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Pontiac
I like to write poetry about historical occurrences that are not widely known but probably should be. Pontiac is one. Most of the forgotten stories of the indian wars are the earlier ones. I like these because the fights were more fair. The wars out west no way was they going to win, but in the midwest for a season or two, sometimes the indians got to win. He was really the first native american to do cross tribal organizing, outside of an organized confederation, to oppose the expansions of the whites into their territory. When I read an account of Pontiac’s War I found him really hard to relate to but wanted to tell his story. He wasn’t very sympathetic coming off as kind of a bully, very concerned about his own ego, and a cannibal to boot. But when the siege of Detroit was finally broken I really felt for him. This poem rolled out easily then.
My name is Pontiac
I am a chief like my father before me
Of the Ottawa who won’t bend their knee
At the foot of the whiteman
The French came to our land to trade
And we liked the things they made
Liked the guns and rum
We bartered furs to get us some
Now we’ll use our sharp knives and our guns
Now that the english they have come
They say they beat the french in a war
And we don’t own our land anymore
But we’ve never been conquered
So I’ve gone from tribe to tribe
I try to explain I try to describe
The future that’s coming
Some say the english they are few
In a few forts what can they do?
But the settlers are coming
With their saw and plough and fence
And its only common sense
Their won’t be room for the red man
So we put Detroit under siege
We took twelve more forts like a breeze
And the settlements they are burning
But winter it has finally come
And my warriors they’re fighting is done
They have to hunt to feed their famies
And the war is over
We had our dreams we had our plans
But now its over
The french cannon they never came
The promised troops were just the same
When the white man speaks He speaks in lies
The indians pay The indians die
The english have come
And they’re here to stay
We might fight another day
But for now its over
more old poetry (john and salome)
I’ve noticed since moving the blog to wordpress that poetry is all of a sudden a big hit. I haven’t been writing a lot of new poetry, it seems to come in waves. I think there has to be a certain amount of space in my life to stay up late, having already read my fill, and a certain level of reflection. Right now i am living life. sometime in the future i will write about it. Here is one i wrote about John the Babtist probably sometime around 1998. Its not as subversive as most of my religious poetry but all of it just arises out of the subconscious. I actually have little to do with the process. I struggled with the last line but finally just kept to the same pattern. I like the repetition and juxtaposition of the two characters. I’m curious as to what other folks like.
John was a young man, he lived in Galilee
And about two thousand years ago he baptized in the sea
He baptized in the sea
He wore a coat of camel hair, ate locusts and honey
He cried out to the people to repent, but they refused to see
They refused to see
But while John was busy preaching, Salome began to dance
And the King of all Israel fell into her trance
Fell into her trance
Salome was a young girl, the daughter of a king
She does the dance of the seven veils while a thousand eunuchs sing
A thousand eunuchs sing
But while Salome was busy dancing, John began to say
The King of All Israel is living in sin this day
Living in sin this day
John was touched by God, his words were like a fire
But when he turned the people against his king he lit his funeral pyre
Lit his funeral pyre
Cuz while John was busy preaching Salome continued to dance
And when the last veil hit the floor she knew she had her chance
Knew she had her chance
Salome was given a gift and it was up to her
She asked for the head of John the Baptist served on a silver platter
Served on a silver platter
So when Salome was finished dancing, John was finished as well
Now John is preaching up in heaven and Salome is dancing in Hell
Salome is dancing in Hell
Tecumseh
Tecumseh is one of my biggest heroes and i believe the brightest spiritual force to walk on north america (unless the mormons are right). He was a shawnee warrior and prophet. He spoke perfect english, was made a full warrior at 13 and killed 5 kentuckians on his first raid on the white invaders of the ohio country. He captured a 6th and when his companions tortured him to death he made an impassioned speech against torture which virtually ended torture by the shawenee. His war club was a bull’s penis with a fist size stone shrunk into one end, he shot one and clubbed 4, again he was 13 years old. He had been ordained the leader of the shawnee at birth by his father a prophet in his own right who prophesied the time of his death, as did tecumseh himself and his brother chikseeka. tecumseh would dress in whiteman clothes and infiltrate forts and armed camps. He would identify people in camp who would die and they died. he led troops in among other engagements the battle of the river raisen (the massacre occurred after he left). He attempted to organize all the tribes of the midwest and south to attack all the whites simultaneously, 15,ooo indians at the same time. He said there would be a meteor and 30 days later an earthquake as the sign of attack. His brother tensakawa foolishly led a small group of shawnee against william henry harrison, the territorial governor of indiana, and was wiped out when his promise of making the indians bullet proof didn’t work out. this ended the rebellion even though the promised meteor and earthquake came as promised. He ended up throwing away his life in the war of 1812 somewhere up in canada. some day i want to finish a rock opera about tecumseh. here is my finished piece:
Tecumseh #1
Pucksinwah was a war chief of the mighty Shawnee
