old enough (or have read history and retained any of the knowledge gained therefrom) will remember that when Russia was invading Afghanistan, the United States was supplying the Taliban with weapons, military technology, and training, in order to help keep Russia out. The same group of individuals who were involved in the 9/11 attack on American soil. This is just one recent, modern example of something that's gone on for centuries. Huge corporations stand or fall based on whether or not a war will occur, and how long it will go on, and how much profit can be gained from it while it continues. The people who supply these arms seldom--if ever--have to look on the carnage firsthand, or suffer one iota of the misery caused. Is war a necessary evil? Well, given mankind's track record, i'd have to say it probably is. But, if war is a necessary EVIL, how can ANY war be called "good?" Nowhere in the Quran do the words "holy" and "war" appear together, but the words "holy war" are bandied about by many who claim to be Islamic. Likewise, you'll find a lot of people who claim to worship the Prince of Peace, the One who commanded "LOVE YOUR ENEMIES," calling for war, citing "patriotism" as their reasoning. How exactly are we "loving our enemies" by lobbing bombs at them, by gaining huge profits from arms sales and developing new and improved ways of killing off more people, and then actually claiming that God WANTS this? Even if you're an agnostic, an atheist, or a voodoo priest, this "playing both sides of the fence" HAS to be ridiculous. The fact is, one one hand, we're (and by "we," i mean the United States) are condemning and attacking Islamic leaders and people in Iraq and Afghanistan because of human rights violations, and on the other hand are oppenly supportive of an individual like Suharto, who has kept his countried embroiled in civil war that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, an Islamic leader who, according to Bill Clinton, was "our kind of man." The war in the Middle East has been going on for thousands of years. Our "intervention" and "liberation" are insignificant drops of water in the comprehensive ocean of that war. But, now that we're there, and feel we have to protect our investments, we've been caught in what could be aptly described as a combination of a bear-trap and a land-mine. We're stuck in an explosive situation, and whether we stay there or leave, it's going to explode . . . but that's not a valid excuse to add more explosives.

3) Prayer in Schools, "Under God" in the Pledge, and Other Voodoo Semantics: The Christian Church has gone to bed with politics, and whenever that happens, the child of that union is a monster. I'm not going to belabor the point, just point out a few truths that should be self-evident. First of all, if you teach your kids to pray at HOME, then they'll carry that with them wherever they go. I often prayed in school . . . particularly before exams. There's nothing to prevent anyone from praying silently while they're IN school, or at work, or anywhere else. The government, by definition, cannot prohibit or forbid--this would be a violation of a Constitutional guarantee. Simply put, this "non-issue" is a way of throwing off responsibility. Christian belief is rooted in the concept of individual responsibility, and "family values" vary depending on the family in question . . . so, flush those buzzwords down the toilet. I ENCOURAGE people to pray at home, in school, at work, on the road, EVERYWHERE. And "prayer" isn't a wish-list, or a hotline to complain about the service. Prayer is intimate conversation with God. I don't want an unholy world having ANY say in how or when i pray. And, "In God We Trust" printed on our money is outright blasphemy, because when people get their hands on those bills, God's usually the last thing on their mind. "One Nation Under God"? Get with the program . . . ALL nations are under God, and just because people are repeating it by rote doesn't mean that they're actually thinking that . . . in fact, it's the other way around. Anyone can recite scripture, and they're often apt to do that if it makes them look good in public. But saying it and MEANING it are two different things. Jesus said of the Pharisees, "You strain at a gnat but swallow a camel whole!" It's the same thing here . . . you're quibbling over mere dogma and completely ignoring God's Spirit while you're doing it. YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE MORALITY. Christ's life, death, and resurrection put things back in order, making each of us responsible, making each of us "ground zero" for our own "revolution." You cannot please God by following rules, but rather by letting the Holy Spirit motivate you, changing you from the inside out. And if THAT happens, people around you will notice. Sure, you're going to encounter opposition, that's part of the deal . . . in fact, REJOICE when you encounter it, because it means you're doing what you're supposed to be doing! But others are going to follow your example, and be enriched by the way you live your life, and that's God working through you. Don't let the government, or any other earthly body, control the way you live your life before God. If you want to pray in school, pray. If you don't, don't. It's as simple as that.

