Streams of Bloggishness (I Felt Small, Human)
The cracks are beginning to show.
The shit is rising faster than I am, I fear.
The sick brown tide bubbling just below
The pulsing chambers of my heart.
Carrying the beat of many songs,
Death marches, terrified tempos,
Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto,
African drums, celebrations
A body that has held new life
And worn dark bruises.
This country has ceased
To be my country.
We’re stuck in a freeze frame
Of the final scene of Strangelove
Slim Pickens as Everyman.
Hanging on to the fruit of
Civilization, gleefully
Taking aim at the source;
The Tigris and the Euphrates
Heat rises off us in psychedelic waves
that only the stoned or the mad can see.
Most of the time we aren’t even aware of it--
just something that makes the dog bark or babies cry,
leaping from man to man, neighbor to neighbor
to neighboring nations like a virus of feeling
every night we poison the world
with whispers growing into storms,
driving men to kill and rape
Or bless it with the poetry
created by you and your baby
in the backseat of your parents station wagon.
I’ve felt the vastness of God
spanning out above me,
like the sky, but more like
a great curtain of presence,
and not far away.
I felt small, human.
my reach transcending
my human constraints;
my voice heard,
echoing through
something, somewhere
meeting its mark
I will scream and laugh and weep and dance
As my eyes, heart, body, and mind,
encounter what comes each day,
colored by the glass of all that has been
blossoming from pop songs
religious tracts, blogs
or a well-deserved scolding
playing itself out in a touch.
One married to the divine,
the other filled with rage
and pulling a trigger.
When I'm at the riding school
I always forget about everything else
A regular Tomahawk cruise missile of love, baby.
Increased Militarism is in full flower
And God gave us daffodils.
There are some truths
You can’t tell to an 8 year old
Far more she cannot tell you.
We’ve lost our sense of hearing,
Our sense of smell.
Think we’re fair and balanced.
The ancient muses were not gentle spirits
whispering in people’s ears
They came with swords and spears
and stabbed light into the mind.
A thrust of grace that left
the artist weeping.
Poets begging for a pen
that they might find those words
And pull them out.
Meanwhile the roots are showing in your bleached blonde hair.
Horseshoeing past Boardwalk and collecting two bones.
Pass and go! Fill up ole Betsy with the finest oil
and pave the road. Heading for the mountains.
My ability to fake cheerfulness
has been of great advantage.
in the United States the motto is:
"Happy faces everyone! Happy faces!"
It's socially and professionally dangerous
to deviate too much
The war is distracting,
TV distracting,
Work distracting,
The whole world a big distraction.
too many have lingered
at the squirming table,
making a meal of grubs.
How many maggots
of the Mind of the Universe
Must we dine on
before we can move beyond
The depths of woe and let love be so...
A wire in Athena's circuitry shorts out.
The Warbeasts claws clench into the world.
Custer’s on the move again
Just the beginning of the end?
Where victory is defeat.
Holding on, the city shakes.
I disagreed with my father about a war,
a horrible, stupid war –
he grabbed my hair in the back
and slammed my forehead into a wall
Over and over, until I nearly passed out.
I was 12. There are no firm boundaries
between personal and political violence.
a checkerboard cowboy
with his chessboard
pivoting recklessly
unbalanced on it's axis
as he pauses to rearrange pieces
and redefine rules
Nobody wants it.
Nobody. Except a handful of criminals.
I‘m in Baghdad, grocery shopping with my American family.
How I got there I do not know.
We’re running around like mad
Trying to buy our food
Before the bombs hit.
They’re closing the store.
A little Iraqi girl helps us out.
We go back to our suburban
American-style house.
Plush carpeting, attached garages.
Automatic doors.
Iraqi neighbors come over to warn us
the bombing will start at any minute
but because we lived in a neighborhood
with a lot of Americans in it
we might not get hit.
We’re afraid anyway.
A water main bursts
The street is filled with small boats.
Suburban American and British women
Float by with 1950s hairdos and loot—
Gold forks, knives and spoons;
Crystal salt and pepper shakers;
Mismatched plates, broken radios;
The sad, tragic detritus of poverty
I curse them for looting!
But buy some dice
for 5 dollars anyway
I huddle in fear with my family
As the American planes fly overhead
This country has ceased
To be my country.
We’re stuck in a freeze frame
Of the final scene of Strangelove
Slim Pickens as Everyman.
Hanging on to the fruit of
Civilization, gleefully
Taking aim at the source;
The Tigris and the Euphrates
I felt small, human.
I felt that the people around me—
not their persons, but their bodies,
the buildings I was in,
the textures and colors
surrounding me were
unsubstantial, insignificant,
temporal in the most profound sense
Huddled there waiting
For the clusters to fall
I saw a bird in flight
As senseless as it may sound
I prayed to it for forgiveness;
For all is like the ocean;
Even the smallest bird
The smallest human soul
Succumbing to this ecstasy
I was transported by a power
Far mightier than any invention
Falling from the sky
And intent on denying.
Words by: George Partington of High Water
The Kid of Negative Velocity
Ailina of Paper Bent
Richard Cody of Notes from a Life...
Daintily Dirty
Miel of Hot Juicy Breathless...
Jeanne d'arc of Body and Soul
Camillia
David Lyttle
Loren Webster of In a Dark Time
Cyndy Roy of Mousemusings
Peggy of A Moveable Beast
Joseph Duemer of Reading and Writing
Michael Porter of Views from the Outside
Dostoevsky via Whiskey River
Maru of WTF is it Now?
