The opposite of oppressed

The opposite of oppressed

Never been a jazz man

Too much mayonnaise in my bones

Mistakes I make reside inside

My wealthy micro-biome.

Even if there's sabotage

The trash can gets picked up

When I reach the finish line

Applause machines erupt.

I’ve never been invisible.

I’ve always felt their eyes.

The constant drip of possible

Is what my truth implies.

If we all hallucinate

Our own reality,

Imagination is my form

Of strict sobriety.

No, I’ve never been a jazz man

And I’ve yet to be arrested.

Even all my worst ideas

Go somehow uncontested.

I land on all four feet

When hurled from any building.

In fact I bounce back quickly

For my god is willing.

I’ve never lynched a whistler

But I’ve ate with some who would

Sat silent as a sniper

As they thought I understood.

I breathe the air of plenty

When I fall asleep at night.

The wind has never broken up

 My inexpensive kite.

Nope, never been a jazz man

Nor ever shall I be

Any but a television kind

Of mostly free.

I improvise the universe

And curse it with success

Undoubtedly I’ll fail one day
And proudly win with less.

How Long Must I Dream - A poem for Dane and Claire.

How Long Must I Dream

How long must I dream?
Forever.
Alive in the space between dreams and awakening truth
The perpetual becoming mixing with mystical memories
And I work and wait and work and wait
And stop to listen to the sweetness.

How long must they dream?
Forever.
Asleep in the moment encircling each other
Embodying the imaginary; making meaning out of make-believe
And they rest and wait and rest and wait
And stop to listen to the sweetness
Together.

How long must she dream?
Forever.
Apart in the desert divining the deep water
Intuition manifestly quenching all futures
And she tastes and waits and tastes and waits
And stops to listen to the sweetness.


How long must he dream?
Forever.
Alone in the winter reckoning with the ancient mystery
Burying the remainder of the frozen rainclouds
And he looks and waits and looks and waits
And stops to listen to the sweetness.


How long must we dream?
Forever.
Anew as the one-flesh incarnate each moment
Forgiving and fulfilling and sha-da-da-ing the infinite possible
We kiss and wait and kiss and wait
And stop to listen to the sweetness
Together.

AutomatiCity

Automaticity Automatic City

I am, all by myself, a city

There are parts of me where White women do not go at night.

An urban planner envisioned my entrails.

Parking is a problem.

Locals say genital gentrification is on the rise.

Neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be.

Industrialization and a lack of public transportation

The school district in my spinal column is in shambles.

Mayor Mouth is corrupt.

The whole damn city council is a colonic croc of shit.

But the artists are putting down roots.

Culture is being crafted in my esophagus.

Silicon Valley has an eye on the clavicle real estate market.

Perhaps next year there will be a renewal of self.

Now it is mostly plastic bags stuck in stubby trees.

I have a book problem

The following essay is to be read aloud in a mid-atlantic accent while wearing an imaginary tweed jacket with preten(d)tious elbow patches and smoking this Rene Magritte painting.




I have a book problem. More precisely, I have a problematic lack of space for all of the books I wish to own. As with most recovering addicts, I have self controlled and shamed myself into not living out my worst literary fantasies. Somewhere in the multiverse there is a hoarder version of me with stacks to the ceiling of things I am going to read again when I have that mythical extra time. A Little Free Library in Fisher Park near my house would go a long way in ameliorating my book/space problem. More importantly it will keep me from passing on this disease to the next generation. I fear my 3 year old may also have a book problem. Hers is still just an innocent yet insatiable appetite for more and different books. It has not yet devolved into my capitalist desire to own and keep. Help me as I seek to live out and teach an ethos of sharing. Assist us in our pursuit of ideas over objects by providing my family a Little Free Library in our neighborhood.

A Proposal (On bended knee)

A Proposal (On bended knee)

Ostensibly, I only use the word ostensibly to impress you.

Then I follow up with a wry self-deprecating wit to undercut my impressiveness.

Ipso facto, I impress you again.

Yes, I have recently Googled the Latin phrase ipso facto

After having read it in the Wall Street Journal

A Wall Street Journal I repurposed from a trashcan.

I wear no cologne only pheromones.

