1. Return to a City
La Nina steps in from the south,
infiltrating a cold undercurrent.
The streets spring up with water,
black tar rivers wantonly advance
through the concrete glass and steel man-made mountains.
I could smell it. The Rain.
I knew it would come.
I had closed all the windows,
smothered my bed with plastic
to keep the water, while I slept,
from making ponds in my eyes
and a deep lake in my mouth.
“You’re butterflyesque.” She commented,
As I talked to her from a payphone outside a QT
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“No matter how tornadic the storm
when it lets go of you,
you always land upon another flower.”
The storm raves outside, wakes me.
Flustered about the water I was taking in
through the roof of my home-made camper top,
I pull the plastic closer about me.
Why have I come here?
To this city?
This Babylon?
It terrifies me.
But I am here.
Here in the city of my birth.
Yet I have been mutated.
Who was I, then?
Was it really me?
Or was it only a dream?
So many names,
so many lives,
so many styles of clothes
so many books, so many people
separate me from that naive trusting boy.
Who would recognize my prodigal face?
For thirty years I’ve gnawed innocently on darkness.
This city fortifies itself for an Olympic siege;
and for reasons that are incomprehensible
I have come here.
My Friends,
I hear your words:
those notes, which fill the night air,
keeping me company,
as they penetrate through the cracks of this particle board box
I have constructed and call home,
The rain has forced me to remain inside for now;
but I sing with it tonight.
I sing the song of laughter.
I reach out for new friends.
It is hard but so is seeing the moon behind the clouds.
I just have to be patient.
and soon this storm will blow over.
2 The Roman/European Lie
[after the invasion]
I am given a dream as payment:
life as a hike upward on a cobble stone layered path
with stops along the way in which to rest;
where at the top,
I’d have a place to stay for eternity,
if I worked hard and diligently.
So I was forced marched
up those smooth roadways of modern civilized man,
those wide information highways of optical fibers.
His laws, ways and god were forced upon me.
In his own debauched way
he treats me as he did his god,
hunted
lied to
cheated
used
and then hung up
for the buzzards to pick the eyes out.
3. The Smell of Rosemary
The fresh smell of washed hair,
rosemary I think,
causes me to back away and catch my breath.
This can not be.” I infer to myself.
yet I find myself standing behind you,
pointing out my name on the schedule
explaining that was my government name,
not the one I am called by.
You lean back against me,
pressing yourself up against my chest
and rubbing your butt against my crotch.
your hair skips across my face,
As you turn your head to ask me a question.
Our lips only inches apart.
then our eyes meet, you stop
and your eyes gaze into mine.
pulse runs through my nerves,
and the adrenaline propels itself through my veins.
it is then I realize I was still a man.
I do not comprehend what happened,
amicably I pull my arm back.
Like a flower I choose not to pick
from another man’s yard.
A manner of Honor?
Stupidity?
Or just admiration and respect?
4
She-Wolf came and spoke
as I laid wounded and bleeding
on the side of the road.
“Take my hand and rise up.
Do not allow your pain to guide you
into that deep starless night,
your spirit fading engulfed within it’s cloak.
“Rise up and stand.
Though many odium miles you have traveled
with heart your only possession.
Thieves abound in the landscape
waiting, planning and hunting for the gold.
You guarded it well.
“Rise up and walk with me for awhile.
Though weary you be, humor me;
we shall see where this black tar river leads.
Maybe a bed to rest those jaded bones.
“Rise up and follow me, my friend
Ghosts haunt the sides of these winding rivers;
hollow eyes, harsh words, broken steps,
cardboard boxes and dumpsters.
Nothingness from nothingness during nothing.
“Rise up and feel the sun in your face.
Those rich pampered Trust fund children
will never understand nor experience the nothingness
nor comprehend
the kind quiet peacefulness of your love and words.
They are too busy trying to tame you.
“Rise up Wolf
With the mud wisdom you have gathered
patch the holes in which need
and travel through life with me.”
5. Homesick
The sky grew dark
and Wind walked in through the door
to say “Que pasa?”
It sent me off to sleep
running miles up and over mountains
rummaging through deserted cars for food,
picking berries and eating grasses.
I was tired and
weary of the strangers along the way.
By the time I connected with the big river
which went through the city,
I had begun to drop down on all fours
just to increase my speed.
That’s when Name-Giver walked passed me.
“What are you doing, Wolf?”
“I’m trying to beat Wind to her house.”
“Silly, get up and walk with me.
Let’s talk as we go along.”
It seems the storm that came in,
blew around.
I woke up around 2:30 in the morning.
The city had grown quiet.
A car alarm vibrates the night air;
I guess it woke me up.
I talk to it.
I want to go back to sleep.
But it says no.
So many people
running back and forth
over the same path.
How draining.
“Always had a different picture painted
more tranquil,
by this age,
this moment in life.
I thought I might once in my life,
have a place I could call home.
“A house built by my own long lankly fingered hands,
next to a spring, a wife,
maybe some kids, Teliqua, and
my family and friends circumventing me.
“This feeling I’ve got,
so tired, so out of breath.”
“One should be after running so far,” she laughed at me.
“just to catch up.”
“But with what?” I inquire.
