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“Letter to a Sunday School Teacher”
I thought I remembered posting this one. I wrote it after going church with a friend, but the story sort of tells itself:
Hey Teacher, Hey Teacher
I went to your class and I heard
What could have been the Holy Word
You know beauty, truth, and love
And Heaven up above
And Jesus and forgiveness of sin.
Well we had some of that
And you didn’t even pass the hat
And we talked and prayed in beauty truth and love
But on more than one occasion
You said of the gay persuasion
The Church is way too tolerant of Them.
Well I didn’t even know there was a Them
Because I thought there was an Us
You know every single human being
And the call goes out to all
And its the same Spirit that falls
Upon every heart that turns to God in prayer.
And I’ve been to a church in San Francisco
And another across the Bay
Where the congregation was less straight then gay
And the same Spirit filled the hall
That it does when I pray with you all
Surely God does love Her children all the same
And I call it a new circumcision
When you say you know with precision
Just how God does view every right and wrong
For if a law was good enough
Surely Jesus wouldn’t have it so rough
To make salvation a free gift for all.
And like meat sacrificed to idols
Lo, all is permissible
If its done with love to the glory of God
And Everyone who knows to do good
And does it not, that is sin
Love and only love is the highest law
And Everyone who loves is a child of God
That’s how God’s love is perfected
Love and only love is the highest law
And by their fruits we shall know them
And yet we must never judge
Love and only love is the highest law
In case you missed it,
Love and only love is the highest law.
“Nothing”
This poem is my last from “Atonal Musings” and is in fact the last poem i can be reasonably sure i can lay hands on without writing something new. I write poetry in spurts and frequently when i am highly engaged in the helping professions poetic inspiration is far away. Its one of the reasons i have been known to drift. I am feeling a bit of that call and am trying out the idea of thinking about taking steps that might allow that to happen. I don’t know, I’m just thinking (do not be alarmed if you are invested in my present status, i only do 8% of the things i say i’m going to). Anyways this poem is about the Greek philosopher who invented atoms and thought everything was made from them. The chorus is a quotation by Democritus that should end “but atoms” but we’ve learned a thing or two and now know what things are really made of….
Democritus thought everything but the void
Was made up of atoms that could not be destroyed
Do you think that he would have enjoyed
Learning his atoms were made of nothing.
By convention sour, by convention sweet
By convention colored, in reality nothing….
Protons and neutrons and things of that sort
Are made up of pieces, that we call quarks
And quarks are made of nothing, except for math
So think about that next time you take a bath
You really are bathing in nothing.
By convention sour, by convention sweet
By convention colored, in reality nothing….
Heisenberg shows if you can understand
That the universe to the poetry stand
Everything there is across the land
Descends from mathematical forms
Everything is made of nothing.
By convention sour, by convention sweet
By convention colored, in reality nothing.
“Glue Sticks and Potatoes”
I wrote this little ditty in the heart of my manic break down. I had stayed up all night thinking nonsense and was cooking breakfast (frying the last of the potatoes) when i was trying to remember i wanted to pick up some glue sticks for a collage i had an idea for and couldn’t find a pencil so i wrote a little song to help me remember when i got more potatoes. I recorded it with Milk Carton a capella with a lot of reverb. I think it came out kind of haunting and pretty cool:
Glue sticks are so wonderful
When you want things stuck together
Glue sticks are so wonderful
When outside there’s stormy weather
Potatoes are so wonderful
When they’re just like Mom makes
Potatoes are so wonderful
Whenever your heart breaks
Glue sticks and potatoes
They stick to you
Like bread sticks to butter
Glue sticks and potatoes
Is today’s analogy
For loving one another
“Harmony”
Hardy Are Red Mums On New Years-eve
Dusted by the fallen snow, warmed by fallen leaves
Our love blooms like those hardy mums and shimmers like the snow
It also warms like fallen leaves, as only lovers know
Harmony oh Harmony, i’m not the man i wish i could be
Harmony oh Harmony, i make up words, then sing ’em off key
Angels and Anarchists never stop to marry
Heaven and Revolution don’t leave time to tarry
But if they knew love like we know love, we’d see pretty soon
Angels and Anarchists on their honeymoon
Harmony oh Harmony, i’m not the man i wish i could be
Harmony oh Harmony, i make up words, then sing ’em off key
“Bodhisattva”
The world is simply illusion
Full of suffering and confusion
Still you guide us through the night
And do not pass on into the night
Bodhisattva oh Bodhisattva
Pass up Nirvana for Samsara
You alone are here by choice
To share your vision share your voice
Bodhisattva oh Bodhisattva
Pass up Nirvana for Samsara
We warp your words and cause much strife
And all too often we take your life
Still you ride on the Karmic wheel
Take upon yourself the pain we feel
Bodhisattva oh Bodhisatttva
Pass up Nirvana for Samsara
“Live in a Garden”
I can’t believe i haven’t posted this one its one of my favorites. I’ve finished posting all the stuff i’m gonna from “America” and am now putting up stuff from Atonal Musings which i put together in 2001. The first verse goes back to my manic break down and my first big flurry of poetry. I was stalled there for a couple of years when i got my break through by changing my imaginary audience to this three year old boy whose family i was working with. Writing for kids helped me wrap my mind around what i was trying to do and it brought in all the farm animals.
