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
Categories: Poetry, Uncategorized
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