We cracked the sun wide open
and drank till light spilled across our chins
then down our chests
until our shirts were drenched
your pale skin and pink petals
Glimmering through the sheer white wool

And not even the least put off
You tore your blouse right from your back
and roared with laughter and delight
tearing mine while running toward the shore

We pulled two stars down from sunset skies
And hung them from your gentle lobes
And though they tried could not eclipse
The light from your true self exposed

Growing weary from the day
We tore  fabric from the clouds
And made a blanket on the ground
Near the waters edge

We slipped out of our sun soaked clothes
And drank so gently from the moon
From root to crown in deep embrace
made love like lovers, friends and fools

We thanked the sun and thanked the stars
While drifting off to dream
interlaced our hands and legs and hearts
And rocked the night to sleep

The crowd stares at me in disbelief, they're trying to tell me how to dress,
like the left wing says my jeans are too short, it's unaccustomed to them,
the solution is to loosen my comfort and enjoy the prospects
of being taken hostage by a system that assists in my demolition,
I'm not perfect, I'm not beautiful. They preach it through musicals,
that acoustical tune that says the world is watching every step,
so every breath is not my own to control, I'm holding a cane
that doesn't make me stand taller, doesn't make me stand bolder,
that says the older I get, the more of these I will have to buy.
So I look up to the sky wondering how in the world I got here
a beard, some faded jeans telling me what it means to be amazing,
amazing as defined by pop star icons is found in the way you dressed
not in the depth of your soul, not in the acceptance as a whole
but in the pressed on nails and roaming around with flesh on sale.

I do not live by the words of the left wing nor the right wing
I live within my own world where the words soothes my soul,
there's a hole in my chest but it isn't being filled with clothing
because closing a hole with materials is not as filling as it is.
I do not care how I dress, as long as my purpose is intact
I will not be trapped inside a system that assists in my demolition.

The people in the crowd looks to me, says your purpose-
is to sling curses at an old lady with a veteran husband
that the nation trusted, sling curses at an old lady
who lately struggles to sleep as she seeps into the bottle.
The people in the crowd looks to me, says your purpose
is to worsen the lives of those around me, that old lady
who as of lately suffers from arthritis, with shaking hands
tell her you plan to disrespect her because she is a wreckage
unworthy of salvaging so you're doing a hefty good deed.
The people in the crowd says it is all in the name of being cool,
shattering lives, taking knives from drawers
and drawing in people who self harm to help calm their bloods
with a slice of a blade, this mistake after the next,
a blade forgets the wrist but the people don't shut up.
They look at us, like we are their chopping boards
playing tic-tac-toe with an ink they can afford,
each hateful name is a checkered stain across a wrist
that has been kissed by mothers and stitched by doctors.

The people in the crowd says to me, how do you expect-
any respect dressed as a draped over curtain, for certain-
you are earthen for a purpose and that purpose is to show yourself;
dress like hell is awaiting and the heaven is sacred,
dress like a patriot but swear foul things towards your country,
do it for the money or don't do it at all.
The people in the crowd looks at me, up and down,
their face forms a frown like a rainbow made from hate,
a greyish drab sweeps over their face and they know
that I'm gone.

I taught hate towards myself where a pill in a bottle won't feed it
I've beaten myself to blue and pink where my instincts to be insync
with hatred is but a tempo in a song. I look to the crowd
and question are you proud? I've been alive, trying to minimise
the time I have left before I expire and in this light
I might just give fight to the wrong cause
because I'm lost. A pill in a bottle won't fix what's broken
I've soaked in the word of the crowd for so long
that I'm long gone.

I hope that I can stand tall, stand bolder,
grow older, grow wiser to love myself
and not need help on learning to love.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Daybreak through tree tops, smoke and mist and morning chill and pale,
Some nights I dream of war, cannon shells and walls of fire,
Some nights I dream of shadows, grown so long they might cover this land end to end in twisted cold caricatures of selves,
Some nights I dream of love and hope to die inside of it, to wrap myself in it and in doing so become it's avatar and archetype, to float formless and weightless above these cities and take in all that pain, all that waste and ruin and in this way become a bulwark against it,
Leonard Cohen said once that there is a crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in, and so when I close my eyes tonight in that great expanse, in all that raw energy and all those people swept up in it, in that great wave of history and turmoil, I will pray to be lifted, just this once, into that open mouth where earth meets heaven and heaven meets stars, and crack it open with my bare hands, so that the light may come down

I am a simple soul
When I die I want to be remembered fondly as a pretty decent poet
I don't want fanfare
But if I receive it I won't complain
Most of all I want to be remembered
My greatest fear is that everything I am and everything I have ever done will be reduced to a forgotten blip in the back of someone's mind
How I so much wish I had the power and strength to start fires I have no intention of putting out
My greatest philosophy is that a majority of people who do evil know **** well what they are doing, they just don't care
And enough of them can get away with it to inspire the next generation
Let me inspire a generation that won't allow evil to be done and go unpunished
Leniency towards evil is a joke that stopped being funny long before now
It never really was funny to start out with
Sometimes I catch myself thinking of all the rocks thrown at Peekskill and how they got away with it
I think of the four dead in Ohio
Even now I think of Sacco and Vanzetti and cry

I am a simple soul
I only wish that you remember those that came before us and sacrificed everything they had
And then I hope you think of me

I won't write a letter to some president
Whoever they may be
Because if they ever truly wanted freedom
They would tear down the fences
And make the White House a shelter for the  homeless  
Or they would fill all the empty houses on my street
And every other empty house on every other street with empty houses
If there is something I've learned from 21 years
Is that its the common people who make the real change in this world
It's the common people who build the world for all to life in
For me this started at Peekskill
When 20 thousand men and women
formed a wall so Paul Robeson could sing safe from harm
Then I learned of Spain in the 30s
From the Asturian miners to the Catalan anarchists
The guns that protected Madrid and thousands of voices singing A Las Barricadas and No Pasarán
And some nights I whisper a curse for every bomb that struck Guernica
Meanwhile in West Virginia common people fought for equality at Harper's Ferry and for the rights of the workers at Blair Mountain
And even today in southern Mexico, it's the common people who are creating Zapata's great dream of a world where land belongs to those who work it
The people of this world are capable of such beautiful things
All the dollars in all the banks can't buy out the human spirit
And all the bullets in all the guns can't lessen the strength of us all standing together
And just as a wise man once said:
"We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute."

Somewhere it's green
and  dandelions and soft grass
grow on hills
Somewhere it's blue
and the sky and stones meet
the river
Somewhere it's red
and squirrels and bridges
climb higher
Somewhere it's more
than white skies and white streets and
snow falling.
Somewhere you and
I walk in the sun and never
dream of spring.