These Poets Released Their Hearts On The World

These poets released their hearts on the world​The ones we knew and lost,

Those punk poets with ADHD and precious fits of anger,

​The ones who tore down the murals on Pine Street

The ones who brought their stolen guitars

​13 years old, playing music in the streets until dawn

​When the police stole them from their sleeping bags

​Handcuffing them into the backseat of their prowlers

​The order of a blowjob or a night in jail

Those romantic poets whose hearts were young and full of anticipation

​The ones not yet broken down by maryjane dreams in

​The back seats of adult theatres

​The quick cum meals swallowed fast and cheap for food money

​The old men with their eyes closed never cared about a name

Those dying poets who were still so very alive and independent

So much more than you and I ever were

​Not haunted by false iconic visions of future fatherly duty and the

​Idiom of an autocratic family life without questions

​Answers answers answers they never wanted and we never knew

Those spoken word poets who sold their souls on the interstate

Spouting their gospels out loud in honkytonks​

From Nashville to Memphis

Living in the back seat of a 55 Ford

​The Guardians of Race beating them in fits of fear and hate

Those crazed poets who raced down the riverbanks without shoes

​Hair flying in the breeze, eyes bulging out of their skulls

​Blanked out on crack screaming at the universe about

Eternal damnation and all the

​Virgins they’d never live to fuck

Those anaemic Goth poets who couldn’t get out of bed before 6pm

​Puking in the hallway, blood surrounding the toilets

​Building supervisors looking the other way in disgust but

​Knowing they’d pay their rent at the end of the month

​When they dropped their jeans

Those interstellar poets who flew to Europe with daddies’ money

​The ones who blew it all in a casino without windows

Losing it on broken promises and

​A thousand and one forgotten explanations

Those intellectual poets who fell to their knees in philosophical orgasms

​Espousing a faith to the almighty Kafka. Trotsky or Camus in

​Coffeehouses filled with clove smoke thick as lies

Clueless fools awaiting verbal ejaculations

​Still debating just what the fuck they meant

 

Does it fucking matter at all?

 

These poets released their hearts on the world

​The ones no one knew

Those hipster poets their pockets filled with Hegel

​The ones who argued that life is a fucked up poem of its own

“Ecstasy is the natural form of live” tattooed across their foreheads as they killed themselves

​In taxis sneaking their poems out of East Berlin in the 1970s

​The last stanzas of the Internationale and top secret words,

Words of revolution slipping out of their consciousness.

Those fashionista poets with the berets,

​Dizzy and Bird and Mingus, oh bop kabala, oh piano riffs of Monk

​Twisting the head around until it falls into the Hudson

​Only to be born again in these lines

.

I too want to be born again in these lines. Oh holy oh holy

Oh Mother of Invention and Creationism dead and dying.

Lying in a supermarket aisle with the scars of unfaithful husbands

Cocks swallowed whole in hasty retreats

Notes in pockets of winter coats left behind hastily and forever regretted

Let me cum on your breasts.

Let me fill your vessels in three quarter time.

Frantic frantic these words cannot give me peace that’s not their intent

These are the poets’ cries, the ones no one hears

Bulldozers running 24/7, poetic cities of metal built and rebuilt on the same stones

Stoned poets running in the Bowery,

Running in Harlem,

Running in Seattle and San Francisco bath houses

Running from gin joint to bop united strip joints to gay bars with big screen tvs

Blasting Eurovision and Berlusconis porn for the masses, but I digress

 

These poets released their hearts on the world

Those shy poets tripping over cobblestones in 60s Stockholm coffeehouses

​Out of focus permanently in every night daydreams of a better world

​Daydreams daydreams life is but a daydream

​Palmes murder ended a countries’ dream but now it’s all life as you want it

​If you want it here it is come and get it

​Swim from the city to the archipelago drown in the icy water all alone

​Your poetic dreams washed up on shores of fascist nations

Those awkward poets hiding in the public library salons built like hospital wards

Leaving notes in Martian, this I’ve seen, that no one can decipher on the large tables while flashing gorgeous legs to the staff

​Security guards keeping a vulture close watch on their every curve

​Rhymes from ancient poets calling, pushing their insanity further and further

​Their poems lost for all time with a jolt of electricity or the push of a needle.

