Poetry
• post holiday blues - Rex
Butters
• Who Owes Whom? - Margot
Pepper
• Soapbox (for John Haag) -
Sherman Pearl
• Everyday - Douglas
Eisenstark
• Circle of Color - erica
snowlake
• That Lincoln - Ingrid
Mueller
post holiday
blues
he
sits alone
fashioning light
from
earth
burning
the
Promethean
torch
crouched
riding
the pipeline
of
inspiration
sunning
in winter
warm beachfront
exhibition
sells originals
before
they’re
finished
paints/pastels/pens
clear
curled sun spackled surf
he
wonders
why things don’t get
better
–Rex
Butters
-----------
WHO
OWES WHOM?
by Margot
Pepper
And what if we were allowed to
interrupt
the blue phosphorescent
faces
that calmly assess our
fate
What if we stripped the presses
of
their convenient
projections,
voicing instead our own
objections
to the national debt and
immigrant debate
We are not the
trespassers
who transformed our cobble-stone
streets,
adorned by the twice
repossessed
temples to our
future,
into war
zones:
bombed out and abandoned
like the
dreams
hunger
consumes.
We are not the trespassers
who engraved malnutrition
into the ancient
faces
of our
children;
carved servitude
into the knotted driftwood
backs
of our
campesinos
who mush relinquish our
food
to the world’s
table.
We are not the
trespassers
who annexed half our
nations
hoarding our wealth in hands
as smooth and
white
as the teeth of
bankers,
las guardias
blancas,
la Casa
Blanca,
el banco mundial
blanco,
though the skin at times may look
brown.
And we will not pay one increment
more
than the blood and
tears
shed like
ticker-tape
in the miscarried
revolutions
creditors
aborted.
For how are we to repay a debt that
is owed us?
Please Sir, tell us,
how do we trespass on land that was first
peopled by us?
All that land you pried from
the fingers of our dead
like artifacts to be
sold to private collectors.
All those wares
you ripped like flesh
from the ribs of our
hungry.
All that land on which we
die
like ants in a poison rain when we till
it;
like worms for turning garbage to
gold.
All those riches all that blood all
that sweat.
How are we to repay a debt owed
us?
Please, Sir, tell us,
How does one trespass
when a land belongs only to
the rivers, roots and
sun?
------------
SOAPBOX
For John Haag, in Memoriam
High in the
trees
birds are rehearsing the old politics;
their arguments
rustle the leaves-one
screeches
the anarchist position, another
trills the glory of the state.
Pigeons on the
grass below
feast on the words dropping
down,
nodding emphatic agreement with all
points of view.
A dog runs free barking
Christ, Christ,
to warn the squirrels
he’s chasing about doomsday.
I’ll
hold my peace for now. I want to listen to what
that photo of you as a young
poet
has to say, to join you among th
dissidents who
fought the good wars with
broadsides of flowers.
The
old crowd
is gathering, you among
them.
I spot them on the sidewalk handing out
poems
like pamphlets. I hear them honking
opinions
from the street, gunning their
engines.
Hidden somewhere among the shadows
that darken the
park
is that soapbox we used to mount
shouting
My friends, my
friends
– Sherman
Pearl
------------
Everyday
Every
morning I check to see if I have all my
teeth.
I may given away some to fund my war
in Iraq.
At breakfast I check for food that I
may have given
away to fund my
corporation’s scandals.
Driving to work
I check the gas I maybe
gave away to wreck my
children’s environment.
Each month I
check the paycheck I may have given away
for
my superb and comprehensive health
coverage.
Each year I check down shirt for
the fat I have
contributed to
agribusiness.
Each second I check my head to
see if it is still there.
I think I gave it
away but can’t remember to
whom.
–Douglas
Eisenstark
------------
dedicated
to the
Venice Beach Drum
Orchestra
Circle of
Color
an easy riddle to
answer
rainbows!
joy
manifestations of the sun
here and gone,
yes
yet eternally here and
gone
gone only to
reappear
rainbow spirits without
fear
Circles of
Color
many one people’s
heartbeats
Venice
Beach
many child’s first
treat
to the ocean’s salty
deep
to the shamanic gypsy
beat
of ancestor african
drums
dance!
leap!
sings the
feets
while electric
swordfire
screams like a
vampire
who’s just seen the
light
shake it like you gonna break
it
who’s gonna pay any
heed?
Here Sweet
Lovin’
Heavensent
is
Free Free Free
–erica
snowlake
------------
THAT
LINCOLN
That place in Venice named
after a much-beloved US President,
It’s
been my home for 18 years.
A nest to populate
after two young ones flew off into their
futures,
excitedly.
To
commune with stable and wise neighbors.
To
enjoy the quiet far from the (already) maddening Highway 1
traffic.
To gather thoughts and write them
down in colorful languages
That surround(ed)
us everywhere in Venice. That was then.
Now,
tomorrow, June 1, 2006, is the day of serious
questions:
Can that Terry in Denver actually
be the One Person and Voice,
speak:
Corporation,
That
can make decisions for ‘innocent
investors’?
Would they actually buy
shares if they were truly informed
how their
hard-earned buckeroos are
‘invested’?
Do they not check the
BBB for ratings?
Better to make
profit$$?
Oh, America, please take better
care of your (previously?) much
admired
soul.
That
was one of my reasons to immigrate in the mid-Sixties:
The generosity of the People after WWII,
CARE packages
that allowed me to stick my
tiny fingers into dried milk.
One of my
‘favorite foods’ to this
day.
After a couple of years of college,
curiosity about this government’s
democratic ‘experiment’
–
Self-government? Individuals/Citizens
AND ‘aliens’ can shape their
own
futures?
Creativity
is embraced? Bureaucracies are avoided? The majority of
voices
speak as One?
–
In search of answers, I stood in line
for my US-Visa on my 21st birthday.
Forty
years later, my inquisitiveness is growing.
In fact, almost two decades of activism at
Venice’s beloved Lincoln
Place
Apartments
Shows
me and us and ‘them’ and this City and this
State
That a whole lotta work needs to be
organized and done.
Here and there and
everywhere, of course.
‘Unless housing
is known to be a necessity rather than an investment,
our
housing shortages and inadequacies will
amount to conditions only known in
countries
degraded as third world.’
Not my words,
but those of a housing expert.
And may I add:
Let’s not degrade ourselves, nor this
country’s heart and soul.
May The City
of Angels fly above and ahead.
Free and in
peace.
IMinVenice2Stay
e
–Ingrid
Mueller
Posted: Thu - June 1, 2006 at 03:04 PM