The Media Trust
Franklin, Pulitzer, Hearst
Chandler, Young, Nolan
Lester, Knight and Murdoch
Keepers of the gate
News to blind-side
Unfit to be read by fit
Thinkers of disunited nations
Give me photographs
To mobilize the masses
And I’ll give you war
Lusitania, Maine
Cuban missiles
Mobile weapons
Of mass destruction
Cut, paste, and edit to print
My therapist asked me today;
on a scale of 1 to murder where did I stand?
Because I wanted to watch my kids
walk across stage and graduate high school –
Little Matryoshka could stay nestled
safe within her privilege
A few key stokes is all it would
take to find her
Her social media would tell me
all I need to know about her nestled dolls
Who are her friends, names of her family,
what kind of interest and hobbies she has
Scrolling intently, making diligent
mental notes of familiar places around town
A sneer curls my lip as my brow furrows
above my manic eyes…I chuckle
Everyone puts their trust in Social Media!
Living that Instagram life! Click, click post!
How many dolls does she have tucked away?
My homicidal tendencies flicker like a lamplight
Dancing behind the glass; I am an elegant flame –
as the kerosene of collective trauma swishes below
Should her nestled dolls dance to close to me
My broken glass flame will turn them all to dust
In Social Media We Trust
We pledge allegiance to our phones
that keep us fused together
And to the Republic for which we
pay
One Nation Under Google,
Facebook too, with Twitter, Tic Tok,
Instagram and Snapchat Filters for all.
Refrain
It is a time of lockdown
when false beliefs
and rants arise
I feel my anger climb
when social media posts
with cruel attacks towards
others jump at me from
the computer screen
My decision to speak
out and voice
an opinion opposite
of what another believes
is quickly condemned
I cry out “Fools!”
but choose not to engage
in a Facebook war
Instead, I calm myself
and take solace
in the wisdom
of my Bible
where I happen
to turn to Proverbs 26
I take a deep breath
and resolve to refrain
from expressing my views
electing to write
in such a way
people may listen
Fear of Unplugging
Before there was an Information Age,
people had to think for themselves.
Before people could text,
they actually had to open their mouths in order to speak.
Before people could surf or cruise the web,
they actually had to learn how to get along in the real world.
Pray that no one pulls the plug
and erases this generation's identity.
When it comes to recent inventions that have too much power over our lives,
the Internet is at the top of the list,
having knocked electricity down to second place a decade ago,
and completely overshadowing water purification and petrochemicals.
Quite a few people would never have gotten married
unless they had met their significant other online,
and for many others, texting has actually become more important than
driving safely and surviving the commute.
The truth is, we have been hit with an information tsunami,
and our inner virtues are drowning.
It would seem as though the Internet-enabled smartphone
has long since replaced the crack pipe and the cocaine straw,
and, no, there is no detox clinic for this pandemic addiction.
And if the average human being was told
to either give up the Internet for one month or be put to death,
then that human being would surely die.
There are many adults who did well in a world that had no Internet,
but as they give in to old age and pass away, they are being replaced by
generations of adults literally born in bondage to the Internet,
adults who have an easier time texting than they do speaking.
If the plug does get pulled, will humanity survive?
We may call it cyberspace, but that doesn't make the Internet
another organ in our bodies, albeit a synthetic one. Otherwise,
we'd all be born texting.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 59)"
Copyright (c) 2015, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, 12 August 2014, 11:15PM
Mind Ray in My Cell' Phone
There is a mind ray in my cell' phone,
addicting me to the high of high-tech boondoggles,
forcing me to be happy and stupid
against my will. There is a mind ray in my cell' phone,
and I get stoned on the buzz of the digital frequency.
She has become my pocket bitch,
seducing me to push her mechanical buttons
in the middle of heavy freeway traffic,
makin' me look like the chatterin' dumb-ass on the crowded elevator
as my tongue licks her mic' with mad vibrations.
There is a mind ray in my cell' phone makin' me
bow down to the very big unhip corporate machine,
lulling me to sleep with Republican wet-dreams and Enron fuck-fantasies.
