TRUE JOY TO THE WORLD

(I have always found Joy to the World very paternalistic and imperialist, so here is a non offensive version)

Joy to the world, the year is done!
Let earth comfort all beings;
Let every heart prepare for peace,
And humans and nature sing,
And humans and nature sing,
And humans, and humans, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, common sense reigns!
Let people conscience employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let wars and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
Peace comes to make blessings flow
Far as the earth is bound,
Far as the earth is bound,
Far as, far as, the earth is bound.

Peace rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of their ideals,
And wonders of true love,
And wonders of true love,
And wonders, wonders, of true love.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF AMERICA

Mothers and fathers of America

Brave and free

Now is the time

To crowd the Capitol steps

With you and your children

Show in your numbers

You are not to be trifled with

By the lawmakers of the land

Or the lobbyists who own them

Or the merchants of pocket size murder

Whose factories churn out unending tragedy

For you and your neighbors

Teachers and students of America

Bowed but unbroken

Now is the time

To find the gun lovers

To study their ways and days

Show their lies

The pockets they have lined

Of lawmakers of the land

Expose the lobbyists who own them

Shackle the merchants of murder

Shutter the factories of unending tragedy

And save you and your neighbors

Brothers and sisters of America

Despaired and divided

Now is the time

To put history behind you

And put life first

To return safety to streets and schools

Fight for peace and stability

Order the lawmakers of your land

To turn out the lobbyists who blind them

Muzzle the merchants of murder

Turn factories of tragedy to better ends

And save your country for old and young

Sleeping

This blog
Is not dead
Just sleeping under a drift
Of white papers
A fallen sparrow
And a broken pot

PHYLIS PRITCHARD

Phyllis was our Labrador

Mother, fierce as an arctic wind

Wife, warm as a sandy beach summer

Grandmother, heart as big as the Big Land

Painter, colored our trees and sky

Storyteller, told us myths of our birth

She shines in our hearts and minds

Like stars in the Labrador sky

AUTUMN SPIDERS

Autumn spiders are out

Flying in the high fall sky

Pregnant black bodies

Vibrating against grey clouds

Catching the last lazy flies

To fatten themselves

To feed their wriggling white

Young when spring comes

WORLD WITHOUT YOU

Just another day

In a world without you

The grass is still green

And the sky is still blue

But sometimes late at night

I just don’t know what to do

Just another day

In a world without you

Friend told me you’re in heaven

With tears in his eyes

If that place is so much better

I can see why he cries

Acts like he’s got a direct line

At least that’s what he tries

Friend told me you’re in heaven

With tears in his eyes

EVENING WALK

I walked across the bridge

The exact moment

When day turned night

Cars in front

Moving shadows

Cars behind

Moving stars

AVIA MAGNA

Phyllis, fierce foliage

Of the Big Land

Unbent by arctic winds

You sheltered us

With pendulous breast and belly

Venus figurine from Siberia

Body of the earth-mother

Cybele, magna mater

Life giver

Magna avia, greatest grandmother

Moon-eyed children

We worshipped you

The oldest religion

You painted holy scenes

Mountains, hawks, lions

Hubbard’s story and picture

Telling us stories all day

Stews of truth and lies

Myths of your life

Skinny girl, force fed

Widow of Attis

You knew us from birth

‘You dirt’ you called us

When we shat or puked

Confiding the truth of mortality

Prophesying what we all become

And where you have returned

City Garden

This poem is unfinished and unsatisfying, but what the hell...

My Garden

I am a city boy

I do not grow vegetables

I plant seeds of wisdom

To grow fruits of kindness

And make wine of friendship and joy

I wish I had a garden

Of wind and dirt and sun

But instead I have this garden

Which goes wherever I am

When I finish my toil

I will sleep beneath its soil

Missionary Girl

At my door again

Sunday morning

Missionary girl

Sometimes alone

Sometime with an old crone

Clucking behind you

Do you only get to heaven

For people saved

Or do doors slammed in your face

Count?

