The Conjugation of Condemnation

It’s no wonder his gaze radiates war; bullets were planted in his eyes at birth.

He’s got a Kalashnikov grin. His nose is filled with apocalyptic snot.

Demented and doom-stormed are his sentiments. He speaks an alphabet of crash. He’s the king of all things evil.

The edges of his words, wet with blood. His tensions intertwine into ever-widening armageddons.

His is a poverty that is a poverty of compassion. So many bodies buried in his imagination.

Contrary to what Trump may claim, he is not a ‘genius,’ especially when it comes to maintaining an intelligence towards humanism.

What other way can I say this?

When it comes to Putin, my words can only form the conjugation of condemnation.

When the Truth Serum Hadn’t Completely Kicked In

When I say it’s a sunny day, what I mean is it’s raining frogs.

When I say it’s quiet outside, what I mean is, isn’t that the sound of Nero’s fiddle?

When I say everything will be OK, what I mean is, it looks like history is practicing its blindfolded, knife-throwing trick again.

When I say, listen to the world sing in the key of life, what I meant is, our earth is moaning a vertigo blues that sends our souls reeling.

When I say I do my best to look on the bright side of life, what I mean to say is, there are days when my inner child should be named Dostoyevsky.

Cemetery Song

Come evening, I look out my bedroom window. The nearby cemetery is like a sad lullaby that sings itself to sleep.

I listen until the moon flashes its no vacancy sign.

All I hear is a mother and child a world away, sitting in an apartment hiding from bombs and gunfire.

The mother glimpses out her window and witnesses a cemetery that, for a moment, resembles a bus station where she and her child can catch a ride to a place without any pain.

Closer to home, a man smokes a cigarette beneath a street lamp.

He glimpses a neighboring cemetery and sees it as a bar where it’s always ghost o’clock, and the drinks are free as long as you sing karaoke with the crows.

Passing that man is a woman in a car.

All she sees are a string of green lights up and down the boulevard.

There is no cemetery in the melody she hears in her head; only grace and good fortune.

Angels of mercy, rebels of devil may care.

Second Wind

Chief Joseph led over a thousand men, women, and children on a trailblazing journey towards freedom,

yet there are days when I can barely lead a single thought to water.

Still, I’ve managed to build a crawlspace beneath my heart where I weave shreds of optimism into small, bright mercies.

I’ve learned that the clouds above won’t allow us to throw a noose over them;

that even a wild beat can’t always raise the bail for self-imprisoned feet.

That there’s little difference between a kiss and finding a crumpled ten in my pocket,

both add up to good fortune.

Our alternatives aren’t exhausted; they’re just getting a second wind.

No Kiss Is a Stray

Each kiss knows where it’s going.

It can roam forty acres of midnight shadows blindfolded and still find its way to the warmth and porch light glow of another’s lips.

Should a kiss ever get lost along the way, it knows how to return itself to sender.

No matter how hard you look,

you’ll never find a kiss in the dead letter office.

A long time ago in a San Francisco a heartsong away

there was poetry and protest, rockin’ and moshin’ in the shadows of Reaganomics.

The Grateful Dead and the Dead Kennedys. Punk, folk, funk.

Expression beyond the grips of repression.

Legwarmers and perms, mohawks and safety-pinned clothing.

Days and nights of meeting friends on the streets, in dimly lit bars, and City Lights. Specs, the Fab Mab, and Caffe Trieste.

Espresso shots of illumination in North Beach alleyways.

Survival and saintliness.

Down and out in the Tenderloin or angel-headed high in Golden Gate Park.

All the performance artists, rabble-rousers, and clouds in trousers.

A long time ago in a San Francisco a heartsong away.

So Say the Vowels of Clouds

Some have wings made of money.

Others have black cats & broken mirrors for bedmates.

Some have manholes for mouths.

Others speak in syllables of spark & serenity.

Some have nests of brightly burning light bulbs behind their eyes.

Others suffer from a poverty that is a poverty of heart.

All of us are fellow citizens in this joy, this struggle, this sorrow, this life.

Shine

From the slang and proper grammar of big bang’s cosmikarma.

From rags and rage, moshpit rock and regal raga.

From livid idioms of gridlock and the smokedance of prayerful incense.

From clenched fists and backward zodiacs, firewalking wonders and fingerpainted pleasures—

see how we shine the eyes of tombstones with our bright hellos.

Not a Dear John Letter, But Close

To those wearing three-piece suits of demagoguery. Those who deforest landscapes of possibilities.

All the politicians who’ve hollowed out mother nature‘s womb and created a war room.

To those who turn dance floors into killing floors. Those hooked on the apocalypse jukebox, continually tuned into the static of crashtastic demise.

To those who slaughter the bebop of birdsong with the sounds of one bomb drop after another.

Those who bully blue skies to black and blue. Those who separate the light from the dark and then enchain the bright, enslave the bright—

above all your noise and destruction, there is still a wondrous song ringing in our ears.

A song that remains the steady core of our dizzily spinning world.

To Match the Footsteps of Love

the soul bells a melody lush with the intricacies and ecstasies of rosegrow and sea-wave resonance.

To match the footsteps of love, the heart immerses itself in the beats, bounce, and bright of kiss-linger and well-tuned piano beds.

To match the footsteps of love, any and all cages within us are melted down into chimes, necklaces, and tuning forks.

Throbbing bombs strip away hate, learn new ways to accept a nakedness of peaceful reawakenings.

Opposition becomes unity. Enmity becomes affinity.

Tenderness rises from shadows, sings a morning song bright as the strains of blackbird jazz.