There is a very ungroovy mind ray in my cell' phone and I
think I'm gone
now.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 10)"
Copyright (c) 2002, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
5 April 2002
Overload Overlord
The Information Age,
ever learning,
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This present world is flooded with
an unprecedented tsunami of data
bringing confusion instead of peace.
And the more humanity knows,
the less humanity understands.
How can a thousand ways to wipe your butt and
ten-thousand ways to grow soybeans and
a hundred-thousand ways to build an electric power-plant and
a million ways to have sex
teach you to be kind to your neighbor?
Can you really find your own dignity and self-worth
within ten-million results from a search-engine query?
Sometimes, more isn't better.
We've seen more information within the past five years
than we've ever seen in the earlier five-thousand,
and with it came heinous new ways of
maiming, violating, stealing, killing, and destroying,
every step towards the light being counteracted by
ten steps towards the darkness, people hopelessly enticed by
this endless deluge of data like flies trapped in sweet syrup,
suffocating, drowning, dying like the days of Noah's flood.
Humanity does not have the Information Age:
the Information Age has humanity, possesses humanity,
owns humanity like a master owns a slave,
like a narcotic owns a drug-addict.
And the only way to get that next fix is by
performing yet another query on yet another search-engine.
Some things were never meant to be found.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 49)"
Copyright (c) 2012, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
Saturday, 7 August 2010, 12:25AM
Fakebook
s
c
r
o
l
l
i
n
g
wondering where the fucking time went
watch it morph
into zeros and ones
soul windows
absorbing
recalibrated digital lives
if I were to blink faster
could I transform into those
zeros and ones?
I already have the zero part down.
Social Media
I think social media
has taken away the
intimacy of conversation
one on one with a partner.
Instead of conversing with a
significant other people are glued
to their iPods, cell phones and computers.
The art of conversation is a
long last art of the past.
Young people today are
non-conversant.
They only know how to text.
If people had more one on one time,
perhaps there would be less crime.
For to skip out on a dime would be a fine.
Who knows when the tide will turn.
If we have hope,
and see beyond the scope.
Then all is not lost
Trust
The art of trust is a work of art.
I find it hard to trust.
I find it enthralling when it happens.
It's great to be able to trust.
Especially when you find someone.
To be able to talk openly about our
hopes, dreams, aspirations and goals.
To go to your one and only
and speak your truth.
Is a miracle.
To be able to speak
From your heart
Is a masterpiece.
To let your loved one
hear you is wonderful.
It's courageous.
It's marvelous.
Something to behold.
Meditation on Myself
By the light of dawn
Among alabaster clouds
Stalled above lush lawn
Bipolar mind crocheting
Another daquiri green lie
Swollen legs
Right peg with
Brace, boot, shoe and walker
Prepared for God's stalker
Wound on right
Bloody but tight
A year in this nursing home bite
An emotional fight
No money
Soon to lose my place
What about my honey
With this handsome face?
Often thoughts of the end
Bend through my swollen mind
Like a breeze
The forest unkind
Weeping and wondering what
Happened to the man I once knew
Happy as a Mardi Gras crew
Fearing the future
Like but a few
Tearing my dreams at the seams
I am so blue
Seeing black where they observe light
Soaring through hell high as a kite
Trusting everyone and no one
My God given right
Trust
Trusting God
Kneeling in a pew
Eating stew
Trusting my fiance
Animated as an anime
Sensitive as a little girl
Trusting my mother
Forever the actress
Breaking down straight away
To her getaway
Trusting my father
Ball of doubt
Reason and logic
Ever so stout
Trusting Jesus
His bloody cross
Fragile as moss
Trusting myself
Forever strong
Talent long
Without so much as a bong
Trusting my cousin
The therapist
Pulling me out of the mist
With an unusual list
Raising a clenched fist
Trusting my friend
The nursing assistant
Telling me the truth
From a parking booth
Adoring my front tooth
Like Vermouth
Easy to Miss
So easy to miss
understand
To tune in to the cyberspace connection
To find the wavelength the one who seems in the same direction
To share the road the highway the talk
The virtual walk.
