Politics and my file cabinet
Who’s Driving the Bus
Just who was driving the bus
which collided head on with the car at the crossing
where both were struck by the train
which maybe no one was driving;
after all there really is no engineer,
and if the whole damn thing jumps the tracks
well,
there’s an end to it.
We are Seed
For My Children
We are seed.
Our entire fragrance,
Color,
Life span,
Waits for germination to become exactly
Our entire fragrance,
Color,
Life span;
Yet we walk,
Talk,
Act and interact with garden;
Vie for sun light,
Die for want of rain.
Born a thistle
Strive to blossom rose,
Or seed at least as such.
To which end of where do I meditate
Awfully Busy Now
One must trade something,
Perhaps as simple as time
To make the journey;
Plant the seed,
Tend the field, harvest the wheat,
Winnow,
Grind flour,
Knead dough,
Gather wood for the fire,
Bake the bread or trade something for it,
Perhaps as simple as time.
And should one acquire a taste for honey,
Desire marmalade or strawberry jam,
There will be more gardens to tend,
More time to find and barter away,
More disappointment to face even
On the meditation journey to immortal happiness.
My fellows,
My friends,
Shall I come with sandals and robe,
Thrust forward the bowl of my heart
Trust it will be filled, as will my belly,
Or wait on anonymous street corners for
Strangers to pass, drop dollars and dimes,
Trading my time for their indulgence.
May I bake at your hearth,
Break my bread at your table;
Offer silence,
Kind words, good intension,
A strong back in exchange?
Who will shelter the un-ordained;
The seeking soul,
The traveler contaminated with a lust
For honey?
Shall he live in a box,
Sleep on a bench,
Read by street light,
Meditate in the warmth of the library on cold northern days
Or trade;
Trade until the cupboard is bare,
Intention a memory,
The back no longer strong,
Kind words become bitter
Or too close to the truth
And only strangers fill the bowl,
Offer alms out of goodness or guilt,
Turns their eyes as they pass the homeless old person
Meditating their way to immortal joy.
Change You Can Count On
I try and try, but politics keep sucking me in.
Delaying the Inevitable
Life does change,
Or things at least do;
Not change you can count on,
Change you can believe in, but change none the less.
It may take longer in some environments than others,
Happens quicker in bacteria and insects
Than slow moving humans
Who change their environment rather than evolve
To meet the challenge of change.
Bacteria for example become immune to drugs
As cockroaches do to poison;
Changing and surviving,
We purchase surgical masks and continue breathing polluted air
Or move to the suburbs,
A type of economic evolution I suppose.
America for example,
Moves at a different pace,
Is more insulated from certain pressures,
Certain types of social change then say,
South Africa.
Here, in America there is more;
More resources to delay at least
The inevitable.
We spend billions on Bird Flu which may or may not exist,
Taking dollars from unstable economies like a carnival barker
Taking dimes from the rubes
While in Washington DC HIV AIDS decimates.
We manufacture in the third world rather than pay
The true price of goods in US currency.
Here there are enough reasons and resources to
Lay off a few million while
Ensuring the rest of the masses have cake or
At least HDTV built by workers without
Health care or plumbing.
Strangely enough without the comforts
Many of them are or
Soon will be lacking as
The inevitable creeps ever closer.
Rich enough,
Powerful enough,
Stubborn enough to go to
War over oil
(Thank god it’s not wheat)
Rather than evolve a product or
Change life style,
Pay the cost of this stubborn refusal to change in
Lives and today’s dollars for
Generation that may never arrive because
She feels the interest on Her
Human Capital credit card will never come due or
The whore is just waiting for the next sugar daddy of a conflict to
Balance the books;
Delaying the inevitable until
Someone’s to blame,
Saddam is preferable but
Bush or Obama will certainly do.
Chasing the Dragon
for Ronnachai Sivatanapisit and Victor
The words were not Thai
or English.
No one,
Thai or English
understood them.
Morphine or phentanol induced they came in bursts,
loud,
clear,
unintelligible.
Fits and bursts,
an occasional word in one language or the other
escaping from the mind,
mouth,
psyche of the dying man
sleeping wide awake and small within the arms of the recliner;
small, thin,
impossibly thin,
knees twice the size of emaciated thighs.
.
Soaring,
hang gliding through the universe,
speaking in tongues to god
or someone exactly like her,
unaware of me, the healer, she,
the wife,
him,
the older brother,
Victor,
the son pacing.
Me,
I could not touch this place although
I may have been there in some far off recent past,
visited a while, and ambled on.
She,
she is simply hoping he will say I love you or
I hunger,
thirst,
desire some thing obtainable in words she understands
as she sits and holds his hand.
Him, the man I do not know
sits and stands,
sees perhaps a shadow of the future, wishes resolution;
will leave and come to sit or stand until uncomfortable again.
Victor turns the stereo to full and sings
He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
loudly,
alternating it with Kumbia again and again.
Chinese?
I ask,
His father was
and now he rides the dragon.
Great wings and fire rise, take him far,
so far he remembers what he never thought he knew,
chasing dreams and dragon’s breath beyond
the cords and corridors of self until
the face or form of god is seen.
The wheel becomes a turn of hands on clock,
the clock an abacus
counting, ever counting in a way that we,
she, he, I can not imagine
and only Victor’s seen.