Corperate Boycott

We’ve already seen the effects of World Trade and NAFTA. And now their onto the Pacific Trade Agreement that their trying to pass right now. And it’s crazy because somewhere along the way corporate profits became more important than public health and safety. And don't get it twisted this problem has a lot of other companies contributing to it other than Monsanto although they are one of the worst. Yes Monsanto the company that invented DDT, PCB’s, and Napalm which was used to destroy the jungle and so many lives in Vietnam.

What we’ve got to realize on a whole as a collective is that corporations are not our friends. Corporations are in fact our enemies. They have no interest of ours in mind. As they try to destroy our land in spite of the global climate crisis with pipelines filled with tar sands (which really is just a dirtier more ecologically damaging form of coal). As they get our children strung out and addicted to all kinds of legal prescription drugs especially Amphetamines. As they poison and taint our food and water supply with harmful chemicals and narcotics. As they manipulate the genes of our food in the name of profits and “progress” with unknown environmental and health risks for future generations to come. As they funnel our children into private prisons and strip them of their right to vote when they get out. As they try to criminalize poverty and being poor and unable to pay back small debts to big banks and multinational corporations yet the banks get bailed out with our public tax funds and see no consequences when billions of dollars turn up missing and unaccounted for. As they try to shut down free speech with ridiculous anti protest laws and militarized police to protect their corporate business interests. As they blatantly poison us with sugar (which is eight times more addictive than cocaine) and processed foods that instantly turn into sugar as our bodies try to digest them! As the government subsidizes farmers to mass produce inedible genetically modified corn to sweeten 80 percent of the food sold in grocery stores instead of allowing them to grow natural wholesome food while we import fruits and vegetables from all over the world burning useless gas and oil and exploite third world farm workers.

It’s time to say enough is enough! We need a corporate Boycott. We need a peoples embargo against those who are trying to destroy our collective future. Our children's future. Our children's children's future. And not only do we need to boycott these corporations but we also need to take much stronger action against them. We have to do it ourselves. We can't wait on someone else to do it for us, because that someone else is never going to come. We can't wait on the government to act because even if they wanted to the government is not strong enough to stand up to these corporations because the corporations have infiltrated and taken over the United States Government. Thats what happened with Obama Care. They were trying to pass a single payer health care bill just like Hillary Clinton tried to do in the 90’s. Single payer. Everyone in the whole country would have the same health care at the same price just like it is in every other industrialized nation on the planet except this one. Instead the insurance companies pushed a bill through that is nothing short of extortion! Thats what it is. And now we’re criminals if we don’t buy their insurance at exorbitant rates. If that ain’t extortion than I don't know what is. 

So we need to take action. Yes we need to boycott. We need to boycott McDonalds, and Taco Bell, and Burger King, Pizza Hut and Wendy’s which are killing us. And not only should we boycott but we should start shutting these businesses down. If they want to wage war on us, we need to wage war on them! And war is what they waged in the middle of the night on Occupy Wall St the peaceful non violent public political protest encampment in Zuccotti Park and across the country, across the globe.

We gotta study this stuff my friends, we’ve got to read. Watch Democracy Now, listen to WBAI 99.5 FM, read Adbusters, check out the Occupy Wall St. website for global revolutionary news, go see Fed Up the documentary, watch Zeitgeist, watch Gary Nulls Seeds Of Death. Read. Study. Read. Learn your history. You stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

All those people that you look up to, all those people that changed the world in the 60’s and 70’s in the 50’s they all wrote books. And thats the disconnect that this generation has. We’re not reading them. We just want to google and wikipedia everything. We want a sound bite. Don't want to go out and take the effort to actually learn. The history is there in these peoples own words. So go back and read their books. They all wrote their own books. 

Read Martin Luther King, Read Malcolm X, read Abbie Hoffman, and Angela Davis and Che Guevara. He was more than just a picture and a fighter and a pinko commie bastard he actually wrote books that helped to shape and change the world that we live in today and thats why they killed him. Read his work, read Allen Ginsberg, and Huey P Newton, read David Gilbert, read Bernadine Dohrn and Bobby Seale, Assata Shakur, read Mark Rudd, and Leonard Peltier, John Trudell, read Bill Ayers and Dennis Banks, read Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, and Neil Young, Bob Dylan, read David Crosby, and Graham Nash, Richie Havens, Paul Robeson, Barry Gordy. And not what other people wrote about them, read them in their own words. 