So easy to miss
understand.
Please know me,
Show me, throw me
A lifeline, byline, love line, straight line, pick-up line
Or a one line.
Cryptic notes greet hearts poured out
Slide shows, films of wars which shout
That here I am and you are not,
So disregard this post, these tears, this unseen blot.
No time today. Sent. No reply.
So easy to miss
understand.
In each our tiny laptop hell
We aimless browse new thrills and breathless wait the message bell
Like Pavlov’s dog we salivate
In hopes of wisdom or a date.
The girl next door has lost her charms
We’d rather seek out constitutional alarms
We argue freedom and civil liberties
From behind a cloak of agoraphobic distrustful maybes.
Imagination and fear fuel our research
Don’t analyze just search and church
The dark webbed rabbit hole answers our why
While in the ladderless tunnels snakes multiply
Could our profiles ever meet
Would they recognize each other in the street
Or have we created an open book
Whose only pages are the ones in which we like how we look?
No need to risk honesty’s abyss
Of truths and lies it is all one of virtual unreal bliss
Anonymity’s cues a clever hideaway
Leaves message unread. No reply today.
So easy to miss
understand.
No one came to the block party with conceptual beasts.
There was a multitude of confused tenants lining up in traffic pushing
a poisonous social media philosophy onto the amateur players.
There was no trust among any of them; they were all left out of the loop.
They were forced to go underground on their own.
No poetry could guide them in or out of the social media jungle.
No map would show them where any of the missing peace pipes were last puffed.
I ended up all wet and existential in a concrete crisis doing backflips in the buff.
Taking defiance on the road, I discovered that dystopian dolls
drive on the wrong side of one raunchy two raunchy three raunchy four.
I figured that the grumbling music of the martini crowd could tailed behind
and never grind down Biblical sobriety onboard any planet ready for shredding.
Someone felt obligated to switch arson for assassination.
This vision spread among the candidates before any gutted media giants could scream.
The lobby nourished the sharpies who flashed folk singing smoke.
I felt enslaved by the intellectual furniture of the future.
It was all an unfathomable swirling poetic servitude.
It was all a delicious embarking into some sort of shattered social dreamscape.
I did my best to improvise a vicious jazzed drum beat.
No one heard me except the ferocious cats living on the fifth floor of delusion.
I served myself with great gusto away from the servants.
I don’t want anyone picking up after me, helping me with such mojo in the mix.
The nursemaids can all go take a flying leap into oblivion.
The wallpaper has real self-righteous rhyme peppered all over it.
Couplets everywhere pushing a sturdy hardworking medicated flair.
Yes,flair doesn’t have to be light or airy.
No no no to ludicrous trustworthy domesticity in all its flavors.
Popping up in equal amounts of sodden inflections,
I can’t continue to thrive on some bitter crappy coronation.
It is time to climb over the stains of public pungent disaster
as 40,000 headmen take a boldly drastic turn toward metaphysical traffic
and all the damnable gods that live to make the wind cry.
Let Them Eat…
Twitter exploded
Had she actually said that?
#LetThemEatCake trending
Who does Marie Antoinette
think she is?
One million hits and rising
@RealMarie: I have been misquoted. Out of context. The
mainstream media not interested in the truth #FakeNews
@RealMarie: Said let them eat brioche, not cake. Blame
POS Rousseau, not me. Anyway, can’t take a little joke? Cake is delicious, BTW!
#libtards #snowflakes
@ThirdEstate: Hilarious! You should take that act on the
road! So funny we forgot to laugh! #LockHerUp #StormTheBastille
@BigLouie16: Let’s not all lose our heads over this.
What’s not to like about cake? #peasantslovecake #coolerheads #overreaction
@Robespierre: @RealMarie ur not even French. ur Austrian! How did
you even get into this country? Ru
colluding with the Hapsburgs??? #Buildthemoat #collusion
@RealMarie: @Robespierre Seriously? Married to
BIGLouie16! Duh! U can’t touch me. I’m the QUEEN! NO HAPSBURG COLLUSION.
