State of Denial
      (01/2011)

Everyone leaves the state of denial afraid
And no one gets out alive
Without death of the old
And birth of a new desire

To give our best, not take the most
To share and not just control
Discuss and not just debate
Participate
Not dominate
Co-operate
Not incorporate
Appreciate
That teamwork makes
A house a happy home
And that no one lives in a garden of Eden
Alone

 

Compensation

   (11/2010)

I feel a need
To be a hero
To feel OK in my own skin

Like visions of grandeur are nature's way
To overcome inadequacy
To be important to someone who cares
I care
At all

 

Good Discrimination
      (10/2010)

If I try to put myself down
Some people will help me fall
If I wish to raise myself up
Some people will give me a hand

These are not the same people

(Go back to the list of titles)

 

Pride Sin
   (10/2010)

If I wish to be proud
I condemn myself
To be inferior
If not superior
To those I would see as below me

(Go back to List of Titles)

Older Poems:

 
Hope
   (1966-2006)

One life filled
with want and need
One thing a being
must achieve
A great sea crossed
a mountain scaled...

Oh, such wonders you conceive
In what, my son, do you believe?
Where lies the promise of reward?
Tell me, pray, what will be born?
Another sea, another mount?
The light of day will follow morn
But only dream will follow dream
Forevermore

My Father,
Death surrounds us
Beckoning with icy finger
that we might sorrow
While life glows...(quietly)...
within us and without
Yea, with doubt-
ing hearts we stumble
blindly to our passing
Lack of faith in life
our bond with agony
For what but life
could show us otherwise?

Touch...
knowing one truth:
Though we all shall fall
and die
It matters not
Only how we stand
And why
And love
on the throne
of thought:
Hope!

(Go Back to List of Titles)

 
Sad Sorry Afraid
   (September 2006)

When I’m sad, sorry, afraid
I remember
My mean father
often asked me
A question I paraphrase thus:
Do you think your feces
emits not offensive odor?

I Changed the words some
‘cause his words were ugly
Intentional shock and awe
Domination aggression demanding submission
subjugation
fear!
You know, typical bullying
As seen
in schoolyards
bedrooms, boardrooms
barrooms
anywhere bullies rule
I hope bullies don’t rule
‘Round you ...
Or inside me

‘Cause I wish
I didn’t mean
to be mean
Sorry
I really did
Sad
it’s taking so long
To have a heart
Unbroken
Unfrozen
In wonder
Is it safe
to come out now?
Is love more
than under control?
More than giving
and being taken?
Is there anyone living
to play with?
And work beside
not over (or under)
I hope so
but more so
I fear
I’m afraid
not...
When I’m sad, sorry, afraid

(Go Back to List of Titles)  

    
Stardust In the Wind
   (September 2002)

‘Tis good for us to know
Which way the wind would blow
That we might live
another day
Ere the final battle
soon to come our way
When the bully gives up with a whimper
To the sacred word sword of truth
That shall sever the gordian knot
That spellbinds us in phony personas
Acting in glamorous dramas
Enlivening deadly enthrallment
With Disneyland magic
covering up
The pain of our isolation
In a godless pseudo-heaven
Where addictions distract and blind us
To the Garden of Eden around us
If only we might awaken
With eyes to see
and ears to hear
And a heart to feel
in ourselves
A mother gardener’s love
To guide us
home

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Morality Wonder Why
   (May, 2006)

Morality
Is the moral
of the story
that moves me
As virtue rewards me
I seem to innately
love giving
The friendship I seek

'Cause free association
Is teamwork magic
And inconsideration
Is simply
Impolitic

(Back to List of Titles)


 
Disassociation
   (March 2004)

What ails us is dis-
association
Dis-
connection
Alienation
Lacking remorse
compassion
Failing to feel
repentance at-one-ment
Chances unnoticed
in greedy rush
Where gentle kindness
can only be faked
By selfish pride
pretending to Heaven’s throne

(Go Back to List of Titles)

 
Psycholinguistic Decline
   (July 2006)

Jesus myth
does not say
The "weak"
shall inherit the Earth
‘Cause the "meek"
in King James English
could mighty warriors be
‘Till modern American English
Turned meekness
to weakness
With winning
through intimidation
And
"Good guys finish last"

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Mister Control Freak
   (July 2006)