We could live in a garden
Watch the apple trees sway
In the gentle breeze
While the chipmunks play
We won’t have jobs or have bills to pay
We’ll live simple lives but it’ll be OK
Because we’ll live in a garden
We’ll have to milk the cow
Feed the chickens and ducks
And slop the old sow
We’ll ask some old people
When we don’t know how
There’ll be Sea Monkeys on Thursday
If you start them now
Because we live in a garden
We just don’t act that way
Trapped in buildings and cars
Almost every single day
If you only remember one thing I say
The world is a garden so treat it that way
“Please don’t beat your kids…”
This poem I wrote when i was doing home based social work with families with child abuse and neglect. It was either laugh or cry and there is a lot of dark humor in that line of work but it was always done with love. Unfortunately everything in this piece is true and is written as advice should you ever have a social worker coming by, a little Emily Post, for a pretty awkward situation.
You ask them twenty questions,
Then give three pieces of advice
If they do one praise them for it,
If not you tell them twice
Do you keep an eye on your kids,
When their running near the street?
Why in the hell do you have a satellite dish,
When your house ain’t got no heat?
Why do you and the kids always fight?
Why can’t you just get along?
Why should your teenager try to behave,
When you tell him everything he does is wrong?
These aren’t easy questions
And I ask them for low pay,
But my first piece of advice is,
‘Tomorrow will be a brighter day’
So please don’t beat your kids
In front of the social worker
Put away your weed tray,
Don’t offer me a beer
Clean up all the dog shit,
And wash your children’s faces
Don’t call your wife a stupid whore,
Because the social worker’s here.
So I listen to the stories
Of strife and horror and pain
Validate the struggle
Reach for words to explain
That the system is defective
Family is breaking down
Their ain’t no village to raise a child
And mentors are hard to be found
Nuclear families can sure melt down
As we struggle through this world alone
But I’ll kiss a bureaucrat’s ass
To get your heat turned on
And you can always call me on the phone,
So please don’t beat your kids,
In front of the social worker.
“7 Aphorisms for Nathan”
There are a lot of words and they have a lot of meanings and the sum of it all is the truth. The named and the unnamed, the known and the unknown, the beginning and the end.
People smoke cigarettes to hide, focus, put off, bury pain, and belong.
Most edits are to make things more beautiful, rarely to make them more true.
It is important to be your own character for sure but it is also important to let other characters develop the plot line.
Argument by analogy is the weakest form of argument, but sometimes it is all there is in a world of turbulent chaos and unknown stabilities.
Some go to the woods to look for calm, others for inspiration, in the best of times both.
Just because you missed your turn off doesn’t mean you should look more carefully next time. Where you are going is a decision must made moment by moment.
“The Buddha Next Door”
This poem speaks for itself and takes its name from a Chad Osborne quote on what he was going to call his new album in late November 1996. I wrote the poem some years after, i think in preparation for ‘America: Its Land and Its People’, no book on notable americans would be complete without one.
Larger than life; my friend
such quick-witted genius belongs on the stage
Without pretense or ambition
Singing post-modern ballads
of what might be
what might’ve been.
Growing up in a small town
it is a gift to know you my friend
erudition without equal
and a hunger to Know
everything
about everything
asking for nothing
Spinning tales, absurd tales
All the stranger for being true.
The roll of the eyes
the arched eyebrow
the enigmatic smile
Speaking volumes on their own
the wit, the wit, the wit
that takes someone apart
but with the child like spirit
spritely innocent
the glee of the moment sparkles
that makes it all ok
better than ok
Its fucking hilarious
side splitting fun
that leaves you out of breath
and your cheeks hurting.
Please, please, please
no more
Filling the void with laughter
for its own sake
True Good at its finest
No malice
but a desire
to know
to take
risks.
To go out on the smallest limb
for no other reason
than to pluck the forbidden fruit
Of naming the unnamable
tasting the fruit of unadulterated interaction
the eternal quest for reaction
All in fun
All for fun
And the chips fall where they lay
A veritable Angel of Dionysus
We’ll run, run, run across the void
of empty convention
the rules, mores, norms
of the ones who dwell in the mud
Afraid to defy convention
Plucked into the Spotlight
of cross examination
lost in explication
of what your life really means.
“I’m no Eddie Von Blondt”
This poem is one of the rare ones inspired by something i saw on tv, in this case the X-Files. Eddie Von Blondt was a shape shifter who took over Fox Mulder’s life and almost made it with Sculley. He just did a better job living than Mulder had done and it got me thinking and I wrote this. It again comes out of my chap book ‘America: Its Land and Its People’:
I’m no Eddie Von Blondt
For sure, for sure
Nor Fox Mulder either
For that matter
Sure enough
I’m to comfortable
In the other
To do well
To gain the props
Of artificial attraction
Material satisfaction
The base gratification
Of the top of the stratification
The Lie’s artless beauty
And by artless I do not mean natural
I mean without art, not guile
The feeling not the smile
Straightened, whitened
Capped and mapped
By the Colgate Brightness
Of your pearly whiteness
I’ll read you the list of
The snaggle toothed super stars….
And I know the pain
Of violating social conformity
Fuck the Rules
Fuck the cars
Fuck the money
Fuck the bars
Fuck the rich
Fuck the stars
Fuck the game
And I won’t play
Not by your rules
That made me a loser
Before I even knew I was playing
And that the stakes were high
And the rules a lie
Or so cruelly true
They cry out for obfuscation
Now I’m not saying
You have to be poor
And fat and crazy
And live in your parent’s garage
And wear old clothes
And not comb your hair
Just be yourself
Your god-given unadulterated self
Brave and unafraid
Content with who you are
What you have
Because if we keep
Buying into their shit
Buying their shit
Living the Lie
Giving the Lie
To our children
And our children’s children
There won’t be a 7th generation
To give it too.
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