for all the demons, monsters and liars,
today and always, everywhere:
“To be neutral, to be passive in a situation is to collaborate with whatever is going on.
You can’t be neutral on a moving train,’ I would tell them. . . . Events are already moving in certain deadly directions, and to be neutral means to accept that.
Howard Zinn
Continue reading “From the River to the Sea | neutrality empowers and normalizes genocide”
If you ever wondered what you’d have done during
[Transatlantic human trafficking and chattel slavery,
Manifest Destiny,
The Indian Removal Act,
the Trail of Tears,
the Wounded Knee Massacre,
The Homestead Act,
Jim Crow and lynch mobs,
the Holocaust,
Apartheid,
or the Civil Rights Movement]
… well,
you’re doing it
right now.
i witnessed the last of the snow piles
hand-shoveled or machine-threwn
and the natural drifts too
and the mound in the hollow
of the hügelkultur crescent moon
slowly recede, in a mesmerizing, seemingly molassic, week’s long retreat
then finally and sadly, concede
to the undormant grasses and soft ground beneath
to the sunlit warmth
of these nouveau
great lakes winters
my god,
what global madness
this adored microcosm, my priceless homestead, reveals
and catechizes for me:
our violent, human heat
an unrelenting torrent of accelerant that would
vanquish the ancients
melt greenland’s sheets of ice,
calve antarctic glaciers, strand polar bears,
expose or drown granite, basalt, gneiss
all, in the time of
that old sugar maple’s life
fetal cells
remain in a mother’s body for decades
they know this
particularly
because of mothers of sons
son cells discovered
co-mingling in their mother’s
blood
and marrow
long after their first breaths of atmosphere
and for far too many mothers,
long after their child’s last
we mothers, in-secret chimeras
29, 50,
years after birthing /
no wonder
he breathes
1,191.582 miles away from me
as the crow flies,
as the monarch flies
as the hummingbird flies
and still, i feel the cells of gold i alchemized
for 42 strange, wondrous weeks
in my crone bones
postpartum is forever
Continue reading “postpartum”the widespread muck,
usual to late March
now spoils the January, the December, February too
there are no more
seasons,
only drownt
or parched
what use
is axial tilt, solar distance
while these men
lock-up the thermostat and disarrange the elements
she counted propane canisters
for her two Mr. Heaters
put batteries in her camp lanterns — circa 2004,
set out votive and prayer candles, matches and lighters,
worked past midnight
to empty, wash, fill or refill glass wine bottles with water for drinking, teeth-brushing, cooking
that is the advantage of the white wine screw cap bottles
p.s. VOGA pinot grigio is unrivaled for this use
she’s saved them over the months for this sole purpose, those Italians sure know what they’re doin’
she rotated supply: filled buckets with the previously stored precious water,
placed them in the bathtubs for toilet flushing
and in Igloo jugs
for hand and face washing
& dishwashing
(and, hoe baths too)
this beautiful welled water, pumped from 75 feet below the surface, 10 feet of clay and 65 of sand, her friend once researched county well drill permit records for her.
she made a pot of marinara, boiled 3 lbs of potatoes, planned for pancakes, printed out dutch oven bread recipes,
she set out the dog’s paw wax and his wardrobe of coats,
she refreshed her vintage wool blankets on low heat with honeysuckle-infused dryer sheets,
found her favorite j. crew wool men’s sweater, moss green — circa 1999, which reminded: she best learn some knitting – for repairs and darning, at the very least, the cuff seam is unraveling, but, my god, it’s so warm.
she filled all the bird feeders before sunset, although she’s spotted deer at them at twilight and midnight — using their tongues to excavate the seed,
she set the snow shovel and outdoor broom just outside, beside her back door
all this,
just in case
freezing lines and tree limbs knock the power out
and Lake Effect drifts become temporarily insurmountable
she’s always prepared, she always knows what to do
or can generally figure it out, figure a way out of it – and, without GPS
except:
what to do in
a genocide and in climate collapse.
Continue reading “preparation”
she cries “wolf!” so often
that it becomes tempting to ignore
yet the wolves were always nearby,
stalking, steady clawing at her door
there’s a Wolf curled up at her feet now,
but he’s not of the pack of violent beasts,
you see, this Wolf is not a hungried one,
and He does not want her for his feast
Anubis is the Wolf’s name,
and He waits to gently weigh her Heart
on the Golden Scales of Justice
He’s balanced with a badge and service glock,
these reparations just for her, and Mothers like her,
in lieu of the Feather of Ma’at
I was asked how many real poets we need.