4) The Sanctity of Marriage and the Right to Life: Okay, this could actually be a continuation of the preceding paragraph, but i've separated them for thematic purposes. I don't believe that homosexuals should be forbidden to have civil unions. Why not? Well, the same government that blathers about "the sanctity of marriage" has allowed legal brothels in Las Vegas. If they REALLY believed in it, they'd repeal those laws. It's hypocrisy for the government to deny homosexuals the right to be "married" in a civil ceremony . . . of course, nobody would THINK of interfering with Las Vegas' legalized brothels because--you guessed it--that's MONEY. PROFIT. Now, i don't think the Church should let itself be influenced by what the state does, one way or the other. First of all, the Separation of Church and State is healty for the Church, and for the government to try to demand that the Church allow such ceremonies infringes upon the Constitution. So, stop clamining that the "sanctity of marriage" is what you're really concerned with. It's just another holier-than-thou scheme, putting yourself on a higher level than other humans, acting like you don't or haven't sinned in ways that are just as wrong. If a man sleeps around with another man's wife, it's a small scandal; if he sleeps around with another man, that's a big scandal, but THEY ARE BOTH THE SAME SIN. Adultery is adultery. Now, as to the right to life, i DO NOT support abortion as a method of birth control. There are plenty of methods of protection, the best of wish is abstinence, to avoid creating a new life. If you ARE pregnant, carry the baby to term . . . because there are plenty of families out there who are willing, in fact EAGER, to adopt a baby. BUT: i don't believe that it's the right of the state to forbid it. In function, this works much like the Prohibition. The Prohibition did not stop drinkers from drinking . . . in fact, it just opened the door for organized crime, and resulted in more calamity. If you prohibit abortion, you open the door for free-lance abortionists, and women who want to get an abortion will do it somehow . . . there are records of women dying because they attempted to give themselves abortions using broken bottles stuck on the ends of broomsticks. If abortion is murder, it's on them . . . creating convoluted laws to make it illegal will only increase the prison poplulation, and as Charles Dickens observed, "in the courts, nobody wins but the lawyers."

There are plenty of other issues i could comment on, but my fingers are growing numb. Probably, i'll continue this in another chapter, as new ideas come to mind. Now, given the preceding paragraphs, there is no political party in the world that would have me as a member, and running as an independent is like painting a target on yourself for both Democrats and Republicans to take cheap-shots at. I'm better off remaining a poet, successful or non-successful, because poetry--thus far--has been the only vehicle that is capable of supporting my emotional storms. Everybody expects poets to be a little weird, anyway, and in that department i'm quite capable. I am as vocal a supporter of Freedom of Speech as the Right to Bear Arms, and in my case they're both the same thing. I have a hard enough time controlling myself, let alone guiding a city, state, county, or nation. I've got my hands full . . . i wouldn't want to burden others or myself with a position where i'd be attacked on all sides, both with pressures to conform and pressures to resist.

Enough said.

New Poem: Beyond the Edge of the Chessboard

Beyond the Edge of the Chessboard
***
don't worry. be happy.
the politicians pharamceutical companies
bankers lawyers doctors
various NWO conspiracies
religious fakers
media whores
telephone name-takers
advertising CEO's
have got a PLAN for you.

they're not necessarily in collusion
but they're all selling variations of the same illusion
and, despite the apparently conflicting world-view solutions,
the resolution is always about
GREED.

gimme dat, gimme dat, gimme gimme gimme dat
MONEY.
whole lotsa
MONEY.

their quest for money seems funny
because in order to get it, they need to be phoney
because the reality of their ghoulish greed
even frightens them.
they have the best
drugs
cars
wars
bars
and various other ways of disguising themselves
and like all liars, are skilled at lying to themselves
to avoid the truth of six feet of dirt
all the land they'll ever really need
to hide their remains
until rot and decay
reveal humanity's true face
unmasked.

and, unlikely as it is,
they've sold these masks to us
telling us
don't worry, be happy
because happy faces sell products
happy faces make the malls more inviting
happy faces on the drug commercials
make you wonder what you're missing
if you don't take that blue pill
that gives you a 3-hour erection
blood rushing to a place
where (at least in the male body) it tends to remain
at the deficit of the brain.

What? You're not HAPPY?
You didn't buy the latest product?
You didn't read the Wall Street Journal?
You didn't give envy run of the house
so that you can get one-up on your neighbor
and own a bigger plasma TV, bigger SUV,
bigger ass from eating bigger burgers?
what are you, some kind of
intelligent, self-aware, thinking creature?
how EMBARRASSING.

And, here's a guy in the White House
who's been promising change,
but it's not likely to add any change to your pockets
while he's riding around in jets and limousines
and spending thousands on an inaugural ball
just like his predecessor, only more media-friendly
and a lot more articulate.
and look at all these glossy flyers
submitted to each post office box
by the latest political candidates
who seem to enjoy flinging poop at each other
like monkeys in the zoo
only, there's no bars around these animals,
so some of the shit's likely to land on you.

don't worry, be happy,
even when 2012 looms on the Mayan Calendar,
and even if it isn't the end of the world
all those wealthy men
will find a way to make the doomsday trend
line their pockets once again
(remember Y2K?)

don't be happy. worry.
we've let these idiots play the tune too long
it's the same old song they've played
since they nailed God's Son to a tree,
and they've even taken that piece of history
and used it for their own purposes
and if you buy into the lie, sucker,
YOU'VE been played.
you're just a pawn on the chessboard
allowed to move in tightly restricted lines
and if they need to sacrifice you
to protect their king and queen,
they won't hesitate . . .
step outside the lines
demand their attention
remind them that we outnumber them
and let them know what it's like
to WORRY.