#witchhunt
@RealMarie: I am the real victim here. Haters always
hating. The @LowlyPeasants love me! We had the biggest coronation ever! HUGE!
#MakeAlsaceGreatAgain
@Robespierre: @RealMarie Just another foreigner taking our
jobs! #chainmigration
@LowlyPeasants: We’ll be marching right over for our cake.
Mind if we bring a guillotine over to cut it up? JK. LOL!
#peasantlivesmatter
@RealMarie: You can all eat effing cake. Deleting my
account. #seeya
@LowlyPeasants: Does this mean no delicious cake?
#oppressedcakelovers
@RealMarie: Whatev. #deleted
Catfish is Plural and Singular
guess I’m the catfish now
filtering frown lines
through digital gills
avoiding fish lines
like a whiskered jinn
sucking scum off the river bed
sculling in the mainstream
riling up salmon
with a flirtatious fin
so the fat fish
are delivered fit
for when the real catfish
scam their way in.
The Joy of Blocking
Ingredients
don’t always blend easily;
it takes patience and practice
to thread cold cream into a hot roux.
Too many cooks
lack skill or the desire to learn.
We separate
like yolks from whites
and snap ourselves
into airtight containers,
retreat into flipped-image houses,
on opposite sides
of the aisle.
We order our meals delivered
and having no further use
for kitchens,
(or the clattering chaos
of chefs),
civil
dinner conversation
stops.
We tap in a box
and block.
Life Raft
We all forget in the chaos
of shouting about privacy
and conspiracies
trolls and scams
allegations
and addictions
that billions of
benign interactions
like tendrils straining
toward tenderness
zip around a globe
where a million someones cry
and their faint SOS
gets answered.
When I Was New
When I was new
and the world was new.
So many roads to wander
under a cerulean sky.
Forbidden fruits to savor,
forbidden lips to taste.
Full of promise, flowers
budding on the vine.
Their perfume covering
my fingertips.
I hurried through each day
alive with my songs.
The moon rose just for me,
stars burned just for me
Every morning brought
sunshine to my window.
Another day bursting with wonder
waiting at my doorstep.
Each hand I held was
warm and inviting. My eyes
were opened wide filled with
trust. Joy surrounded me.
Spring was greener then.
When I was new
and the world was new.
Where the Lost Gather
The sky is drenched in
grey and black as people
traipse along avenues trying
to cross mounds of snow.
Teenagers gang up huddling
under broad awnings their
brightly colored jackets spread
like rainbow clusters against
brick walls.
Gloria twitched her umbrella
nervously, its handle was cold
Where were her gloves?
Will the bus ever come?
Stepping off the curb twisting
her neck...repeating the familiar
tape..."stay optimistic, be brave,
everything will work out eventually"
Another appointment another pill pusher
another doctor as healthy as a horse
How could he possibly understand?
How could she put her trust in him?
What about her habits...smoking,
drinking, taking street drugs, having
an active sex life? Anxious, depressed?
Prying questions but no solutions
A waste of money with so little cash left
and a waste of time, but time stood still now
heavy hours pressing down crushing her
January
That is the time for serious work.
Odd radio concertos. Half-read
classics. Occasional trips to
choice museums.
The time for hard red apples,
sagging boots, chalk-white.
Time for snow to cover
winter trees.
The day's work has been done.
The sun fell out of the sky.
In this black night
this deep night
I stand and wait
trusting only
the miracles
I see.
In blog we trust. Yes, I believe in social media!
If it’s online, it must be science fiction come true!
There it is, in living color floating on the cloud!
But now there is so much more than mere reality!
Prepare to enter the Metaverse and beyond.
