And the sidewalk asks

What does Benjamin cross,
The distance of four-
blocks for?
Something that would warm his cool?
Does he have spirit-visions,
Of touching that glow of hope,
Or,
Is he excited at the prospect,
Of,
Being present at its bloody sacrifice.
This asked by the sidewalk,
Asked of the ghosts,
Of hopes,
Who's glows have been dulled on his pavement.

War?

If all of the money spent on the wars of great nations and their attendent super lethal technologies were to be turned to focus on the causes of war and the humble technologies of peace the world would likely be a different place.
What are the technologies of peace?
Love?
Compassion?
Consideration?
Understanding?
There is a song by Concrete Blonde I think it is called, "If God is a Bullet."
If you think about it Jesus didn't die on the cross for us, we killed the poor guy.
peace all

Huh?

What was
What is
What will be
We are losing
History
Faster
Than we
Can make it
And I am
Not so sure
we can bake it
Having lost
The recipe

Losing history faster than we make it on first utterance was nothing more than a odd quirky phrase thrown out in idle conversation with fellow students. I found myself silent for the rest of the meeting, hearing it over and over in my head. After I returned home I was greeted by the Tony Snow Show and his current spinnification of the days of our lives here in the states. What is a poor boy to do? The more I study the more worried I become. I would love to write a beautiful fiction or a compelling line or two in an otherwise bland peice of prose or poetry, but I instead I find only phrases that seem to point out errors in our societal programming.

Here is a prayer I find my otherwise atheist soul emoting:
If you are listening God,
Show a sign,
To give me hope
That we will
See the light of reason
And act compassionatly
With good intention
Towards all life on Earth.

Amphetamine Wide Awake
A city,
Expression,
Of human anger, with,
It’s tightly,
Controlled,
Flows,
Of containerized pretty people,
To be disgorged only,
At some specific,
Edifice of concrete and glass,
The lesser beings,
On bikes,
Smoking motors,
And bag ladies pushing their carts.

A city,
Expression,
Of human frailty,
With it’s,
Angst thinned skin,
It’s velvet scary,
Smooth,
Occam’s logic,
It’s hunger,
For something,
Somewhere,
Lost,
In cacophony’s,
Caress.

Thnx {I} for the title

She is my partner

I've alway thought of her as a partner, riding towards the same destination as me. Me on my short but reliable mule and she on her great white percheron clippity clopping down the road of life, each leaving little bits of ourselves as oderous tell tales for the other to find and wrinkle their nose at. She is always there on that trail, maybe a little ahead of me or a little behind, all's I have to do is call. We rarely camp at the same crossroads but when there is a river or creek we will always stop to swim together. It is the most fun in the winter when we freeze our selves to such awareness and then lie next to each other on our collective bedrolls just breathing. The air is alive at those times.

In responce to Rape

How did it come to this?
We loved so true dear,
but with every passing day,
week, month, and year
a little peice a you disappeared from my heart.
Or did my heart grow smaller in some way?
I hurt you to hurt me to hurt you to hurt me,
and this isnt how it was supposed to be,
I have gone too far to find redemtion,
and couldnt take it anyway,
I hurt you to hurt me to hurt you to hurt me

I wrote this in responce to a friends story of rape.
The lines I hurt you to hurt me just keep coming back to me.
What is it that makes us break beautiful things?
It hurts me to think of taking like this, doesnt it hurt you?
Are the biologists correct that altuism and conscience are self-eleminating?
God damn us each and every one if this is true!

On Being

Lines of life
pain and strife
Color this canvas of skin

Sweetest wines
Sourest rinds
Soften this fabric of skin

This cloak of color
That softly covers
This sole heart
Within

On Goodbyes

Seeing the end of the relationship from a distance of months or years and then having it upon you like a ton of anguish, relief, and doubt, ruthlesslly crushing the last vestiges of shared dream/vision from both of your hearts and then just saying your goodbyes, turning away to that quiet abyss of icy solitude.
Goodbyes like this are the most weathering of all, the souls sediments stirred to such a frothy mix that navigation is all guess work for while.

When we realize how alone we are as individuals we remember how important those we love really are.

Silence is a blessing

All souls journey through the void as voyagers. We always awaken changed by the night of one life’s eve just so we can see the dawning of the new life’s morn. The best path to perspective is a healthy dose of time. It can have positive additive effects and poetry does give true catharsis. That the void is empty of all but silence is a good thing, silence will give the soul what it needs if you let it. The contemplation of self is not what we want but what awaits us around every corner and if you practice looking for yourself I promise you will see yourself smiling. The journey is what makes everything happen.

Middle East

An Opinion on the Middle East

One of the most tragic aspects of the Middle Eastern conflict is the level at which the powerful parties completely define what is known about the nature of the conflict and who is at fault. The cycle of violence will likely continue as the dominant parties, Israel, USA, and Western Europe refuse to acknowledge in any concrete way the nature of the crisis. Information is so skewed in the American press that the American public has no objective understanding of the region.
Causes of conflict in the Middle East can be found in the Israeli mindset that can justify dehumanizing Palestinian’s, Islamic Fundamentalism’s resulting response to Israel’s actions, and the effect petroleum dependence has upon the governments of the Western Nations. Someone once said that money has a corrosive effect on democracy.
The Palestinian/Israeli issue and violent Islamic fundamentalism are symptoms of a greater problem, the value of oil. Oil is the main engine of destabilization in the region. If oil were to cease flowing out of the Middle East much of the Worlds economies would suffer catastrophic contractions. Middle Easterners have been cursed by being born over a sea of oil that Western nations need to keep their economies going.
If a complete disruption of oil flow out of the region occurred the Western response initially would take on a military face. A response that would have little or no positive effect indeed it is likely that a humanitarian crisis would result. Depending on the level of consensus that would gel between governments regionally and internationally it could either spin out of control into a world war or be the beginning of a substantial reevaluation of positions regarding the region.