Nothing revolutionary is ever going to be handed to you it’s never going to be easy and convenient to find and it shouldn't be because they aren't going to promote something that rails against them. And it is them verses us. The corporations verses the people. So Boycott them. Rage against them. Boycott Monsanto! Fight Monsanto! But also Boycott Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, Nabisco, Nestle, Kellogg's, General Mills, Tyson, ConAgra, Mars, Anheuser-Busch, Exxon, Keystone, Molson, Dole, Walmart, Shell, BP, Samsung, Apple, Chevron, At&t, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nike, IBM, Costco, Amazon, Target, Verizon, Home Depot, and Lowes, Clear Channel and Time Warner, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS.

Demand more from yourself, demand more from your country and fellow citizens of the world. Demand more from multinational corporations, or demand that they be dismantled and rip them apart limb by limb if you have to! Trust me their not gonna go without a fight. 

Move your money to a small local bank or credit union. Shop locally. Remember what it is to be truly alive, and realize that we’re all connected whether you like it or not. Say NO to corporations, say YES to peace and justice for us and for the planet. Say no to Monsanto, say no to the Keystone XL pipeline, and say no to mass collection of our phone and internet data. Fuck Monsanto Fuck Monsanto Fuck Monsanto! Free Edward Snowden and all other political prisoners! Steal from the rich and give it to the poor! Long live revolution! Long Live the struggle for freedom! Long live people power! and once again Fuck Monsanto!

                         Little Miss Moonachie's Alter Mind Jenny

I am what you say is a product of Digital Neuro Intercoupling
It sounds dirty doesn't?
Its a mashing of neurons and electronic impulses translated into movements.
It sounds crazy....
It sounds far fetched
Its exactly what created me
She's going to try and remove me
She has no idea who she's dealing with
I am going to take over her mind and then I will become her
Good bye Little Miss Moonachie!

Mediocre Generica

I took a shit the other day

it was completely average

nothing special about it.

I opened the door

and walked out into the world

had a totally mediocre conversation

with a totally normal dude.

I drove down the street

and sat at a red light

made a left and parked my car.

I went to the bar

and saw a boring band

play boring music

while I tried not to yawn.

Yeah the bar has not been set to high

because it’s easier to check out the status

of your friends on Facebook, 

than it is to focus on your craft,

or anything else for that matter.

Deep thinking is over come by quick tweets

and the narcissism of me having to know what

you had to eat for dinner.

Then I met this free thinking artistic type chick

and she told me she was cool, acted like she was hip

but all she seemed to talk about was weather and shit

she saw on her TV.

And believe me I’m positive

as the rest, but all this mediocre

crap just makes me depressed 

and you are who you are

so be who you be

instead of some bottled up version

of what the old guard wants,

go to school, get a job

get married in a church

by a priest and, don't forget to shop!

buy a house! build your deck

with wood you bought from The Home Depot

don’t smoke pot

just drink a lot, have

two kids and watch the tube

when you get home from work

instead of actually doing things.

Fuck assimilation

be true to yourself

Fuck assimilation

be true to yourself,

Generic art and stances

only give chances to the 

De-evolution, and mental pollution

of what we already come from

we stand on stolen land

and bland scapes of strip malls filled with

corporate everything,

over seas accounts,

be accountable and realize 

that you come from a long line

of truth seekers,

and against the grain thinkers

that changed the world.

Fuck all this mediocre bullshit

stand on your own two

grow a pair

and call it how you see it.

Hopeless Romantic

all the notes I wrote 

on tiny pieces of paper

folded with hearts drawn

are worn and lost 

in the thick of it all,

and all the flowers 

are all dried up,

and I got the blues baby

here thinking bout you baby

can’t get you off my mind,

and I don't wanna

just wanna sit in my room

and cry, listening to Dashboard

Otis Redding, The Smiths -

and i’m so fucking emo

sometimes it hurts

and I'm so in love 

sometimes I’m a jerk, 

and I’m a hopeless romantic

your just hopeless... 

like I hitchhiked 800 miles

with some roses and my 

guitar just to sing you a song

or covering your room

in their pedals and sticky notes

with Mo-Town quotes 

and kissing every inch of your body

as we forget about time

forget that we’re alive 

both one with the tide

of everything, and nothing 

else matters my amour when 

I’m with you, 

in truth,

I’m a hopeless romantic

your just hopeless 

Like i seen a half moon tonight

and thought of where you might 

be in mind, I have dreams of waking up 

next to you now, I have dreams 

of walking down the beech and 

bumping into your smile, and us in

an ice cream truck driving down the

pan american highway wind in our hair

down into Central America through festivals

and rainbow gatherings, us dancing

under the moonlight connected again, but

I’m a hopeless romantic,

your just hopeless...