Virtual influencer Bangkok Naughty Boo
blends fantasy and reality being gender fluid
forever young, created by computer generation
artificial intelligence augmented mixed virtual reality
call her a digital deep fake she’s as real or surreal
as you want her to be, and you can be what you wish
in this brave, depraved new world where you
get it on with a sex robot limited only by your
imagination, but be careful what you wish for
because you might just get it, get it right up the…
like a colonoscopy on an unconscious politician
when you get Zucked, your identity stolen and
reborn, twisted, recreated, cut into pieces and
repackaged until you become what you fantasize.
So then, welcome to the Thetaverse, oh yeah,
hello yellow brick road, where everything is poppy green.
It’s all electric, pollution free, solar wind hydro electricity
with no pollution, no people, negative population growth
to the point of diminishing returns and humans are sparse.
Theta stands for the Greek word thanatos, meaning death
and in the Thetaverse we will have moved beyond life
and become eternal, non-fungible tokens digitalized
set to live forever in electronic circuitous mother boards.
Yes, we will all live forever as non-fungible tokens of ourselves
endlessly orbiting one another in the circuits of quantum computers
able to read one million poems a minute and write a billion an hour.
We will have the power to become eternal, ghosts in the machine,
but instead of us writing the poems the poems will be writing us
in quantum computer code, Escher’s hands drawing one another,
will it steal your soul or create a new one, chainblocking on
heaven’s door, a path to synthetic heaven or highway to hell?
This is the quest, you avatars a spectrum of specters made of AI,
no more privacy, your mind belongs to the hive, the Borgia
give in—resistance is futile—or write a poem and be free!
A Found Agitprop Poem from the Social Media *·
You cannot breathe money
You cannot drink oil
You cannot re-create
a habitable biosphere
The fossil fuel industry is bringing us
to the precipice of collapse
Politicians are complicit
The media is turning a blind eye
If you want a future
you must rise up
NOW
* From a retweet of a Daryl Hannah retweet of a tweet
from ResistLine3@ResistLine3
Trolling
Deep in cyber space
Internet trolls hiding
Behind fake names
Eyebrows raised
Fangs sticking out
From crooked grin
Hungry for blood
Hover over
Looking for preys
Words as weapons
Sharper than spears
Arranged in lethal ways
Post on social media
As if launching missiles
To attack
Their lies rip
Through blind crowd
Victims whine helplessly
As trolls take
Sadistic pleasure
From these sufferers
His Secret
It was long ago and now again
Their lives crisscross
In social media he stumbles into her
The first love that carved deeply in his heart
It is far away yet so near
Staring at her on the screen he feels as if
He could extend his arms to hold her
Alas, she is in someone else’s embrace
It is just a light click away to reach her
Yet his finger is heavier than a ton
As it is interlocked with another woman’s
At last, his sanity beats his temptation
It might stir up a ripple only
But a destructive wave is also possible
A risk he dares not take
Rather he just follows her
Quietly in cyberspace
Social Media Trust
It’s a jungle in cyberspace
Reaching globally, social media users
Are swimming in worldwide milieu
In this vast communicating platform
With countless users hiding behind screens
How perilous when issue of trust is dealt with
Never lacking are those predators
Scammers, profiters and political influencers
Roaming around the world wide web
Lurking and prowling for prey
Feeding public with fake news, propaganda,
clickbait, exploiting business and many others
It is a jungle out there
Full of tricks and traps
We take our own risks
To gallivant around internet
Steep jeep trails have always been there
winding over rugged hills
but I never ventured down them
or enjoyed their scenic thrills.
Until,
One fine day your Jeep came calling
I climbed in and buckled tight
didn’t know what I was starting
trusted you’d keep us upright.
Next,
Panamint and Dusy Ershim
Canyonlands and Calico
Big Bear Mountain and the Hammers
—rocky climbs and steep plateaus
Also,
Sierra Trek and Moab’s jeep runs
soon our fav’rite go-to spots
as our explorations mounted
trails wound in a big love knot.
Now,
We’ve jeeped over rifts and chasms
as I look in our rear view
I spy all our grand adventures—
I’m danged glad I said “I do!”