Kept vigil under the stars at the birth of his baby
The mighty meteor left people at a loss
He knew it as the sign of the birth of his son
Panther-Moves-Across
Tecumseh my son I won’t live to see you grown
But you’ll be the greatest warrior the Shawnee have ever known
Could have been a teacher or a prophet but a warrior we demand
When the Whites of the Thirteen Fires come to take our land
And Pucksinwah was a prophet so surely he had known
The fruit he would reap from the seeds that he had sown
As he lay dying struck down by a white man’s gun
He called to Chiksika come here my eldest son
The whites are like an avalanche and never will they cease
So take up now my hatchet and never do make peace
And raise up Tecumseh for he can defend our lands
He’s touched by the Great Spirit, his life is in Her hands
Tecumseh my son I won’t live to see you grown
But you’ll be the greatest warrior the Shawnee have ever known
Could have been a teacher or a prophet but a warrior we demand
For the Whites of the Thirteen Fires have come to take our land
prose poem with lots of unatributed quotes
The Kingdom of heaven is like writing in the margins. For all of the writing in the book there is always room for more words. The kingdom of heaven is within you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away, in the beginning was the word and the word was god and was with god and everyone who loves is a child of god because god is love. Solomon says truly there is nothing new under the sun and yet i am a new creation. i sing a new song, i love the truth, i fall short of the glory of god and write obscenities in the book of life, i fall short, but the wind rocks me, i lay each night in the cradle and feel at home, i fall short, i am selfish and self centered but mostly lazy and yet i am rocked by the winds of change. i feel at home on the dusty plains, i feel at home in the snowy mountains, i feel at home in the winter’s rain. god loves a cheerful giver a forthright spirit and an upright heart. Plato says rightly that we are in a cave looking at flickering lights cast upon the darkness of our cave all these things that will Pass away. How many walls that limited Plato’s walks still stand? How many bowls from which he supped his soups or knives that carved his bread? hath not moth & rust destroyed? yet the idea of Knife guides every hand that makes to cut anything anywhere ever. heaven and earth shall pass away but my words will never die. this world is illusion only in the eye of the eternity and for now walls still stand the cave still surrounds us with darkness. but it is only contrast on the page of the limitless light of the now. dare to read your life as a book, your experiences as words on a page in the book of life. store up treasures in heaven, someday all there will be is communication, isn’t that what communion really means? but now there are walls and roads and knives and bowls and soup and bread and the stuff that Stories are made of. tales to be told when the weather just doesn’t matter anymore. heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall never die. time is a fire that burns away all the things that in the end are dust, but star dust nothing less, “its the cosmos that gave us life its from stardust that we’re made of”. “we are all stars”. “every woman and every man is a star” because of the truth. not the idea of truth but the truth itself, the known and the unknown, the beginning and the end. just as our bodies, molded clay of life stuff, for a time, a temple of finite properties but infinite possibilities. we are born into a world in which we are a part and we live and we die like the birds in the field. but our fallible material shells generate consciousness. a self. an entity capable of knowing and being known. remembering and being remembered. the kingdom of heaven is within you. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, to be grasped. to be known to love and be loved for god is love and what is love but a knowing a being known. [the book of wisdom says the great build up walls of lies, great houses and lands and things that twinkle and gleam, that block out the light of eternity, (an experience of both truth & love) and leave them huddled alone in darkness. a land of dark despair] just as every hand that cuts is guided by the same perfect knife every heart that loves is guided by the same perfect love. God and heaven and all the saints and angels are an “a priori” assumption, a self evident fact by anyone who has ever been lost in the moment of love, the sharing, the knowing of another soul be it our neighbor or the god who made the universe its really all the same eternity, if you do it right. do you want to know if you are going to live forever? are you living forever right now? my home is the planet earth and my family has six billion children and i yearn to know their names and know their stories. i have a name, i have asked to be remembered and promised to remember. i have loved and am loved, i sing songs to the angels, i love everyone i have ever loved and that love lives inside of me. moments of eternity when we shined brighter together, lost in the moment, timeless and so eternal. heavenly treasures, stories to tell when the weather just doesn’t matter anymore because heaven and hell have passed away and there is only the word. the word is truth. the word is love. the word is beauty. the word is.
swinging an axe
I spent a chunk of the day chopping down the bush honey locust out of the northwest corner of my backyard. My friend Trevor had pointed it out and mentioned it was a pernicious invader that had to go but then i heard that the cultivated ones weren’t pernicious. Last spring at the native plant show i talked to some experts and they said the white and yellow flowered kind were the aggressive ones and so i waited until it confirmed my memory that the flowers were white and decided to knock it out this winter. I see how it has a big edge over the natives because it didn’t drop its leaves until well into December.