I said:Mosab Abu Toha
We need enough real poets who can together write a single poem that stops this genocide.
all delusions were set out in the meadow for scavengers
along with all the seeds she didn’t start this year
she had prophetic dreams
she barely touched her tarot
he now lives entirely outside of her heart
she showed up first, but only as her second, or third choice
then, she died days later, in hospice, at 56,
and presumably,
knows now that she couldn’t take it with her, Egyptian-Pharaonic style
blood and cultural descendants of holocaust survivors are revelling in an ongoing genocide
and someone finally inspected his spots,
but leopards cannot change theirs
some of us, are just about ‘dat’ life, she re-learned
others, lie to themselves about their innocence,
or responsibility, including me,
we are all stereotypes
radical self-promotion and self-reinforcing mediocrity are apparently the new power couple,
she didn’t make it to the Remedios Varo show at the Art Institute of Chicago – with, and on, purpose.
her bones began to ache during sunlight, too, so that’s new,
”People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.”
foremost Earthling, crone,
and mother to a golden boy;
nightly traveler into liminality;
mostly obeisant
to intuition & premonition;
poet, writer;
heart-sleeved,
bleeding heart pessimist;
devoted friend of crows (at last),
meadow-restorer/tender,
& long-lost sister to snakes, bats and coyotes,
deer & bluebird whisperer,
seed saver, food grower,
an admirer and propagator
of lilacs, hydrangeas,
sycamores, mulberries, pawpaws and oaks;
dna-tested kin to goldenrod, milkweed,
bison, cottonwoods, thistle and monarchs;
wader into ephemeral and glacial
lakes and deep snow;
Moon’s luminous, loyal daughter
& Sun’s prodigal, ever-questioning shadow
equally;
devout, ecstatic
desert, forest and river worshipper;
reverent of and humbly deferent to
bear, wolf, moose, elk & bighorn sheep and hummingbirds;
a mountain, canyon, valley,
prairie and beach walker;
i read that an African green mamba
escaped its Dutch trafficker, a collector and captor of living beings
i am someone who never recovered
from reading Kingsolver’s “Poisonwood Bible”
i am someone who never recovered
from experiencing Alex Haley’s “Roots” on American television for eight consecutive nights
i am someone who imagines
an exquisite vengeance
for the fugitive, deadly snake
upon the low people of the Netherlands,
the hubris of those who would build higher and higher dams to contain the rising, wild seas
with transatlantic shipping wealth, every last cent: descendant of African blood money
while they continue in unironic chant for their tulipped nation’s and bland continent’s homogeneity:
make Europe great again!
while, i am someone who quietly incants:
may the viper in silent slither
at their coming fest of Sinterklaas
strike them in the street
as they joyfully parade
with their black-faced Zwarte Piet
the Sun just keeps on shining
setting and rising,
setting and rising
while
the People
of Palestine,
of Congo,
are genocided
did you know that Yaldaboath only feigned dismay
when Cain blew his own brother away;
then He later told Abraham to kill his own son,
just to prove that he was obsessed enough
you know, that dear Jesus
in heaven comfortably stayed
all throughout the Trans-Atlantic slave trade,
and that Allah had no problems with the Caliphates
and The One True God was all about The Crusades
and that Creator ignored the prayers and the pleas
of First Peoples slaughtered by steel,
starvation, and European disease
and that Yahweh was pre-occupied during the Holocaust
busy planning and inciting the Palestinians’ cruel loss
from Auschwitz to Al-Shifa,
He so craves burnt offerings
His global portfolio — built solely on dead things
He created the Sun to grow His tainted Seeds
Horror by daylight,
His Grand Design? — what a fucking death scheme
Auden once begged to “dismantle the Sun”
for the loss of his own be-loved one
but Hark!
for the loss of our collective soul,
dismantlement’s just not good enough,
leave Him no parts, no plans
to re-build and restart!
Extinguish His goddamn Sun!
and forever, and evermore,
Let there only be Dark!
Continue reading “the deception of the Sun”i won’t warn you with
my voice, anymore
tell me,
how do you calmly
tell someone to
“look, brake, stop, now, please”
in a nano-second?
calm but with desperate urgency?
without amplification?
without proselytizing?
without the infusion or projection of panic?
without the prescience of the future unfolding in the very moment?
tell me,
i’ll wait,
while you kill the coyote
crossing the road
that crosses razed forest
clear-cut for runs and Aprés-ski,
for lumber to build the 3-day-stay mansions – which they unironically call, “cabins,”
a settlement of a pop-up-Bavaria™️ for them in the valley of the mountains of
the Sangre de Cristo?
the lifeblood of the Red Willows.
the very same road
to access the trailhead
to the pristine glacial lake
with views of Taos Peak
a profanity of epithets
“williams” lake
“wheeler” peak
where you go, unironically,
to briefly escape
this World,
the violence of this World,
your World
the one constructed in your image,
and in your favor
Continue reading “kill the coyote v.2”“SHALOM not [A] napalm BOMB”
“No state exists by right, they come to exist by force, and then justify their existence after the fact.”
- Geo Maher
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 