Titling the New Book of Poems
What about
The Hard Times Poems. Or
The Man With A Hard Poem... A Hard Hat
The Hard Hat’s Book Of Poems
The Man With A Dull Book... A Dull Pen
The Man With A Girl’s Hat... A Girl’s Heart. Yeah, The Man With A Girl’s Heart
The Man Who Wore Onesies. The Poet Wore Onesies
No, not so much. Utter Nonsense
Yeats Bait: The Leg Aisle Of In-N-Out
O Cabin, My Cabin
Sex On A Train. Snakes On A Poem
I’m So Hungry I Can’t Look At Another Poem
This is going nowhere
The Man With A Soft, Dull, Sexy Hat... A Dull, Soft Hatful Of Sexy Poetry.
Sex Poems For The Homeless
The Anti-Homeless Poems
The Anti-Social Poems. The Anti-Social Media Poems
Trolling Poems. Fishing For Hats
This Side of Tides...Tidals...This Side Of Titles
Under The Title: Hats Atop A Heap Of Poems
Anywhere I Hang My Hat Is Poem
What’s with the hat? Forget the hat
Focus on structure: Observation, Insight, Resolve.
So We’ll No More Go A-Titling
Hardly, Lord, hardly... But Lordy, Byron had his title
Okay, I give.
The Sans Title Book Of Poems
Untitled Poems
Poems
There. All this for that?
Mutated logic lifeguards
standardized test pools
programmed waves
of being crash into
the void we made
with our bare
minds.
YouTube
roll up roll up come see our show
all you’r eyes will view our glow
its learning time true or false
being wrong ain’t our faults
license us your copyright
we’ll make money from each byte
roll up roll up come see my show
all you’r eyes will view our glow
commentaries
trolls lurk and sow dragon’s teeth
beneath each attempted bridge
for billy goats seeking pastures of plenty
beyond deserts and mountains
beneath each attempted bridge
flows scintillating rivers
beyond deserts and mountains
where wisdom goes to hide
flows scintillating rivers
into black lagoons
where wisdom goes to hide
among the serpents and moss
into black lagoons
stagnant underneath
among the serpents and moss
trolls lurk and sow dragon’s teeth
unmasked
we need
an artificial intelligence
keeping score on each
of our 15 minutes
moderating our time
at the podium
fact checking
and rating
the truthfulness
of our commentaries
giving out ribbons
like county fairs
that we can wear
on our jackets
displaying
for all to see
who we are
when we’re at home
not wearing any
mask
I Thought You Wanted a Friend
Doctor in a lab coat
Sometimes you pose by a boat
In a silver leisure suit
Except it isn’t really you
But an identity you stole
The world is rotten, I’m told
So what could you want from me?
I know I’m no beauty
What’s behind all the glam?
Nothing but a shameless scam
Emoji
The more I think about it
the less I trust you
My heart squeezed
like a lemon in a fist
juice seeping into
every well-thought-out rant
Yet all you can give me
is your pondering
pensive contemplation
brows knitted
lips downturned
No love or like
Not even a laugh-out-loud
But a judging gaze
chin-rubbing fingers
I want your tears
dark glasses over swollen eyes
some red devil horns maybe
just not the interrogation
of a thinking face
Safe Sex
can i trust you
with what my father
gave my mother
to make me?
whisper
your sexual
history
in my ear
what have you shared
with others?
when?
coo your hiv status
the first letter typed into a text
became part of the text
letters next to each other
and on the same line
sometimes formed a word
and became part
of the text
when letters and numbers were insufficient
to express what needed to be expressed,
the texter inserted an emoji,
that became part
of the text
the texter who became the sender
was grateful
that they could not see nor hear the receiver
but that did not become part
of the text
when the texter clicked on send
zeros and ones went forth to a receiver
and the text was happy to have gone forth,
to connect the sender and receiver,
who were happy to have texted,
to be
in different places
and be
silent
a text went forth every minute
the man on my screen
click on your face -
dotted stubble
in my p.m. window -
my fingertips mouse
for more-
drag my pointer
from your neck
to your shoulder -
drop my nails
from your palm
to your elbow -
unzip your box -
& close you up
[1]
"Pelicans sail over the waves," Rancho Palos Verdes, California
(2021)
shadows.
