At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have
settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

-Mary Oliver

HAVE YOU KILLED FOR YOUR MAN TODAY

In these hands, the cities; in my weather, the armies
Of better things than die
To the scaly music of war.

The different men, who are dead,
Had cunning; they sought green lives
In a world blacker than your world;
But you have nourished the taste of sickness
Until all other tastes are dull in your mouths;
It is only we who stand outside the steaming tents
Of hypocrisy & murder
Who are "sick" --
This is the health you want.

Yours is the health of the pig which roots up
The vines that would give him food;
Ours is the sickness of the deer which is shot
Because it is the activity of hunters to shoot him.

In your hands, the cities, in my world, the marching
Of nobler feet than walk down a road
Deep with the corpses of every sane & beautiful thing.

-Kenneth Patchen

the cat fluffs his fur
and tries to avoid the cold
of his own shadow

-Perdita Finn

78%H2O

when the joy had left your body
and you were locked in to your own thoughts
you used to love to sit by the water
and watch it lapping on the rocks
and every time you put your feet in
you'd cry out and you would pray
but it's all downhill from here baby
so naturally, i can't stay

first you'll roll your eyes to heaven
say you never had love so divine
but it will go from
more than ever
to not enough
in no time
you will push and
you will push un-
til you push me away
i hear you cry out for your water
and i know you'll curse it someday

i guess for me
there's been a few
who've walked up smiling
and drawn a line
between so far
and from now on
yes a big glowing
line in time
and i've been disappointed
i've been heartbroken
yes i too have
loved from afar
but we are 78% water
even our pumping hearts

-Ani DiFranco

Get it?

Get beat up on TV squirming on the ground for driving irregular
Get bombed in Philadelphia by helicopters with your little babies
Get kicked in the street by Newark police and charged w/riot
Get assassinated by a jerk while FBI sleeps with itself
Get shot by a stringer for the CIA & blame it on Fair Play for Cuba Committee
Get bumped off by an errandboy for Cuban drug kingpins, friend of the Feds & Dallas cops
Get caught paying off Contras with coke money while Acting U.S. Drug War Czar
Get busted for overcharging Iranians on secret warplane sales
Get convicted of lying to Congress about off-the-shelf dirty wars in Central America
Get 12 billion dollars for a drug bureaucracy and double the number of addicts
Get a million people in prison in the land of the free
Get the electric chair & gas chamber for unpopular crimes
Organize Citizens for Decency Through Law rob your own phony bank several billion dollars get sent to jail

-Allen Ginsberg
May 1992
New York

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

-Countee Cullen

from the jailhouse sink
the water comes out so clear
I feel cool by it

-Jakko Medina