That smell is my aura and my unwashed underarm.

Science told me that you would like pheromones

Which is fortuitous being that I am out of shower gel.

Or is it serendipitous. 

Those are interchangeable synonyms according to Thesuraus.com

I own stock ironically. Chicken stock.

Both the Swanson brand sold in a carton and one share of Tyson Foods Inc.

The performance art I plan to devise from this double entendre

Will be a game changer in the Irony game.

A game I am concurrently developing for Microsoft.

You get it.  You understand me.

I have rejected the establishment.

And simultaneously established myself.

I will take you into the future if you can take it.

I know this will sound profound because I have read it out loud into a mirror.

You will marry me.  I will marry you. Our wedding will be a triumph,
A Triumph Of The Will without all the Nazis.

So...?

DonorsChoose Project: Reaching the Write Minds

Reaching the Write Minds

My students need to take an amazing writing workshop.

My Students

Theater is where literacy gets real. We listen and speak and create on a daily basis.

My students are from tough backgrounds, but they have a love for the stage.

The students in my theater class are natural performers and enjoy being the center of attention. There is a lot they can do, and they will let no obstacles stand in their way as they pursue their dreams.

My Project

My students need to take an amazing writing workshop. This workshop is a fantastic way to hook kids into writing plays. They will spend the day working with a professional writer who will teach them step-by-step techniques. One will be chosen to be featured in the year-round apprentice program for up and coming writers. Getting to go would be incredible.

I have sent several groups of students to this workshop in the past 5 years.

They always come away engaged in the writing process on a deeper level. Taking a performer and molding them into a playwright in one day is an incredible thing to watch.

Reaching the Write Minds

Salvador Perez - I Get Wet

Perpetual Midnight

Perpetual Midnight

Uncontrollable earworms are
Burrowing into the nether.
Denied their right to a living,
Inhumane and innocent;
They alleviate all suffering.

The extraordinary efforts to
Provide the widows with relief
Yield nothing new under the sun.
As medical tourism is booming
Some are running out of supplies.

Rivalry be damned dammit
Pains were taken.
Surely as the day is long the
Renegade retrogrades
Spasm into control.

Creation.
Hallucination.
Interrogation.
Automation.
Desolation.

If the future holds,
Try as they might to
Immanentize the eschaton
Peace comes only in the morning
And now is perpetual midnight.

Three dogs at a party on a boat at night.

Three dogs at a party on a boat at night.
~ P. D. Eastman

Three dogs at a party on a boat at night.

“Hats have a way of making

A boat ride into an extravaganza”

Thought Green Dog

“I am glad I bought the hats”

Green fretted to himself

“Brown is getting married Saturday

And all Blue wants to do is banjo

I am the only one even trying”

“This tiny boat will come in handy

In case there is a tiny emergency.

I always come prepared.”

Green Dog remarked proudly

“Checkers and yo-yoing at once

Is a skill that not every dog has”

Green Dog boasted to himself

“Blue could never do that”

“I will give Brown a night to remember

If it is the last thing I do.

What happens on boat stays on boat.

That is why I am letting him win.”

“A waning crescent moon overhead.

Blue banjoing some bluegrass.

Brown gets a triple jump.

I am the best Best Dog ever.”

Red velvet hippos with perfect aplomb quaff the mahogany chaffing dish

“Red velvet hippos with perfect aplomb quaff the mahogany chaffing dish.”

Glen Weldon

That is a real dick move hippos.

You think you're better than me?

I may be a blue vinyl alligator with scoliosis but I can quaff.

I can quaff like a freaking sommelier ninja.

The chaffing dish is where I draw the line.

That is grody to the max.

Old water keeping the rice pilaf warm?

Seriously, you could get hepatitis from that bro.

Hippotitis.

I like the sound of that. 

So perfectly contrived.
Keep quaffing.

Hipster Hitler

In the Germanic corner of Brooklyn

Next to a raw food emporium and delicatessen

A Hitler-Mustachioed man
Paints with a toothbrush.

His wrists obviously went to art school

And he is very proud of his boots.

His hair reads like nonsensical nonfiction.

A toupee of truth.

There is always someone almost punching him.