Major publishers have no connection.
I looked
at Meta {Facebook}
for inspiration
to write a poem
on the theme
social media. {Wow😮}
I guess
my friends and I
are not doing
inspiring things. {Sad😥}
Why look
at the Metaverse
for inspiration? {Ha-ha😝}
It’s
obvious
nothing
happens
in social media. {Like👍}
It
happens
in real life. {Love❤️}
A Little Criminal
The brain trust broken happened
Through the bullying of indifference,
The lurking of incoherence. No fault
Policy, the other cheek turned, spanked,
Tunes cranked in the solitude, cracking
The wall with its graffiti scrawled
As memorial once known in anonymous
Intimacy. Showered, I don’t call those
Dirty numbers, the penciled-in, calendrical
Squares swung once with secret sharers
Of these dark times enclosed, any longer.
Masked outsiders, most all are glued
To the computer. The whipping post
Made, the refrain usually from taboo.
A minimum is this totem pole carved
Electric with faces I once knew. Social
Article of soul has no references; therefore,
It has been retracted, discipline as a friendly
Gesture: the journey of the faceless face.
Elsewhere, the deleted post made you moist.
You could somehow hear a bittersweet voice.
The integrity of the errors, honest mistakes,
The core of the corrections; your haircut,
A pageboy, the color of fire and brimstone.
I don’t know what to do on Zoom this alone
But trust my confession has not alienated
You more in your harrowing walk with the bored.
Bony you have become, a connoisseur
Of the humdrum, a collagist of invisible
Maps, peeling layers of skin on the shore
Of your lips. Hatefully, I long for the big-screen
Kiss, a Tantalus, at a tree of knowledge
With his serpent in his fist. Your profile
On Facebook is a little criminal, a parole
From the manic, I suppose. Why reveal
The wounds, other than here on Zoom?
You’re right: “Too many dogs.” But
You set them off with envy and spite
In the encyclopedic silence that defines
Most of the history of unseen humankind.
Trust
After Roy Hargrove and Felino A. Soriano
The father was a musician,
playing his trumpet at home
each day without brushstrokes,
bright piano, or shards of flute
that gathered around him at night.
His horn’s scale climbed a bit,
like kids do outside. He always
kept them safe. His notes didn’t
stumble on hard earth.
An adult, the son scattered words
like the flute’s notes in “Trust.” Slanted
stepped down the page. The last letter
held back, kept itself from falling.
Children/run/ ning leapt from the porch,
expecting grass to be there, as the son,
now a father watching, wrote words
that still fly.
Thelma in Bushwick
Finding her way back to where
walls stand blank in blistering heat,
she almost misses the house,
the last wooden one on this street,
its paint fading to silver,
its gingerbread carvings intact.
Imagining it’s cool inside,
she pictures herself with her friend
drinking tumblers of ice water.
But dust and heat thicken stagnant air.
She would choke on just that alone.
She shakes her head. She must visit
her old friend, the last she keeps up with.
Imagining a warm welcome,
she rings the doorbell. She knows it will be
otherwise in that place.
Still, she wishes she could trust her friend again.
The Prince Trusts He Will See Rapunzel
Someday I will walk past
that shut-up house again,
thin house where Rapunzel
lives, herbal-scented hair
flowing past scabbed ankles,
past bare feet. The witch has
brought her here, all
high towers having failed.
Here there are no flowers,
only weeds and lank trees.
But the house remains
when so much else does not.
Ghosts of the men who built
this house can’t peel open
the shutters, paint fading
beside brilliant ash leaves
while Rapunzel waits, dust
motes swimming around her,
while the witch turns herself
to milkweed in the wind.
Everyone else forgets her,
my Rapunzel.
