The tides of change are rising From a tsunami of tears The salt of the earth Uniting with water The solution that is life That clarity amidst blood And where souls hit the street Awash with just us And cleansing see
This poem is about protest and resistance where there is skin in the game and deep solidarity. Change, both personally and socially, often arises through pain and loss. Much pain in this world is caused by selfishness and the vanities of power, money and status. Unjust powers that be, while they may be deeply entrenched, are made vulnerable by their hypocrisy and cowardice, addicted to extracting value for themselves at undue cost to others. Oftentimes the antidote to such greed and vanity is found in community and shared struggles where the courage and resilience to endure additional costs can bring a harvest of justice and healing both personally and socially. In the crucible of change, there is a testing of won’s mettle when going that extra mile may actually be mile twenty. The authenticity generated by skin in the game, or street cred, can counterbalance great enemies to life, especially if harnessed in mass and interconnected with deep solidarity. May our tsunami of tears wash away injustice and bring healing to the land and its peoples.
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JUST FOR THE HEALTH OF IT: Public Health Radio Show on WAKT 106.1 FM Toledo JUST FOR THE HEALTH OF IT: Public Health Radio Show on WAKT 106.1 FM Toledo Just for the Health of It is my weekly half-hour public health show on WAKT, 106.1 FM Toledo. You can listen at 9:00 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays (after Democracy NOW) on-air or on-line ToledoRadio.org. To listen anytime you want online, […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
As Martin Luther King Day approaches this year, I was struck by the timelessness and timeliness of this MLK quote: Cowardice asks, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks, “Is it right?”
Please feel free to reflect upon this eternal wisdom and share this free MLK quote poster with friends and enemies alike.
Cowardice asks, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks, “Is it right?”
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Once agin His eyes went Threw me Populating lonely A whirled Of perpetrators and victims Bad asses and good ass Of which I was won Haunted by wonder In what kind Of world Would we halve Been friends Now that is A world worth Fighting for
In a world flush with partisan rancoring and polarized perspectives, it is easy to pay know tension to each other’s humanity, often valuing each other less than common ground. In a world wear the lyin’ between winners and losers is sharply drawn, like an unbrakable sored, we risk a fate worse than deaf. When we are effaced with the phallus choice forced upon us between perpetrators and victims, there peers no amor culpable of shielding us in what is right or left, split in two, halves and have nots. The flush harbor in their stately effluence of fauxs. Oar their wins carry them aweigh, atop endless serfs and bounteous fleeting vassals.
Can one side fit awe?Can we engender enough solidarity and courage to make peace? What does fighting for won an other’s humanity look like? Who knows, perhaps the genuine struggle to answer such questions in our living and dying may very well be what makes this a world worth fighting for.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Hope can be Like an animal cornered by a predator Fighting for life Hope can be Like a wisp of smoke Wafting through the claws of enemies Hope can be Like adore number three A seeding that grand prize of a lifetime Byway of a constellation prize Cheep in hand Not enough to beguile A way from blazing stars twinkling upon us Sow far a weigh Invisible during daze Soully to serve That first class purpose Best suited Naked to the night And inextinguishable light
Hope is a common thread in my poems, even in those that deal with brutal injustices. This poem offers several facets of hope. First, hope can come in the invigorating immediacy of a direct threat where life is literally at stake. The awakening of purpose in such situations offers a clarity that is often lost in the muddled vagaries of life. I see hope in this. Second, hope can appear as a calm, centered, and artfully wise bypassing of confrontations where violence has the upper hand. This kind of hope lives within a set of rules not dictated by one’s enemies. Thirdly, this poem lifts up hope rooted soully in undying truths that can fuel patience for life and fearless courage in efface of death. As hope wends through our lives, and life itself, may we be bound as won accord as we experience hope’s many threads.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
The plantation had fallen Into this repair As fore many Present Work Over and above The well, known Used Too deep scars And familiar ditches dug Subject to an other privilege However bound Too knew found freedom And worldwide travails In daze not to follow As anew master What is foremost if not awe As the perennial struggle Only partially one Pregnant with possibility Poised as a new virgin of reality Offering womb to grow And inescapably bringing labor wince again As tender feat must come to terms With maturity Of awe that is Never still Borne So exceptionally sow
While I wrote this poem long before Donald Trump’s election, I am offering this poem as an inauguration poem. This poem addresses two major realities which are often met with conflicting attitudes. The first reality is that we live in a nation and a world far from justice for all. There are endemic, chronic injustices which bear heavily on the daily realities of countless millions of people. This can be dreadfully depressing and diabolically disheartening. The second reality is that every disappointing condition can be met with our higher, better selves and serve as an invitation to build solidarity with others experiencing injustice to create a better future. Also, there is hope in the fact that persons who have experienced chronic injustice, for years or generations, have developed hardy and hearty abilities to cope and combat protracted injustice. This reservoir of collective experience, skills, and hope for a better future may very well be the most positive force on earth. This poem’s opening line alludes to the centuries-long battle for racial justice fought by the descendants of slaves against virulent racism and ever-morphing Jim Crow laws. The Black Lives Matter movement is yet another creative continuation of this ongoing struggle. In the short run, those living by the short run seem to have the advantage. However, in the long run, those committed to the long haul, transgenerational justice, are greatly advantaged in bringing about better answers to the eternal human questions. The apparent reality that eternal human questions can not be fully and finally solved on this earth is not an adequate excuse for cynicism. Better is better and worse is worse. Apologists preying on divisions in humanity for their own easy profit are as shortsighted as they are inhumane. Donald Trump may be the king of profiting off of easy-to-divide scenarios where the well-heeled are well suited to make a killing from the ensuing chaos and trauma. The answer to the stupid question that is Donald Trump is unyielding solidarity with the whole of humanity and transform the cowardly profits of injustice through the courageous cost of justice borne by all people of good will. May we find the courage to put whatever skin is necessary into the game to assure overwhelmingly abundant opportunities for justice to prevail. May our labors give berth to wondrous new realities.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Once again, Chris Hedges nails it in his article, Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This,’ discussing the precarious state of the current American political landscape and bringing to bear Chomsky’s rigorous and insightful analysis over the last several generations:
Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual. His massive body of work, which includes nearly 100 books, has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite and the myths they perpetrate. Chomsky has done this despite being blacklisted by the commercial media, turned into a pariah by the academy and, by his own admission, being a pedantic and at times slightly boring speaker. He combines moral autonomy with rigorous scholarship, a remarkable grasp of detail and a searing intellect. He curtly dismisses our two-party system as a mirage orchestrated by the corporate state, excoriates the liberal intelligentsia for being fops and courtiers and describes the drivel of the commercial media as a form of “brainwashing.” And as our nation’s most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization and the poison of empire, he enters his 81st year warning us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy.