Your petticoats

Lace collar and parasol

Would look great

In a museum

Underneath them

Your flesh aches for sin

Your eyes look at my feet

As if I could tempt you

Your face tanned from walking

Your body white from hiding

Nipples waiting to be plucked

Like cherry blossoms

Maidenhood waiting to fall

But withering for no vine

No, not with me

No, not with this

Old, fat, foreign

Married man

With a young cock

Of your blood

Who’d make you scream in joy

And believe in god

When heaven flashes through you

Loving isn't sin

Heaven can be here on earth

If you live before you die

But you won’t

The crones hem you in

Cluck and disapprove

Until you become one of them

Another reason why

I shake my head

Sunday mornings

Young people of China and Japan

Young people of China and Japan

You do not need to hate each other

To satisfy your ancestors’ ghosts

You were not obliged to destroy Nanking then

Just as you are not obliged now

To destroy your workplaces and cars in Xia

There was no need then

Of ‘No Chinese or dogs allowed’ signs in Hong Kong parks

There is no need now

Of ‘Islands belong to China. Temporarily not serving Japanese people’

Signs on Canadian karaoke parlors

You learned the hard way in 1945

That making some men gods above others

Makes life as fleeting as cherry blossoms

You do not need to learn again

That putting The State above your humanity

Makes men less than animals

There is no need to assert

That islands are connected to China

Through Taiwan undersea

Or to Japan

Through years of ownership and settlement

When the entire world is connected

Each shore to shore

Each nation to nation

Every person to person

The Hope Sellers

Fertility and infertility doctors agree

The Hippocratic Oath

Does not apply

When you’re selling hope

Rubber gloving others’ loving juices

Sperm and ovum in a petri dish

Performing alchemy

To grant a wish

And when it fails again, again

You in your white gown

Turn off your real face

Plaster on a simple pathetic frown

Other doctors would say yes or no

Feel the obligation to be frank

But no means no fees

You can’t put conscience in the bank

And so we sit, again, again

On this merry-go-round of tears

Tunnel of pills and needles

Looking older than our years

In truth it isn’t all your fault

Science hasn’t come far enough yet

To patch the broken bucket

That lets life slip from it

And so as our life stands still

On this breaking wheel we remain

Trusting doctor confidence

Holding to our chains

Fertility and infertility doctors agree

The Hippocratic Oath

Does not apply

When you’re selling hope

Autumn Rains in Japan

This season of mists

Between summer and fall

Is the beaded curtain

Which hides Ameratsu

Sitting back flushed from her dance

Undulations of sensual heat

That made us sweat all summer long

Welcome to Future City

My next door neighbor

Started as a corporation

Then became an incorporated person

Married a faith-based organization

Honeymooning on the moon

Now they’re trying to birth a nation

Welcome to future city

You’ll find yourself here one day

Where people work till death

And corporations play

Seafood’s out of reach

Since the ocean went and died

I prefer the taste of soylent blue

Of all the colours that I’ve tried

If they said it’s made of people

No one cares if they lied

Welcome to future city

You’ll find yourself here one day

Where people either consume

Or are consumed if they can’t pay

The Vatican gave up on original sin

Now they say we’re born with original debt

I’ll spend most of my life

Paying for what my folks got on credit

But I keep on consuming

Cause my kids will pay for it

Welcome to future city

You’ll find yourself here one day

Where people work till death

And corporations play

Fade It Back

Nose to nose

We lose an eye

Mashed together

Looking at your skylight

Lost too long

In bamboo cities

Missing meat

And bread and cheese

Oyster clam

And geoduck

American shellfish

In an asian pond

The Real Superheroes

The red and blue Man of Steel

Hardly seemed real

No wonder people began to worship him

He ain’t been stopping bullets

Since he took to the pulpit

He’s got the fastest growing faith in the world

These are the real superheroes

Larger than you or me

These are the real superheros

Gods walking proud and free

And the shadpwy Caped Crusader

Was taken down by Ralph Nader

For embezzlement and stock manipulation

Half a billion in gadgets

Some say even a rocket

Disappeared from his R&D laboratories

These are the real superheroes

High above the law

These are the real superheroes

High up above us all

As for that Amazon princess

She’s still trying to save us

By occupying every protest she can

She traded armor showing her ass

For a jumpsuit smelling of tear gas

Truth telling lasso as a belt

These are the real superheroes

Never giving up the fight

These are the real superheroes

Doing what they can to make things right

Sleep Well Space Hero

Rider of the Eagle

Whose step was higher than the Great Pyramids

When you wrestled free from Mother Terra

Placed Man’s conquering foot on Luna

No human alive

Did not hear your mightily footstep

In no dark jungle, no burning desert

No frozen waste, no teeming city

Could that step not be heard

Great science hero

Sleep well, space hero

You taught the children

Learned the reasons when other heroes fell

Stayed away from the orators and cynics

Believed in your small, personal god

Refused to sell your voice for gold

Refused to lose hope

As your nation clipped Apollo’s wings

And turned its back on the stars

To read the books of hate

Great humble hero

Sleep well, space hero

Avocado Ode

Ode to the Avocado

(To the tune of Handel’s Messiah)

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

A-VO CA-HA-DO!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

A-VO CA-HA-DO!