Those poets who burned their blood with ink and notes and bong hits to Mars

​Screeching their poems across the Reed College radio wavelengths

To scholastic pulpits with drug infested dirges raining down on their

Consciousness

​Until Eric has to scream “No more, No more” across the rooftops of hell

​Campus security hoping he takes the leap

His poetry left behind on the stones of campus forever like a scar to the truth.

Those poets who burned their draft cards, chanting allegiance to Ho Chi Minh

​Who refused to follow the dictates of the ruling class,

​Sprawling their refusals across the urinals of the world

​Taking the sacramental piss on the military and thus winning

​The hearts and minds of the universal soldiers of peace

Those poets who set themselves on fire feeding the flames of the suicide contagion

Dying young and holy on the streets of Tibet, on the streets of Tunisia,

The Werther effect burned forever into the minds of rebels and sacrificial lambs as the only answer, orange robes in red flames

  

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She kept The Letters In A Drawer

She kept the letters in a drawer

Locked away in a box made of teak

Lined with silk paper.

Next to a sachet of lavender,

Small shoes from her childhood,

Dried flowers from days almost forgotten.

 

Each memory

Tied ever so carefully

Ribbons of the softest silk.

The key, always close to her breast,

Hiding in a locket she always wore

But no one had ever seen.

 

Letters, passports, ticket stubs,

All of them nothing more than

Allusions to illusionary places.

She read them daily, wistfully,

Like an evening prayer to Love,

Mantras to her spirit

Chanting each word by memory,

Gently rolling her tongue over them

To feel the taste of each word of love,

Re-committing her every sigh to memory

 

Praises, laughter, whispers, tears, murmurs,

Words laced with promises

Long since broken

Or, perhaps, all were kept,

But always intended

For someone else.

She read them like a thief of hearts,

These names and places she never knew,

Each stolen secret, a transfixed reality,

Little lies that only her heart knew of.

 

This one, from Gibraltar, spoke of a honeymoon

The one with the perfumed paper, from Paris,

Of the loss of innocence,

This one from Geneva, with the stunning photograph,

Spoke of love reunited,

This one from India, the Holi, the Festival of Colour,

So vivid, the only colour photograph and

How she loved the message of joy-

 

Every destination, every postal stamp,

All these cities where love grew,

Or perhaps withered,

She knew them all by rote

Although she had never been,

Airlines had never called her seat

Ships porters had never held her luggage,

Subway trains never passed her by In the middle of a kiss

The time schedule over run by the romantic urgency

 

The earthly completion of her travels gained no notice

Barely a whisper

On the boards of time,

The pall bearers were hired,

No tears were shed

Now her journey is beginning,

Her soul is free to explore where she could never go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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There Is No “I” In Poetry

True there is no “I” in poetry
But there is heart.
There are souls
From time immemorial
With secrets yet to share,
Seductions to be finished
And tears yet to shed.

All of our souls and dreams,
Our entire collective unconscious
Drawn like beads on a tight string
Along the necklace of words.

There is Handsome Johnny and Joe Hill
All those heroes who never died,
All those who never survived
All those we never knew

There are cars we never drove,
Flights we never took
Oceans we never swam in

All the faces we never met and
There is You, and all the girls
On the corner under the streetlight
Watching all the boys
And the parents stressed beyond measure,

There are roses and a
Kiss for when the thorns prick,
And there is then
And there is now
And what if,
What, why, when, where,  who
And again, there is You
And there is us
And there is I,
So maybe there is an “I” in poetry after all.