Than we had a couple of weeks of ugly cold and now I’m cutting it down. I spent a couple of sessions warming up and got serious on it yesterday. I was stymied because all the branches were seriously entangled and large chunks of it hung over the neighbors rusty old chain link fence (which keeps out the pit-bull), wires, and my own fence. I had it better’n a third down and hadn’t been able to pull out anything out of the mass. Finally I just started chopping off branches and pulling them out one by one. The final pieces I roped and had Harry pull on the rope to keep the wires up. Success.
Now I am hand sawing some of the mid sized trunks to line a path through the new beds. I am hoping to rake out the plant material, pull up the handfuls of grass & mud I haven’t smushed all apart yet and plant my wildflower mix. I picked that up last spring at the Missouri Wildflower Nursery in Brazito last spring. I am going to use a packet of shade mix, one of shade mix thin soil, some bush clover, and one other one which is escaping me. Getting the seeds on the ground is the part of the project that is time sensitive. Its barely early winter yet.
Swinging the axe has got me nostalgic. I got into chopping wood in my early teens. It helped me get a handle on my anger which saved me a world of hurt. There’s something special about cutting stuff down by hand. If I had used a chainsaw i could have blasted through it but the noise and my general unease with machinery would have taken away from the experience. I wouldn’t have the satisfied delight from the tingle in my hands and the feeling that i did something in all those weird muscle groups around my body.
It reminds me of camping, and splitting wood for anyone whoever guested me and burned wood. I remember going home for christmas break with Claire and splitting her a winter’s worth of wood. I got into a rhythm and was nailing these big oak logs with one swing of the maul. It felt good, feels good now.
work, work, work, work
My job has been in transition for some period of time. For the last several weeks I have been a grant writer, mostly. Its kind of fun, a different set of challenges. A lot less emotionally draining than trying to save the world by helping struggling individuals get ahead and keep the wolves at bay. I like to compare it to writing a paper only instead of getting an “A” you get a million dollars. A “B+” pays zilch.
It makes for a little bit of pressure, but engaging as well. I have been writing the same proposal over and over, off and on, for almost three years. It makes my head spin when I think of sentences that i have pondered, retooled, or left alone for i don’t know, maybe a hundred times. But its good, it gets better each time and it is loads better than the last version.
The program i am trying to get funded is Assertive Community Treatment, which is a real neat model for treatment and pretty cutting edge for a substance abuse agency. As far as I know we had the only one, had being the operative word, and will have again if my grant goes through. A multi-disciplinary team with a lot of creativity and clinical freedom and a small case load to really expand the world of the possible for what you can do for folks.
The grant we are going for is a Recovery Oriented System of Care grant or ROSC. Its really designed for interagency collaboration and its a bit of a stretch to just fund our program but i try to make the case. We were close last time and its a lot better, competitive though. But thinking about the idea of a ROSC has been cool though, has us getting more client and community focused.
consternation, bother and loss of a sense of self
I wrote this paragraph on halloween and have been sitting on it ever since. publish or delete? you see what i picked.
I am in the midst of a long and annoying semi-functional funk and am starting to feel it is endless. It began with trying to write some more on the ‘about’ page. I thought i might begin with talking about what i do, so far as work. not an easy question. I wrote i am in transition from supervising a program providing integrated mental health and substance abuse treatment to individuals with multiple problems in a community based setting to providing community based substance abuse counseling informed by mental health treatment. That subtle difference is a huge pain in my ass and i can’t help but be a little broke up and sad about it.
Going Crazy part 8
I walked to the ticket counter and got in the line. There was an older guy and we struck up a conversation which struck me as eerily significant. He seemed kind and I felt safe for the first time in a good long while. When I got to the counter I told them i would like a ticket to Detroit and gave them the confirmation number. She asked me where I would like to sit and i said i would like to sit next to the previous gentleman. She said he was flying to North Carolina or some such place and asked if I wanted to go there. I considered it for a moment, and said no i had better go to detroit.
