Eulogy for a giant (old class assignment in which I am to describe a rock)

Jupiter is dead.
In it's final throws, the planet compacted
to the size of a basket ball.
No bounce left though, no, no,
no, it shattered when it fell out of the sky.
The piece I have right from
the Titian's red eye
that infamous storm that swirls
reddest where the damage
is done most. It's deepest hues
like bruises that travel out
in layers like skin, the colors-
brick and mortar.

The smoothness of it's surface is the product of time passing over it's features with a fuzzy memory.
When I hold it in my hand all I feel is gravity.
It should be heavier. It's weight some unknown sum
GAS in the heads of scientists I've never met
but when I dropped it I heard thunder
CLAP into the corners of this mostly
vacant room.

I picked it up and mourned poor Jupiter.
One of our first gods
reduced to a throwing stone.

READ!

Cause it's good for you, like exercise
like oxygen. It's good for you like
sleeping in. And with a good book there
for when you wake
to stimulate your brain.

Read while the rest of you
stays in bed, you and your head can
go off and
see the world,
solve a crime,
learn a language (or just the ways
the one you know can be used).
Read because it enriches you.
Watch how the words
and feelings are infused.
To create an experience.
Something new.

Read. Because information is what you need.
read non-fiction and history and poetry,
read great people's auto-biographies,
read fantasies

JUST READ!

(And vote too, damn it.)

A spell to gather them

Calling all heretics, blasphemers, advocates.
Calling all heroines, witches and miscreants.
Join us in defense
of our right to dissent,
I say WAKE UP
and pay attention to this!



Get involved:
www.stopFBI.net
antiwarcommittee.org

Some real optimism

My my my. That last post is no good. Honestly, I don't know if I can excavate any more old poems. They are all so bitter and without hope. I have done a lot of soul searching and self finding in these last few years and I have turned around on a lot of opinions I used to have about myself and my life. Mostly, I just like myself a whole lot more. I used to live like there was nothing to get up for everyday. It was no fun. When I think about her now (this person I used to be) she scares me. I would not like to meet her on the street. I mean, I would like her to change but she did, I did change.
Anyway, I will probably write over that last post another time. I'm just having trouble because I haven't been able to finish these poems I am working on and I haven't been able to write anything new. Sometime when I can think of better things to say, I will edit that dreary shit out.

Instead, I wanted to tell you I got some new journals today! I ordered them online and just got the package in the mail. I buy my journals directly from the artist who designs them (one Ms. Jill Bliss) and I love,love, love her stuff. Her journals are beautiful (with colorful illustrations of flowers and herbs) and functional (some pages are graph paper, some are lined, some are blank) and she really cares about the environment Plus, my journal's name is Ms. Bliss (how cool is that?) I tell her all the things I want in my world, which is to say: choose bliss. They inspire me to create. I keep one in my purse and carry it with me everywhere I go. I just got four new ones, which should last me at least six months and I'm really happy to have a small pile of something that makes me so happy.
So, more to come! There's been a lot going on for me lately, with the FBI raids of my AWC friends (and our office) and I hope for some trully inspired revolutionary prose soon. Now that I have proper supplies it's time to get writing!

Excavated from my smoking days

The smoke fills my mouth
enters my cavities, my lungs
full of poison. I justify the levels
of contamination by saying
"it's better than this" or "it's
better than that" like a junkie.
But it hits the spot.
A twinge in a long dead limb, a
feeling through the numbness
like a zombie.
I confess to messing around with this
but it's better than
nothing.
Living just gets long anyway,
when really it's quiet short.
We are all on our way somewhere
and this just fills the time.

Grow Tomato

Grow tomato,
grow.
Ripen red in the
sun.
Swell with summer's
heat
and become.

Gulping sunlight
sucking the
dirt dry
limbs hang thick like
loaded guns
tucked into your shoulder to
steady, you
ready,
seeds in the flesh
on a mission.

Grow tomato- you know
your time has come.
Grow until you reach
the place that
each of us
is from.

having trouble coming to

God, the mornings are the hardest part.
Those gasping, grasping, groggy mornings
(and I'm talking 11am when I say that still and it is too much)

I've never understood "morning people"
Those people that get up extra early

to go jogging or even just sit there.
I'm told it's quiet.

But I can tell you, so are those wee hours

that they miss when they are sleeping.
Yeah, I've disowned the night life too
so I guess I'm like a vampire now.
The one who doesn't sleep.

Except then I wake to near-full sun
and cough up a frog and run
out of the house to get coffee.

Those people ahead of me in line are
already on their 2nd or 3rd cup
and they are wondering
where I've been.