EMAIL TO AMIRI

amiri,
i just saw on facebook you're in an icu in the hospital.
what's happened? i'm expecting you will recover
and read this email.  whatever the hell it is,
beat it!
your longtime friend,
rich

i retrieve this email to amiri, written dec 24,
christmas eve. the last email i sent to him.
years of emails back and forth.
usually not long.
i made it a point over the years to look
past the fame to the common man beneath.
i'm sure it was a central part of our friendship,
or rather why he would let down, to the extent
he did, with me.

there are his post cards around the apartment.
one, when he was poet laureate and under fire
from the governor. he said as far as he was
concerned, he was meeting his obligation
as the laureate.  and, of course, he was.

but no governor was going to accept the truth
being said and written with such courage.
after all, this not the way of governors, senators,
congressmen, or presidents.

amiri never did read my email.


rich quatrone 1/31/14

FREEDOM ON FRIDAY NIGHT

"Freedom is overrated."
     -- Me to a nursery owner who
   mocked me as I walked behind Diane
   carrying pots of flowers years ago.

so i stumble upon this site, after
a long time away, the site with donald
and the young poets, and now evan!
great to see you here, evan.
the night is long as always for me.
living alone is a very lousy thing.
me and the cat, that's it.
how it came to this, i have no idea.
but i lie when i say this.
i do have an idea.
only it's not an idea i want to talk
about.

so the heat comes up, a roar
through the steel grates in the floor.
this and the narrow light above
this desk, these are what i have now.
but i dare not complain.
i have my friend in angola to remind
me of the alternative, or one alternative
for those who didn't stay within the
narrow lines.

i am here, free. alive. warm. fed.
and i have now found you again.

rich
1/31/14

Waiting for the AX

                                         

       Waiting for the AX        

I hate waiting for it

I know it's just around the corner

I've been trying to come to terms with the lack of logic

It's sharp, but not bloody

It's been so long since this happened 

Waiting for the Ax

Spiritual Anarchism

Spiritual Anarchism

  Anarchism is the unspoken philosophy that all beings are created equal. That without any vocal law, the world is at balance much like a forest is at balance despite the movement of life, the changing of seasons, or the evolution of species. It's for that reason, that anarchism does not really need to be described, just experienced. And its experience exists in every wilderness.

A lie is a separation from the truth. And since the wilderness is the absolute truth, anything that separates us from the wild is a lie. So without even using words, we can lie to the world by living in an environment that separates us from the culture of our origin. We can lie by adopting a mindset composed of cosmopolitan ideas of wealth and power. We can lie by pouring pesticides all over a stretch of land we consider ours.

  The thirst for this separation is as natural as dust collecting on a mirror. Its impetus is a subtle flame behind our fear of uncertainty. The flame alights because of our need for knowing, for control, power, fame, until we build a comfortable abode with four imaginary walls, completely surrounded with pictures of ourselves, our achievements, and views of the world. Suddenly, everything becomes a lie. And consequentially, we barely notice our friends, the change of seasons, the cycle of the moon, or the welfare of our drinking water let alone our own beating heart and breath.

  Alternatively, it is just as inevitable for us to wipe the mirror alight. But it requires intention to accomplish this. Intelligence to realize a hammer exists right in front of our very eyes. Right within our glass prison called apathy. If we can develop a taste for higher consciousness, we will likely shatter those walls we are surrounded by. This action requires no written words, no dogma, or meaning. What is understood is yours and yours to hold. This is the roots of spiritual anarchism.

  The only thing the wilderness shares in common is the space between. Words are space. Meaning is space. We share them like trees share a breeze. But meaning is not the trees just as our truths are not each other and therefore can not be shared. What our real truths are are indescribable and irrelevant to a world outside of ourselves. The greatest teaching the Buddha ever taught was when he smiled at his student, Ananda, twirling a flower between his index and thumb. His truth was not his student's, and his student's truth would never be the Buddha's. Because truth itself is merely a shadow of itself. Just as a statue of God is only its shadow. Just like our naked self in front of the mirror is just a three dimensional shadow of a multidimensional being.

  And yet humanity has a history of pointing at these shadows and tracing them with chalk, and lining their border with candles and incense, and eventually walls with majestic windows that splinter the sun. Until the temples themselves obstruct the shadows, and all that's left is the memory of a shadow that once was. Then generations later no one really believes the shadow even existed. And so they abandon the building and its upkeep, and they let the candles go out, and they stop buying the incense. As we see all too often; the dust covers its integrity, but its power still remains.

