In matters of love,
Trust your first reaction, this is the true you.

In matters of trust,
Listen to your second reaction, this is the instinctive you.

In matters of work,
Listen to your third reaction, this is the intelligent you.

In matters of doubt,
Listen to others, your mind is easily deceived.

Rose was a Red
Dodgers are blue
We're stealing signs
How 'bout you?

Cheat like this
Not like that
One's okay
The other picked at

Keep to tradition
Not technology
Yeah it's confusing
So is most any ideology

Hong Kong China crunch
clash of ideologies—
iron mixed with clay

i promise ill betray you
the more you hold on your to assumptions and emotions
the more ill play with you
all those ideas from faceless voices in the maze
you’ve inherited happily
because who has the time to think on their own?

let me rant awhile
for what good it may do
to open the valve
if only briefly

for as one wave
after another
of sheer indignity
is reported

survivor guilt
courses through me
yet even this
was not mine to choose

for I don't happen to
have been born
Jewish
or black -

and that doesn't make me
more -
or less -
worthy of dignity

but I can observe closely
what it is like
to be pilloried
and persecuted

for one's peaceful contacts
and communications
holding personal beliefs
at odds with a regime

and a rage
courses through me
on contemplating
'man's inhumanity to man' -

though written long ago
that the world would be so,
where hatred would replace
kindness, love, empathy

I deplore the way
an ideology
of one disturbed,
possessed person

can lead to millions
donning a uniform,
henceforth labelling
one sector of humankind

'persona non grata'

to be mercilessly pursued
in legitimized genocide,
even savaging
little children

frightened lads
caught on the run
made to hold arms
for food

mamas with babes in arms
forced to watch them
dashed to pieces
then buried alive underground

their infant cries still heard
while their mothers were ***** -
as beleaguered, beautiful Estonia
was brought to it's knees...

and I weep and rant
feel knives in my gut
blood pulsing swift -
then take hold of myself

seek to understand,
if that be possible,
even a smidgen
of such distorted thinking

to delve into the mind
of a hateful deviate
for but a moment
and remain intact

so I scan his written mantra
and come to see that
all deeply held convictions
must have at its core

RESPECT

lest it attract the weak
and easily led,
or those forced into submission
seeking to simply stay alive

and they find themselves
taking part
in a forest fire
of polluted propaganda

a flood of merciless
devastation,
while their deluded leader
continues to spout forth venom

in the distorted notion
that they would actually
be acting in society's
best interests

or worse still:
'in the name of God'
(Acts 5:39;
Hosea 4:1-3)

There’s this other person I see sometimes,
In a daze, in the brain maze
Blue midnight, oil lamp haze
Crescent moon behind grey clouds
Here I am talking aloud
Golden dream fields around lonely hill
Where angry river water meets the sea
Where dozens die and hundreds flee
And there’s only me, me and me.

Steal some money
For a wish at the wishing well
Don’t hate just anyone
For it costs much
And
There are very few who are worthy of the price

belief is a box
open at the top
but still you stand

conscious like rocks
atoms like fear
lay tight
of change so
still you stand

aware the nuance of life
cannot be explained in one breath
so still you stand
... in the box

". . .poverty robs individuals of the life of the mind, of spiritual comfort and of the consolations of intimacy and emotional bonds."

-Maura Spiegel,
Introduction to 'The Jungle' 2003 edition, Barnes and Noble Classics

I walked among fire
And felt the heat,
The hearth the life,
The world a barren canvas

I took those steps
And found white light my pure feeling
Shared smiling lips amongst ourselves and took on lovers
In feelings we took for each other, bundled
Like reeds so thin

We walked together, arm in arm
Pebbles scattered at our feet in the red dirt,
And thought blood, blood
blood can be our cry from now

We took those days in hand
And led them on
Dried their succulence in the sun
Tasted never
Not for their promise.

And that promise wilted, like so many flowers
Those white lights grew dimmer
As we walked towards them through rushes, our fingers
Spider-like on the veil of what we wanted.

We got there, and saw the light was out
The candle never burned, the feeling never lived
Our eyes for what could be
Wetted with what was
And we lived on in the world of short, long days.