what do i have to say
to keep the zebra stripes
from falling off and leaving only white?

what do i have to do
to keep the herd of restless rhino
from stampeding you?

what do i have to be
to get the giraffe to come and eat
from our acacia tree?

peace is less than me
and more than you
but we are almost free

A lot of people come here just to survive
I'm **** lucky but I'm not better than anyone
It's such a beautiful world

It's such a fallen world
I have this dream that I want to build a home
for a lot of people and myself too

I try to be happy and strong
but I cover up so much fear
that I don't know who I am

so I'm really dangerous.
France, Korea, Panama, Kenya, Greece
it may sound nice and international

but it's hard to feel accepted
when things change so much
I think family is really important

especially siblings.

Life is not a lie
Life is not a fantasy
Life is enough to pain you

Life is so close to death
Guard your entry points
You influence them, they influence you

You could bring voice to a community
Whether you fail or not, you try
The way you think needs to be heard.

We make a fuss about the dying
but what can we do for the dying?
Be a neighbor

Be a friend

We can be easily broken.
I have enough skeletons in my closet.
In spite of the inequalities

all of us are spiritual beings
and the one thing that is equal
is the value of everyone's soul

Jesus is very straight:
You want to come with me? 
Come

A baby sea turtle in my hands:
the outer islanders call him Wol,
he will be a nomad, if anyone will.
What will the world look like to him?
Will he dream of killer whales,
those Swiss Cake Rolls of the sea?
Of winning the three hearts
of an octopus?
See what the turtle sees,
and rejoice.

The sea turtle, like the human, cries saltwater
and the tears cover two-thirds of the earth.
He risks pirate ship, cigarette boat, Chinese net.
He mistakes bait for food. (Who doesn’t?)
But he can swim away from; swim towards:
India, Mombasa, New Zealand, Ulithi.
The world's a turtle’s home,
why is anyone a nomad if not for this?
See what the turtle sees
and rejoice, carrying only
the markings on your shell.

A jungle.
A shack.
Half a moon.
Islands sprinkled like tiny green beads
across the Water of the Sky.
A first tattoo—seven little turtles--
and it hurts in a good way
like the world does.
Dear Creator
keep me from evil
keep my life
keep my going out and my coming in

If the time ever comes
when human touch
is taken from you

(because you are
sick or in solitary
or castaway or...)

you will understand
how much
you need it:

your skin will ache
as a riverbed
cracks

for
want
of rain;

you will never take it
for granted
again

"Teej" Julie Teasdale  aka MasikaniCrocodile aka Crocodile of Happiness has taken her life after suffering from bipolar disorder. She was 27. She's home with Jesus now, God I miss her.

All her HP family are invited to the service Sunday night at 1897 Little Snowbird RD Robbinsville NC 28771. I would love to give and receive hugs from any of you who were touched by her poetry. Trust me, she was the most beautiful, kind, sincere, meek person you could ever know. She was my best friend since the day I was born and my heart is shredded on my knees crying Lord, Lord.
You can see pics and get some more of her writing at her facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/teejs?fref=ts

-Robbie Teasdale

"Teej" Julie Teasdale  aka MasikaniCrocodile aka Crocodile of Happiness has taken her life after suffering from bipolar disorder. She was 27. She's home with Jesus now, God I miss her.

All her HP family are invited to the service Sunday night at 1897 Little Snowbird RD Robbinsville NC 28771. I would love to give and receive hugs from any of you who were touched by her poetry. Trust me, she was the most beautiful, kind, sincere, meek person you could ever know. She was my best friend since the day I was born and my heart is shredded on my knees crying Lord, Lord.
You can see pics and get some more of her writing at her facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/teejs?fref=ts

-Robbie Teasdale

Look at us, I'm carrying a basket made of trash
and you're carrying a mouse, well
the dog chewed up your glasses
but you're still rockin it
you have a single drop of coffee on your nose,
we're ready to go to D.C.

I had another where-are-we moment, it was fun.
Good, that's downtown Baltimore right there,
****** capital of the world.  

An elaborate mural graffiti.
Wall after brick wall.
A rustbelt city like Grand Rapids
Detroit Cincinnati.

Did you sleep well?
Yes I woke up feeling like a clam in a cocoon.
A sea creature inside of a forest insect, okay.