  For those that still believe it was there, they naturally start retracing their steps. What came before the majestic windows, the mile high walls, the incense, the chalk? What came before a hyperreality where  flavors are named after colors, old people are cordoned off to retirement zones, and children are inundated with advertising via education; a world where a few parasitically thrive off of the many? The answer is simple. It's just outside your open window, down the road, past the subtle bridge on a private lane, in the dark drain pipe with the quiet drum of water inside. Where it trickles out into a swampy recluse tucked away from the suburban sprawl and passing cars. It is there waiting in the algae floating beside the humble moss. Just as it was always there; a shadow from the sun.

  The answer is the blank stare of a wild animal perched in the gallows and boughs of our last remaining forests. The answer is as it always was; empty, wordless, and without meaning. The same answer the Buddha twirled between his fingers. The answer is in the emptiness that was our beginning.

  The closer our lives are to the context of that beginning is how meaningful our soul is. And we can watch every world religion and their footprints leading to the path we came from. We can retrace those steps all the way back. All the way back to the source that every spiritual seeker ever pointed at, cried, and chased after until they're bleeding legs and callused hands put their bodies to their final rest. 

  Their churches, and monuments are milestones to their greatest attempt. To generations of attempts made at finding the source. But for the advanced seeker, they will have to abandon those relics, abandon all the "ologies", all the religions, the teachings. They will at the top of the mountain have to eventually relieve themselves of even their shoes, their clothing, then their flesh. Once their flesh is gone, they will have to remove every bone one by one, then the memories others had of them, and when that is all gone and forgotten, they will lastly have to abandon their own soul.

  Eventually, we all have to wander into the wilderness.

Dead at 94

Dead at 94

In a bed, squirming in pain the idea came to him

Helped by an evil nurse

Whispered plans for an automatic gun

He hated the fact other colors stole his design

He hated to be raised up like a National Hero

He hated so much he spat blood at his enemies

Nightmares of his design haunted him in his dreams

Leveling bodies so quickly

So neatly in a row

Proud they were as they squeezed the triggers

Proud as they were they watched the motionless bodies fall

The fear of others coming into his fields

Taking what they wanted 

Now stopped by a gentle pull of his trigger

An excerpt from Dying Sanctuaries of America- Hilda's Horrible Husband has died


Finally I am free of the Shakespearean ghost who has haunted my soul for O so many years
The lines of nonsense
The meaning of it all I will never care to know
He was such a brilliant man when we first met
He had vision and style and he knew how to smile
He made me laugh, He made me cry, especially when he wore that tie
I sit here now without shedding a tear
I begin my new life,not as a wife, or a double edge knife
Cutting both sides as I always have done
Not true to myself but always looking blindly in my past
I will take each step in the future hoping to raise my glass higher each time
You will not be missed or forgotten even though you were surely rotten
Yit; gadal v;yit kadash sh'me raba...Amen

Spontaneous Prose

Confusions awkward momentary

lapses of conversation. Anxiety anger

mongering on the for front of your mind

I take four breaths and

rewind the situation, remind my self

that false is the sense of time

I wish I could exist without

all of this,

and I can in the woods

but where would you be?

who would I see?

this poverty is riding me and

madness surrounds the hour

with our reactions and I miss

flowers and bees and the

first signs of spring

I write cuz I can’t take

the night when I’m sleeping alone

I write because I can’t stand the 

fight when theres no where to go

I write because Allen Ginsberg pointed 

me to Whitman, to Pound, to W.C. Williams

LeRoi Jones, Henry David Thoreau

I write because Rich Quatrone  told me

I have to keep writing 

I write because The Dissenters

saxophone notes and lyrical quotes 

gave me direction and hope

when I was just fourteen,

I write because other people that have

written in the past have inspired 

me to be a better person,

I write because children in the future

will need inspiration to become better

people. To love more, to give more,

to care more about it all.

I write because bombs are going off

every single day

I write because rich people have 

million dollar yachts and poor people

have to decide whether their gonna buy

diapers or food or soap or their pills

I write because I have a lot on my mind

I write because I fear death

I write because everyone I’ve ever

known is gonna die

I write because no one else 

tells my story in this sea full

of stories,

I write because spiritual seekers

are creating the new world in their

minds

I write because the ancestral   

winds bless this rhythm.

