POISON

Poison

The poisons come
Through my skin
Through my mouth
Through my eyes
Through my ears
Up my butt and
Through my spirit

The poisons come anyway so
Bring them on
Fill er up and down the hatch
I drink food
            love
            hate
            sadness
            rage
            fear
            manipulation
            tactics
            medicine
            religion
            science
            politics
            economics
            history
            literature
            love
            romance
            tabloid
            popular
            anything tv
            iPod
            wireless phone
            cell phone
            movies
and .....magazines

I digest toxins that kill strong men and stronger oxen
I bathe in acids and bases undiluted and blistering and cook the skin off my old bones
Until it is time to eat some more poison food

The poisons come
From inside of me
         I age
         I assume
         I impulse
         I predict
         I self loathe
Then I blame you
Then I hate you
Then I consider you a foreigner
Alien to everything that is right and true
Certainly character assassination is justified
Race baiting can be effective
But then genocide is a much more sensible solution

         I keep using plans that have never worked
         I terrify my son and shame him until he hates me and follows in my footsteps
         Then I start on my grandson

         I choose poisons like a connoisseur
The right cigar
                food
                preacher
                mentor
                water
                politician
                neighbor
                show
                friend
                artist
                this or the right that

The poisons come
         I anticipate them
         I look at them
         I look at them come into me
         I romance them
         I tell stories and build legends around them
         I recite the deterioration of my flesh
         I look at them come and do not stop them
         I wonder about the poison
         I wonder at the virulence
         I wonder about my chances
         I wonder how long I've got
Will it get me this time?
Something will get me
Anything will do
As long as it is
More mellow-dramatic than my self-destructive mother and
more terrifying than my attention-hogging father.

But in the mean time
         I will be your poison
                       your base
                       your acid
Cooking hell into
                       your bones

Sabbath Dawn

I remember

There was a short sermon

On a small hill

In a little country

I believe the fishes were quite real

The soup was not thin

And the bread went a long way

I believe the skeptical women made the fine soup

After the wisest old woman gave a memorable blessing

And the men showed reluctant appreciation

Watching over the children

With few complaints

After the wisest old man

Reminded them of their own boyhood

And their love for mother who they couldn’t confuse

Their respect for father who they couldn’t trick

We listened to her without fear

She was one of us

We spoke to him without shaking

He did not judge us

We found words for our confusion

She did not shame us

We knew the value of our simple lives

Sitting with the elders

We sat then

With our own children

Quietly eating fish and broth and bread

Feeling equal to the hope of the children

We remembered how we had netted a few fish in the morning

We remembered pounding out a few flat loaves

We sat there

Husbands and wives

As the drummers matched heartbeats

As the smallest feet began slapping the powdery dust

As the elders

Got to their feet and in one long movement

Danced

To the fish and the soup and the bread and the goats and the wheat and the wine

All round and around the well until

They had given thanks to the sunset the sunrise the constant star and the southern stars

And then when all of this was accomplished

The elders were tired

We guided them home at Sabbath dawn

To Be Kissed

 

My love does not want
To wait
My love wants
To touch

My love does not want
To yearn
My love wants
To be touched

My love does not want
To hurt you
My love wants
To be hurt only by you

My love does not want
To hear you are hurt
My love wants
To hear anyway

My love does not want
To loose you
My love wants
To be lost with you

My love does not want
To be sickly thus
My love wants
Your cure

My love does not want
To find you
My love wants
To be found with you

My love does not want
To stay kissed
My love wants
To be kissed

TYPOGRAPHY by Taylor Mali

TYPOGRAPHY by Taylor Mali

TRUTH AT TAHRIR

Truth At Tahrir
(Winter 2011)

I live along a river
Settled by a civilization
More ancient than Egypt

Mine tried to murder theirs
Despot pharaohs destroying ancient walking libraries
Trying to take away their children
Trying to take away their language

Ago and away
In the home of my father
Truth was illegal in my own language
The library and the commons were condemned
Martial law was brutal but brief

Here
Today as yet there is no curfew
Today as yet there is no martial law

Today it is hard for me to remember
All the ways I may speak
Instantly publishing whatever occurs to me

Read or not
I have my SAY
In the language of my fathers

As long as I don’t offend pharaoh

Away and now
In ancient cities
At the steps of ancient libraries
Men and women with their children in arms

Come to the commons
To defy pharaoh’s gagging curfew
Speaking truth in the language of their fathers

Come to the commons day after day
To defy pharaoh’s gagging punishment
Witnessing the silent generations with their bodies

Come to the commons week after week
To defy pharaoh’s murderous attack
Saying the truth now in the language of their own lost bodies

May they hold the commons forever
In every city
In every hamlet
At the steps of every ancient library
At the foot of every walking library

For the unsaid truth of old women
For the unsaid truth of old men
For the voices and the language of each child
For the original people in every original land along every original river
For the heroic chants of the men, women and children of Tahrir
For my parents who sometimes spoke only for pharaoh

For us all

PEACE IS THE BIGGEST BOMB

Photo Source

IDEOLOGY TIME

Were we lost at the beginning

With our lawyers courts and parties?

Washington saw it come
Lincoln suffered for it
The Roosevelts mastered it

Today’s ideas die
Un-nurtured by discussion
Suffocated by side picking

Invention’s technologies rules this day
Fed by lawyer’s patents

Bulled by giant green votes
Held by corporate mega-persons
With world sized megaphones

Company owned government
Populated with “three fifth”- persons
Voiceless voter-consumers
Slaved to speaking skulls

Moral courage to hear both sides
Nay three or four or multitudinous
Now nothing but old theory for old times

There is no time for speaking ideas
There is no time for hearing ideas
There is no time for reading ideas
We pass our time

Watching
Mouths wag polemics

Then watching
Mouths wag advertisements

Then we die