Or how I look at you

and you look at me

and we both know

that this is how it be

But do nothing

cuz, you’re with him

and I with she

so we bow out

then we both be

retrospectin,

nostalgia gets me

with past hugs

and past tongues 

and past love

cuz

I’m a hopeless romantic,

your just hopeless...

Smoke a joint and point to the spot 

where we first locked eyes, smiled talked

started to fall, walked rode bikes, ate Italian Ice

danced to the music in our minds

threw pizza dough straight at the sky

laughed cried picked each other up

cut each other down

and fucked our way back to the light

cuz I’m a hopeless romantic,
your just hopeless...

***MUSICAL MEDITATIONS*** NEW BOOK BY DONEL!!!*** OUT NOW!!!***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 23, 2014. | Brick, New Jersey

Visit  HYPERLINK "www.genuinewriterscollective.blogspot.com" www.genuinewriterscollective.blogspot.com for contact details, review copies, photos, and an author bio.

MUSICAL MEDITATIONS - 

NEW BOOK OF POEMS BY DONEL

A collection of poems in the tradition of Amiri Baraka and Langston Hughes

New book Musical Meditations released today by Genuine Press Productions. This book explores the depths of the soul, of love, of personal demons, of industrialized society as it weaves through both the beauty and the horror that  are tugging on our collective psyche and consciousness.

The title poem Musical Meditations is featured in Donel’s new play A New Day that was featured this summer at    the PortFinge Festival June 24-29th, and will also be appearing at the Chicago Fringe Festival August 28-September 7th, and the Boulder Internationl Fringe Festival September 17-28th.

“He’s like Junot Diaz mixed with Allen Ginsberg—telling the truth with the such a specific local voice you feel like you could recognize its speaker if he were walking down the street.” - Alexis Kozak, Director of Black Box of Asbury Park.

“Donel's Musical Meditations is an important new book of poems on the American scene.

The language is free, brave, at times fierce, often lyrical, and always truthful.” - Rich Quatrone, Founding Director of Playwrights on The Rise, and Founder of The American Poetry Theater.

Donel is a poet, playwright, musician, filmmaker, essayist, actor and revolutionary activist who has spent time playing in bands, community organizing, at Occupy Wall St, and living in the woods. Read more at  HYPERLINK "http://www.genuinewriterscollective.blogspot.com" www.genuinewriterscollective.blogspot.com

-ENDS-

Donel | donel.genuinepress@gmail.com |

**** Shame on the Species ****

Shame on the species who seeks to conquer and control others
     and confine them like cattle in ideological camps
     with little room for alternative options of autonomy

Shame on the species who has lost touch with creation
     and then fetters itself to unnatural coercive treadmills
     of deadly imbalanced consumption

Shame on the species that sees itself superior
     and draws imaginary lines and boundaries
     to protect and hoard what nature has given to all

Shame on the species that declares war on itself
     and sends the unthinking young
     to kill or die for unquestioned political agendas

Shame on the species that allows great wealth for the few
     and keeps the majority hungry for hidden scraps
     amid an abundance sufficient for all

Shame on the species that abhors all natural functions
     and feels guilt or fear when healthy wild impulses arise

Shame on the species that can hate any number of people
     and yet can find plural love or intimacy immoral

Shame on the species that is blindly patriotic to corrupt authorities
     yet lack loyalty to reason, truth, justice and love

Shame on the species whose prime goal is profit or money
     and enslaves itself to a cesspool of self-created pollution
     so future innocent generations will suffer

Shame on the species that invents religious dogma
     and distrusts its own direct holy experience
     dividing our spirits into  pulpits of ignorance

Shame on the species that labels itself Homosapien
     and then forgets to behave like a 'Wise Man'
     and not live up to his name


GARY MENNIE

**** I Am Not A Modern ****

Though I live among them

I am not a modern.

I am an eccentric

Multidimensional ranting poet

A native tantric mystic iconoclast

A cosmic spirit, outlaw of convention

Radical pagan soul.