“It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”
“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on. “Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”
“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”
“I listen to talk radio,” Chomsky said. “I don’t want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like [suicide pilot] Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.”
Chomsky has, more than any other American intellectual, charted the downward spiral of the American political and economic system, in works such as “On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures,” “Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture,” “A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West,” “Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky,” “Manufacturing Consent” and “Letters From Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda.” He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive. It challenges cultural and political assumptions. It critiques structures. It is relentlessly self-critical. It implodes the self-indulgent myths and stereotypes we use to elevate ourselves and ignore our complicity in acts of violence and oppression. And it makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.
Chomsky reserves his fiercest venom for the liberal elite in the press, the universities and the political system who serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war. He exposes their moral and intellectual posturing as a fraud. And this is why Chomsky is hated, and perhaps feared, more among liberal elites than among the right wing he also excoriates. When Christopher Hitchens decided to become a windup doll for the Bush administration after the attacks of 9/11, one of the first things he did was write a vicious article attacking Chomsky. Hitchens, unlike most of those he served, knew which intellectual in America mattered.
“I don’t bother writing about Fox News,” Chomsky said. “It is too easy. What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice. They are basically the guardians of the faith. They set the limits. They tell us how far we can go. They say, ‘Look how courageous I am.’ But do not go one millimeter beyond that. At least for the educated sectors, they are the most dangerous in supporting power.”
Chomsky, because he steps outside of every group and eschews all ideologies, has been crucial to American discourse for decades, from his work on the Vietnam War to his criticisms of the Obama administration. He stubbornly maintains his position as an iconoclast, one who distrusts power in any form.
“Most intellectuals have a self-understanding of themselves as the conscience of humanity,” said the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein. “They revel in and admire someone like Vaclav Havel. Chomsky is contemptuous of Havel. Chomsky embraces the Julien Benda view of the world. There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice. Benda says that the credo of any true intellectual has to be, as Christ said, ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ Chomsky exposes the pretenses of those who claim to be the bearers of truth and justice. He shows that in fact these intellectuals are the bearers of power and privilege and all the evil that attends it.”
“Some of Chomsky’s books will consist of things like analyzing the misrepresentations of the Arias plan in Central America, and he will devote 200 pages to it,” Finkelstein said. “And two years later, who will have heard of Oscar Arias? It causes you to wonder would Chomsky have been wiser to write things on a grander scale, things with a more enduring quality so that you read them forty or sixty years later. This is what Russell did in books like ‘Marriage and Morals.’ Can you even read any longer what Chomsky wrote on Vietnam and Central America? The answer has to often be no. This tells you something about him. He is not writing for ego. If he were writing for ego he would have written in a grand style that would have buttressed his legacy. He is writing because he wants to effect political change. He cares about the lives of people and there the details count. He is trying to refute the daily lies spewed out by the establishment media. He could have devoted his time to writing philosophical treatises that would have endured like Kant or Russell. But he invested in the tiny details which make a difference to win a political battle.”
“I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions,” Chomsky said when asked about his goals. “Don’t take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can’t. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself. There is plenty of information. You have got to learn how to judge, evaluate and compare it with other things. You have to take some things on trust or you can’t survive. But if there is something significant and important don’t take it on trust. As soon as you read anything that is anonymous you should immediately distrust it. If you read in the newspapers that Iran is defying the international community, ask who is the international community? India is opposed to sanctions. China is opposed to sanctions. Brazil is opposed to sanctions. The Non-Aligned Movement is vigorously opposed to sanctions and has been for years. Who is the international community? It is Washington and anyone who happens to agree with it. You can figure that out, but you have to do work. It is the same on issue after issue.”
Chomsky’s courage to speak on behalf of those, such as the Palestinians, whose suffering is often minimized or ignored in mass culture, holds up the possibility of the moral life. And, perhaps even more than his scholarship, his example of intellectual and moral independence sustains all who defy the cant of the crowd to speak the truth.
“I cannot tell you how many people, myself included, and this is not hyperbole, whose lives were changed by him,” said Finkelstein, who has been driven out of several university posts for his intellectual courage and independence. “Were it not for Chomsky I would have long ago succumbed. I was beaten and battered in my professional life. It was only the knowledge that one of the greatest minds in human history has faith in me that compensates for this constant, relentless and vicious battering. There are many people who are considered nonentities, the so-called little people of this world, who suddenly get an e-mail from Noam Chomsky. It breathes new life into you. Chomsky has stirred many, many people to realize a level of their potential that would forever be lost.”