I headed for the gate. I remember being tripped out by the signage with looking at the Dutch and English words and thinking of different interpretations. seeing hidden messages. everything had ominous overtones.
I got to a waiting area by the gate. i left my jacket on the row of plastic seats and went in the bathroom and washed my face. I rinsed my mouth out with water but didn’t drink any. I had gotten spooked about whether you could drink tap water in Europe and hadn’t been drinking for a long time. I had no thirst and at the time this had stopped concerning me and was just the way it was.
I came out and put my jacket back on and paced until it was time to go. But first questions. “Did you pack your own bags?”
I struggle with how to answer, “Um, I don’t have any bags, I lost them.”
“Did your items ever leave your sight since they were packed?”
“No?” pause “Oh wait. I wasn’t thinking of it as an item because I’m wearing it but I left my jacket on a bench while I was in the bathroom. I’m sorry I just wasn’t thinking.”
“OK sir, could you please come with me.”
“Oh sure”, I said. I followed him back into a small room and answered more questions to another guy. I told him I had lost my bags with my plane ticket and i didn’t know where. He asked me again and i told him i’d checked them into a locker and lost the key. Another guy looked through my jacket and I pulled out my pockets. They went ove”r my passport carefully took my hemp wallet looked at it and handed it back.
“OK sir, you can go catch your plane.” I stepped out of the room and into the already moving line to board. My heart was beating fast but i also felt in a groove falling out right into the line. As we entered the door of the plane being greeted by the flight attendant I thought I saw an attendant nod her head towards a small door with stairs up.
I turned from the line climbed the stairs and sat down comfortably in the back of first class.
A Holiday Letter
Its been a busy year hear at Leslie Lane. We began the year with a leisurely new years open house with gift exchange with my como friends who also travel for the holidays. Mimosas were served and a good time was had by all.
Columbia had a mild winter and I did quite a bit of winter gardening. I put in tulips and daffodils that i got for a buck at wallyworld and the tulips came out loverly in the spring. I’m hoping the daffodils just got off to a slow start. I had greens under a cold frame and had finished compost by march for the spring beds.
Corri Flaker and I went down to Brazito to the Missouri Wildflower Nursery early and I put in a lot of native wildflowers to launch the spring. The tomatoes struggled and the regular garden got a late start because of our family trip to California in May.
Dad, Myrtle and me rode out in Dad’s big Ford 250 and drove madcap out to Mesquite NV. We rested up for a day and a half and drove on up to the Bay to see John. It was nice to see the Woolsy crew and my biggest disappointment was not making the effort to get out to Concord and see Jeremy and Julie.
We day tripped to Yosemite which is always cool and then tooled on down to Joshua Tree. We camped in BLM land amidst the refuse but the dogs ran free and the target shooters didn’t even come close. Dad climbed a mountain and didn’t get down before dark. John went after him. I set the stage for pretty much a sedentary year by watching from camp.
We did up Joshua Tree and saw the park from end to end. We did a little climbing but mostly a driving tour. Saw a desert tortoise and a rattle snake. The beavertails were in flower. It was a great trip.
We got a room early to watch the season finale for Lost. We had people over to watch every episode. Folks even came over when we were gone. Our 40″ tv is big for my friends. Well halfway through the season finale the tv lost ABC and i still haven’t seen the end. Our Lost circle is growing so it should be a good crowd for the last season.
On the drive back we stopped by the Meteor Crater in AZ as well as Petrified Forest National Park. We took it easy on the way back and had a lot of fun and saw more stuff.
After our vacation the big event was Harry Train finally moved down in July. I am still hoping to land him a job at my shop. Its been nice having another housemate although I have to admit i miss having a guest room. Had to buy a futon for the living room when John came through in September. With Harry living here started playing a lot of D&D again. Also started rewatching Lost. We’re up to season 5 now and I am looking forward to seeing it again. Planning a big party for opening season on Ground Hog’s Day.
In September John visited every weekend. He floated a chunk of the Missouri during the week a couple times and I bought his canoe when he was done. Its a cute little thing, very responsive, with seat backs and cup holders. “The Cadillac of cheap canoes”, John called it.
Most of my other big purchases were house related. Eric carved out a window between the kitchen and dining room. Really opened it up and put in wood counter top in half the kitchen. I want him to do the other half when he has the time. It came out really nice. Also painted the master bedroom and Harry’s room. I also have windows on order, all of them but the garage and living room ones. I also put in some extra insulation. I used the rake-able kind which was pretty cool, didn’t have to get the blower and allowed me to better target where i needed it. Still need about 5 more bags which i need to buy before the end of the year. I also got 3 rain barrels which Dad has assembled and we will be launching in the spring.