Go away
Mister Control Freak
And torment someone else
Who’s willing to accept
Guilt-tripping verbal abuse
disguised as polite conversation
Which is really about me
Listening to you
Complain

And twisting
my any response
To something ugly
I must defend
As not intended
To offend
poor, innocent you
Mister Control Freak

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Mr. Motormouth
   (September 2007)

If I have to struggle
to squeeze in a word
It's not a conversation
But verbal masturbation

You talk, I listen
Seems like a rip-off
to me...
Mister Motormouth

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Apart Together
   (March 2001)

Rehearsed smalltalk sputters
To an uninspired death

Squirming, twitchy silence screams
To be filled
With empty platitudes
So meaningless banter continues
To hold us together
In mutual disgust

Words can never bridge the gap
Imposed in opposition
To self surrender

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Hell
   (September 2003)

Hell is self-service sublime

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Poor Me Attitude
   (January 2007)

The "poor me" attitude
gives ample latitude
For misbehavior
by us against them

They, who suffer not
Caring less
Deserving contempt
And abuse
Unless
They give to the needy
Poor me

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Into the Light
   (August 2002, April 2006)

I walk among evil
brooding shadows
Demons unleashed in my mind
Haunting love away

Though my soul cries out
for goodness sake
My spirit lies supine
Enchained
By melancholy
hurtful thought forms
stuffed in hidden layers
of murky unawareness
As I fight to rise into the light

Against
A seductive, soothing tide
Of painless darkening

Yet the comfort of numbness
distracts me not
From a vision of grateful tears
transmuted to golden moments
Awakening senses long denied
touching behind the veil
An ember glowing warmly
in a loving mother's eyes

A stranger
with giggling infant
I happened
a moment to spy...
Into the light

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Faith
   (November 2005)

Love has a way
Unthought of

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Meaza
   (June 2002)

I see her washing dishes
at the Sacred Grounds Cafe
And every time
she cleans my mind
of every other care
As her effortless smile
awakens in me
A newfound innocence
Growing, warmly
in response
to the gift
that she bestows
Without a selfish thought
or motive
Like she’s unaware
Or couldn’t care
Or simply doesn’t realize
The value of the healing glow
pouring from her eyes
As though she would never look
at anyone otherwise
As though she doesn’t know
the beauty that she shows
As though she thinks she’s losing:
only a dishwashing woman

As though it hasn’t occurred to her
and she could not surmise
That she’s really already a winner
of life’s greatest ever prize
In my eyes

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Idealization
   (January 2007)

As I see
in you
Forms
of beauty
Love grows
In your image
Inside me
Ideally
You
are beheld

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Falling Into You
   (December 2001)

I’m falling into you
Falling into me
Like falling into gravity
Like a whirlwind
of raw emotion
Condensing
to a point
That we can ride
into dreaming awake
Like the sparkle that lights
your eyes
And the glow that grows
in mine
As we both hold back
Just enough
To savor
the bittersweet pain
Of gratification
delayed
Compared to the warmth
of surrender
To waves of passion
building
A torrent
to carry us
Home...
Falling into you

(Back to List of Titles)

 
American Dream
   (December 2001)

The American dream
will come true
When the Indians join Thanksgiving
And manifest destiny
As soon as we awaken
From American gangster nightmares
Holding us back
and apart ...
American
dream

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Us and Them
   (January 2002)

There is no
us and them
Except ...
as bullies
make
it so
And fear
makes people follow
Like "off to war!"
ready or not!
"Us and Them!"

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Seeing No Evil
   (November 2001)

My joyful spirit of expectation 
Was mirrored in eyes of slow-moving pilgrims
Gathering on Castro Street Sidewalks
As we neared the Gay celebration
Of San Francisco Freedom
And our Pagan heritage

This Halloween/Samhain two-thousand-one
was only a few weeks after
The horror we lived on September eleven
changed us
And even innocent babies like me
In my diapers and frilly white bonnet
Were warned to look out for terror
And not ignore those who hate

Entering the crowd in the closed-off street
I passed two people being led away
With bloody cloths on heads lowered
In humble submission and sorrow
While police removed one of a gang
Which then milled about as if waiting,
As if they knew in advance
The arrest was only for show ...
The perp would return in minutes laughing
Free to continue his terror
To break our spirit and end our embrace
Of Gay freedom and each other