I am the minority in the crowd

Maverick of inquiry

A bohemian seed eternally sprouting

A jagged Dandelion leaf

Weed of tenacity

With a heart full of roots.

I am a celestial den of constellations

A harem of planets

Erotically orbiting a Great Sun Goddess.

I am a crack in your false perfections

Agnostic priest of faith

A truth in your bed of lies

Anarchist of inspiration

Compost for a new Manifesto.

I am the wild card in your deck

Seeking my own game.

Gary Mennie

10/09

Wolf Run

I wish I had the ability to transfer these beautiful conversations
i share here with people
straight to the billboards across this country,
lit up bright and beautiful for the many passing carriages
carrying routine seasoned humans
and generations of forget connect..
I wish there to be music pouring from the sound systems of the stars
to assist these messages before their eyes...

what are the the good words or statements describing VAST...
describing the feeling of huge
like astronomically huge,
like thunderous mists from ocean cliffs huge...
but also refined to a grain of sand.
I need your help, assistance helping hands
what of something beautiful, glorious
can you help me learn to describe a moment so far deeply VAST
what series of words or statements can help capture the memorable life of VAST
I am reaching from the tip of my tongue with the most infinite ask...

this technology and this high speed meditation
has no idea how precious the space YOU need to be still,
is to it's lifeline..
it may take for the fuel of their momentum to run dry..
for them to recognize the newly discovered gemstone/species
of amphibious life that resides through you...
it may take the very taking of their lives, the life of their bodies..
for them to recognize how much they love you
your strength..
it may take disaster and much suffering for them to wake up
and see how your smile enlightens the life of their children

-Kwolf '14

Our Greatest Novel

Facebook might...
Only really be deleted from our attachment to it
and this... could be.... one life opportunity to write our greatest novel...
a book with our "face" on the front cover
to be stored away in some unfathomably vast super file,
cyber warehouse, seed.....
to be studied and learned from, remembered and praised,
planted and sowed... upon the new world from which...
we may be our own saviors...
and every "like", every read, every initial view
there is a wave of emotion triggered on a cellular level
it resonates through the body
and on to merge energy through the plants and animals around you
and into the atoms of material designs that house you,
to the vessels that transport you,
and into the vibration of the trees that line your street....
even a stone cast into the greatest lake contributes to a resonate string theory
which charges you like a tuning fork... ELECTRIC LIFE
so how will your book be written? from what groundation and value are you inspired?
can we tune the instrument our creator has provided to our minds?
to our heART's ears?
your imagination has been published...

Mother Mixing Weather Records

Colorado!!
This wind moving in is incredible!
Paramount macroscopic particles hitting just the other side of the tiny fibers in this wall
flexing even the original thought structure of this housing...
I can almost hear the anger of an ancient voice in the wind
as it progresses in strength..
specific gusts grab patches of sand and glass and plastic insignificance
even from the sun hidden cavities of forgotten foot paths..
it slams it's determined shards by the thousands against the right side of my wall..
I can almost hear the importance of lost and forgotten pieces of dreams
from the driving force
like a musical hurricane, the horizontal composition of trace minerals becomes surgical sound..
pin pointed L.E.D. at the speed of enlightenment
the excitement evolution Arapahoe spirit
run bare foot free upon the night streets of Boulder
the wind brings new...
stripping the doused consciousness above and below of it's former structured ease
leaving waking eyes onto gentle sky mornings
and red fox trot prints effortless along with promising rise...

For My Queens

Fuck Lil’ Wayne and Fuck Jay-Z

I got 99 problems but I’ll never disrespect my queens

my sisters my mothers my lovers

you brothers gotta stop

with your misogynistic bullshit 

see you tout around your egos

and mental supremacy 

superiority causes

feeble mindedness

and crooked thinking

beyond me

how you could listen to these fallacies 

while bobbin your head 

to what you call a beat

and yes believe me

I indulge in sexual fantasies

but treat these fantastic bodies

for the pieces of art 

that they are

cuz real men take care of their women

real men don't hit or abuse mistreat

be disrespecting their women

real men try to uplift their women

real men realize that women are not their women

real men don’t talk down to women

real men realize that nothing would exist 

if it wasn't for women

channel thought patterns 

and shift the balance 

back to the beginning 

levels of the soul exposed

as we penetrate 

and combine ourselves

to one being

yes one being

created in fits of passionate

love making

fuck sex

lets connect multi-levelly 

lovely neck kiss

respect into the eyes

of who you go to bed with

you macho piece of shit

I can't stand looking at you

when you act like this

and no I aint gay

but you shouldn't be actin this way

and if I was so what

I’d still be cooler than you

truer than you

newer than you

and your traditional mindset

of whats been handed down

rap music promoted by clear channel

business suits corporate head is not Hip Hop

yea, pick up the fucking pieces 

cuz the five elements have been defeated 

M.J.

