Let's begin our song with its music coda —
Nahua elders, of an agricultural peoples of ancient America
weaving their way into history's braided tail
with a relevant document of late fifteen hundreds
communed with a Spanish Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún
suspending time and space onto European paper
writing, a general history, of the things of New Spain
the Florentine Codex (1575-77), during the Great Pestilence of 1576

Meeting to collect the remains of the day in Colegio Imperial
on the Aztec bones of a city now called Mexico
it was ends of eras, community, culture, ghosts
a Rosetta stone of Spanish steel and Nahua blood columns
laid out so even Pliny the Elder would be proud
thirty plus years to account, thousands dead
now resting at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy
this profane tomb still wet from the voyage of conquest ...


Nahua, you plant your staple crops, still
beans, maize, squash, tomatoes; still
the maguey plant calls to your weavers, still
remembering your hands and hearts, still
crushing life may come and go
but the elders foregoing forgetting
released their spirits to print your song

-cec

Tied into taut lines of poetry
bridging the chasms of thought
these entangled ideas in words
sometimes spliced or braided
weave suspension into a prosaic world
stretching it with loops and rosettes
then tighten and measure, rhyme/rhythm
in action crossing the great divides
testing strength of imagination's thread

-cec

By One Who Still Believes in the People

This must be said.
This must be screamed —
from the highest hills,
from the lungs of the workers,
from the whispers of the broken and the buried,
from the hearts still hoping for something better.

America is being hijacked by ego.
Not ambition. Not vision. Not strength.
Ego.

A bloated, brass-plated, gold-dripping bravado that
believes shouting is leading,
that believes punishing the world will somehow heal a nation.

It will not.
It cannot.

In the last four days, the United States has turned its back
on the fragile balance of global trade.
Trump — blinded by the mirror of his own reflection —
has imposed sweeping tariffs,
shattering alliances,
igniting retaliation,
and in return,
$5 trillion — gone.
Vanished from the markets in a storm of uncertainty.
A storm he summoned.

But the worst part?
He will not stop.
Not because it is wise — but because his pride cannot retreat.
Not because it will help the people — but because he confuses the cheers of the few with the needs of the many.

And now, the world watches.
Macron has stood up.
The European Union is no longer silent.
Australia’s Albanese, firm in defiance.
New alliances are forming — without America at the table.

America, the disrupter.
America, the pariah.

And still, the people are told to trust the plan.
Still, they are sold dreams wrapped in slogans.
Still, they are forced to pay —
more for food, more for fuel, more for failure.

But this is not a call to despair.
This is a call to arms — of the spirit, of the voice, of the will.

Let the weak-kneed step aside.
Let the truth-speakers rise.
Let the artists, the elders, the thinkers, the builders —
let them speak. Loudly.

We must reclaim the narrative.
We must remind the world that America is not its tyrants.
It is its people.
It is its conscience.
And it is not too late.

HISTORY IS LISTENING!.

Will we go quietly into this manufactured decline?
Or will we bellow from the belly of the people,
until the sky remembers our name?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

In the afterglow of your beautiful loving heart
lives a flower that blooms each and every day
Planted deep within, you are the great thou art
of my living soul's reveal, you are the way !

Dazzling me with brightness and effulgence
you are a glowing candle in the thick of night
With luminosity you touch on my resurgence
helping me revive, a long lost dormant light;

You are a gleam, a glint, a polished diamond stud
an opalescent being who grants prismatic hues
Seeded in your garden I know that I am loved
above all else, ... and it is I that you did choose

You are the afterglow of love's most precious gift,
the bridge across forever, that never goes adrift.

The wheat we'd planted grew the summer through
Wind and rain and sun all came and just the same
The sprouted kernels rooted down, sky-blued up
Sun's warmth, clouds' rain, wind and calm came

July brought ripening fields turning gold
"Still too early," my father told us as we gazed
Then a week before August, our old truck rolled
And stopped beside bearded fields now hazed

By coming autumn dust. Our father strode into the rows
Snapped off three heads and felt the beards,
Crushed them as his millstone-hands rolled,
Then paused to see the produce of the year.