I've wasted too much time on both desire and regret.
Yellow bridge.
Blue-green supports.
Singer on the radio saying, we're young right now.

There's a healthy and an unhealthy way of dealing with pain,
I'm sorry for my selfish behavior in the islands.
I want to go back and leave a better legacy.
'Word.'

Last night to come see you I drove I-95 N, the overpass
and though the rest of the city was really moving
I was all alone up there, it was like
driving in the sky.

We pass signs saying: Icy Conditions:
bridges and ramps freeze first.
And a billboard: Learning Kick Flips
Takes Work, So Does College

We listen to our favorite island song:
love the islands, love the islands, oh.

You look like a rasta snowboarder girl
There's something really right
about having you in this car

If I were from Africa or Brazil
or one of those places,
where I slept on a mat in a little room,
America would be weird to me.
Because of like food commercials.
McDonald's.  Or Tempur Pedics!
Where it's all about comfort
and they're worried about the arc
in their bed, and I mean,
I'm sleeping on a mat.

I think about myself too much
and I don't think about other people
as much as I would want to.
I want to think about how others are feeling
when I talk to them, you know?
I've tried to drop all stereotypes
because really everyone
has an individual category.
And I think everyone has at least
a small amount of mercy.
Even if they don't show or choose it.

And I love Mom.  
So much

Saint Jude says what's up
been in Boston all night
having coffee and tea, I bet
you're doing the same
in Tibet or wherever

They tried everything
on you: the secret arrests
burned Rumi books
poisoned coconut water
giraffes with broken faces

Loneliness is the door to the traps
but you know
who you are
I know too when I see you
on the coast

as still, as skinny as
one of my African statues
as lithe as a palm frond or a jellyfish
You were always going to get free
you were always going to get free

At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he

learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite

My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee

Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.

When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks

sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions

while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas

My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'

He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes

which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off

we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight

My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night

smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds

i want you to know
that every time i see you

i see more of god's work in your life
his love in your eyes

baby we've been crying
these crocodile tears

and everyone said oh
those are just crocodile tears

but i know where i've been
and what you've seen

we were sitting cross legged
quiet and together

in the jungle
when the jungle started praying

started saying
oh crocodile tears

man of sorrows
walk this path with you

i don't know much of anything
i'm just a crocodile

crying prison chains
crying freedom songs

in a world
full of crocodiles

lean on my shoulder crocodile
crocodile let's go home

We called it the summer of love
no drugs though
no ***
just love

and Oahu
and our kids
from New Jersey
and India and Egypt

arguments about pineapples
the chicken in the fire escape
ocean chemistry and don't let me fall
and that last dance when we were all crying

because
the magic
of childhood
had been recovered

please help
us fragile
human creatures
to remember
our dreams

Oh Jesus time by the pink and purple sunset
Thinking of a traveling guitar boy,
of chai sleep broken by dying beggars
all trying to tell me something.
If the ocean lights don't call us home
we could backpack to the crocodile places
eat thirteen camels with the people
smoke tea and rainy day cigarettes.
Heartache sits like snow on the roof
of the hollow hut Connecticut.
The kids tried too many times for nothing.
Mom dream better for me
Wear your peace face
I'm trying to change

You're talking France nostalgia while upstairs
the weaver makes seven-dollar laments
for international slum chickens.
We can't do better than the break-bone average
reading scorched Chalbi newspapers
hacking coughs and statii soup for company.
Bukowski's in Mumbai eating cheddar
My siblings are in cages down in Egypt
The Spanish Communist cowboys
spill Turkana survivors on the floor of the Greyhound bus

Is there a hood idealist, ghetto healer?
My Sacramento roommate's drinking skeleton coffee
in the bathtub, she's got the Arab fever, so have I,
and not much else but these crazy plague jackets
this hungry smoking December
and Rumi's kids in cold-bread streets with protest signs.
We're easier taught the panic than the magic or the save,
There's too much strange and midnight waste.
You didn't know I needed you but you came through.
You're shimmering in clothes of saxaphone

never knew you
except from
far away

never loved you
except from
far away

never
except for
in poems and colors

and  
...
you know

i never wanted to give
you anything more
than what you wanted.

tonight i was thinking
if the moon were one
of the eyes of God

would it rain every night,
or some nights shine so bright
that even the sleepiest birds

couldn't help singing?
i know
you remember.

dear india,
just one
question:

if you're gone, which you are,
and i'm gone, which i am,
gone like refugees,

why do you
keep showing up
in my dreams?