May we have enough hope and faith in one another to act courageously for a bold new world.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Sheez Know more than Know less than Then any won ails In whatever Whirled Privileged to breathe at awe Fenced buy abets Dis regarding Weather grate her Or less her As any won object Is any thing worth wile Over looking Hi her Or lo her More than A parity girl Beyond sum Sublime whole As summon to be respected As things aren’t As they peer And with won voice Even as winsome and surrender some Make us as we were Mend to be Engendering awe that is fine her In every weigh
This is a poem about a certain sublime equality to any path toward enlightenment and more particularly about the struggle of a female protagonist engendering courage and healing in a patriarchal world. I am grateful for women sublimely manifesting the so-called feminine virtues. This helps me achieve balance in my own masculine existence. Of course, I am in particularly awe of folks who can transcend socially prescribed gender roles and model the full range of virtues and vices that whole human beings embrace. May we find wholeness along the serpentine and twisted paths of our lives. May you eagerly welcome whatever may be coming around the next bend.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
They took out a social contract On her In what might as well be Too her Too be As good As dead From their point of you Her response sow questionable If it’s awe the same Too you I’ll strike Oppose Whatever You have Status quid pro quo Ad infinitum With slick prose and dodgy idioms Foreign to me and my kind Only wanting Too ax me Where unseen ahead nod And invisible Hand Shake Down I reject
This poem’s title, Reject, can be read as both a noun and a verb. People, too often treated as things, often end up as rejects of a dehumanizing status quo. The humanizing response to being relegated as a reject of a dehumanizing status quo is to reject that dehumanizing status quo. People, and their vital humanity, are better characterized with verbs than as nouns. People rebelling against being a means to an undignified end, being treated as a cog in a machine or so much fodder, is an indispensable beginning to becoming more fully human. May your rebellion against that which is dehumanizing manifest many fine beginnings.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Pick You’re genocide Won side or the other Gun to head Ahead to gun Aliens pervade our atmosphere As whirled wore thee Restless natives no so slight Wear homieland security rules Redcoats and bluecoats Everyday cover ups Of fuzz overruling Wile privates everywhere As wee divine A bomb in nation Knot our own As they get Our scapegoat As if too give Pour excuses Tired pleas And huddled asses Wretchedly refuse Their teaming shore Up walls In efface of stranger contentions Reproving those Fresh off the bout Or slaves too buy gone ways The wiled West And marshal law For sum of the people OK, corral most of the people Distantly droning on Pining a bout boots on the ground As pay no tension to boots on the neck Of silenced know bodies Fueled into thinking It’s awe we Cain do As we might be Abel Too win with a faction of the vote Seduced by sects Of phallus choices And foe alternatives
This poem sticks to my recent theme of radical change needed to the U.S. electoral system posing as democracy. More specifically, the national or federal elections system needs a complete overhaul. Ranked choice voting would be revolutionary. We the people should end money as free speech, with its tsunami of money from the rich and corporate “persons” overwhelming voters and voters’ choice of candidates. The electoral college should graduate finally to something else. An actual representative congress, akin to many European parliaments, would better assure diversity and fuel true coalition building rather than simple domination of one party over the other. Still, this poems strikes a deeper and immediate chord. Voters could benefit much in the long run by refusing to negotiate with terrorists. The two-party duopoly holds voters hostage to lethal choices for the planet and humanity. Believe it or not, billions of non-voters around the planet have a stake in the health of American empire — that stake is often through their heart! Plus, the growing internal inequalities and ghettoizing of America could use some serious care and attention. It’s time to demand freedom to choose sustainable, life-compatible candidates and political parties. More directly, voters could exercise power more productively by demonstrating such freedom rather than simply wishing for freedom to be granted to them from above by the powers that be. How many cycles of abuse do we the people need to endure to muster the courage and fortitude to demand nothing less than fair elections and candidates that both represent and are responsive to the people? Corporate persons selecting corporate candidates is unacceptable. But, alas, we teach people how to treat us. As Frederick Douglass so shrewdly pointed out, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you’ve found out the exact measure of injustice which will be imposed on them.” Actually, the powers that be don’t really mind if we put on a good show with whiny grievances or articulate analyses, as long as we don’t change our behavior. In this context, that means our voting behavior and the long, disciplined work of non-electoral political action. Change takes time. Healthy behaviors often take years, decades, sometimes generations, to manifest themselves visibly in the body politic. If we don’t have the patience, the fortitude, the vision, and the faith that we CAN do better, then we will end up with the same old crap over and over again. This crap may have improved packaging. This crap may contain 25% more crap. Butt, in the end, if we take it, it is ours — all for the price of a mortgaged future! May we vote without fear. May we vote FOR love. May we vote with a hope that transcends tried and true naive optimism of the same-old, same-old delivering the same-old, same-old. Let’s make it so.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
IF you want a progressive presidential candidate that you can get excited about voting FOR, then Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate is worth serious consideration. Jill Stein has selected her Green Party running mate, Vice President choice, Ajamu Baraka. Mr. Baraka is an internationally recognized human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst with a deeply progressive resume. Here is their platform:
Enact an emergency Green New Deal to turn the tide on climate change, revive the economy and make wars for oil obsolete. Initiate a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history. Create 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, conservation and restoration of critical infrastructure, including ecosystems.
Implement a Just Transition that empowers those communities and workers most impacted by climate change and the transition to a green economy. Ensure that any worker displaced by the shift away from fossil fuels will receive full income and benefits as they transition to alternative work.
Enact energy democracy based on public, community and worker ownership of our energy system. Treat energy as a human right.
Redirect research funds from fossil fuels into renewable energy and conservation. Build a nationwide smart electricity grid that can pool and store power from a diversity of renewable sources, giving the nation clean, democratically-controlled, energy.
End destructive energy extraction and associated infrastructure: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, natural gas pipelines, and uranium mines. Halt any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas, and phase out all fossil fuel power plants. Phase out nuclear power and end nuclear subsidies. End all subsidies for fossil fuels and impose a greenhouse gas fee / tax to charge polluters for the damage they have created.
Protect our public lands, water supplies, biological diversity, parks, and pollinators. Ban neonicotinoids and other pesticides that threaten the survival of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.
Support a strong enforceable global climate treaty that limits global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius and provides just financial compensation to developing countries.
Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe.
Support organic and regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.
Protect the rights of future generations. Adopt the Precautionary Principle. When an activity poses threats of harm to human health or the environment, in the absence of objective scientific consensus that it is safe, precautionary measures should be taken. The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
Invest in clean air, water, food and soil for everyone. Clean up America.
Enact stronger environmental justice laws and measures to ensure that low-income and communities of color are not disproportionately impacted by harmful pollution and other negative environmental and health effects.
Support conversion to sustainable, nontoxic materials and the use of closed-loop, zero waste processes.
Create living-wage jobs for every American who needs work, replacing unemployment offices with employment offices. Government would be the employer of last resort, and the unemployed would have an enforceable right to make government provide work. Create direct public employment, as the Works Progress Administration did, in public services and public works for those who can’t find private employment.
Advance workers’ rights to form unions, achieve workplace democracy, and keep a fair share of the wealth they create.
Enact the Green Deal full employment program to create 20 million green jobs in sustainable energy, mass transit, sustainable organic agriculture, clean manufacturing and improved infrastructure, as well as social work, teaching, health care, after school and home care, drug rehabilitation and other service jobs.
Provide grants and low-interest loans to green businesses and cooperatives, with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community, rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.
Replace NAFTA and other corporate free trade agreements that export American jobs, depress wages, and undermine the sovereign right of Americans and citizens of other countries to control their own economy and political choices. Enact fair trade laws that benefits local workers and communities.
Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act which banned secondary boycotts and permitted state “right-to-work” laws. Enact a federal just cause law (to prohibit firing without just cause,) and outlaw scabbing on striking workers.
End Poverty:
Guarantee economic human rights, including access to food, water, housing, and utilities, with effective anti-poverty programs to ensure every American a life of dignity.
Establish a guaranteed minimum income.
Reform public assistance to be a true safety net that empowers participants and provides a decent standard of living.
Free universal child care.
Health Care as a Right:
Establish an improved “Medicare for All” single-payer public health program to provide everyone with quality health care, at huge savings by eliminating the $400 billion annually spent on the paperwork and bureaucracy of health insurance. No co-pays, premiums or deductibles. Access to all health care services, including mental health, dental, and vision. Include everyone, period. No restrictions based on pre-existing illness, employment, immigration status, age, or any other category.
Eliminate the cancer of health insurance, which adds costs while reducing access to health care.
End overcharging for prescription drugs by using bulk purchasing negotiations.
Eliminate health disparities in communities of color and low-income communities. Ensure easy access to health care in communities of color, including community health centers.
Allow full access to contraceptive and reproductive care.
Expand women’s access to “morning after” contraception by lifting the Obama Administration’s ban.
Avoid chronic diseases by investing in essential community health infrastructure such as local, fresh, organic food systems, pollution-free renewable energy, phasing out toxic chemicals, and active transportation such as bike paths and safe sidewalks that dovetail with public transit.
Ensure that consumers have essential information for making informed food choices by expanding product labeling requirements for country of origin, GMO content, toxic chemical ingredients, and fair trade practices.
Prioritize preventive health care, including physical activity, healthy nutrition and pollution prevention.
Education as a Right:
Guarantee tuition-free, world-class public education from pre-school through university.
Abolish student debt to free a generation of Americans from debt servitude.
Protect our public school systems from privatization.
Use restorative justice to address conflicts before they occur, and involve students in the process.
Evaluate teacher performance through assessment by fellow professionals. Do not rely on high stakes tests that reflect economic status of the community, and punish teachers working in low income communities of color.
Replace Common Core with curriculum developed by educators, not corporations, with input from parents and communities.
Stop denying students diplomas based on high stakes tests.
Stop using merit pay to punish teachers who work with the most challenging student populations.
Restore arts, music and recreation to school curriculums.
Ensure racially inclusive, sensitive and relevant curriculums.
Use Department of Education powers to offer grants and funding to encourage metropolitan desegregation plans based on socioeconomically balanced schools.
Recognize poverty as the key obstacle to learning. Ensure that kids come to school ready to learn: healthy, nourished, secure and free from violence.
Increase federal funding of public schools to equalize public school funding.
Set a $15/hour federal minimum wage, with indexing.
Break up “too-big-to-fail” banks and democratize the Federal Reserve.
Support development of worker and community cooperatives and small businesses.
Make Wall Street, big corporations, and the rich pay their fair share of taxes.
Create democratically-run public banks and utilities.
Provide full protection for workplace rights, including the right to a safe workplace and the right to organize a union without fear of firing or reprisal by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Ensure equal pay for equal work, ending discrimination based on race, gender, or generation.
Enact paid sick leave and family leave, strong overtime protections.
Take action against wage theft.
Oppose two-tier wage systems (e.g., for young people and individuals with disabilities).
Freedom and Equality:
Expand women’s rights, including equal pay and reproductive freedom. Pass the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment).
Support immigrants’ rights. Create a welcoming path to citizenship for immigrants.
Halt deportations and detentions of law-abiding undocumented immigrants, including the shameful practice of night raids being used to terrorize refugee families.
Improve economic and social conditions abroad to reduce the flow of immigrant refugees, in part by repealing NAFTA, ending the failed drug wars, and halting CIA and military interventions against democratically elected governments.
Demilitarize border crossings throughout North America.
Protect the free Internet. Oppose the Online Piracy Act and all other legislation that would undermine freedom and equality on the Internet.
Criminal Justice Reforms
End the failed war on drugs. Replace drug prohibition with harm reduction. Legalize marijuana/hemp. Treat substance abuse as a health problem, not a criminal offense.
Release nonviolent drug offenders from prison, removing such offenses from their records, and provide them with both pre- and post-release support.
End police brutality, mass incarceration and institutional racism within our justice system. Support the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Demilitarize police. End use of SWAT teams and no-knock raids for drugs and serving papers.
Repair our communities rather than dump resources into the prison-industrial complex.
Establish police review boards so that communities control their police, and not the other way around. Appoint dedicated investigators to investigate every death or serious injury at the hands of police.
Enact laws to require independent outside legal representatives to investigate and prosecute any killing or brutality by the police rather than prosecutors involved in the local criminal justice system.
Eliminate harsh mandatory sentencing requirements which often result in unjustified sentences.
Enforce the Bill of Rights by protecting the right to free speech and protest, to be secure from unwarranted search and seizure and invasion of privacy, as well as our other Constitutional rights.
Terminate unconstitutional surveillance and unwarranted spying, close Guantanamo, and repeal indefinite detention without charge or trial. Repeal the unconstitutional provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act that give the president the power to indefinitely imprison and even assassinate American citizens without due process.
America’s youth should not be put in jail for offenses they commit.
End discrimination against former offenders who have paid for their crimes and should get a fresh start.
Abolish the death penalty.
End persecution of government, corporate and media whistleblowers.
Issue an Executive Order prohibiting Federal agencies from conspiring with local police to infringe upon right of assembly and peaceful protest.
Repeal the Patriot Act that violates our constitutional right to privacy and protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Peace and Human Rights:
Establish a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, human rights, and nonviolent support for democratic movements around the world.
Cut military spending by at least 50% and close the 700+ foreign military bases. Ensure a just transition that replaces reductions in military jobs with jobs in renewable energy, transportation and green infrastructure development.
Stop U.S. financial and military support to human rights abusers. Barring substantial changes in their policies, this would include Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.
End the US’ role as the world’s arm supplier.
End use of assassination as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, including collaborative assassination through intermediaries.
End the destructive US economic and military intervention into the affairs of sovereign nations. Such intervention serve the interests of multinational corporations and global capitalism over the interests of the vast majority of the citizens of those nations.