Page Count- Mike Golby
and a few by me
The cracks are beginning to show.
The shit is rising faster than I am, I fear.
The sick brown tide bubbling just below
The pulsing chambers of my heart.
Carrying the beat of many songs,
Death marches, terrified tempos,
Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto,
African drums, celebrations
A body that has held new life
And worn dark bruises.
This country has ceased
To be my country.
We’re stuck in a freeze frame
Of the final scene of Strangelove
Slim Pickens as Everyman.
Hanging on to the fruit of
Civilization, gleefully
Taking aim at the source;
The Tigris and the Euphrates
Heat rises off us in psychedelic waves
that only the stoned or the mad can see.
Most of the time we aren’t even aware of it--
just something that makes the dog bark or babies cry,
leaping from man to man, neighbor to neighbor
to neighboring nations like a virus of feeling
every night we poison the world
with whispers growing into storms,
driving men to kill and rape
Or bless it with the poetry
created by you and your baby
in the backseat of your parents station wagon.
I’ve felt the vastness of God
spanning out above me,
like the sky, but more like
a great curtain of presence,
and not far away.
I felt small, human.
my reach transcending
my human constraints;
my voice heard,
echoing through
something, somewhere
meeting its mark
I will scream and laugh and weep and dance
As my eyes, heart, body, and mind,
encounter what comes each day,
colored by the glass of all that has been
blossoming from pop songs
religious tracts, blogs
or a well-deserved scolding
playing itself out in a touch.
One married to the divine,
the other filled with rage
and pulling a trigger.
When I'm at the riding school
I always forget about everything else
A regular Tomahawk cruise missile of love, baby.
Increased Militarism is in full flower
And God gave us daffodils.
There are some truths
You can’t tell to an 8 year old
Far more she cannot tell you.
We’ve lost our sense of hearing,
Our sense of smell.
Think we’re fair and balanced.
The ancient muses were not gentle spirits
whispering in people’s ears
They came with swords and spears
and stabbed light into the mind.
A thrust of grace that left
the artist weeping.
Poets begging for a pen
that they might find those words
And pull them out.
Meanwhile the roots are showing in your bleached blonde hair.
Horseshoeing past Boardwalk and collecting two bones.
Pass and go! Fill up ole Betsy with the finest oil
and pave the road. Heading for the mountains.
My ability to fake cheerfulness
has been of great advantage.
in the United States the motto is:
"Happy faces everyone! Happy faces!"
It's socially and professionally dangerous
to deviate too much
The war is distracting,
TV distracting,
Work distracting,
The whole world a big distraction.
too many have lingered
at the squirming table,
making a meal of grubs.
How many maggots
of the Mind of the Universe
Must we dine on
before we can move beyond
The depths of woe and let love be so...
A wire in Athena's circuitry shorts out.
The Warbeasts claws clench into the world.
Custer’s on the move again
Just the beginning of the end?
Where victory is defeat.
Holding on, the city shakes.
I disagreed with my father about a war,
a horrible, stupid war –
he grabbed my hair in the back
and slammed my forehead into a wall
Over and over, until I nearly passed out.
I was 12. There are no firm boundaries
between personal and political violence.
a checkerboard cowboy
with his chessboard
pivoting recklessly
unbalanced on it's axis
as he pauses to rearrange pieces
and redefine rules
Nobody wants it.
Nobody. Except a handful of criminals.
I‘m in Baghdad, grocery shopping with my American family.
How I got there I do not know.
We’re running around like mad
Trying to buy our food
Before the bombs hit.
They’re closing the store.
A little Iraqi girl helps us out.
We go back to our suburban
American-style house.
Plush carpeting, attached garages.
Automatic doors.
Iraqi neighbors come over to warn us
the bombing will start at any minute
but because we lived in a neighborhood
with a lot of Americans in it
we might not get hit.
We’re afraid anyway.
A water main bursts
The street is filled with small boats.
Suburban American and British women
Float by with 1950s hairdos and loot—
Gold forks, knives and spoons;
Crystal salt and pepper shakers;
Mismatched plates, broken radios;
The sad, tragic detritus of poverty
I curse them for looting!
But buy some dice
for 5 dollars anyway
I huddle in fear with my family
As the American planes fly overhead
This country has ceased
To be my country.
We’re stuck in a freeze frame
Of the final scene of Strangelove
Slim Pickens as Everyman.
Hanging on to the fruit of
Civilization, gleefully
Taking aim at the source;
The Tigris and the Euphrates
I felt small, human.
I felt that the people around me—
not their persons, but their bodies,
the buildings I was in,
the textures and colors
surrounding me were
unsubstantial, insignificant,
temporal in the most profound sense
Huddled there waiting
For the clusters to fall
I saw a bird in flight
As senseless as it may sound
I prayed to it for forgiveness;
For all is like the ocean;
Even the smallest bird
The smallest human soul
Succumbing to this ecstasy
I was transported by a power
Far mightier than any invention
Falling from the sky
And intent on denying.
Words by: George Partington of High Water
The Kid of Negative Velocity
Ailina of Paper Bent
Richard Cody of Notes from a Life...
Daintily Dirty
Miel of Hot Juicy Breathless...
Jeanne d'arc of Body and Soul
Camillia
David Lyttle
Loren Webster of In a Dark Time
Cyndy Roy of Mousemusings
Peggy of A Moveable Beast
Joseph Duemer of Reading and Writing
Michael Porter of Views from the Outside
Dostoevsky via Whiskey River
Maru of WTF is it Now?
Page Count- Mike Golby
and a few by me
posted by rays | 5:17 PM
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