Sanctuary

for Tony

I could not disengage my world
from the rest of humanity.
Wind chill factor 11° below. All night
wind thrashes barechested trees
like a West Texas tent evangelist
hissing them on his knees,
lisping
sinnn . . . sinn . . . sinn . . .
All night wind preaches.

Old tool shed
behind my house
fist-cuffs itself to nail-loose tin,
horse pasture gates
clank their crimes,
while neighing black stallions of rain
stampede on the patio
fleeing gunshots of thunder . . . .

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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Lapis Lazuli

(For Harry Clifton)

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.

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poem by William Butler Yeats
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Fly-Boys & Ultimate Sacrifice = 2012

World War-I gave us the flyboys
Who flew by the seat of their pants.
Many would never return from war
While others survived by chance.

Their planes were mostly canvas and wood
Gasoline, bullets, bombs and poison gas.
Every pilot carried his own pistol
Wearing leathers, scarf and goggles of glass.

Aviators had no Parachutes
To escape their burning plane.
Many were forced to jump to their death
Or self inflect a bullet to the brain.

Blimps where known as battleships of the sky
The roar of their engines gave reason for fear.
They flew so high they were hard to shoot down
Hiding above clouds till their targets drew near.

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poem by Tom Zart
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Be Thankful

(by c. jackson & m. yancy)
You may be in a big city or drivin down a country lane, yeah
Workin two jobs to make a livin
And all you do is complain, well
You should be thankful of what you got
Yes, you should be thankful of all you got
Wakin up in the mornin seein the sun rise (well, well)
Is enough to say I thank you, lord
Rollin over seein my babys eyes, uh
Is enough to say I thank you, lord
I just wanna say thank you (thank you)
Thank you (thank you) thank you, thank you, lord
(thank you) thank you (thank you) thank you
(thank you) thank you, lord---
Be thankful of what you got (you know you should)
Be thankful of all you got
You may live in the valley, you may live on the highest hill
Some people say you dont do nothin but take the doctors pills
You may be in a nursery, in a classroom
Drivin your big fine car, hup!

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song performed by Natalie Cole
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Dictatorships Exclusive

dictatorships
pyramid exclusive privilege
restricted rights

restricted benefits
streamlined American debt
states are bankrupt?

good common citizens
ordinary noble Americans
pay debt in sold skins

George W Bush
robbed American poor
who had to pay taxes

exempted wealth all
his buddy mega rich mates
who as his supporters

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poem by Terence George Craddock
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Bikku under the Bodhi Tree

yogi under the banyan tree
yogi under the bodhi tree
bikku under the banyan tree

waiting for release

bikku in blissful nibbhana
yogi in extinguishing moksha

Penniless poet under the tenement roof
Jazz organist under the pavement sky
Struggling novelist under the Riviera blue
Russian ballerina under the American umbrella
Apprentice painter under the Sistine Chapel
Sculptor Underground

waiting for the agent's call

burning Anne Frank manuscripts in an air-raid fire
singular melodies drowned in the descending drone

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poem by T. Wignesan
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Hole In The Road

They're digging a hole in our road, yet again,
And I really must say that it's becoming a pain.
The drone of their drill is driving me totally mad;
I have got the worst headache that I've ever had.

The electricity has now been cut off for hours;
I can't cook a meal, or take a nice, hot shower.
Electricity is something which we all rely on;
We don't realise how much, until it has gone.

I can't surf the net, or snuggle up in front of the TV;
And I can't even listen to my favourite band on CD.
Packed full of food, I daren't open the freezer door,
As, if I do, all of my frozen food will thaw, for sure.

I can't boil the kettle, and enjoy a nice mug of tea;
I can't listen to the classical music on Radio Three.
Oh, how I wish, the sound of drilling would end;
The noise is driving me slowly round the bend.

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poem by Angela Wybrow
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The Hair Lip Parade

My father has an orchard
He wont let anybody see.
He loves horses in his orchard of the colors
Of the likes horses are
Never allowed to be,
And I still my father’s limes from the back of
His truck;
I break my jaw and have it wired shut along
I-95 to stave of scurvy:
I am like a color t.v., the very first time,
And we turn our broadsides around in
The venal sea
And fire off our green copper cannons to ward of
Coral snakes and selkies,
And the banshees from the bushes and the entangled
Colonnades;
And there was a person she knelt for beneath the wrought iron
Cross, like a gate strangled by ivy,
And maybe she was the first woman whose birthstone
Was opal to walk free and unadulterated through this

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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Woodstock

Well, I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, tell me, where are you going
This he told me:
Said, Im going down to yasgurs farm
Gonna join in a rock and roll band
Got to get back to the land
And set my soul free
{refrain}
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Well then, can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog
In something turning
And maybe its the time of year
Yes, and maybe its the time of man

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song performed by James Taylor
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Woodstock (live, Howard Stern)

Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, tell me, where are you going
This he told me:
Said, I'm going down to Yasgur's farm
Gonna join in a rock and roll band
Got to get back to the land
And set my soul free
{Refrain}
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Well then, can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog
In something turning
And maybe it's the time of year
Yes, and maybe it's the time of man

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song performed by James Taylor
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Plain Jane Country

(eddie raven)
I read your letter just this morning
The first you've wrote since you've been gone
You've finally found yourself a home
You've bought a new car, a great big red one
With a top that rolls right down
You must be something in san fransisco
A dressed up, painted country clown
You're fakin' it well, but it's easy to tell
You're plain jane country come to town
The pace is too fast and you're out of your class
You're plain jane country come to town
You know i love you, at least you ought to
I've loved you all of my livin' days
You got no business makin' changes
Yeah girl, i love your country ways
Go sell that red car, catch an airplane
And i'll be waiting when you land
Yeah, get a white dress, find a preacher
We'll get some rings to fit your hand

