why take a chance?

"What did the tree learn from the earth
to be able to talk with the sky?"

"Whom can I ask what I came
to make happen in this world?"

from Pablo Neruda The Book of Questions

what better way to crawl for congress
than in the spirit of pablo?
whose questions are best answered now?
the ragged condor reports back to mrs. condor
(mr. buzzARD is out in the yARD
mr. rabBIT is here with the

a compassionate rinoceronte lasts forever

a mole wouldn't last for a minute on the moon

destroy a few gut bacteria? why take a chance
stir up the forest floor? why take a chance
watch the coral reefs decline? why take a chance
can we genesplice our way out? why take a chance
build another megacyclotron? for what!

even turtles and snakes pause often for reflection

shuffling off to buffalo

charlie haynie's tennesee memoirs on sale at talking leaves buffalo
i'm sure it's all about those 60s when bold ideas made spirits glow

nowadays lots of attractive actions can ripple faster day by day
go to buffalo and listen to what 'city of no illusions' has to say

prioritize pleasure

seek not transcendence and a heaven higher
seek justice and equality of seller and buyer

prioritize pleasure and measure for measure
not much point in excess treasure

the mere idea of control for its own sake and yours
leads to endless work and extended tours

let go let Gaia let trance dance reveal the Path
while the musicking lasts we avoid any devilish wrath

the last six lines of possible sonnet yours to wright
(substitute these until thine lines be write
no fight no flight just live for the next good rite
keep your rhythms & rhymes loosely tight, right?
real estate investment trusts called reits are blights
tuba mira signals good mornings and good nights)

hubris is the pride that blinds

hubris is the pride that blinds and not one of the other kinds
we have it in abundance here, feeding on self-centered fear

no one gets health care free but any european nation better than we
we stopt competing in making steel, overhead costs became unreal

health care administration same deal, no pain doc, i just can't feel
hubris is the pride that blinds and closes many american minds

keep coming back to ruskin

ruskin's unto this last
a not so distant past

grow a peach tree
give a peach to a sick child

build many bombs
they will go down chimneys
somewhere

writing as residue

writing as residue from
"if you can say it you can play it"

taking inventory of failures
i can see where i go wrong

'negating the negation'
remain hung up on the prong

can't prophecy the future
sing the present strong

the violinist in the metro station

cuddabin joshua, cuddabin yehudi, yascha, yitsak, isack
(but maybe not yoyo, or a langlang
w. megasteinway, portable proscenium, corpsponsors)
indicative of a dying snivelization, empire, fake economy
very thin veneer very shallow patina of petrified 'kulchur'
cracking and flaking in the sun

distracted by our cells
screened in by tv and computers
busy just being commuters
cocooned by recorded music
absorbed in egotrips to egoland
can't linger & listen to each other
much less understand
we're missing all of Nature

Gaia save the tugging 3 year olds

20 hour week

"if the world as we know it was to be safe,
then we have to break up the big empires,
the big powers,
who are the cause of all our troubles."

"To be small or not to be at all.
That is the question.
The large have no future."

Leopold Kohr in "Why Small Is Beautiful: The Size Interpretation of History"
October 1990 E.F. Schumacher Lectures

decentralize decentralize
work where you live
live where you work
bring on the 20 hour week
no shirk no go berserk

everyone employed insured
on one overburdened
bored at one gig try another
stop overproduction
brother save our Mother

slomo of instant classlessness

for those of us who reject the momo [momentum of modernity]
it's easy to laugh off the pomo [postmodern?]
& relax into the slomo of instant classlessness

the show crept in guy talk

the immanent imperfection is decay and death
and no wonder colleagues in ethnomusicology
not embracing the participatory discrepancies
'the show crept' was a jirgba ahire phrase in 'guy'
the language of makurdi's beat generation
before we found igbo young men eviscerated
intestines coiled like giant caterpillars in fields
this is what state force inevitably yields

"new blossoms, full-blown, withered, gone to fruit."
scenes from the fertile 60s force these daily appeals
for goodness, long-term-thinking, tire-on-road & stuck-pig squeals
for drumming circles, dances, prayers, everyone kneels
for strange sonnets on a g-string singing death, ax, equals
don't give up on the poet inside you; make life feel real

world right side up & soon

mary don't you weep, in still moments i hear you sighing
catholic worker woodcuts can bring on healthy crying

christians absorbed by empires in endless unchanging sames
now prince of peace just another player in the foul war games

tuba mira spargens sonum horn miraculous scattering sound
steady 'persistence of residual practices' turns world upside down

another matter altogether

"Maria Sibylla Merian's paintings are another matter altogether.
Her lines are as crisp as Marrel's are muted;
She draws with the clinical precision of Durer or Hofenagel,
but at the same time her saturated colors collide in daring,
almost fluorescent contrasts.

Rather than showing animal & vegetable
@ some celestially perfect moment,
she combines the different stages
of growth and decay,
collapsing
an expanse of time
into a single image.

Her flowers will appear
on the same branch as buds,
as new blossoms, full-blown, withered, gone to fruit.
Leaves sprout, flourish, go brown, die, and drop,
many of them half eaten by caterpillars.

The insects, too, are shown as they pass
through every stage
of their strange
cyclical lives.

Like Caravaggio before her,
she registers
the passage of time
by documenting several of its phases,
calling attention
to the immanent imperfection
of it all."

found poem in NY Review of Books
review by Ingrid D. Rowland

3 basic principles

3 basic principles
3 wheels that reverse
peace ecology children
lift the curse

waging peace
we face the present
put the power tribes
to rest

ecological balance
slows us up
& increases
zest

children's joy
followed closely
7th generation
blesst

maria sibylla merian's paintings

"she registers the passage of time
by documenting several of its phases,
calling attention to the immanent
imperfection of it all."

you won't see the colors here
smell the flowers
feel Nature's transience
smell the tropic funk

virtual reality
a pile of junk

last night, seeing so many young people at a nagasaki vigil in winsted
last friday, making danceable music with children in falls village
each day, feeling deep connections possible across the generations
maybe, just maybe, we're moving past all the plunder and pillage

frequent vigils frequent dances affirming minute particulars of life
lighting candles putting words in phrases for peace, a continuing delight
tax resisters invited to amazing planet! farm & justice center in vermont
creating solutions to real problems is never fight and rarely flight

justice or just is

truth & justice peace & justice keep them in mind daily
not too much to ask that all life forms be treated fairly

each extinction poses a risk that no scientist can describe
which entities in the web of life are the ones keeping us alive

certainly each tree assists us keeping air cool and breathable
ask local sprites before taking one down -- is this feasible

wrote my congressperson

spell the name of the possible war crime twice
Dasht-e-Leili Dasht-e-Leili
like the names of leading hutu genocidaires
the horror of mass murder keeps me from memorizing
i seek no mnemonic device

how about 'my hopes were Dasht'?
is 'e-Leili' the prayer of the suffocated?

the tiv of nigeria taught me
a poet is a conscience of the lineage

a biocentric sonnet

what little song might i sing today
each ikarian green cooked a different way
@merican @anarchists find nutrition & homes
we walk the road singing - sambas and sons

samba & son, bembe stone to the bone
intensify trust - drop computer - use phone
rains & mists give us greens galore
boil them up and save some trips to the store

and what 's more -- this generalizes to the world
answers the questions of every flag unfurled

g.i.m.b.y. these greens, nettles, vleeta, and horta
go and gather them up, spring, summer and fall

find a healthier, happier response to the call
long live Nature, starve the dismal mall