Crowds of weary people
shuffle from life to life

in the bellies of subways
claws of escalators

past booths of seven-dollar coffees
taking off shoes and jackets

as a voice in the roof says that
the flight to Mumbai,

or wherever, is now boarding.
All of it disappears

because--after these many years--
your face

(I shrug off
my backpack)

your voice
in my ears

dear lord i
want to do
things i will

not regret eternally
i sleep in
your hammock love

i am no

longer in

hiding

but rather waking
to the silence
of my hut

to the how-are-you-this-mornings
of the secret friend
and friends

singing
songs
to

each other as
the semis roar
by on the

highway headed for
nyc or maybe
bridgeport

dear lord thank
you for life
for this hut

for this blanket
please wrap your
grace around those

who are doing
without wrap it
around me that

i may wrap
it around others
heal us and

we'll be healed
save us and
we'll be saved

to me it seems that the truly rich
are the contemplative,
the homed
are the ones
who can find a home
or create one
for someone else
the orphaned
are the ones who have forgotten
to look into the soul of the world
and one another's eyes

the blessed are the ones
who find themselves cradled
in the arms of the stars
feeling themselves more beloved
than anyone on earth
knowing the Creator
wishes everyone
to feel like that

knowing
love is waiting:
like a favorite woven hammock
in the jungle between the betel-nut and the soursop tree

like the tiny waves that seek the shore
to say hello over and over
to kiss the cheeks
of the hermit *****

like the seahorse clouds
brilliant orange and red
mirroring the ocean until
the whole world is a sunset,
i am in the sunset, i am the sunset

and the sun never really sets after all
it's bringing light to india
kenya hawai'i
it will
be back

cook rice

add plenty
butter,
salt,
pepper

add cookies and cream
or any ice cream

mix it up

every life is unique and connected


no one understands
all or even
most of
human existence

sometimes you need
encouragement

sometimes god really
does cut you
a break

sometimes idols crack
asking whom do i serve
when i try to create
a little celebrity
out of a soul which is
too precious
to be reduced to numbers
what is a world
whose creatures
hide inside machines
fear of humans
is enough of
a prison
fear of thoughts
they probably aren't even thinking

but who knows
in this world
at least the brothers tell the truth

whom shall i fear and what

control is an illusion
when the tsunami
almost comes
i see we all
must go to
the calling
only

like you taught me
if you're going to believe something
believe it

everyone has to come out
about something, i had
to come out about cannabis

it's true there's two sides to everything
if i judge you
i condemn myself

i don't know
where those tears
have been

rhino pi and i by the fireplace tonight
rhino gives me his soft stripe sweatshirt
purple black white red i say i'll wear it
and think of you all over the world
and bring it back full of
stories and
mice and
fire

i was writing into the abyss
when i was in the abyss,
when the abyss
was me,
no longer

who jesus bless no man curse

born again
into a rhythm of
waves and reggae

hey hey hey
it's you
i've been waiting for

no one remembers the reunions
of those who came before,
what they did or them at all

except the Creator

who transcends lies and clocks
who creates in wisdom acacias and watermelons and whales
who keeps our tears in his bottles

i bow my head at the door of his hut
i stand by the light of his fire
my bread i accept from his hand

how lonely sits
the city says
lamentations

guess this mouse has what you americans call post traumatic
stress disorder,
think of it more like
a path for the
eyes.

one where eyes are finally forced away
from the works of hands
by the knock knock
knocking on
heaven's door,
everybody's saying,
hodi hapa? something's
wrong if no one's answering; tonight.

my neighbor whose
name is eej (for
real) came to
the hut with
his friend.

i said do you
have siblings
he said
i did

oh

said i

you are living
my worst nightmare
one thing about an african

childhood, they say fatalism, you say you
would think about death too
and who knows

what you'd
look
like

tonight by the bagel van i said bunkle
i gotta problem
what's your problem said he
well i think i'm not wearing enough colors
no said he you're missing a bright splash in the orange red family

who knows what we all look like
inside the infinite space
of our souls

wonder if
blue means purity or
green means beauty
or red means strength
or love
or love

well
we all look
pretty much
the same asleep

hatred doesn't look
different in one
eye or another

but why does
it have to
be in the
eyes of
anyone

this mouse has
been asking
since
child
hood

why
why
why.