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song performed by Roy Orbison
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Hypnotized

Written by bob welch.
Its the same kind of story
That seems to come down from long ago
Two friends having coffee together
When something flies by their window
It might be out on that lawn
Which is wide, at least half of a playing field
Because theres no explaining what your imagination
Can make you see and feel
Seems like a dream
(they) got me hypnotized
Now its not a meaningless question
To ask if theyve been and gone
I remember a talk about north
Carolina and a strange, strange pond
You see the sides were like glass
In the thick of a forest without a road
And if any mans ever made that land
Then I think it wouldve showed
Seems like a dream

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song performed by Fleetwood Mac
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Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Head

Once upon a time at the foot of a great mountain,
There was a town where the people known as Happyfolk lived.
Their very existence a mystery to the rest of the world,
Abscured as it was by grey clouds.
Here they played out their peaceful lives,
Innocent of the litany of excess and violence
That was growing in the world below.
To live in harmony with the spirit of the mountain called Monkey was enough.
Then one day Strangefolk arrived in the town.
They came in camouflage, hidden behind dark glasses,
But no one noticed them: they only saw shadows.
You see, without the Truth of the Eyes, the Happyfolk were blind.
Falling out of aeroplanes and hiding out in holes,
Waiting for the sunset to come, people goin' home.
Jump out from behind them and shoot them in the head,
Now everybody's dancing the dance of the dead,
The dance of the dead, the dance of the dead.
In time, Strangefolk found their way into the high reaches of the mountain,
And it was there that they found the Caves of Unimaginable Sincerity and Giving.
By chance, they stumbled upon the Place Where All Good Souls Come to Rest.

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song performed by Gorillaz
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Rhyme-Smith

Oh, I was born a lyric babe
(That last word is a bore -
It's only rhyme is astrolabe,"
Whose meaning I ignore.)
From cradlehood I lisped in numbers,
Made jingles even in my slumbers.
Said Ma: "He'll be a bard, I know it."
Said Pa: "let's hoe he will outgrow it."

Alas! I never did and so
A dreamer and a drone was I,
Who persevered in want and woe
His misery to versify.
Yea, I was doomed to be a failure
(Old Browning rhymes that last with "pale lure"):
And even starving in the gutter,
My macaronics I would utter.

Then in a poor, cheap book I crammed,
And to the public maw I tossed

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poem by Robert William Service
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How Many Legs I'll Have To Lose

You’ve combed your hair again and I am drinking wine
I bought tonight after I left you at that party in wounded
And high weeded guts of
West Palm Beach: the grapes are from the grandes bodegas
Where the poets rest in the trenches of lime,
And I jogged today after I left you Alma over the waters and
Into the soft terrain of the rich man’s homes,
And they made me smile and think of you, because you are
So beautiful that you could fit into any of those homes and
Make them smaller;
And how you’ve cast your eyes out of buses traveling far
And to the east;
And how you’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz, and I never
Want to have to fire you:
I feel like a torch in a warm dungeon full of booby traps when
I am nearer you:
I feel like a teenager slipping away from school to bask in his
Pastimes of cemeteries which border the teal tennis courts
Where the topless din mothers and their professional sisters play
At ease in their early retirement:

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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Crossing Nation

Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball--

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires

Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...

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poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Baby Loves To Rock

Words and music by rick nielsen
More and more I been thinkin bout love
Love aint all I been thinkin of
Some people do and some people dont
Some people will and say they wont
But my baby loves to rock
And my baby loves to roll
My baby loves to all night long
My baby loves to rock
More and more Im thinkin bout s-s-sex
The more I think the better it gets
More and more Im thinkin bout s-s-sex
The more I think the worse it gets
But my baby loves to rock
And my baby loves to roll
My baby loves to all night long
My baby loves to rock
She loves to rock
She loves to rock
She loves to rock

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song performed by Cheap Trick
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Manic Monday

6 o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream
But I can't be late cuz then I guess I just won't get paid
These are the days when U wish your bed was already made
CHORUS:
It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
Cuz that's my fun day
My "I don't have 2 run" day
It's just another manic Monday
Have 2 catch an early train, got 2 be 2 work by 9
If I had an airplane, I still couldn't make it on time
Cuz it takes me so long just 2 figure out what I'm gonna wear
Blame it on the train, but the boss is already there
CHORUS
All of the nights, why did my lover have 2 pick last night 2 get down?
(Last night we got down)
Doesn't it matter that I have 2 feed the both of us? Employment's down
But when he tells me in his bedroom voice
"Come on, honey, let's go make some noise," what he says

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song performed by Prince
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Human Life

If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being ! If the breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death ;
O Man ! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes !
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident ! nothing's anomaly !
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter-weights !--Thy laughter and thy tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
And to repay the other ! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good ?

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poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Friend Enemy

The Friend Enemy
Written by: Wilfred Mellers, Thursday, November 11,2010 @ 8: 10 PM

How quickly they forget on those whom they once fret
Enslaved mind still held captive by their ulterior motives
Passive-aggressive manner conceals the last page of their day planner
Reckless their banter and their steeds will not canter

The jester so gallantry deficient with callused hands insufficient
His blades sharpened on the bones of which they called a confidant drone
Venomous utterance spewed from the orifice of what the hypocrites chewed
Artificial smiles hide their true nature for they feel a comfortable posture

Accolades fictitious for their appointments suspicious
Demeanor false bearing witness to monetary gains they are caring
Tongues akin to a dagger for they have lost their swagger
Disgusting deeds for on decay the scavenger feeds

Treachery afoot never wanting any input
To the leeway put aside but they can’t hide

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poem by Wilfred Mellers
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