I watched the familiar pattern
of troubled eyes seeking targets
As the abuser builds
his self-righteous anger
Into uncontrollable rage
That would render him somehow innocent
and not responsible
For violence to come
‘Cause "the bitch MADE him do it"
as seen in his bully mind

Meeting the glazed and cowardly eyes
of the thug who tested me
I said with a look, "Look on!
I’m not to be taken with ease"
So on he looked for easier prey
while I discreetly walked away
Seemingly nonchalant
Out of the boiling kettle
Before the next explosion

The people I hugged
and hung out with that night
More than made up for the madness
Yet somehow I could not get over
A feeling I was wrong to ignore
An evil that does affect me
Even as I walk away
Knowing I had a good time
In spite of the hate that surrounds us

I dreamed a few nights later
of looking out my window
At a crying man
being eaten alive
by a self-righteous angry lion.
His screams were silenced, I noticed
When I backed off from seeing
the sorry sight
And minded my own business

Then time shifted forward
and I saw the same lion
Walk boldly up to my neighbors
As they rested in comfortable chairs
on their private-property porches
He sniffed them one by one
for a hint of the taste of the future,
Too full to eat them all then

I noticed my neighbors
were not alarmed
Each in her peaceful vision
Seeing no evil today

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Why they Hate Us Americans
(March 2002)

We do feel guilty
and would be ashamed
If only we could see
What American gangsters have done
In our name and with our dollars

But we don’t have time
to investigate
And we know we can’t trust
the news
So what good would it do
If we had a clue?

In our richness
why should we care?
If the system works for us
Why fix what isn’t broken?

Possibility of
Responsibility and
Unaware complicity
In murder, rape and enslavement
Is more than we can grasp
With hands too full of self

‘Cause we’re far to busy to wonder
Too fat, too proud and important
And we’d rather believe
our guilt is neurotic
So we can just say
"We gave at the office
And we wish you
a very nice day"

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Peace Without Justice
   (February 2001)

The Beast of Empire patrols
A silent Latin American night
Another poet is disappeared

A union organizer's dismembered body
Floats quietly down the polluted stream

Villagers cower behind curtains drawn
in dismayed isolation
As the palpable spell of fear grows
And peace without justice prevails

The midnight sky
of South-central Los Angeles
Is floodlit by circling helicopters
As police gun down a resisting citizen
Caught driving while black

Trembling children cling in terror
To skirts of mortified mothers
And peace without justice prevails

The Whore of Empire proudly displays
Her lit up Las Vegas
glittering with promise
As the glamour of lust is aroused
And hapless citizens dream of their lucky night
Entranced for a glorious moment
Before humbly retreating
To their feathered cells

TVs light up suburban living rooms
Where fat gluttons are seduced
With visions of grandeur
While they struggle to catch their breath
After a hard day of slavery
Disguised as the American dream

Enthralled by images of a better tomorrow
They vote with their silence
And peace without justice prevails

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Above the Fray
(August 2001)

Above the fray
Is where we want to be
When we dream
Of winning
The lottery

Above the rat-race struggle
In a personal comfort zone
With only cheerful thinking
And neighbors ever pleasant
So love is all we need

Surely peace glows
Like the peachy cheeks and sparkling eyes
Of the rich man’s teenage daughter

Above the deadening routine
Of doing what we must
Instead of what we feel
Because of what might happen
Like our hopes being ground
Into unforgiving concrete
Like the blood of the homeless
On the filthy sidewalks
Of their rude awakening,
We would turn misery
To happiness
By our example
Of loving living
And giving
A helping hand
As much as we can
So long as it costs us not
Our position
Above the fray

Above daily reminders
Of brutal force behind the throne,
The common man imagines
A land of freedom
For self-realization
In a new-world united American nation
As seen on TV

The movie-star glamorous life
Where beautiful people walk boldly
On paths of their own choosing
Making dreams come true
Is a glamorous image
That lives in the heart
And keeps us yoked
To the rich man’s plow
Ignoring the sting of the whip of progress
While dreaming
A Disneyland future
Above the fray

We walk among shadows
Dreaming our place in the sun
While the very ground we stand on
Shudders and sinks
From the weight of the blood
Of the victims
Of our
Indifference