the cruelty

but
yet
still
and
for
ever

(you always did care for me yeah
you always did share with me yeah)

you always make me laugh, still

the book of jonah makes me
think of sea legs
and just everything,
you know all
the palm trees
huts, nonvoices
of our lives

the blessings rain down
an ocean sunsetting
on an Ocean sky.

siblings

be strong the
good kind of
dangerous

is
the



fire

there's a lot
of love out
waiting to be

loved

a lot of
fires waiting to
be lit lord

your kingdom come

in my island
in my desert
in my city
in my family
in my friend
in me

there's a lot
of silence waiting
to be heard

sleep to sleep
in peace and
safety

there's a lot
of love
waiting

to be
loved

who god bless
no one curse

a turtledove being
attacked by wild
beasts doesn't wait
to cry

out for help
or for You
nor do I
all I ask

for is You
to fight for
me since I
seem to be

too weak; You
and I have
been here before;
I have not

forgotten
Your
kindnesses

so i've been thinking
don't tell anybody
where we're going
and don't worry
about anything
baby that
challenger
deep
will eat
up the tsunamis like
ice cream sandwiches

i'm 9 in nairobi
playing foosball with a masai man
whose lip and earlobe
(both well-stretched)
bounce against his face,
he hangs lip over nose,
ears over ears,
we play on

funny, those kinds of scars
began with young women,
east african, who
fearing ****
and kidnap
from the north,
cut holes
in lip, in earlobe,
lifted skin of stomach
to slice smooth turtleshell shapes,
rubbed camel dung in wounds for better

scars,
which meant:
resistance, meant:
freedom, meant:
don't take me away,
don't steal my life.
funny
those scars
mean beauty now.
funny, these scars
on my wrist, funny how
much i love life now.
funny scars

Pax.
Pax.
Be with you.

Peace train.
Peace Corps.
Power to the peaceful.

Peace or violence?
The peace of the grave?
Shalom, amani, pagas:

Peace.
To the far off.
In the streets.
Peace child.

Peace.
Strums a guitar.
The sound of the stars.
Your face in my heart.

Blessed are those who make: peace
on earth,
between brothers,
with God.

Peace
of path.
Of mind.
Of sleep.

Peace
I leave with you.
Peace, foreigner

I was trying
to say that
the ocean and

the night sky
are two of
my closest friends

that we are
called to be
two of the

dreamers, of
those on the
paths of silence

who often find
themselves with hands
and heads pressed

up against the
wailing walls of
a world where

man has power
over man to
his hurt.

Yet Love waits
like a pool
of stars on

the ocean’s face
waiting for us
to step into

it; friend,
brother,
I was trying

to say:
Christ never leaves
me orphan nor

you

.

Last night I ate broccoli and cheddar soup
from Panera
--in a breadbowl

which I gave to my mouse, Chai;
now I am at the typewriter,
we are listening to Ziggy.

And with Chai sitting inside of it
the breadbowl looks like
a little mud hut in Mali

please be patient with me my brother
cause this is what the crash looks like
i flew so high i knew the sky
was my friend
and now i can't get more than half awake
these drugs got me in a zombie state
the asylum didn't help and all this heartbreak
isn't helping and i know you'll understand,
i'll feel better someday

but i don't yet

a fire always burns beautiful
but whether it keeps you warm or scorches you
depends on whether it's your home
that's burning into
only ashes left
i wish i had the will to play
i wish that i had more to say
but please be patient
cause i don't yet

i don't yet
i don't yet
i know we haven't seen the end yet
so i promise to hold on, hold on, hold on,
i've never been one
to give up on
something as beautiful as you
i know time heals but i beg you to understand
why only sleep feels real today
i wish i had the strength to limp
i wish i had the strength to speak
but i don't yet
not yet

beg the weeping
heavens for me
please don't let it rain like this for too long
unless this rain means new beginnings
i can't see if it does or not

not yet
not yet
not yet

i'm so sorry for these howling cries
but this is what the crash sounds like
jesus jesus jesus
are you weeping
with me? you emptied
yourself and nobody
understood and unlike
me you were perfect,
you were patient,
as everyone betrayed,
as everyone walked away.
i haven't resisted to the point of death, i won't
till you call me home which i know is
not yet
not yet
not yet