The canvas he works on is stacked on Volkswagen tires

Leaning against a brick wall he does not own.

The swastikas he brushes are ironic only

To people who do not understand irony.

That he wears a uniform is to be expected.
He wants you to expect it.
Though there is no power in those pants
They are dry clean only.

No one laughs at him though they agree he is a joke.

The Holocaust is usually the start of a horrible metaphor.

There is however something Holocausty about his toothbrush art.
It makes one aware of the evil in one's self.
It can make one wish the artist were Holocausted

Because he does it all so knowingly.
So egregiously beyond the pale. [enter whiteness pun]
He wants for his winking to be implied.
Nazis and performance art have superiority in common.

Hitlers of the future are the hipsters of the moment. Or not.  Probably not.

Capitalist Socks

These socks will not be darned, I must  have you know.
Why would someone go to all that trouble
When the market is growing them on trees?
Chinesely handed trees that bloom seasonally.
Presidents Day Season.
Valentines Day Season.
Back To School Season.
All seasons abundant with sock stock.

Complete Poetic Collaboration from The Forum @ Middle of the Map KC

The Preamble

Structuring Symbiosis: An Ethereal Collaborative Word-Building Project Constructed Sillily; a Participatory Poem

Today our words will gesture toward an impossible world
A culture that cannot exist; yet does
The aim is not agreement in our neighborhood it is presence
A family without fights is too clean

This is a calling for conversation
Interdependent;
Mutually beneficial like a sandwich;
Academic as astronauts;
Intimately connected like dissimilar lovers;
Conversation.

Listening and Questioning
Passionate
Persuasive
Tongue tickling dialogue
Put your feather dusters in your mouths
And remove all that has been lying around
Laying around
Both/And

Prepare to educate yourselves
Wipe off your minds’ insides and make room
The innovators and the idea generators
Will explore each other
Like a blind man with his brail erotica

The peacemakers and placemakers
Rapping Metronomic as pacemakers
Will spill the future into our ears
Genomic wisdom will emerge

And you will build along with them
Constructing new syllables
Manufacturing myths
Fashioning phrases
Communally
Symbiotically

The Amble

Amassing the Mind of the Many into a Stream of Shared Consciousness from the Middle of the Map

If I could build a world...
If, what do you mean if?
We are all building
And rebuilding.
And un-building.
Peace, Love, Diversity Harmony
Building out of sustainable materials
On abandoned or distressed properties
From Iran to Lima
And back to the Westside
Glocal
Yeah that’s a good buzzword
Say Gloacl
The world is full of pain and suffering but music heals.

If I could construct a culture I wouldn’t know what to say
I don’t read or write
Don’t put that in
Are you putting that in?
People would read more in my culture.
A culture of mutual respect. No Ego.
Reduce Reuse Recycle
The order is important.
Invite, Host, Share,
Build, Create, Dance
The order is not important.
Get rid of the parking lots.
This will be a culture built on
Wine and friends
Running lunches
Where education is actually valued
As are sharing and sharers.

I am about to talk
Scared to death
Too much coffee

We need a declaration of Interdependence,
Let the good times roll!
Exposing ourselves to the human element,
Uncovering the truth,
Each fabric begins with a thread in our culture.

If I could manufacture a neighborhood I would have
Shared spaces
Proximity to Places
Community cookouts every Saturday
Goats as lawnscapping
Gardens on every rooftop
Mandatory Snow Days
Robust Public Transit
That crosses the city dividing lines
Diverse socioeconomic live jazz centered around libraries
A Neighborhood is not just a place to get drunk.

If I could fashion a family
It would be an
All encompassing
Bilingual
Win-Win situation
Valuing failure.
There would be more camping
And great traditions
2 dads 1 mom and the best sister in the world
Unconditional Love would abide.
We would document our memories
Whatever it takes to regain my rhythm
Don’t pray that prayer
Faith leads to risk
Risk to Acquiescence
Acquiescence to a God who is bigger than
Dyserythropoietic Congenital Anemia type II
I would fashion a family of joy.