And false hopes turned to submission
In the hours we squander
While peace without justice
Continues
Unopposed
By those
Enthralled

And unabated

Bullies continue to rule
In a world where aggression is king
And the meek are considered unworthy
And destined to grovel and hunger
For the unseemly social failure
Of lacking the higher level
Of holy testosterone needed
To rise to a comfort zone
Above the fray

(Back to List of Titles)

 
Usury as Usual
   (November 2001)

Usury, in King James English
Was the sin
Of moneylending
For profit

Like a bank, or IMF
International Moneylending Families
Terrorist gangs
Who've enthralled and enslaved us
Stealing our land, our heritage, national sovereignty
And freedom to enjoy the pursuit of happiness

While middle-class status-quo groupies
Enjoy mindless gluttony
In reward for love of greed
Calling rape of whole nations progress
While sipping cappuccino and reading the ruling-class news
To see how the death of Earth
Is affecting their piece
Of the Market
And how the fight against crime
Is keeping the poor in line
Suffering quietly
So as not to awaken the rich man’s daughter
To the distant rumble of something coming
To your neighborhood
Soon

Meanwhile, the common people
Are forced to abandon their land
As they’re herded into ghettos
Where the meek are used and abused
And those who complain are imprisoned
Or met by death in the night
Or an offer they can’t refuse

Sovereignty is history
If it ever was
And freedom, an illusion
Shattered by war against protest

For we give up our rights as we bomb in the night
On borrowed money
Empowering a government that was bought and sold
(Or simply stolen from us)
To fight an endless war against what they call evil
By borrowing more and more
From the families
Who already
Own us

The conspiracy comes out of the closet when
The IMF forces sovereign countries to their knees
In supplication
While puppet dictators are starving the people
So global corporations can drain the wealth of the nations
Paralyzing people with no other option
But obeying and staying
Forever undeveloped

When the rich man’s economy finally collapses
From the cost of the War Against Terror
Will the IMF rescue America
With the same "austerity measures"
Increasing the price of bread and spending more on police
So the poor die quietly
And out of the way
Of the rich getting richer
And the meek being taken
For all they inherit and all they create
As usury as usual continues on
Our debtors’-prison planet?

(Back to List of Titles)

End of Disneyland Innocence
(December 2001)

When ruthless religious fanatics
kill innocent Israeli civilians
To ignite a holy war
to put themselves in power
In another reign of terror
by a new mob of bullies
Pretending to be patriots
inspired by God
To conquer with mindless rage
and the usual genocide
And force their own people
onto their knees
In Satanic quest
for domination,
Fundamentalist terror
is plain to see
Except for the child of Palestine
Who sees no other way home

When Israeli civilians are killed
By the people they made homeless,
It is evil to all
who see themselves
As innocent of stealing
the land they now live in
From those who lived there before

When Palestinian homes
and orchards are leveled
And suspects blown apart
To terrorize victims
of ethnic cleansing
Into passive acceptance
of life without land
In concentration camps

When the CIA
pays mercenaries
To assassinate leaders
of slave-world countries
With oil we covet,
it is labeled freedom fighting
And that is considered good

Yet state-sponsored terror
Can be viewed by its victims
As meant to replace
existing systems
With puppet dictators
enslaving the people
And plundering natural treasures
As empires have always done
For the privileged and the rich
At the expense of everyone else
In a policy meant
to maintain the game
Of financial speculation
For the same elite families
who finance election campaigns
Bringing empty promises
for common people
And windfall profits
far in excess of donations
To all with the cash and the foresight
To pay for election of lackeys
Who kiss the hand that feeds them

Disneyland innocence
dies when we awaken
To the pain of the system collapsing
as fast as we bail it out
With emergency "austerity measures" 
like raising the price of bread
As we get by with less
and give up more
So the last of the land
and the common wealth
Is transferred to bullies who own us

And if we vote against this
in spite of the propaganda
The election will simply be stolen
Or canceled due to emergency
Like the Bill of Rights

Beware the War against Terror
which is really a transfer of wealth
From the comfortable middle class
to the war-machine company owners
And the banks that we all borrow from
Who bring us this "final solution"
to protest and insurrection
As the social safety net
is pulled like a rug from beneath us
And the middle class fades away
into unemployment oblivion
Along with the self-righteous voice
of their passivity