Freeze the bank accounts of countries that are funding terrorism, including the Saudi royal family.
US policy regarding Israel and Palestine must be revised to prioritize international law, peace and human rights for all people, no matter their religion or nationality. End US policies that have supported the worst tendencies of the Israeli government in its treatment of the people of Palestine.
Restore the National Guard as the centerpiece of our defense.
Ban use of drone aircraft for assassination, bombing, and other offensive purposes.
End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, withdrawing troops and military contractors.
Join 159 other nations in signing the Ottawa treaty banning the use of anti-personnel land mines.
Lead on global nuclear disarmament:
Rejoin the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the US dropped out of in 2002 when it installed missiles and missile bases in Turkey, Romania, and Poland.
Agree to Russia’s proposal to jointly reduce US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,000 nuclear weapons each. Also call for all countries to the table to negotiate a treaty for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
Remove US nuclear weapons in Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands.
Support Russia and China’s joint effort to open negotiations on a treaty to ban weapons in space.
Pledge to end any further laboratory or sub-critical nuclear tests at the Nevada and Novaya Zemlya test sites, and end all nuclear weapons research, design, and modernization at the weapons laboratories.
The US must take the lead in nuclear disarmament by itself starting to disarm. We should create a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East region and require all nations in the area to join.
Empower the People: Fix our Broken Elections with Real Democracy
Eliminate the doctrine of corporate personhood that among other things has been used to justify unlimited corporate spending in elections with a constitutional amendment to clarify that only human beings have constitutional rights.
Enact electoral reforms that break the big money stranglehold and create truly representative democracy: full public election financing, ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and open debates.
Protect voters’ rights by enforcing and expanding the constitutional right to vote (including a new amendment if necessary). Enact the full Voter’s Bill of Rights guaranteeing each person’s right to vote, the right to have our votes counted on hand-marked paper ballots, and the right to vote within systems that give each vote meaning. Make voter registration the responsibility of government, not a voluntary opt-in for citizens.
Restore Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, requiring preclearance by the Attorney General or federal district court of DC to election law changes in areas previously found to limit voting rights.
Abolish the Electoral College and directly elect the President using a national popular vote with ranked-choice voting..
Restore the right to run for office and eliminate unopposed races by removing ballot access barriers.
Guarantee equal access to the debates to all ballot-qualified candidates.
Provide equal and free access to the airways for all ballot-qualified candidates, not just those with big campaign war chests.
Eliminate “winner take all / first past the post” elections in which the “winner” may not have the support of most of the voters. Replace that system with ranked choice voting and proportional representation.
Enact statehood for the District of Columbia to ensure the region has full representation in Congress, and full powers of democratic self-rule.
Restore voting rights to offenders, including while in prison.
Replace partisan oversight of elections with non-partisan election commissions.
Reduce barriers to voting by making Election Day a national holiday.
Enact simplified, safe same-day voter registration to the nation so that no qualified voter is barred from the polls.
Protect local democracy by making clear that acts of Congress establish a floor, and not a ceiling, on laws relating to economic regulation, workers’ rights, human rights, and the environment.
Increase government revenues for social needs by restoring full employment, cutting the bloated, dangerous military budget, and cutting private health insurance waste.
Require full disclosure of corporate subsidies in the budget and stop hiding subsidies in complicated tax code.
Rewrite the entire tax code to be truly progressive with tax cuts for working families, the poor and middle class, and higher taxes for the richest Americans.
Strengthen rather than cut Medicare and Social Security. Remove the cap on social security taxes above a certain level of income.
Maintain and upgrade our nation’s essential public infrastructure, including highways, railways, electrical grids, water systems, schools, libraries, and the Internet, resisting privatization or policy manipulation by for-profit interests.
Establish federal, state, and municipal publicly-owned banks that function as non-profit utilities and focus on helping people, not enriching themselves.
Create a Corporation for Economic Democracy, a new federal corporation (like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) to provide publicity, training, education, and direct financing for cooperative development and for democratic reforms to make government agencies, private associations, and business enterprises more participatory.
Democratize monetary policy to bring about public control of the money supply and credit creation. This means nationalizing the private bank-dominated Federal Reserve Banks and placing them under a Federal Monetary Authority within the Treasury Department. Prohibit private banks from creating money, thus restoring government’s Constitutional authority.
Manage pension funds by boards controlled by workers, not corporate managers.
Regulate all financial derivatives and require them to be traded on open exchanges.
Restore the Glass-Steagall separation of depository commercial banks from speculative investment banks.
Housing
Impose an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
Offer capital grants to non-profit developers of affordable housing until all people can obtain decent housing at no more than 25% of their income.
Create a federal bank with local branches to take over homes with distressed mortgages, and either restructure the mortgages to affordable levels, or if the occupants cannot afford a mortgage, rent homes to the occupants.
Expand rental and home ownership assistance and increase funding for public housing.
Use Department of Housing and Urban Development authority to grant or withhold funds in order to encourage state and local governments to take positive steps to desegregate housing, including ending zoning laws that effectively prohibit multi-family housing, prohibiting landlords from refusing to accept Section 8 vouchers, increasing Section 8 voucher amounts so that poor people can move into middle income neighborhoods, prohibiting the use of Low Income Housing Tax Credits to increase low income housing in already segregated neighborhoods, and building new public housing in middle income communities that is high quality and mixed income.
We can build a better future together.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
This Comedian Jesus cartoon combines the contemporary unwanted news cycle of Donald Trump with the timeless question of: Precisely what game are you playing?
This Comedian Jesus cartoon is an inspired hybrid of a pun on “Trump,” and my poem, “Different Game:”
Sorry, I don’t have any bargaining chips I’m playing a different game
Perhaps it goes without saying that I am a real card.
The fact that Jesus hung out with fisherman, real working class people, is just another bonus layer on the metaphor of the card game: fish.