To share an angels pain

I awoke to an angel crying
I thought, why
Would an angel undying
Be sitting by my bed crying

I reached out to this angel
I touched a thin delicate hand
To ease what must be
Tremendous anguish

I lost my sight, but I saw
I became deaf, but I heard
I was mute, but for one word
Truth

The source of the world’s pain
Is found in each and everyone of us
Lives spent torn between love and hate
Alone

The angel looked in to my eyes
And began to sing
You are not finished yet
And that is too bad

Touching the Infinite

I use to think that touching the infinite was a myth, a pretty story to be passed out during deep philisophical conversations with my fellow armchair saviors. The truth is we are the luckiest organism on this planet. Luck has given us the capacity to remember and communicate our experiences to the generations that follow us and to recieve that same wisdom from those that have preceded us. The world is incredible. All of the living things of our world in their many many expressions have a passionate desire to live. You could say this a no brainer but when you briefly glimpse the true magnificence of our existence, or maybe better yet when you transcend this endless rat-race of our culture for a second, this desire to live and the awareness of it in all others is a thing of incredible transformative power. It is unfortunate that it is always a transient sensation.

A note on the Exclusionary Clause

The Supreme Court on the 15th of June rendered an opinion on an illegal search and seizure case. It was a violation of the Knock and Announce provision of searching under authority of a warrant. Hudson v. Michigan is the case. Be sure to take a look at Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion. I wonder how this will play out when it is inevitably applied to a governmental office holder like Republican Senator Bill Jefferson of Louisiana.

Good Deeds never go unpunished?

Is Adam Smith right in his discusion in the Wealth of Nations about the nature of society where
all interactions are reduced to nothing more than a series of simple cost benifit analyses?

What direction will this idea take us as a species, a world where every thing has a price?
That is a very dark future for those who have nothing to trade.

A religous man would say that we are flawed, I disagree, we are always learning.

Ghandi was not perfect but he represented a compelling idea to a
diverse population that was on the edge of the precipice of violent revolution against the British Empire and his compelling idea held the Indian people back from this abyss, freed them of the empires influence, and most importantly saved countless lives.

We need a compelling idea to get us past the heartless aspects of classical economics without totally destroying what good things we have created, what that idea is I do not know but I am always listening.

Maybe this guy has the answer.
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/05/052206.html#

In Response to Wilford Owen

W. Owens Anthem for Doomed Youth

The imagery and sounds of this poem are painted with the blood of the young as the primary pigment with just a touch of gunmetal grays and the musical accompaniment is sung by a choir of grieving mothers accompanied by the screeching of artillery shells. I was really moved by this poem and I can’t help relating it to our nations present adventure in Mesopotamia. There is no glory in battle there are only the dead and those who killed them. Those who pull the triggers in the end find no joy in the deed, only painful memories. Those who die like cattle. This phrase in the opening line of the poem sets the tone of the all of the other lines that follow. These early days of industrialized warfare made the battlefield great-mechanized meat-grinders. Bugles calling them from their sad shires. Come young sons; come become a man join the quest and march with us. Not in the hands, but in the eyes, the holy glimmer of goodbyes. There is something about leaving our place of youth in the service of war that brings a heart near to breaking. Will I return home or will he return home? The question a son asks his father or a mother asks her heart. Not to mention the true young lovers and the poignancy of parting in addition to that painful question. The shrill, demented choirs of the wailing shells singing a sadistic song. The sad shires are the towns filled with those who are left behind sonless. Duske a drawing down of blinds as a final lights out and the stuttering rifles rapid rattle are Browning’s contribution to that days terrible technology of war.

Some when there will be peace on Earth

In response to a poem and a friend.

Like Plato’s Cave, we see,

On a small wall lit by light of cheap reflections,

Shadows.

Setting reflections free in our imagined dream,

We make this shadow world live,

In Rich, Bright, and Brilliant,

Colors.

Living is color and light there is no dark night

A person is thrilled to experience,

By dreams and aspirations.

A leap of Faith?

Perhaps jumping in,

Faithfully thrilled to experience.

Are you experienced?

Bouncing off Zofo

Entropy is
an all-inclusive
unconditional
embrace
nothing is lost to her
for whatever
she holds
is shared
equally
with all creation

Energy is neither created nor destroyed it is distributed
Entropy is a truly egalitarian aspect of physics
sharing is not an option
its the rule



peace

More bouncing off Trans

"Put my hands where you wanted my memory to be,"

Holding to our beating hearts, embracing
gentle touching hands,
understanding our paths parting
may be lost in the worlds
moving and shifting sands.

I watch you sleep contently
in my now safe keeping
while tommorow speaks of time away
for breakfast I'll make you an omelet
with buttered toast and tears
the last glass of orange juice
with vodka I'll drink today


God Trans keep Musing