An Ancient Race of Queens – Philomene Long, 1981

For Phemomene – John Thomas

It’s time –  Kalahani

Working for Money – Mary Getlein

Independence Day – Majid Naficy

I Am No Longer Afraid – Philomene Long

After Aurora – Hal Bogotch

Venice Air – John Davis

Fresh Out of the Oven –  Roger Houston

Venice Beach Inferno – Larry Mintz

AN ANCIENT RACE OF QUEENS

All thought is memory.

We will not even know

What they will call us.

Where will these words go?

They have no memory.

These words are blind

Through your eyes they see.

***

These poems do not know

Who feeds them.

***

Through your forehead

Our eagles fly.

We are the last thing you hear

Before you die

The sou

nd of air

Against the wings of birds.

One stone can tell

The entire story

Of an Ancient Race of Queens

No longer heard.

Our children became sand,

Our poems dust.

Your feet will recognize our touch,

For when you walk

You walk on us.

—      Philomene Long

FOR PHILOMENE

(after Lady Ise)

the moon set hours ago

behind slate-colored mountains

low in the evening sky

a vee of wild ducks flies past

their ghostly breasts are pearl-pale.

their speed is a surprise

their silence is unbearable

soon there will be nothing left

with which I can compare you

–John Thomas

T’S TIME

It’s time to wake and realize

And shed the obsolete

Our economic conscripts

And our cancerous conceit

It’s time to manifest, the vision

Of the Universal Mind

It’s time to slay our demons

By being … strong and Kind

Let’s peel away our ignorance

And come into the Light … now

Dive down deep inside your Self

Illuminate the night

Then you will Know the courage

It takes to walk your talk

And drop the wanting greediness

Of a consumer programmed flock

To be “somebody” … anybody

When all the time … you Are

The Truth within resounds I AM

Why this craving for a “star”?

It’s time to be a Seed person

And leave the cradle wanting

To sprout your wings of integrity

And forever be undaunting

Let’s breathe a life of honesty

And walk the high Way free!

Let’s rise in Love … The noble life

Of Truth and Beauty let’s Be!

The time has long been coming

The wise ones always vow …

A time for us to wake and live

And Be in the Eternal … Now!

– Kalahani

(recently read at Kalahani’s memorial… R.I.P. SEED MAN)

Working For Money

By Mary Getlein

Working for money

and working for love

What a difference!

Working for money

It’s never enough

It’s never enough

You can’t wait to get out of there

That job that reduces you to a trained

monkey – as in “a monkey could do this job”

Working for love

The time goes streaming past

You don’t care, you don’t notice

mail comes and piles up in your box –

So what? You mutter to yourself

I’ve got things to do –

Your work that you do for love

The night job, as in “Keep your day job”

The job you stay up all night

writing poems frantically

or finally taking down the paints

where you had packed them away –

frustrated beyond belief –

OR – “I think I’ll try another medium”

but you go back to the first thing you did

to make you happy –

building sand castles on the beach

watching the tide take them away

and beginning again.

Playing for love:

can’t leave, the sun goes down and you can’t

leave, you still watch the sky for shades

of color – you know this is your home.

Open skyway – birds flying by – you’re home.

I AM NO LONGER AFRAID

I am no longer afraid

Of this poem

From which

I will never return

I call myself

Only the words follow me

With each breath

I do not disappoint them

Although they

Brought me here

Their voices die

One by one

Other ruminations

No longer my own

Their thunders

Are

Pleasant enough

As

Strapped

To my pen

I slip

Further

–Philomene Long

After Aurora

Strike bullet.  Blam!

Pull trigger.  Pow!

Ain’t bein’ American awesome?

I feel most alive

when I’m gunnin’ someone down.

Don’t know, can’t put my finger on

when my soul got crumpled

shredded.

I’ve been psychically screwed.

I’m past the point of snapping.

I’ve crackled.  I’ve popped.

My heart armored, my brain

misfiring.

If Waco wasn’t a wake-up call

what will be?

Ten years since Columbine,

the documentary.  Gutless

politicians folded.  Blew away.

Blown away.  I got

my assault on.

I felt nothing.

Same old, same old.

Shooting.

Dealing a game

of death.

— Hal Bogotch

Venice Air

By John Davis

Into the mist of the moon on a soft Venice night,

As the surf ebbs and flows to our utter delight,

Sound the drums and rhymes, from eves that have past,

On the lips of the wind a sweet song it is cast,

Echoes of poets and beats waif through time,

Settling softly, ~~~ Into our Venetian minds.

(fresh out the oven)18:00 Saturday, June 16, 2012 ….. A road runs through my soul, and so I ride The vast expanse of emptiness. I glide Past tumbleweed and cactii, as the sun Turns everything to sand. I have begun To sit back and relax, nose to the glass, To make a mental note of all I pass. A road runs through my soul, my life’s been spent Embarking and arriving, brought and sent. Suspect the road is home. My thoughts enmasse, To saturate my mind. I can’t keep pace. That’s why I seem detached. I’m not much fun, But there you have it. I’m her loving son. The road is mother, lioness and pride. I feel her run right through me. What a ride ….. Roger Houston (a gift for K.A.)

Venice Beach Inferno

By Larry Mintz

Her painted strokes pointed like fangs

Splattering poisonous  images across her subterranean canvas,  soaking it with the color of death.

Unable to withstand the betrayal forming in the corridors of her mind  she became careless

causing lust to drip from the crack in her frailty

filling the floor below with fleeting thoughts of salvation while feeding the flaming fire of eternal damnation