amin abba amin
i belong to you
you won't let me go
not yet
not yet
not ever

amin abba amin

don't be alone
we have all fallen
through the broken bridge's cracks

don't be alone
the worth of our souls
is equal

don't be alone
we are spiritual siblings
sharing this nest of ripped up newspapers

don't be alone
we are all mice
in the shed of god

i just can't stay
in babylon
all the time
i got to get out or i
forget
which world
is real
i have to sit
in the hut
on my own
crossed legs
i got to light
a candle
beat a drum
or just listen
to the music
of the jungle bird
gandhi's standing
on my head
singing
there's always room
for one more
in africa
and heaven

minds crazy
again confusing

love

for broken bones,
all night we ask

for help, who
comes?  you

sway to bird
and saxaphone

rejoice at
near-miss

rescue

escapee, we
tried to give you

baskets
of reasons

not to love us unconditionally
but you love us unconditionally

so we sleep
in the hand
of the sky

Pain holds my hand and won't let go,
I blister at his touch, walk weeping
by his side and wake to his embrace.
Pain holds my hand.

Pain holds my hand and won't let go,
I weep beside the river, step into its waters
begging for relief, Pain looks on, he
holds my hand.

From blisters ooze our blood and plasma,
down our hands, onto our feet. Pain says
to me: Do you wish now to escape?  I know
not what to say.  Mute, I hold his hand.

Pain holds my hand, he never lets me go.
I writhe and weep and finally look
into his bloodshot eyes; for he is weeping too,
Pain holds my hand, he weeps for me.

We walk three days through deserts dry,
Pain holds my hand.  From my blood he draws
the poisons of my sins.  Pain holds my hand,
he weeps for me.

'Acting like everything
is okay
when it isn't
creates a certain craziness,'
says Beetle, crouching
on the wooden  slat porch
to pick up half a cigarette.
'Because you are all
survivors,'
she goes on, 'so you
push people away
so they don't find out.'
Find out what,
I ask myself.
Find out me,
is I think the answer.
Because the question
behind the question
as always
is
could you  
love me?

this is a
song for the
brothers who survived
too much and
too many and
too long ago

it was written
what was written
this was written

what does it
mean to face
reality and accept--

everybody

need

some

hope some forgiving
some company all
of us need
to quiet the
mind and turn

up the music
take it easy
this is home

find the truth
of a truth
in a sea

of chaos, all
love is art
you are art

the world is
art and god
the ultimate

art
is
t
.
.
.

yeah
babies
guess what

i built an ecovillage thirty feet from the highway
pi planted 3 bamboo today
you gotta see it all

sometime
i know you will
it has you all over it

i love you
no more internet for me for awhile
***

the moon-stars

i wish
i could

change
the
world

Just a cousin and the stars
and talk of you, and 27 jail-years;
'Forgive or stay behind bars.'

But Nelly Mandelly,
I've got sand in my eyes
and lead in my belly.

Oh Nelly Mandelly
we do things with the best intent
yet hurt each other terribly.

I've got blood on my lips
and grenades in my belly.
Oh Nelly Mandelly:

as Johnny sang, who can blame
the voice of youth for asking:
what is truth?

Everyone I know wants
to be more free,
including me.

We've got songs on our lips
and the sky in our bellies.
Oh, Nelly Mandelly

An old man is sprawled
across my steps, in the night,
shouting for cigarettes,
crying out—as he does—
Lord, have mercy on a poor man’s soul.

**** or be killed.
That’s how it was
in North Vietnam.
He’d said that and pulled out London dry gin
to wash away only God knows what thought that got in--
I do not understand him
but I understand him
better than I used to.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to do right.
Have you ever collapsed the bridge under which you slept?
Leapt from your bed when the earthquake hit
or lay awake in it when the kids came to school
with black eyes and suicide eyes?

Blessed are the poor in spirit
but the kingdom hasn’t come yet
and the children are too beautiful for their own good
and I am not good enough.

I am on Your steps, crying
Lord have mercy
on Your poor kingdom

walking up the cold creek
thinking about the broken
branches that fall into

the water of the world,
thinking about the
poisons that pollute

the water of the world,
thinking about the
curses that make us

fall and drown and yet
today i have to say
the birds still sing

so beautifully i'm so thankful
for the brothers
and the friends
and the family

and i can say
well, bird, well,
hello, you,

many thanks
for
listening

My mind is a little street beggar boy
covered in scars and sores,
freezing by a bus stop,
no blanket nor expecting any.