My body the instrument 

universal beat these words

I write to reach the future,

make love with the past

I write to capture love

to know that it will last

I write just to write

to not think to fast

I write to excite 

because

thats 

my

path. 

Mourning for My Son

Mourning for my Son

I can't believe he wants to join

Something so foreign to my thoughts

He will never be the same

I will never be the same

I can only hope he changes his mind

I don't want to wake up one day

Mourning for my Son

Our Own Divine Isolation

Our Own Divine Isolation

I think we all hide in there from time to time 
Some of us relish it others feel like it’s a prison with no windows
Clouding reality, shuttering our eyes and brains from the truth we refuse to see
Some trapped for ever longing to be freed by a happy hand or a magic pill
Some swim along with the currents sticking their heads up for only a moment to voice their thoughts
Some changing the channel, clicking the mouse to close a window away from the things we don’t want to seep into our thoughts
I think we all enjoy our moments of hiding in there
Some of us fight the currents, stick our heads up to be heard
I am Hoping others will pull themselves out of their Own Divine Isolation

For Baraka

I remember where I was

when I heard the news,

at my computer writing a 

story about warriors and 

what that word means,

ironic really as the reality

clouded my heart,

you’d been sick for

weeks and I feared this

day,

but when 

it came I felt

the pain

cuz who, whose gonna 

do it like you?

whose gonna speak the truth?

and remind us of our roots?

and all we been through?

and what our government, really here to do?

Amiri Amiri I fear that the 

flame will die, if the kids 

don’t rise up and learn from

the past, if technology washes over

the thoughts that last, but in death

you reach people that

never ever knew

the knowledge that you blew

and I hear the sax now

today as you make your

transition back to the ether

and these appregios’ and wails

and cries to the moon, and

I swear I wanted to cry 

but I got that warrior feel in

deep within my mind, ancestral 

yearning from the human global

tribe of Freedom Freedom

Freedom Freedom, and sometimes

I feel like we’ve already won

and the poets and writers

and actors are love 

musicians and we’ve become one

and our words become bombs

when we’re armed with the spirit

of everyone thats passed on,

and i’ll take what you taught me

and i’ll write on

and your words live on

and your words live on

and your son lives on 

running for mayor in Newark

and me doin food drives in

the basement of a church

and poets having meeting

and writers goin bizerk

and poems about whats fucked up

in the world and how much it hurts,

Amiri Amiri out of your legacy

the flame burns on, and thank

you for giving me the balls to

to read poetry that i’ve needed

a body guard for, and giving me 

the balls to be on the right side

of justice when it might cost

us our lives

and giving me the balls to 

speak my mind when I know 

I’m right,

even if

it gets me knocked out tonight.

Amiri Amiri you ran to of time

but you’ve passed your torch

and the fire shines bright.

Mandela

Mandela died gone

spirit in the wind

spirit in the rain

spirit in the snow

political pressure of people 

in jail for what they believe,

for those trapped in cages

for trying to make the world a better pace,

and you knew what it meant

to be away from your family

to be property of the state, a casualty 

in the struggle for freedom

apartheid there

jim crow here

still existing in both places

people forget that Ronald Reagan

and Margaret Thatcher were the

two biggest supporters of the 

South African government in the 80’s

that kept you in chains

or that you were on the 

US Terrorist list until 2008.

Or that theres still such a thing as

political prisoners today here in the US

like Chelsea Manning, like Jeremy Hammond,

Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier,

Matulu Shakur, The Nato 5, Daniel Mcgowan,

those in exile, and those in the ground.

And I wonder what you thought 

about the brutal crackdown, beatings

mass arrests and anti protest laws 

used to shut down the occupy movement. 

Did it remind you of your youthful days

in Cape Town?

Read about the occupations there,

global simultaneous rebellions that

all nations shut down with the tyranny 

of pepper spray and rubber bullets and

tear gas and billy clubs and handcuffs 

and zip ties and paddy wagons, and 

maybe you should know know that 

non of this would’ve happened without

you, Madiba. Bredren brother warrior,

soldier of the truth of justice of peace

of love and reconciliation and freedom

for everyone everywhere,

whose heart stopped as it poured

give thanks for the time you gave

to the universe for sending you

this way,

and as your spirit slips 

and floats toward the void

and away into the gates of space

I hope your struggle for freedom sticks

in the veins and spirits of those 

who stay and try to make the world

a better place, 

as you have....