I was at work

in a kitchen

by the beach

cooking food,

walking around the corner

by the dishwasher, when I

got a text from my sister

that said, Michael Jackson just died

and time stopped, and honestly

I didn’t

Believe her

didn’t want

to believe

that you could

be gone so soon.

Before I got to see you dance

Just before your shows in London

and I was hoping you’d go on tour

and i wanted to cry but i couldn’t

and it tour me up

for weeks for months

all time stopped

stood still, and I

still remember the first time

I saw Thriller 

The first time I fell in love

with you and your music

and your moves and grooves

and costumes and tunes

those films you made

that they call music videos

When you spun and moonwalked your

way into my heart

and I loved that making of video

where they showed you getting

your make up done

and those yellow contacts

that guy put in your eye

and all the zombie shakes and slides

even though I was too scared to 

watch it alone,

And then all these years later

watching your funeral live alone

on TV and I cried like a baby

I swear it poured from my ducts 

of tears, and I felt like my childhood

died that day, like the times had changed

and, “I never dreamed you’d leave in summer.”

sang through the waves through the screens in L.A.

and “just call my name, and I’ll be there.” choked up

into Ushers tears, cuz your “gone to soon.”

and honestly I was depressed for months 

when you left

because of all that you meant

to me, my sister my family

the global musical community

and what you meant to us black people

even though white people wanna 

say you weren’t black

or that you were a fag

or a wacko, yea they talked smack Michael

but we felt you

still feel you

we were you

when we made that change
it was you we saw in the mirror

looking back at us, in Africa

with Mandela 

with all you gave us

the king, my adolescence filled with you

and me dancing in my room, and

Hey pretty baby with your high heels on, and

I wanna rock with you

all night long

the jams never do justice

to the man who grew up

with multi generational span

into the hand of the 

smoothest criminal

we had ever met, and

Don’t stop till ya get enough

Eh!

You wanna be startin somthin

heel click tap slide 

by slide

I just can’t stop loving you

He he he!

If your thinking bout my baby,

it don’t matter if your black or white.

uh!

crotch grab

spin,

to your toes

Bang bang shot dead, everybody gone mad,

all I wanna say is they don’t really care about us.

Hat flip to your arm

down to your neck back 

to your head again

cock forward

“cuz the lie becomes the truth hey ya”

“what have done to the world? look at what we’ve done..”

Or how my parents watched

you with your purple hat

and little boy moves 

cuz, “I sit around 

with my head hanging down

and I wonder whose lovin you”

spins arms in your front

then out to side,

repeat to the other

rock back and forth

as “ABC” 123

so simple as the hips pump

back and forth to your kiss

on TV with Elvis’ daughter

“tell them that it’s human nature”

“get up get up”

up onto your toes and hold

fall back to heels 

“we are the world”

feet swap in front of each other

sequins and all, plant

pivot heel up lead leg 

bent slide across the surface

of the moon. Arms raised

“because I’m bad, I’m bad”

“ahhhhhhhhhh”

subway station line

leather crotch grab

or when you turned into

that alien robot transformer

kinda thing. Forcefield and all

blowing all them army cops away

with those purple clouds floating

behind you sparks flying

Joe Pesci’s pony tail destroyed

by laser beam to pieces and 

you up to space as you gyrate  

and walk and strut

sexual in essence everything

you do and they were scared,

now it’s been five years

and I’m just getting around

to writing this,

and I’m sad for my kids

will only know you as

history past,

our legacy captured in time

on vinyl digital downloads

CDs’ cassette tapes VHS DVDs’

our collective consciousness 

cultural dialogue, and of course

our dancing.