Dancing skeleton -you told the grinning body's joke in ash;
Luminous teacher - your video'd presence echoes sleight-of-hand;
Deathless space - your mind neither captured nor released;
To this invisible certainty, I bow.
radiant in trumpist hearts
glowing in the white trash toothache brilliance
display a holy neon spinning the swastika to its original
First Nation Hindu & Tibetan coils
bursting from the eyes of cops
love beams melting guns
restoring humans from hairless killer apes
who then dance
in the lodge of
sun-up mind
Pretend It's Bright-Lit Santa
Grim reaper Mexican cartel
Voodoo child in a crèche of broken glass
rosary coiled serpent
Vampiro on the circuit one
chair too many to his
wrestler’s skull
The Woman's Declaration of Independence
I hold these truths to be self evident. All sexes are created equal and have the equal right to the pursuit of happiness. The female sex should not be subjugated or hampered in any way by her biological ability to give birth to her pursuit of happiness. She should never feel intimidated or compelled by her possession of a uterus regardless of her color, creed or religion to interrupt her life in order to propagate the species. She should realize that childbirth and child raising are the ultimate acts of submission and may detract from her ability to be a free and independent individual. If she should choose to marry, she should not be compelled to marry anyone other than her choice regardless of race, color, creed or religion. Though society may subtly or otherwise try to subjugate either her or her mate into this marriage union, she and he should realize that their expectations of one another will very likely change after such a union, and therefore feel no obligation to enter into a union which might prove deleterious to their relationship and/or freedom. She on the other hand should never use her body to compel a member of the male sex to support, marry or otherwise be beholden to her through pregnancy or sexual relations.
She should act independently from all social coercion, whether it be the media, fashion or her family, to compel her directly or indirectly to use her body to the detriment of her sense of self, her soul and her intellect. If she should weaken and give in to any of the above, she should not feel guilty, but should realize that she may have to be all the more vigilant of that which is her independent self, her true self that she has derived despite the attempts of society, media and family to coerce her to conform to the obvious biological differences of her sex.
The Free Way
we were in the ‘63 brown Buick
I bought from my uncle for 350 dollars
blazing down the 210 Freeway to Ontario
for Cal Jam 2, the rock’n’roll concert
where we teens would light up
freedom from our parents
in a crowd of 300,000 at the speedway
we walked through the tunnel
to the infield where sleeping bags dotted the grass
(we made tracks on the grass in just an hour
it was 4am, I had been doing ‘78
trying to drive the year)
everyone was sleeping below the stars
waiting to be awakened by hundred thousand watt speakers
and reborn into rocking festival lyrics
to hear our cultural leaders--Aerosmith, Santana, Foreigner, Heart, Ted Nugent, Mahogany Rush!
and when it was over, after our fists pumped into the air
thick with smoke and spilled beer and trampled dust
we shuffled out, media fed cattle, mooing with happy tiredness
for the 2am drive home, I drove in the dark highway space
weaving with ears buzzing, we had to stop
to piss on the walls of a closed gas station
spraying yellow sparks of independence in the night
the liberation of being on our own--with friends
hours of deep high to always remember
Decadence
driving an eight lane freeway
cranking my mp3 player
electronic billboards along the way
colorful graffiti on concrete dividers
double bus folding right off the offramp
an unopened pack of Orbit in my pocket
passing stucco and glass manuments
rows of median planted palm trees
sight yellow arches and mermaid medallion
a quarter in the parking meter every fifteen minutes
Commercial
When this third grader suffers
Through hours of spots, he reaches
For a trashed Excedrin bottle, chews
Pill, parrots phrase, "That's headache #39!"
Vomits strawberry Pop-Tarts on sidewalk
After a traumatic marital breakup
On a rainy day, two-decade-old
College student and draftsman, slugs
Down a six-pack of Anchor Steam,
Then listens to stomach gurgle in bed
Since half-centurian wants to express
Poetry coming out of his mind, only
A Gateway laptop will do for fast release
On websites like Facebook and Sakai
Because social feedback keeps him connected