Drive-By Ranting

There's a hurricane driving by
in an old Hudson Terraplane, screaming
about some future fusion of YouTube, the New World Order,
and something that some people call Utopia
and a state of mind some people call Bliss
and a fear that not enough people are Pissed Off enough
to whistle up a wind of change.

Obama's promising change, but it hasn't added
any loose change in my pockets, and isn't apt to.
Cheney hasn't changed, his eyes still like two
rabid animals in their sockets, gibbering about
terrorists that may be roaming the streets
while he earns money every time something blows up.
The overblown drama that ensares so many of my friends
hasn't changed; they've only added new faces to their rosters,
a roll-call of losers and outcasts in which i'm depicted
and captured as well.
"Money Changes Everything," Lauper hiccups, but
money hasn't changed itself. We sell hours of our time
for less of it every day, and exchange it for even less,
and having it has become a set of shackles
that binds us like Marley's ghost.

Take some pills! See a shrink! Watch TV!
Eat some fucking McFood! Go see a movie
the production costs of which
would easily feed an entire third-world nation
for a year! Set that terrorist alert level on Orange
and watch the voters scurry about
like ants when their anthill's been kicked apart
by some giant kid with a squirt pistol!
Take a picture! Post a film of something stupid
on YouTube! It's YOU! It's TV! The lowest
common denominators of reality
screwing each other into senility
while the pharamceutical companies and
insurance companies do a line-dance
to a tune called "We Are The World,
We Cause the Misery, We Reap the Profits!"
The opiate of the masses is . . . .
EVERYTHING! As long as you've got a lot of it,
it keeps you numb!

If you combine Gas-X and xenoestrogens and
toxic chemicals in our dryer sheets and
whatever brainkiller your psychiatrist prescribes
and toothpaste with flouride
and carbon monoxide
and something to curb your erectile dysfunction,
you get Fully Functional Plastic Poseable
Disposable Consumers, just plug them in
and they'll watch QVC and buy stuff
until their brains rot!

And the ones that don't plug in
are terrorists, paranoid, antisocial,
malcontents . . .
they'll make perfect scapegoats
for all the societal side-effects or,
failing that, Soylent Green.

Labels for this post: scooters, vacations, fall,
Humpty Dumpty, dumpster-diving, free-fall,
downsizing, No Skateboarding Allowed in This Park,
computers, and poop.

P.S.--Go watch CSI, so you can figure out what they're using
to prove that you're guilty, and fuck reasonable doubt,
everybody's guilty.

Deconstructing Inevitable Discovery

Deconstructing Inevitable Discovery
***
you hear that phrase a lot if you watch
Law & Order. usually, it's the cops
or Jack McCoy with his bushy eyebrow-scowl,
saying, in essence, "Well,we would've found it anyway."
yes, indeedy.
after all the things they don't depict on TV shows go down.
after they bust down the door to your apartment
because of a "sound, suspiciously like
a woman being strangled" (you were
gargling in the bathroom), they charge in
and go tearing around looking for a victim and a criminal,
and in that frenzied search, a cop opens a closet
and your jacket falls out, dislodging
half a blunt that you stashed there
a week ago and forgot about,
and they call it "evidence of criminal activity,"
and since buying drugs supports terrorism(it said so on TV),
it's "aiding and abetting," too,
and then when they come to drag you
out of the bathroom, and you try to grab a bathrobe
because you're stark naked, they call it "resisting arrest"
and throw you down a flight of stairs, and
your face hits the pavement and your teeth get knocked out
and fall into the gutter, and they charge you with "littering."
and that's BEFORE the ATF gets involved,
assuming your apartment building is a drug operation,
possbly a terrorist organization,
or a suspicious gathering of people from other nations,
so they firebomb the whole neighborhood and get a commendation
from the President.
first it's Philly, then it's Waco,
guess who's coming to dinner?
paramilitary exercises in the ghetto!
Newark, you may already be a winner!
it's clearly evident that
the inevitable discovery in this case
is that things like this
have already happened . . . and,
inevitably, somebody will discover an excuse
to make it happen again. Pity there's no
real McCoy to prosecute the real criminals
in THIS drama.