Note the lack of hope
that greets our awakening
‘Cause alas, it’s too late to escape
a coward’s fate
Since the soothing voice
of the middle class
Has served its purpose well
Lulling us into complacency
Distracting us from the truth
‘Till revolution
no longer threatens
The status quo that controls us
Whether we like it or not
‘Cause our vote don’t count today
And if we try
to do something about it
They label it terrorism
Punishable by military tribunals
or death squads in the night
Eliminating the difference
Between Arabs and Israelis
Chinese and Americans
English and Africans
In a New World Order
with globalized workforce
Of all slaves made equal
And peace without justice for all

(Back to List of Titles)

 

Worthless Love
   (June, 2003)

Where no lacks passion
Yes is worth less

(Back to List of Titles)

Atonement
   (September, 2001)

Surely our prophets have told us
Atonement will set us free
Not a perverted atonement
That propagandizes the myth of the murder of Jesus
Into reinactment of blood sacrifice ritual
To placate the vengeful god of a tribe who would conquer and subjugate
All of the world who refuse to submit to Zionist ambition
But rather atonement that makes us "as one"
At-one-ment:
"Reconciliation"
Without sacrifice by the fearfully ignorant to the jealous tyrant
But with offerings of love and prayers for reunion
"To restore to friendship and harmony"

Atonement is the Holy Grail of spiritual enlightenment
Atonement with deity is not submission to higher authority
But merely awareness of returning home
And ones decision to live in service of common good
Knowing the truth that in giving we get
That which we could not take
And have only to accept

(Back to List of Titles)

Antisocial Glamour
   (January, 2002)

The innocent loner stands tall
Against an evil tide of mindless conformity
Where theives masquerading as saints
Violate the intent of the law
While staying within its letter
Thus taking plunder peacefully
So as not to disillusion
Or disturb the ignorant masses
Supporting the brutal system
Of workaholic winners taking all

Middle class families support the status quo
As role models for the poor
Who dream of rising above
In-your-face wage slavery
Where poverty grinds dreams to rage
For lonely losers fantacizing
How nice it would be to live among happy people
Instead of looking for flowers in vain
Among garbage-strewn streets of despair

We the dispossesed find ourselves herded together
Wherever the poor are allowed
On desolated land that no one wants to own
Or in places out of the way
Like city streets abandoned in dead of unsafe night
Or ghettos holding us prisoner until we join the army
Or land in the penal system
Our home away from homelessness
American nightmare police-state becoming our only vision
When the rubber meets the road
Running over hope
With the weight of conviction

We submit or die, or beat the system first
By being just as criminal as we perceive the others
And simply taking what we want
And not getting caught
(The only hope remaining).
Then we can relax, becoming gentle people
Like Rockefeller philanthropists
Retired drug dealers and Mafia Dons;
But we need a better self-image
‘Cause most of us want to look good
So we must create a glamour
Making our victims look evil
Transforming our criminal behavior
To crusading for social justice
Elevating ourselves in the minds of outlaw culture
To heroes on quest for the Graile
With the help of our warrior god
And the magical spell we conjure
Making antisocial attitude and hipper-than-thou arrogance
Look like glorious rebellion against injustice
Which is lots more fun then waiting to die forgotten
Like an unwanted baby dead in the family trashcan

Antisocial snobbery, like bigotry everywhere
Is based on "us and them"
Who give us no other choice
But to hate them for having happiness
And health at the cost of ours...
As if they planned to hurt us
And hate is our only defense

I awake in shame remembering
Giving my anger free reign
And looking down my nose at those offended
Like only the dispossesed are innocent
When really there is no "us and them"
Except as bullies make it so
And fear makes people follow
Losing sight of the truth that would free us
From needing to put down the other
To make ourselves feel higher
Than those who we lay lower
With hateful accusations turned to judgment

I’ll never find peace or feel OK
So long as I won’t forgive others
Who know not what they do,
For how else can I forgive myself
For harm I cause without knowing?

Antisocial glamour hides an ugly truth:
Self-righteousness shows willingness
To condemn without compassion
And bully without remorse
Like a Robin Hood legend
In one’s own mind

(Back to List of Titles)

Disclaimer
   (August, 2005)

It’s against my religion
to tell you what to believe
So forgive me please
If I seem to commit that sin

(Back to List of Titles)

The Artist
   (August, 2001)