In the current epic game of the lesser of two evils, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton vie to benefit more by comparison than by any solid or transcendent standard. The cynicism in politics is largely defined by the perpetual cycle of disappointment in the politicians that we elect. We are frightened by both “means” and “ends.” We are blackmailed into compromised candidates, wear fear and compromised boundary setting conspire to deliver the “goods” that are, in fact, not good. As captives of fear, compromised “means” unsurprisingly produce congruent “ends.” The simple fact is that you will not produce politicians substantially better than the electorate. We want politicians to save us from one another, when what we need to be saved from is our own fear. This myth of redemptive politicians short-circuits the reality that we must be the change we want to see in the world. The fact that we look to fundamentally compromised candidates to triumph over other fundamentally compromised candidates, speaks to low expectations consistent with the tattered boundaries (based on our values) that we set (or don’t set). These boundaries are based on who each person wants to be, not who they want others to be. We are all leaders. We need solidarity with one another, not the desire to rule over others. Electoral politics is overwhelmingly about choosing who, some elite typically, to rule over us. Ruling over others is the devil’s game. You can’t beat the devil at his own game.
In my view, we need to be well centered in solid and/or transcendent standards along with the courage to see a different game possible. The solid and/or transcendent standards speak to a long game, dare I say eternal (or timeless). The courage speaks to every moment presented to me where I have a choice of ruling/dominating over others or living as true equals, with equal respect and claim to our human rights. Such a courageous game of equality and solidarity is anathema to privilege. True solidarity is always directed at the disenfranchised, those whose human rights are trampled, humanity marginalized, and personhood monetized. Gangs of privileged folks crying, “All lives matter” in the face of people rising up to claim their human rights is not true solidarity. For a long time now, I’ve viewed “First Worldism” as the fundamental disconnect on the planet. This disconnect is centered in the USA. Americans certainly have their problems at home. Nevertheless, these problems are rooted, and overshadowed, by the disconnect with the wrest of the second and third world — most of the world. American exceptionalism is exceptionally bad for the planet and humanity, and a nearly psychotic break from reality. If the game in the center ring is to secure better social benefits on the deathstar that is America, rather than dismantle the deathstar, then America will be a plague on this planet and a cancer on humanity. I intend to play a different game.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Oh no No no A nation divided And so so partial to the whirled As who elect Who to rule Over US The select select Culled before we can even vote In the worst OKs scenario Effaced with know choice Picking our no’s Only too feel shamed a bout What fore Positively maddening Even abashed buy partisan fauxs In their first for winning at all accosts A media large for won size fits all In choiring mines knot aloud Who might ax candidates For the least of these Such modest dreams Bargain aweigh As all ways done Know madder what you due Until red or blue in efface Look past The elephant in the room Or the for most ass Both too big for their breaches Two big to flail Sow uninviting Some third party When we don’t even have a second to lose Meting that urgent call of nature Which we halve in common Breeds identical The same stinking results In the long runs And there will be no platform shoos Lofty enough too overstep Such inspiring stench Triangulating hope Beyond any worthy err Dissembled buy a con vocation Enacts of commission lacking As holey plan it A cross the globe Lock stock and barrel For if there is anything worth wile Wee will suck it Living in a vacuum Flagging as the whole damn nation As grieve US consolation price Paid by the wrest of the world Conscripted to buy Such wore torn democracy In reckless abandon Let them eat ballads Dedicated to just US And deem a little dream for me As if Mother Earth And her oft spring Got won vote And awe America Was not full of sheep Scarred of losing their position Excepting a world of hurt Sow backwards and screwy Pathetic vassals Under sway of loan some shepherds
This poem is an ode to the two-party duopoly of dysfunction as the current state of unfairs in the United States of America. The American electorate gets their breaches all in a bunch over the all-too-obvious lack of choice in the so-called leaders of the free world. The prestidigitation of political elites leaves US somehow settling for the best we can do as picking our no’s in the voting booth — pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Wile awe of this may seem quite mourn worthy for sheepish Americans, the wrest of the world has long paid the accost, underwriting the much lauded “free” world. Our tried and true means of dividing and conquering, that has won US our unfair share of colonial/imperial rule and the world’s resources, quite inescapably comes home to roost. The political elites who run US run the world. The domestic squabbles between Republicrats are decidedly effective means to distract short-sighted and privileged Americans from the fight for our planet and the ability to secure freedom and justice anywhere on our globe. Wile we prey for well-adjusted imperialists to secure our wealth of nations, we outsource the prize we have taken our eye off to other planetary citizens. The curse of the world may simply be the blind first-world privilege of the whole damn nation. Unity in imperialism is no victory for humanity or the planet. While the frenzied, megalomaniacal reign of a Donald Trump may appear frightening to our privileged penchant for predictability, there is meager-to-pleas comfort for global citizenry in a Hillary Clinton proven track record of loyal imperial rule, running roughshod atop nameless hoards, an X’ing more than have of the world’s fortune. In the belly of the beast of imperialism, with its won-sided wealth and power, there should be indigestion, with its unquenchable appetites and parochial fears. Deep national division may be precisely that which is re-choired to vomit out our inglorious privilege, liberate the retched of the world, and sing in harmony as won humanity. The world is underwater in debt and we don’t even no who holds our note. May the only debt we owe to our fellow planetary citizens is shared gratitude for the courage to act justly wherever wee might find ourselves, on the short end of imperialism, or in the belly of the beast.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
God is Way too big For any won religion While still Re-siding In A singular grain of sand Fore awe to see
This poem as a humble recognition that God is bigger than any won religion. While responsibility is an inescapable facet of any religion, the transcendent response-ability of every grace, every present as gift, bids us to reflect such a generous and loving weigh of life. God is a way, way bigger than any individual or religion might tempt to hold hostage. The business of religion flails when it takes, sides. Such iffy religion divides. The image of God reflected in each of us is not meant to be a brand, burned into flesh, the mark of the but, but, but, but, but… Religion is about pointing to the the ever more of life, and not scoring points. Religion is a thorny means that should knot be mean. The unkind of up your grasp attitude of religion and anti-religion serves up a paltry view of courage and costly grays. Meditating upon, and living in harmony with, the pique experiences of God’s unbound nature should be freeing, not circumscribing. And, still, not showing up with judgment, the eternally elusive God may be realized in a singular grain of sand. The mystery of life and that wonder full experience carries on, fore bettor or worse, fore awe to see. May your experience of the mysteries of life be more than you could ever bargain for…
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
The future looms Sew large As we seam Sow singularly stranded In the present Weave heir A parent With know designs Beyond Sum won ails And grater still The mine wandering Too what end As life goes On and on In and out Adding up One’s soul contribution The pit or pattern Of little feat Never apart Of the family busyness
This poem is about solidarity and hope. At times, each of us may feel alone, facing an uncertain future. This poem sets such worries and fears in the context of being part of the human family, children of God. You are not alone. While our individual actions may seem futile, they are an undeniable thread in the fabric of the future. Even when we feel screwed, the future is pregnant with possibilities. The Talmud wisely states, “It is not your obligation to complete your work, but you are not at liberty to quit.” Change is ongoing — such is the nature of life. Works worthy of the human race (versus the rat race) cross generations — even races! Worthy hopes and dreams often need to live on across generations; thus, our hopes and dreams must pass the test of being in a family weigh. As native Americans might put it: the arc of our lives should be aligned with the lives seven generations from now. Further, as Martin Luther King, Jr. assured us, “The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.” Wherever your journey takes you, may you find courage and hope in the company of others, and do your part taking care of the family busyness.