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Your Men Are Cascading, Oh Widows Of War

Your men are cascading,
Oh widows of war,
Cascading away from you and
Out of your arms and your lives

They are left alone drowning in the streets
With the blood of our sins on their hands
Your sons and brothers,
Are merely the dead without names
Soulless wanderers through our memories minefields

We write now not of our loves but our flaws
Our losses our pain
Our unfulfillable longing our fears
We write of the wars we will never win

We write for the days when
There’s nothing we can do
But watch our sons die in fields we’ve never seen
We write as the sadness overwhelms us with
A deadly grip on our convictions

We write of words that have no meaning
Of leaders with no sense of truth
We write of the best of men
and the worst of lies

We write of the cascade of lives
The constant avoidable mixing of our morality
into the cesspool of inhumanity
Your men are cascading,
Oh widows of war
We write because we can no longer
Suffer your sorrows in silence.

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I Tried To Walk On The Earth

there is no them, there is only us.

 

 

I tried to walk on the earth

In a place where it did not ache

Find that spot where

My bare feet might not do damage

But its pain was all-encompassing.

With every step I felt it cry.

With no place left to go

I cut off my feet.

 

I tried to find a field

that didn’t know of hunger

Where the crops could feed the multitudes

But the corn was crying

Its husks were brown and its heart broken.

I felt so insufficient

I couldn’t find crops enough

So i starved myself.

 

I searched the borders for refugees

That felt safe and welcome

But the children were starving

And the parents frightened

I tried to speak but no one spoke my language

I tried to open my nations borders

To harbor those who flee

But many who were inside

Turned violent,

Terrified by what they didn’t know or understand.

I turned their water to wine

Their swords to plowshares

But still they wouldn’t share.

 

I tried to find a song

That all could sing and feel inspired

But no one grasped the meaning

I cried and became mute.

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I Will See Nothing

I will see nothing
But the children of peace
Their hair spread against the wind
Like the wings of angels

I will hear nothing
From the tombs of your dead
But the voices from my own thoughts
Like the salve of the ages

I will not open my door
To you as a visitor
Bringing your unrepentant anger
To my thirsty soul

I will no longer dance
With you parents of war
Your darkness blots out
The light from my feet

I will not see your world
Nor read your newspaper
Not hear your symphony
I will not say your prayers
But those which I make myself
The words of empowerment
The songs of unison

I will not drink at your table
I will not eat of your meat
You have no nourishment
To offer such a one as I

The end of the world
As you know it
Will be our only salvation

I will not die
Until we, all of us,
Can die under peaceful skies
Our souls drifting quietly across the sunset
Like a shroud of the finest linen

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The door, intro and part 1

The door.  Introduction
This photo was taken last night as i waited for the bus to take me to work. As you can see it’s of a normal entry into a normal apartment building.  The outside is covered up with scaffolding and netting now because they are putting a new facade on.  I started to wonder who lived there? What stories do they have?  I’m going to use this door to tell their stories. Just a couple of paragraphs for each tenant together with a new edit of the pic, the lady who turns 100, the quiet guy no one remembers, the angry young man, the asylum seeker. I hope you find it intriguing

The first story in the sequence, The Door, part 1, Gunbrit

Early morning 25th of November,  a cold wet morning, Gunbrit awakened and thought back in time. Tomorrow would be her 100th birthday and she wondered if anyone would remember. Bengt, her husband had passed long ago, and she had not spoken to her only child, Ole, in years. She remembered the last conversation they had together. It was the First of May, International Workers Day. She had just found out that he was going to demonstrate with the Nazis. She told him she was ashamed of him and never wanted to see his face again. Those words haunted her as she faced the morning, as they had every morning since then. Sweden was, to her, the most free country in the world and her pride in that reputation was enormous. She had been a lifelong member of the left party, strong and proud in her belief in the equality of all, a fact which no doubt fuelled her adamant refusal to make amends with her son. She had, in fact, not spoken his name in years.
Though she was fragile of course, at her advanced age, she was still spry mentally and maintained a semblance of self sufficiency surprising for someone at 100 years. She got out of bed and went to start the day. Her home assistant would be there soon to help her with breakfast and all that went into her increasingly limited existence. She rarely left the apartment anymore for health reasons she felt  her world was collapsing in on it’s self.  She turned on the radio, the volume very high so she could hear it, Always station P1, she hadn’t missed the program “God Morgon Världen” in a very long time, she felt like she was friends with the hosts. It brought her pleasure to hear their voices. She remembered the flower shop that she and her late husband had opened down the block. They had owned it for 30 years before retiring. The money the had made selling it went to travel. They both loved life and always went with the moment, a fact that she never regretted even though she had precious little money now.