“To catch up with somewhere you already are.”
From a passing car,
a message is passed on to me.
“Woe is me, I’m so homesick
But it’s not that bad,
because I’m homesick for a home I never had.”
I go to sleep listening to a Grave Dancers Reunion.
6. The morning was hot.
The clouds had not yet come in to cover the sky from view,
as the weather man had said they would.
So Sun’s rays came down
through the atmosphere at full strength
and beat down upon the figure sitting on the sidewalk,
a blanket shrouding him.
This is the beginning;
even though, the end may have been last night.
For what, man can stop and understand
the need, the want, or the feeling;
however, now is not the time to talk of that.
The immediate problem here for this man:
when he takes off the blanket, he is cold.
And when he puts the blanket back over himself
Sun heats it up again,
making him hot.
So he keeps putting on
and taking off the blanket
to regulate a comfortable temperature.
People walk by him,
with their cold hard judging stares
which are brought about in fear
and quickly turn about
to avoid his eyes.
He smiles at them,
ludicrously waving at each person who walks by,
and says.
“I want nothing from you except understanding.
You can’t even give that.
You rapidly walk away,
eyes diverted.
Look at me! I am your god!
No, you can not see me, nor hear me.
You just say ‘No’
no to life
no to understanding
No to others
and the many planes of existence,
No to knowing me,
your imagination, your soul.”
7.Amerodog
So many comedians with your fears and angers
what are you afraid of? Your own feelings?
You can’t even take care of Mother Earth.
Understanding is something
the West does not seem to comprehend.
You only criticize is like a rabid dog.
For five hundred years you have migrated here
and filled my ancestors land with blood
with hate with greed.
Oh, three brothers,
Jew, Christian and Muslim,
You have prosecuted us,
laid claim to our land, our women, and our gold.
You call this Eden, and we the lost tribe of Israel;
however, you have made it Hell.
If this is how you treat your brothers
I wish to be out of the family;
and you, out of my Mother’s house.
You came over whining and crying,
do you not remember who taught you how to live
and gave you food.
You claim of being so civilized,
but blood and vile sharp words come
from your venomous mouths.
So much hate.
You do not let your women and children speak for themselves
much less make their own lives
Rape and pillage is your path.
The problem we have here:
you are unable to accept yourselves.
and your own emotions;
That is too bad.
I guess once a slave of the Roman,
always the slave.
For I guess you don’t understand
the Roman was a hypocrite,
who claimed to be civilized,
and everyone else was a barbarian;
however the Roman was constantly killing one another
for power gold and jealousy.
The Roman worshiped Death.
Blood constantly flowed from their city walls.
Death for gold, I say no.
8.Raining for Days
It’s been raining for days
everything is damp
the paper
the matches
It’s hard to light a cigarette.
I have grown tired of this dark dirty city .
The shit fills my nostrils.
I don’t think that I have been able to breathe
and fucking smell for months.
There’s just so much shit coming from all directions.
I’m rather feed-up about the whole matter.
I don’t need this shit.
This town
I need time away from the rot.
I want to smell again,
the flowers, the rain.
Every man has the right to smell;
but no way man, not here.
I’m tired of people always trying to cheat and swindle
every fucking thing.
The government
the corporation,
the fucking pig on his beat.
The government needs to be abolished.
It’s a lie. All fuckin’ lies.
Wake up.
There’s so much shit we don’t need.
We’re all so fucking lazy.
Too damn lazy to run our own twisted miserable lives.
We’re not even trying,
that’s the saddest part of the matter.
I guess I can say that’s life and
wish the Sun would come out, dry everything out, and
make it a little warmer around here.
9.Saturated Sponge
If you have been the sponge,
your ears absorbing all that they can hold:
blaring television, horns, nonsense conversation,
telephones, silly arguments,
insults thrown from a moving car?
Step back.
You must pull the sponge out of your ear.
Wring it out.
All that nonsense.
The rhythm of tranquility
as the gentle rhythm of a rocking chair
staring off at nothing but a tree outside the window,
leaves reveling in the wind,
the buzz of the cars sound very similar to the river.
The frustration of the civilized world must be let loose,
to remember just who and what you are,
to be able to relax
to feel the quick intake of life
and hear your Heart’s Voice
tell you of the Great One
and to love and respect all peoples, animals, and plants
as I would my own, the Tsalagi, the real people.
10.The Question
The spiritual concept of man is only a matter of thought.
What are we to do with thought?
How are going to feel,
live, love, hate,
bleed from the very depths of our souls
without thought?
So I wonder,
if we have thought. Right.
The pure light of thought,
that energy triggers energy, causing movement.
Where does this put the spirit?
Which causes which?
What came first?
the Thought? the Word?
or was there just Spirit before all else formed?
It all amounts to the same thing.
You can all give me your religions;
nevertheless, they are all just philosophies of the Truth.
Everyone running around trying to force their philosophy
of this energy onto everybody else.
This ________, I have no name for it.
It just is
a energy?
a force?
a god?
What is a god ?
Why do we have to humanize everything?
Label?
Why not just live?
That is the way of the Tao.
understand, by not understanding.
yin and yang.
Weapons are not the way.
Smyon-Pa 