expectations

Turning again and back
before forward
you really get dizzy
living in life
and you get it all wrong
before you get it all right

Back when I was 11
I believed in heaven
but now that I'm 45
I'm just glad to be alive

Hanging on to dreams
making radical schemes
hiding too much under sex
and driving too fast
in a car that won't steer
with no fear

Calling myself
leaving questions
on the answering machine
asleep, awake...
distracted

It all happened
and it broke my...
it broke my

concentra-
tion

my heart

beat
up
comatose
or at least
unconscious

You don't consider conscience
when those voices call
alternating reality
bound
unbound
and rebounding

expectations

in a physical
psycho mess
of a world

and the spirit
left the spiritual
numb or dead
at any rate
unresponsive

Now I eat too many
Tootsie Rolls®
and my gut is big
and my teeth are rotten
and I watch too much TV

But isn't that what's
expected
from me anyway?

sleepin' on my grandpa's grave

I’m sleepin’ on my grandpa’s grave
it's the only way that I can save
My dignity, my peace of mind
The only dry place that I can find

Storm’s a brewin’ off the coast
A tempest yet unseen
I’m calling all my ancestors
To come and be with me

The wind it whipped my heart
And the rain did soak my soul,
But the water from the flood
It ‘bout swallowed me up whole

I’m sleepin’ on my grandpa’s grave
Crawlin’ out of an urban cave
To lie with my brothers and my kin
And wait for the healin’ to begin

Feelin’ left behind lost and alone
Watchin’ my city float by
Along with my home
Ain’t got no more tears to cry
got no more sighs to sigh

Drinkin’ a cup full of low down
Doggone drown for tears on this dry groun’
Never tasted such bitter brew
That’s what sleepin’ with the dead will do

Starving and thirsty in the heat
as my world drifts by,
Achin’ down to my feet
They can call me whipped,
But I ain’t beat

I’ll lie here with my grandpa
he'll keep me dry
We'll watch the stars shine
in the black night sky
drifting together we'll survive
drifting through heaven, we'll get by

Sleepin’ on my grandpa’s grave
You say it’s a strange way to behave?
Mind you, you’re not all that far
From where I'm at so mind your stars.

Sleepin’ on my grandpa’s grave
Only way that I can save
My dignity, my peace of mind
The only place that I can find

Crow as Dove/Dove as Crow

Crow as Dove
Dove as Crow

Which direction
does love flow?

With each mask
we give a show

Which is which
we never know

Crow as Dove
Dove as Crow

   •   •   •

Dove as Crow
Crow as Dove

In the sky
they fly above

One for life
one for love

Two are one
as hand in glove

Dove as Crow
Crow as Dove

Dove as Crow
painting by Robin Good

Sweat Shops

The status quo
Madness justified,
Escalates

Look upon the greed
Hold your eyes open

See the mark of the beast
On every scanner bar
In every store
On every item

Scandalous
Scenarios
More money than morals
Not worth the quarrels

Flow with the demented
Wade up the main steam
And drown in the undertow

Fold into the myth
Of the dream
As it enslaves

Television and debt
Sedation and satiation
Instead of salvation
The morally starved masses
Who tune in
To tune out
And buy
The lie

Hunkered down
In their private caves
Don’t bother to complain

True votes in the USA
Are cast through dollars
Left behind by misinformed
Wanderers
Trudging around
The halls of the malls
Looking for more
To buy for less
To fill the hole
Where God used to be

The security guards
Guarding the security
Of the vendors
and shoppers
Who are unaware
or don’t know or care
How those cheap goods
Got there

They’re safe now
Secure
Free
To shop
For a price
A proxy paid
By one not-so-free

One afraid
Powerless
Injured
Unprotected
Disrespected
Used…
…Up

For a shoe
or a shirt
they’re hurt
in a ten-hour day
For thirty cents pay

More tidy little packages
Wrapped in stars and stripes forever
Tied up with ribbons and bows
Through blood the market flows

Discount prices
Paid with lives
Long discounted
Ever abandoned
Silently screaming

Minstrel with a Mission
This is a poem I wrote about my friend, a street musician on State Street.

colorful chords
transcending all the black and white around
to the rhythm of some cosmic sound

he plucks the strings
he writes the songs
he makes life logical
mmhmm

singing the tunes
prayers of trust
witness the wonder
see what must
be forming our perceptions darling…
forming what we've seen—
from the infrareds through indigos to greens

he's a minstrel
playing from a hymnal
on sidewalk's side
he's a man of rainbow's color
in my human eye

dancing between the light and shade
he flirts with waning virtues made
he paints from God's own vibrant palette
to truly show Son's vivid edict set

colorful chords
transcending all the black and white around
to the rhythm of some cosmic sound

he plucks the strings
he writes the songs
he makes life logical
mmhmm

suicide bomber

gaze out to face Gaza
and what the blank sky offers—
an extra dose of oblivion

watch as doom rises up
from every horizon

look,
hear,
walk in fear—
live a nightmare
occupied
villified
nullified

bullets
rain down
from the cloud
of terror
that hovers
over on the hillside

fortification swelling up
like the powerful crushing jaw
of a murderous monster storm
bearing down and snapping
the tiny, fragile bones of justice,
tearing up the soft flesh of peace
demoralizing,
and devouring will

offering peace
the olive branch
and tree
blown in the yellow wind
are ripped out by roots
undone
cast off
charred and broken

gnarled trunks
lie deserted and dead
like writhing carcasses
twisting into the sand
still, but moving
offering peace no more

waves of growling 'dozers
crumple history
into tumbling rubble

the homes groan as they fall
and become the dust
that spins around
the boots of soldiers
as they march defiantly across
that desolate real estate

the blood of our brothers
cries out from the earth
where it has been spilled,
puddled and painful
after a tempest
of bullets
and bombs

[still the soft light
of forgiveness
could yet break through the sky
and spill across the hills
offering hope for another time]