In the many years in the neighborhood she had made many friends, but sadly she had outlived those who had not moved on and she was always bad at staying in touch. That meant that there was no one around that she felt close to, that she could talk to or invite to a fika. Her upcoming birthday was a reminder of her isolation.

Maria was to be her assistant that day, she tried to be nice to Gunbrit but it was difficult. With her own problems to deal with and the work conditions, constant understaffing causing the most unreasonable demands, Maria didn’t have the time or energy to do what the job required. Gunbrit loved the flowers she brought, but always wished that Maria could stay longer. Maria had made plans to have a small celebration for her birthday tomorrow, a princess cake and a card together with flowers, but that was tomorrow. Today, she was running late and trying hard to get there on time. She knew that Gunbrit, even with her stubborn self sufficiency needed much help.

Digging her keys out of her handbag, Maria opened the door to find Gunbrit on the floor. She rushed to determine what had happened and if she was breathing. As she leaned over, she heard Gunbrit mutter a word with her last breath, a word she hadn’t said in decades, “Ole”

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Uprooted by War, Focused on Joy Syrian Refugees in Zaatari Camp Document Their Athletic Pursuits

These photos taken in a refugee camp in Zaatari document the joy of play. The beauty and spirit of youth, even during such terrible times. They show what is truly important in life, that we remember that we are all human above all else.

http://nyti.ms/1F7eoYV

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A repost ..This is a Poem I wrote in another unfair situation when another young black man lost his life unlawfully, I Dedicate this poem to all the Mothers whom sons fell victim in the same unfair way

This poem is very well written.  I feel the pain and anger of the author and the families on Ferguson and every city where innocent black kids have been shot by over zealous racist cops. It’s not just the US, but everywhere. Racism, sadly, knows no borders.

I also recommend following the poet, some very good work there!  http://poeticallyspoken.wordpress.com/

This is a Poem I wrote in another unfair situation when another young black man lost his life unlawfully, I Dedicate this poem to all the Mothers whom sons fell victim in the same unfair way.

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In Pictures: ‘We are all Palestinians’ – In Pictures – Al Jazeera English

With the thought of the awful attack on the Jerusalem synagogue, it is worth a reminder of our shared humanity. We are all Palestinian, we are all Israeli, we are all Iraqi and American, and Russian, and Rom, and Hopi.

I can definitely understand the sense of frustration coming from the muslims in east Jerusalem as the see their history  being evaporated as Israelis rename streets, overtake homes and even disallow prayer in Al Asqa Mosque, the third holiest site in the Muslim faith, this going against a long-established agreement between the ruling Israeli government and Muslims living in Jerusalem. All of this, of course, on top of everything else they have had to endure. However, there is never a justification for violence. I will always believe a peaceful settlement can be found but not until both sides are ready. I can say with all certainty that Netanyahu is far from ready. Sadly until the rest of the world, the US and Great Britain especially, stop their blind support for Israel things aren’t going to change much. But about the photos…..

These beautiful photos celebrate Palestinian music, sculpture, art and the human spirit. That part of us that no one can truly conquer. Not war, not racism, not apartheid, not poverty, not illiteracy, but rather our souls, our essence. In that sense at least, we are indeed all Palestinians. As I’ve said many times before and will repeat many times, No one is truly free until we are all free, no one is equal while another is oppressed.  I urge all of you to take in the photos, the text and the spirit.

 

 

In Pictures: ‘We are all Palestinians’ – In Pictures – Al Jazeera English.

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