Phwwww! He blew. Hulls and beards flew down,
Left hard red berries cupped shallow in his old hands
Threw several seeds between his teeth and ground
We heard them cracking, forming gum.

"It's time," he said, and Harvest had begun.

A little bird has flown the nest
                     to seek a world of wonder
and spreads her wings 'neath skies possessed      
                     by lightning bolts and thunder.

She flees approaching hurricanes
                     her feathers, white, aflutter,
and travels over vast terrains
                     of broken stones and clutter.

And though she swoops to skirt the curse
                     her hopes are torn asunder,
for on the ground’s a universe
                     of raging death and plunder.

The sands below have hid all trace
                     of olive trees and clover
where splintered bones now span a space
                     which rolling dunes pass over.

In search of silent secrets stored
                     by enemies uncertain
the loons will surf with waterboard,
                     well masked behind a curtain.

Beneath the bats that flee in fright
                     from hell that’s in the making
(so hot, the corpse of night ignites),
                     the thread of life is breaking.

A sudden burst and numbing noise
                     (replacing sounds of laughter)
lead army boots o’er children’s toys
                     debouching towards disaster.

Barrages break and rivers bleed
                     in everywhere down under
but nonetheless there’s flesh for feed
                     wherever buzzards blunder.

The aged, youth and embryos,
                     through wanton death, are waning -
the vultures, hawks and ebon crows,
                     well fed, are not complaining.

As carnage spreads (like ancient plagues),
                     a virus cruel and schlepping,
the lanes are lined with shattered legs
                     where e’er the goose was stepping.

A ducky quacks in hot pursuit
                     while seeking help and shelter,
but wizened owls give not a hoot
                     in worlds so helter-skelter
                    
The consequence of pillages,
                     where love of man surceases,
are craters, onetime villages
                     reduced to tiny pieces.

The gardens, white, where lilies bloomed,
                     now fallow fields of ashes,
are catacombs of cities doomed
                     'neath sonic booms and flashes.

Survivors traipsing place to place
                     like nomads forced to wander,
are searching for a piece of peace
                     within the distant yonder.

A savage world in smithereens
                     with olive branches burning -
disgruntled doves endure these scenes
                     through endless years of yearning.

The Gods of birds are of no use,
                     inept like Those of others -
so foes attack, with blessed excuse
{both sides claim right inside the night!}
                     while earth, in embers, smothers.

                     Epitaph

The cuckoos covet kingdom come  
                     while roosting on a rafter -
there’s food for all, though only chum,
                     in birdy-land hereafter.

the cops are at the door,
open the window,
toss me my running shoes.

out the window I went, left heaven,
down to the narrow street
into the welcomed night.

(my fair weather fade away.)

you have the prettiest eyes
the sky ever knew

so please don't be surprised
to find me one day at your window

some cold december night
holding plastic flowers for you

so love the thief who tried steal your heart,
and plastic flowers never fade.

everything’s complicated
everything’s a struggle
have you noticed?
it’s a psychological horror
is this feeling the ‘adult disillusionment’ I keep hearing about?

I mean, things work, if you sit on them like an egg—
if your mother things along and helicopter a result.
I mean, what do people do who don't have
my resources and sunny disposition?

I get America’s increasing paranoia but I think that it's *** backwards. Even if someone's were out to ‘get’ you, no one actually cares about doing their job anymore. There's just so little competence around, that the dysfunction feels intentional. And because you need something and you’re helpless, you can't help but feel targeted.

But I think I figured it out, so let me elucidate—they aren't giving YOU bad service, it isn't personal—everyone is getting bad service, two pieces of chicken in the box when you ordered three, five day delivery when you’re clearly paying for two, failure’s become routine—endemic.

My go-to phrase has become, “What’ll it cost?” (the answer, usually: twice as much) “Make it so,” I say, swiping something with my Apple Watch, and suddenly, everything works!
.
.
A song for this:
decide to be happy by MisterWives