The truck is still running. 168K and a rubbing timing belt make me hesitant to put money in it but will probably invest in a couple new tires anyway. Except for the water pump, the truck had a pretty good year.
With Harry we also added Vinnie, a Persian Kitty with a lot of personality. He nipped our mouse problem in the bud. Some months after that we added Oni, the little white beagle dog who hasn’t pissed all over the furniture in weeks. Dad got her from a homeless guy he gave a pair of pants to once. Its a long story.
Almost forgot I finally quit smoking on 2/10/09. Picked up a big chewing gum habit but am smoke free in a way i haven’t been since i picked up my first pack.
Work has gone mixed. I completed my grant and lost my program. Have been doing a lot of grant writing trying to restore it. Got licensed as a substance abuse counselor and got elected to the steering committee of the Missouri Cadre for Co-Occurring Excellence. I am a vanguardest at last. Nice to be doing organizing again I must say. I am pushing the group on consensus. People are into it. People are hungry for meaning.
Also started doing a group on COD and picked back up doing a batterer intervention group for Family Counseling Center. I got nominated for a Mental Health Champion award but wasn’t the most successful crazy person last year. It was fun nonetheless.
Health wise we all do pretty good. Dad is a bit more short winded and is looking into adding Medicare Part D and maybe a breathing med. I’ve had heartburn a lot and thought about getting checked for an ulcer but have mostly just tried to chill out more. Myrtle continues to breathe hard but she’s still into playing and such.
All in all 2009 was a pretty good year. This whole stability thing is still novel enough to be entertaining. I work too hard. My new year’s resolution was to prioritize self care and i have found that to be hard. This year i am going to walk, walk and write it down. I think i am going to hike some AT this summer and want to start training for it. I am optimistic on 2010 and grateful for all the blessings I have received.
Going Crazy part 7
I took some of the change from the smokes and called the tarot reader. There were names of a couple on the answering machine, but not my guy, and i left a message for the guy that i would get back to him. I walked to the main train station and bought a ticket for Schipol. I got to thinking of a conversation i’d overheard about Dennis and his buddy getting stopped on the way out of Amsterdam a few days ago and getting busted for some small amount of drugs they had forgotten about. I began to wonder if they were set up which made me wonder if someone had hidden drugs in my gear. I started to look through my good old army backpack that had seen many miles over many years and realized it was too full of nooks and crannies for me to ever be sure someone hadn’t stashed something in there. I decided it was best to stash it for now and put it in a coin operated storage locker at the train station. I put the ticket in my pocket surreptitiously checked the schedule and slipped on the train just before it moved out hoping to shake any tales.
I arrived back at Schipol and checked the KLM desk. They had no record of my lost ticket and told me a new one would be $3,000. I was stunned and thanked them and walked to another part of the airport. I was unsure of my next move but thought i had better check in with my family as my “friends” were probably back in the states by now.
I purchased a phone card which was most of my remaining money and called my folks. I talked to my mom and my brother had just called having picked up my friends from the airport and myself not being there. He had told her they had said I was acting crazy and had gotten separated. He was pretty angry at them leaving me.
I told her they were trying to pressure me into smuggling drugs and had taken my plane ticket. I told her I had checked on it and it was $3,000 dollars for a new one. I had limited minutes and she told me she would check on a ticket and to call back in an hour. I told her i would.
I went to a smoking area and chain smoked cigarettes until I thought i was being watched and i wandered off. The lighter I realized I had taken from the mind spa when my lighter had died. I wondered if there was a transmitter in it. I decided I should go through my pockets and get rid of anything not essential. I had lots of stuff and i just started throwing it all away. I kept only my passport, some change, and my wallet which i went through carefully throwing away a lot of business cards and phone numbers of folks i had met during my stay. I didn’t know about any of them anymore. The hardest thing to toss was the ticket to get my backpack but there was no going back now.
I called my folks and my dad answered. He told me they had gotten me a ticket and all i needed to do was go to the ticket desk and give them a confirmation number. He asked me if i had a pencil. Damn I had thrown all of that stuff away. I started asking people walking by. I’m not even sure if they spoke english. My Dad stopped me after about 5 times. “Your just going to have to memorize it. Here, Here is how to do it. It starts with MPCH, that’ll be Mickey Please Call Home”. He went on to make up a mnemonic for the 15 digit code of random letters and numbers. He wove in birthdates and catch phrases and had me repeat it back to him twice. I told him I had it and they said they would meet me at the airport in Detroit.
Multiconstruct 
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