IN FORGETTING TO

There is meaning in
Planting the garden

There is meaning in
Harvesting the garden

There I meaning
In forgetting to plant the garden again

There is meaning
In having the child

There is meaning
In hurting the child

There is meaning
In forgetting to heal the child again

There is meaning
In being a person

There is meaning
In being defined by others

There is meaning
In forgetting to define myself again

There is meaning
In employing the person

There is meaning
In destroying the job

There is meaning
In forgetting to employ the people again

There is meaning
In building the family

There is meaning
In destroying the family

There is meaning in
Forgetting to build the family again

There is meaning
In building the building

There is meaning
In destroying the building

There is meaning
In forgetting to build the building again

There is meaning
In creating the language

There is meaning
In destroying the language

There is meaning
In forgetting to build the language again

There is meaning
In finding Paradise

There is meaning
In destroying Paradise

There is meaning
In forgetting to

MAGIC BOSON MASS

Magic Boson Mass

(Upon reading in Wikipedia about Higgs Bosons)

(In honor of the people of Libya, 08-21-2011)

You are not clay for my hands
I am not clay for yours

I can not write a constitution to make you clay for me
I can not make a law to make you clay for me
I can not incorporate to make you clay for me
I can not create a clever strategy to make you clay for me but

If you are willing
I can pretend you are clay for me long enough
To convince you long enough
To hurt you

If you are willing
I can hurt you long enough
To convince you long enough
To give up

Despots rise from us
We create them
From the power we use
To create heroes

Whatever is done and said
You are not clay
I am not clay

The Maker who made us
The Dervish galaxy spinner
The Boson magic mass maker who

Made foolish clay manipulators
Made clever clay to manipulate clay manipulators
Even made more clever clay to refuse to be clay

There will always be
Fools
Heroes
Despots
Despot financers
Fools paying attention to despots
Fools fighting despots

Lots of fighting fools

Good ideas bleeding in to clay
In India wearing homespun
In Memphis on the mountaintop
Good clay just trying to learn from the children
Good clay just trying to lead the children

Who will rise again from the clay some day
With magic boson mass some day
To become the power
We already have

THE PLACE I WILL BE WHEN I DIE

The Place I Will Be When I Die
(02-07-99)

The creek
Ran down to the Olentangy
I suppose
Miles away

The trees were young
In the bed
I can see the shiny bark

The sun filtered through
But the creek
Ran between cool treed hillsides

The hill on one side
Rose from creek side
Up to where the dead abandoned sheep
Moved back into the earth

The hill on the other
Rose slow
To just as high
Then a fence
Soy beans, corn or wheat or resting

I built dams

The air
Of nakedness
Before erections
Before shame

I could run
Jiggle my hips
And breasts
In a dance that was only mine

I needed a pool

To ask the water
To wait
For me
To have a place
To be

Play
Languorously in the pool

The water cold
On my bare skin
Clear

Enough to
Pretend the shifting of shapes

Enough to
Become who I was
Not who I appeared to be
Was supposed to be

When the end
Comes to me

You don’t have to do a thing

I will be there
The creek
Running to the Olentangy

My place to
Move back into the earth

Shifting shape again

Y la muerte Danza continua

Y la muerte Danza continua
(For Joe And Me)

And the death dance continues

They say that if I love you when you die
I loose you as the spirit rises up from your body
You are released into the future
I am released into the future
Birth and Life and Death play their roles in peace

They say that if I hate you when you die
I am shackled to your spirit as you attempt to rise
You will never be released from your body
I am forever imprisoned with you
Life and Death dancing endlessly hatefully forever

Endless legacy for
Endless generations

And the death dance continues

We will dance in hate forever
We can never be apart
I am shackled to you and you to me

They say my hate for you
Is a movie of my self-loathing
The boy within me
Binding you with his deepest wound

Y la muerte Danza continua

When will I gently hold
The part I loathe?

When will I lovingly hear
The voice I hate?

When will I finally accept
The truth I dismiss?

And the death dance continues

И смерть танец продолжается
Y la muerte Danza continua
而死亡之舞继续
 رقصة الموت لا يزال

And the death dance continues

Until then

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

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