Allen Ginsberg Inspired Me

Allen Ginsberg inspired me

to be true with my art,

write what i actually think about, 

like fucking that girl over there

and smoking weed,

I only know two things for sure -

that I'm alive,

and that I'm gonna die

I try to live

with that on my 

    mind,

Justice for Trayvon now!

how may black witnesses on stands

feel in like they on trial?

how many confederate flags flying 

as Nelson Mandela apartheid dies? 

I cried when I opened my eyes

and saw 4,000 hooded sweatshirts 

at night,

Union Square

I can't be here now in this

time space aftermath Sandy storm center -

beach town, scrub around and wash the 

film off that smell,

Feel like I've been here before to cure

the core of myself,

i've found, -

that what I've always been looking 

      for, can never be found

confusion's just the way

that our eyes meet and break away

and touch is all that we can take

as we fall into realizing that 

touch is the most important sense

and falling in, the sand on our 

feet our lips as they meet,

together in continuum of space time

and love,

is matter even real

or is it just something that

we've hung?

our whole life existence on

trying to hold and hope

that we belong, -

Over populate the globe

with violence turn the Earth inside out

These questions in my head are so damn 

loud - like, why is it cool to be a dick?

Why define your life by someone else?

Scatter brained game change the mainframe 

of what is called our DNA

Helix of helium blooded things we say

to change the day

as electronic elements become a part

of the fabric of our being

of our molecular make,

up,

I take up these things in my skull 

emotions build well thoughts

now movies first poetry then song

I have to break away

this outlet my escape

from the cold reality

from this dumb society

from all that I don't want it to be

and to catch everything beautiful

and perfect like this moment 

                                   I see

when I say me,

what I really mean is we

cuz we're all just sections

of one energy...

Things I Don't Believe

I don’t believe in definitions, political philosophies, boundaries, borders, boxes, shapes,

                schemes, social structures, language, poetry, societies, science, particles, molecules,

my own brain body flesh form, normalcy, music, coolness, truth, that I am right, about 

anything, anywhere, that I’m here, religion fashion group think monotony money

                economies America countries concrete plastic industrial farm land shipping supply

                stock nuclear war head, war.

I don’t believe in bombs in hate, medicinal chemistry biology syntax sentence structure symbol

semantics partial understanding of what we perceive to be, the universe

I don't believe in writing rationalization,

that I comprehend my feeble existence

that I really exist, that any of this is real

in life in sex in death

I don’t believe in Heaven, I don't believe in hell

I don't believe in genres, separation, prisons, laws, planning

towns, nation, states, pride, counties, territories, property, 

surgical mutations, and pasta shells

I don’t believe in patriarchy, machoism, elections, democratic republic electronic voting, booth

fair and free, smart phone computer technology

I don’t believe that the government wasn’t behind 9-11

I don't believe in we or I or now or nouns or things

oil paper toilettes refrigerators air conditioning streets

trains buses cars trucks air planes snow blowers quads

i pods cd players space ships power plants electricity light

switch keys locks possessions not sharing, that I own anything

ownership, you idiot its just a part of the earth whether you realize

it or not, it doesn't matter what it is.

I don't believe in preaching but I do any way, cuz what else am I gonna say?

products placement shopping consumerism capitalism stores Wal-Mart fast food

chains corporate drugs care health tray ash drinking smoking houses and everything

else.

I don't believe in anything time anymore its all bull shit any way

I don't believe in presidents 

I don't believe in Reuters, The Associated Press, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, bourgeois

                mainstream press, Move On, Democrats, Republicans

I don't believe in you

I don't believe in truth

I don't believe in green

I don't believe in blue

I don't believe

I don't believe

I don't believe

fuck you 

OWED TO JOY

is an ode to joy
or to what is owed
to joy or to the joy
of the ode that is owed
to joy or to the joy of
owing something to joy
or to anything at all.

owing is the natural state,
what we owe to the earth,
to the universe, to land, sky,
air. it's all these people who
think it's all for free who are
the problem.

as if we have no debt that
we must be mindful of
and must pay every day.

rich quatrone
2/6/14

A POEM FOR MIKE

Who is this man in Angola?

How does he find his strength, his courage?

Most of all, he maintains his humanity.

Well, there are people out here who do not.

That's what's amazing.

We write our letters back and forth.

Not long letters. Just short ones.
But the letters are important.

They are a bridge between the South and the North.

Between a free man and one not so free.

Don't be so fast to figure out which man is which.

Best,

Rich

Rich Quatrone 2/2/14

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.