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
A juggernaut of freedom He proudly served As the weakest link In the chain of command And above Awe Due no harm
This poem juxtaposes the contrasting notions of freedom achieved through tight, even militaristic, ventures versus embodying freedom through default nonviolence and decentralized decision-making. This is a command and control model versus fostering non-hierarchical and autonomous action. My experience is that directly practicing freedom and modeling this for others is the best means for manifesting increasing freedom. Most succinctly put, this is a matter of means and ends — or rather a madder of means and end for the militarist or militant fundamentalist. Subcontracting out freedom by wholesale consenting to others’ directives strikes me as a fundamental bastardization of freedom, particularly in large militaristic bureaucracies dedicated to the end of freedom — through ever-escalating means. This is part and parcel to anarchist practice and philosophy. Anarchists value direct, unmediated experience as both a way to live and learn, in contrast to imputing authority (via consent, and ultimately responsibility) into impersonal human organizations or other impersonal social arrangements. Humanity is best experienced and served through smaller-scale, personal relationships, where the creative expressions of voluntary association and the personally uplifting experiences of mutual aid flourish. The title of this poem, “Chains of command,” is a pun — a double meaning — directly linking the shackling of freedom to systems of command and control. Anarchists are renown for their issues with authority. Less well appreciated is their fundamental critique of large, impersonal ventures which are viewed as the primary threat to our individual and collective humanity. Anarchists seek to live on what is considered a human scale, which is necessarily smaller-scale — you can only relate personally to a finite number of people — and decentralized in that your set of relationships is an organic, even alive, entity that is guided by free association and mutual aid. While anarchists are often portrayed as dangerous (perhaps to many forms of social order) and cavalier (perhaps revealing how foreboding freedom can be), there is a certain humility built into the anarchist worldview; there is a profound lack of ambition to control others (and be controlled) through the bulk of social arrangements in modern, so-called civilization. The hubris necessary for violence is for me the best example. Now, the brand of anarchist practice that I would ascribe to might be referred to as green anarchism, where violence is not understood to be an integral and necessary part of being human. So-called black anarchists might view the violence inherent in the present social order as necessitating violent responses. My view of freedom does not consider violence as necessary to being human, though the choice to be subject to violence as opposed to inflicting it remains a difficult and necessarily challenging one. Clearly the current world order considers violence as merely the order of the day, a necessity, outside the realm of free choice. The last lines of the poem are a tribute to a pacifist green anarchism, and the deep humility it engenders: And above/Awe/Due no harm. Of course, this is a take on the Hippocratic Oath: Above all, do no harm. Plus, the “Due no harm” alludes to the vision of a world where the cycles of violence are broken and there is no longer the cruel divide of victim and perpetrator. To go full circle, we must cast off the chains of command. May you find the freedom and courage to pay the cost of boldly adding your beautiful human life to the mix of humanity where fear and misunderstandings and inertial privilege stand in the way of our individual and collective humanity.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Courting the truth Their stories were tolled Not simply for just us But for awe of them Beyond monumental To re-member A broken body politic
This poem was inspired by the 2015 German movie, Labyrinth of Lies, about a young and idealistic public prosecutor in post World War II Germany learning about Nazi war crimes and their endemic impunity. As one reviewer summarizes:
“Powerful and haunting, Labyrinth of Lies turns over a rock and watches the vermin crawl out in a disturbing and rarely talked about footnote to German (and world) history. The rock is Germany’s massive effort to forget the past under National Socialism and move on. The rats are the former Nazis who, after the war, found acceptance and protection in comfortable positions of importance in the German government at a time when the country was on its way to reconstruction and cultural renaissance. The movie centers on the handful of brave men and women who dedicated themselves to an uncompromising search for the truth in the investigation that led to the Auschwitz trials from 1963 to 1965 in which Germans prosecuted Germans at last. It’s one of the most important and revelatory films of the year.”
The first line in this poem, Courting the truth, has multiple references and meanings. The movie is a prosecutorial investigation leading to the 1963 trial of Nazi war criminals for murder (which doesn’t have a statute of limitations) which was the largest trial in German history and considered the pivotal event in Germany coming to terms with its haunting past of Hitler’s reign and the tsunami of obedience by the overwhelming proportion of German citizens. “Courting” refers to the culminating courtroom drama which the story preludes. “Courting” also refers to the courtship of the truth and of the love affair portrayed in the movie between the lead character, the lead prosecutor, and his wife-to-be. The courtship of the truth, which reveals reams of human ugliness, stands in sharp contrast to the love affair. Or does it? The love affair is romantic, even magical, until in drunken despair the prosecutor confronts his wife with the reality of her own drunken father who fought with the Nazis in Poland: “Ask him why he drinks?” She tells her husband to get out, for good. The allusion is that she continues in denial about her father. The full-circle carnage is complete as the drunken despair was triggered by the idealistic prosecutor’s daring to look at his own father’s war records, only to find out that he was a member of the Nazi Party. The literal image of his father, a picture inscribed to him with the implied command, “Always do the right thing,” was now only an idol hypocrisy. The merciless truth of endemic Nazi collaboration couldn’t be clearer. Or could it? Among other revelations, he learns that the activist journalistic pushing for the Auschwitz investigation was, in fact, a guard at Auschwitz, making a somewhat-late and partially-muddled attempt at amends for his own presumed war crimes. Courting the truth offers unsatisfying justice as the original horrific injustices and decimation of humanity could never be fully restored.