Post Amble

Wherever There is Sincerity, Hipster Irony is Not Too Far Behind

We need more rich white people
Give me free things
Free PBR
Free Tibet
Free “Free Tibet” T-shirts and bracelets
A gas pump at every house for my SUV
And coal
Coal made from compressed baby seals
Also no more sharks eating my spirit
We need corn syrup gardens
A Jayhawk in every yard
I demand Homogenized Diversity
Also
Koalas are whores
‘Abstinence Only’ education doesn’t work in the wild.

Structuring Symbiosis: An Ethereal Collaborative Word-Building Project Constructed Sillily; a Participatory Poem

Today our words will gesture toward an impossible world
A culture that cannot exist; yet does
The aim is not agreement in our neighborhood it is presence
A family without fights is too clean

This is a calling for conversation
Interdependent;
Mutually beneficial like a sandwich;
Academic as astronauts;
Intimately connected like dissimilar lovers;
Conversation.

Listening and Questioning
Passionate
Persuasive
Tongue tickling dialogue
Put your feather dusters in your mouths
And remove all that has been lying around
Laying around
Both/And

Prepare to educate yourselves
Wipe off your minds’ insides and make room
The innovators and the idea generators
Will explore each other
Like a blind man with his brail erotica

The peacemakers and placemakers
Rapping Metronomic as pacemakers
Will spill the future into our ears
Genomic wisdom will emerge

And you will build along with them
Constructing new syllables
Manufacturing myths
Fashioning phrases
Communally

Ricky and his Cummerbund

Ricky and his Cummerbund

A lot is riding on this cummerbund thinks Ricky.
This is a life or death cummerbund.
A War or Peace cummerbund.
A cummerbund of epic significance.
If not for this cummerbund whole universes would cease to exist.
When one imagines a world without this particular cummerbund, Ricky postulates, all would be meaningless.
It is all for not without this cummerbund.
Joyless cummerbundless nothingness.
Blessed are the those whose bunds are cummered for they shall inherit the earth.
Woe to all uncummered bunds for they have received their reward in full.

Ricky adjusts his corsage and rings the doorbell.

This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef

This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef

First of all I did not just have Roast Beef

I lovingly prepared a succulent rump roast

They always leave that part out

Secondly I did not have just Roast Beef

There were mashed potatoes and gravy

Corn, Homemade Dinner Rolls. Did they tell you that?

Also I did have Roast Beef justly.

Free range, pasture feed, ethically slaughtered

I have friends who are Halal.

The point is there is more to the story

Little Piggy has roast beef is only a headline

Do your research.

Busy in a Burger King Bathroom

Busy in a Burger King Bathroom

Not enough hours in the day.
I tell myself
While restocking toilet paper
So much to do
So little time
Sweeping
Mopping
Air Freshener Re-Freshening
I am only one man.
Though I toil day in and day out
Paper towels cannot stack themselves .
When Nature calls
Nature does not shape the urinal cakes
Into aesthetically pleasing spheroids.
I do.
My watch tells me I should already be
Soap dispenser respenseing
But the hole in the drywall
Demands my attention dammit.
Whose hooliganism is responsible for this?
I suspect Eddie
Of the stall door fame.
Graffiti being the gateway drug and
Wall-Punching the Heroin
Of restroom vandalism.
No time for blame
The soap needs me.
After that there is the
Wiping
The scrubbing
The mirror needs a squeegee
Who am I kidding
The whole effing room needs a squeegee.
The trash can is bagless.
Who is stealing the trash bags?
Eddie.
Must push mysterious puddle
Toward floor drain.
Read the sign
I scream at the elderly gentleman in a windbreaker
Come back later
Can't you see
I'm busy.

Special Occasions

Although he smelled old
Barry did not feel old
Not tonight anyway
For tonight was a night for Halloween pants

As he brushed his teeth
Barry imagined each pasty white leg
Slipping into their black holes
Emerging triumphantly from his Halloween pants

He took his teeth from their brush cup
And put them into his young feeling mouth

Barry tucked his undershirt into his underwear
And wondered which was truly to be under what

As He stood in front of his wardrobe
Barry began crying
He smiled a porcelain smile
Tears of joy at the thought of his Halloween pants

Inside the door were his regulars
Brown woolen nondescript slacks
He wanted to punch them.
They were trash compared to his Halloween pants

Barry reached behind his thin cotton shirts
To a box marked “Special Occasions”

Before removing the lid he took a deep breath
Pants anticipation was almost as great as pants itself

Tonight
Tonight would be different.