                 …Tell me:
if you could remove
pain or fear
from your life
which would you choose?

Mind is a little beggar boy.
In a street market.
In a riot.
Not pretending
that a life of despair
is good enough for him
when it isn't,

more free,
more free,
so far surviving
slum and street,
decorated
with scars,
just as he is

meant to be

You in Georgia?  
Kentucky?
Oh **** man,
that's my vagabond girl right there.

Come here.
This place is full of you
your face is in it
and it's full of books.

I know what you're sensitive to
and I'm kind of an idealist.
We'll do it up.
Or down.

We can get scrappy!
That's our middle names.

Faith is a troubled word in muddy
clothes, walking with the unthinking,
the enraged, the **** tube prophets

Still: I believe a few things, like
that You exist
that You reward the seeker

that the greatest anything is love,
You always did say that:
'Love each other, love Me'

Faith reveals the invisible
hope which lifts sunken eyes to
Love

which is the only redemption
in the burning streets
of a condemned world.

Choosing a love ethic means knowing
you are connected
to every other life

and even to eternity
which Tagore describes
as the place where nothing can vanish:

no hope
no happiness
no vision of a face seen through tears

Why
do we call the blues
blue?  I'm playing on
your blues guitar,
wondering how you are.
Blues, blues.

My mind walks the streets
of saxaphone,
experience,
cigarette smoke--
like Radiohead says,
I don't care if it hurts,
I want a perfect soul.

Blues, blues.
The Yapese call blue
'ran mak'ef'
the water of the reef,
the blue within the blue,
beyond the blue--more blues

than these eyes have ever seen,
than this mind has ever known.
We only call the blues blue
because there is often something
so beautiful
in sadness.

Don't worry, I have nothing to say.
I'm throwing up blood anyway.

I'm hungry, lost, broke.  Whatever, happy.

I don't have time to care that you look down.
I don't have time for my excuses.
It's okay that neither of us understands.

I am so loved and so lonely,
so lonely and so loved. Both.

I'm not running anymore.  Not dying of thirst anymore.

I write to be known. I am known: me, by Jesus, we've been traveling.
Call me crazy,
okay.

Don't worry, I have nothing to say. I'm listening.

Do you miss me like I miss you?  
Do I miss you like you miss me?

I'm standing on weird edges
There's blood in the sky
There's a boy named Pi.

The night is black, so
old blood.  So cruelty,
I've had enough.

I was born with barbed-wire sickness.

Is your blood running high?
Blood is life,
don't spill it.

Watch the mind of day
become the mind of night.
Better is the house of mourning,

better the sky at night,
I can hear God better.
Blood runs from our eyes.

Are you facing the sky,
boy named
Pi?

it's not that
you claim it

rather it
claims you

it's not the box
on a customs checklist

it's the island
calling you home

the devil allegedly
comes to steal **** destroy
which sounds like a lot of work

but probably isn't
in a place like this
even a first-grade massacre

won't undistract
us for long; the devil
doesn't have to cook

a *** of tsunami
or epidemic or
genocide

all he has to do is let us
worship shiny toys
on the altar of Time

and as ever
i'm as guilty
as anyone

I am sitting by a fire with a cup of chai,
in Africa somewhere, thinking
of twenty dead children.
The Turkana women keen in the dark.
‘Woitokoi,’ they say, ‘Woitokoi,’
a call of lament.
Oh, mom.
It’s your babies
It’s your babies

I rarely turn on the radio, but do tonight.
14th of December.  Cooking coconut curry.
I watch the last red and gold fall behind skeleton trees
and step out into the cold with my guitar and Willie Nelson’s
‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.’
Is anyone watching the sparrows falling?

You mothers who have lost a child,
you fathers who have lost a child,
have gone where none can follow
but One who loves you, loves me,
even school shooters, maybe;
One who hates evil
for what it destroys,
One who
(for this love
and hatred)
listens to His son say:
Father
Father
Why have you forsaken me.
One who says to you now:
though father and mother forsake you
yet I will not forsake you--


I am sitting by a fire in Shelton, Connecticut,
thinking of twenty dead babies.
Oh mom.  Mom.
It’s your babies.
It’s your babies.
It’s your babies