The second line in the poem, Their stories were tolled, is the best answer offered to such overwhelming tragedy and criminality. Simply to have some of the countless untold stories of uncounted victims was the only path to honor the murdered and begin the healing of a war-ravaged nation. The damning awe of the truth cannot be successfully covered up by however neat or sterilizing monuments over which the dead are encrypted from the light of day. The terrible truth must be tolled — exacting unpayable pries. The river of denial must give weigh to the river of blood teeming underneath “A broken body politic.” That a broken body politic can re-member at all is the only redemption realizable.
May we never forget the lessens of war and its many patriotic and cowardly crimes against humanity. May we have the necessary courage and bounding love for humanity to empower us to defeat the scourges of nationalism and that bastard of patriotism: fascism.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
He new Not the least bit sheepishly Just saying I am not the boss of ewes And ewes not the boss of me
This is perhaps my first poem that might be best read with a New Jersey accent. This poem may very well be a tribute to a budding anarchist, one who newly recognizes that life is best lived as neither the boss of others nor the subject of bosses. Such a way of living springs from a humility and holistic perspective that bossing others around is an insult to the fullness of life of all. Plus, throwing off the rule of bosses demands courage and fortitude, perhaps not a little bit ironically, “like a boss” — though channeled to being the boss of one’s own life, not a boss lording over others. This poem also accents the boss-like oppression of sheepishly following other sheep, where cowardly complicity in the face of bosses diminishes us all. If you should seek to master such boss-less living, may you find ever new ways to live as equal partners with other people and all living beings, neither lording over or shrinking below.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
Could it possibly be A cliff hangar She jumped In what felt Like A free fall The feint of art Closing their eyes Thinking this only is For the birds Or perhaps angels Or butterflies borne by the wind For life is never a breeze Fore the heavy Thinking Too much Wait Never suspect Beyond A cruel goad Only trying Too flutter me Amid fleeting heir In the grip Of only that Which can be Grasped by wings Feeling confidant Enough To be Sow fly
This poem is about the lightness of heart and soul to take off in life. This poem is also about the courage needed to let the seemingly ethereal stuff of life lift us up. Our highest hopes can offer a birds-eye view of what is often a harsh landscape. A higher perspective can reveal paths and possibilities outside of the realm of those anchored only in concrete reality. Plus, flying can be real fun and absolutely invigorating. May you find flight for your dreams and be a beacon for those looking for a way.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
I was mistaken All those years Those sweetest ours Thinking I was making love When in truth Love was making me
This love poem, as most of my poems, can be read several ways. Of course, the simplest reading is a testament to the transformative power of romantic relationship love. Love is more than something that we, as individuals, “make.” Love is something larger than ourselves that we participate in. Love makes us better humans, much more so than could be designed by our minds however clever, or imagined by our hearts however large and open. Certainly, love makes us better than we could ever be outside of human relationships, on our own.
When thinking of poetry, I suspect that thinking of love poems is the most common and iconic. Love, the mystery of mysteries, is at the heart of poetry, trying to put into words that which can’t quite be put into words. I have described writing poetry as the heart and mind making love. The melding of the workings of the heart and mind is a struggle for balance and wholeness that pervades every human endeavor.
Psalm 85:10 describes this as peace and justice kissing. My intent in writing this poem was also to allude to such a wide theme, that of loving the world in a way that makes the world a better place for all. Peace and justice kissing is the way this becomes a reality in the world. Practicing that discipline of love makes us better humans, even if the reciprocity of that love is not immediately evident. Describing such ventures as love of God — love of Love — is a common spiritual discipline to carry us through the dry patches of of unrequited love on earth. Such love lives in the hope that the way of love (God’s will) will be “on earth as it is in heaven” (from the Lord’s prayer). Of course, the demands of justice are trans-generational, perhaps perpetual, requiring a patience and perspective beyond our own life. We don’t work simply for ourselves, that is if we are working in love and for justice. It strikes me, sometimes in the face, that love of enemy is the gold standard spiritual practice for melding peace and justice, holding fast to perfecting love, in creating a world where one side fits all. Every loving act brings us closer to peace and justice, no matter how far off they seem. Every loving act engenders hope and courage for both the gentle patience and bold courage needed for peace and justice to kiss. May you find love in every personal relationship, within your community, and in every conception of God you may have.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
A tsunami of hope is coming Are you preparing such a weigh? Will you be caught looking Through shot glasses Only to be decked out with eyedroppers For blood shot eyes, those cynical vanes Ill quipped to see arose As a master of heavy arts Uprooted by a juggernaut of serendipity Leaving ewe to find won self Oar reel state underwater In the bust of surf and turf As well sculpted ideologies Serve up anchors and chains In efface of assail boat Occupying the same Regardless of weather titanic cap size Kicking buckets down the road As if Awe is to be fathomed Only too arrive More than any won dare expected Even as some specious of large-mouthed perch Will settle Just enough Too fill one’s lunge In a whirled turned Upside down As big fish in a bigger pond And still Hope floats Not even holding water A parent as sow much hot air As a cloud to water The sores of life cleansing Bound to witness new arisings From such a gossamer point of you Not to be governed by stars Returning only amor Gentle reign on earth
This poem addresses head on and heart on one of my favorite themes: hope. Cynicism is easy. Hope is often somewhat more elusive. Courage, enthusiasm, and an open heart are prerequisites for hope to flourish. Change is happening awe the time. Do you see it? Don’t get caught looking through shot glasses or nurturing any of the many chronic dis-eases characterized buy the hardening of the attitudes. Love is skulking about working its way into the seemingly hermetically sealed hearts of the ignorant and perversely-incentivized, and when the time is right, love will flood the vacuum in such vacant souls. Things will suck in anew weigh for those not paying attention in tuition of life as a topsy-turvy whirled writes itself a new future. Feel free to spice up your life with such advent seasoning…
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
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In a world wear the lyin’ between winners and losers is sharply drawn, like an unbrakable sored, we risk a fate worse than deaf. When we are effaced with the phallus choice forced upon us between perpetrators and victims, there peers no amor culpable of shielding us in what is right or left, split in two, halves and have nots. The flush harbor in their stately effluence of fauxs. Oar their wins carry them aweigh, atop endless serfs and bounteous fleeting vassals.
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