Ripe you’re a creamy spread

Best eaten on toasted bread

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

Pure sweet green veggie fat

Give me some more of that

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

Easiest food ever found

For ages hanging around

Food for some extinct giant

I love you I ain’t lying

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

AVOCADO!

Avocado!

A-VO CA-HA-DO!

Harry's Willy

Isn’t it rather silly

To argue if Harry’s willy

Should get a bit of Sun

When the real problem

Is how nobles still rob men

And when these parasites will be done

A Reading Country

To dive back into a book
To enter another's world
After only having read Facebook for so long
To interface with a familiarly alien reality
To feel the weight in my hand
Instead of  burned into my eyes
To rediscover the joy of reading
To reconnect with the tradition
Of aeons of thinkers, dreamers and writers

If we ever lose this
For Tweets and videos and kewl pwning n00bs
We will be lost forever
In a country with no past
And no future

Red Planets

The first bootprints on Mars

Mankind’s mark on that red soil

Will read ‘Made in China’ and be

Made from sweatshop toil

Build another mega-church

Forget about a moonbase

When churches don’t pay taxes

America can’t afford the space race

Space in English will stay orbital

Floating hotels and low gee sex

The rich’s highest playground

Dreaming of nothing next

Russian space will be for work

Ferrying payloads for others

Astronauts will pay for rides

While at home NASA smothers

No more freeze dried apple pie

Eaten with a spork

But a pair of plastic chopsticks

For mabodofu and mushu pork

I do not say that it is bad

That English space will die

I’ve already seen the future

In an episode of Firefly

Snake Spot

As I do karate on the deck

In the park by the gymnasium

Where girls sweat through

Endless rounds of volleyball

I fail to move like a tiger

Fall short of a crane’s poise or grace

Turning to kick like a mule

I see

A black green ribbon

Weave across the green reservoir

Lapping lightly on the waves

Then disappearing noiselessly

Up the path between the trees

Straighter and swifter than any shot

I will ever make

Kyoto Friend Litmus

If we are at Sanjo

Near the old bridge

Over the duck river

Surrounded by backpackers

Bongo drumming Jippies

And firebreathers

Bad boy bands

Where the old samurai

Set heads rolling

And floated poetry on the water

Drinks in our hands

And I turn to you

And say

“Let’s walk all the way

Back to Kyoto Station”

And you say

“No”

I am not sure

We can stay friends

Night Drive # 142

The night drive

To the clinic

Tired from a day of tests

I sit at the wheel

Driving you to a night of tests

Two people with hope in their eyes

Like fog on the road

A train off its track

Snaking down mountain roads on a flatbed

Slows us down

Give us more time in shadows

Between our door and clinic fluorescents

Trees shush by

Back roads home

Quiet save for your loud tears

The tablet plays Irish songs

Under sepia halogen bridges

Two hopeless lovers

Flying over the lute shaped waters

Genesis

Plants standing in the dark

Cold, inanimate

Colorless, ungrowing

Until the word was spoke

And became light

Two girls plied glass after glass

Of wine from their vineyard

Till father was reeling

Then took him to bed

Milked him of their seed

The angry father

Looked with regret on his creations

Turned the heavens loose

To murder them all

Then changed his mind

These tales

Have a beauty of image and word

Like every lie ever told

Ode to Youth

Youth is beauty
Even when cruel or ugly

Youth is true

Even when wrong or stupid

Which is why the young live

Trying to be older

Youth makes them bolder

Than their years

Which is why the old give

Anything to be younger

Age makes them hunger

For days without fears

Youth is beauty
Even when cruel or ugly

Youth is true

Even when wrong or stupid

My Poetry, My Breath

Henceforth
I will only buy new books
To keep the writers
In their cages

My poetry, my breath
Short, sharp intake
Of the world
Long, deadly exhalation
Of its poison
The only good poem
Is a short one

Poems, like bubbles
Arise and die
Before fully formed
In the busy mind

Station Birds

Back again this year you little flyers

Back to the neon signs and electric wires

In front of my station square

Feathers float frozen in the air

Ten thousand cries shrilling

Ten thousand birds milling

Those idiots from city hall

Shoot sonics of no effect at all

They stand and scratch their heads

To make their daily bread

Truth is I am content

Where your mating season is spent

No ones raises an eye

To the orange halogen sky

Save for once a year

When your flock draws near

And when you leave this street

They gaze back at their feet

I thank you from my heart

I will be sad when you depart

Although you sing gaily

In thronging compact amity

Here among the human herd

Such friendly song is seldom heard