Terrance the Quadriplegic Leopard: A Superhero Story

You would not expect when see him
Laying all legless and armless
That Terrance is Super Heroic
Even though he appears harmless.

His power and strength my be hidden
Behind a humble façade
But Terrance is more than a leopard
Disabled by an act of God.

If there is a child in trouble
If there is a baby at risk
He will be there to the rescue
Complete will a quick Terrance kiss

If a bad guy is causing a problem
A robber, say, robbing a bank
Terrance will swoop in and stop him
Sneak in and give him a spank

If a lion is chasing a tiger
Or a Rhino is being a bully
The Leopard will fly in between them
Solving their problems quite fully

If a bus driver drives off a bridge
With a busload of children inside
Terrance will bring enough pillows
To cushion the falling bus ride

First graders will climb out the windows
And Terrance will cuddle them all
The driver will give him a high five
And laugh off the 50 foot fall

If aliens invade our planet
And try to take everyone’s mommy
Terrance will talk to their leader
A fat guy with braces named Tommy



Through reason and wit and some hugs
Terrance will stop the mom taking
No need for alien punching
Just old-fashioned handless handshaking

Also if puppies are crying
If kittens are somewhat depressed
Terrance will stop by all cheery
And put all their sadness to rest

These are not all of his powers
Though they are all so specific
He can do so many things
‘Cause Terrance is Super Terr-ific!

Historical Napkin

A light snow was falling as Charlie Reardon left the diner and made his way down Madison Street. Sky vomit, he thought. An archangel’s dandruff. A slow motion God sneeze. Not quite.

He took out his phone and acted more important than he was.

A tiny alien invasion. An Aryan alien invasion. Alliteration is always an improvement, he noted to himself with the confidence of the fully bearded, much better.

Charlie did not write it on a napkin. He thought about going back for a napkin from the diner, but he was confident in his memory. He knew he could remember such a good sentence. Such a well made sentence. He did not remember which was right grammatically. A perfect phrase. With this change of thought he corrected and congratulated simultaneously.

Professor Reardon liked Madison. The street had a gentrified air. Thoughtfully dirty white people and hearty smelling ethnics. Stores that sold things he never bought soothed Charlie. The diner did not have too many old people. He thought that that was probably ironic. Maybe paradoxical. Both.

His satchel was open just enough that the top his novel was visible but closed just enough to protect it from the elements. He knew it would impress the lip ringed girl who held the sign on the corner. She read, he thought.
An alien Aryan Invasion was wetting his mustache.

It occurred to him that if he were to write it on a napkin it might be worth something someday. Someday soon. He could put the napkin haphazardly on his desk. Or should he file it. He would file it so that a museum would have an easier time locating it.

He turned around like a Beefeater, toward the diner and bumped into an ethnic. She dropped her phone onto the supremacist spaceships on the sidewalk. He thought about apologizing in her native tongue as a gesture of cultural respect. She was gone before he had a chance to. It was kind of him to think of that though, he thought.

It had to be a napkin from the diner so that the biographer would know that the idea had happened at breakfast. Ironic him eating there and not being old, they would think. He rushed now intent on documenting history. The revisionism inherent in the act appalled him not at all. The winners craft it, he quipped. He did not think to himself what he had won at, only that he belonged in their circle.

The waitress was surprised to see his beard again. He pushed his hand deep into the dispenser and thought about being watched euphemistically. The waitress was not watching. It was empty and he thought about that symbolism.

Charlie asked after a napkin and the hostess handed him one from an open brown bag on her pulpit. The second wave of racist attackers from space slammed into the front window melting immediately.

The napkin was blank and brown. Ethnic. It did not smell.

How would the documentarian arrive at the place where the idea for that well made wordplay famously came to him while he ate waffles, if there was not a logo on the napkin? It could be from any number of places without paradox.

Charlie did not like this. He left the napkin and the sentence and went back into the light snow, late for class.