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I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.
 May 2012 Taibhsear
Georgina Ann
I can't stop day dreaming about that little freckle
nestled in the hairs of your right eyebrow,

The way you scuff your Nikes across the asphalt,

How you taste like Moscato and always keep quarters in your pockets.

I love the hairs on the underside of your jaw,
the ones sleeping under your skin.
They're all wrapped up in you;
Just like me.

The way that gold chain sits on your chest gives me goosebumps.
I love to drag the heavy cross pendant
back and forth, when I'm lying across you.

I can feel it click... over every link.
Its tiny tremor wiggles through my hand.

I melt, when you cup my face
in your gently rugged paw.

So I just quiver
and try not to drip
through the cracks in your fingers
 May 2012 Taibhsear
Tag Williams
Rain falling on a mountain top
one drop at a time, dissolving,
changing, rearranging,
the shape of the world
and so we wear down continents.
one drop at a time.

Thoughts falling on a fertile mind
one idea at a time, dissolving,
changing, rearranging
the shape of the world,
and so we wear down prejudice.
one idea at a time.

Earth collides along a fault line
one inch at a time, building,
changing, rearranging,
the shape of the world
and so we build vast continents,
one inch at a time.

Compassion holds out hands of hope
one kindness at a time, building,
changing, rearranging,
the shape of the world
and so we build community,
one kindness at a time.
Full moon--
lone traveler
in a boat of white cloud,
drifts across the silent dark
night sky.

(C)2002, Christos Rigakos
Cinquain
Call a                          doctor/ plumber/ priest
My heart is               broken/ leaking/ deceased

My life is                   worthless/ so much better/ over
I'm going to              **** myself/ tell your wife/ Dover

How could you         leave me/ not know/ lie?
I hope you                return my stuff/ come back/ die

I'll never                   forget you/ forgive you/ go away
I need                        closure/ a DNA test/ to tell you I'm gay

Your                           face/ crotch/ top of your back
Is                                so beautiful/ lumpy/ unusually slack

Your                           ex/ mother/ best friend from school
Always made me      great coffee/ feel inadequate/ drool

I will                           miss you/ **** you/ stalk you forever
That way we can      be friends/ get away with it/ be together

I'm sorry                   you did this/ I did this /we failed
I promise to               pay you/ dye it back/ get you bailed
Please don't               leave me/ show the Polaroids/ write or call


(*delete as appropriate, just delete it all.....)
Mao
wrote a
Little Red Book

an
at the ready

inexhaustible
arsenal

of
quotations

instant ammo

for bandoleros
of correctness

flinging barbs

more deadly
then a cocked
AK

virulent
vanguards

of screaming
proletarian
heroes

whippin em out

to shout down

the running dogs
of capitalism

sprouting
reactionary
bourgeois
schemes

a
sure
quive­r

of razor
sharp

ideological
stilettos

appropriate
weapons

of
respo­nse

for the
heated
struggle

against
incorrect
ideas

instant
revelations­

of carefully
selected
corrections

uncovered

by fevered
thumbs

*******
dog eared
pages

the
indexed
platitudes

uphold
the sacred

holy
dogmas

of convicted
minds

firmly
convinced

in the
comfortable
certitude

of their
derangement

In college
we carried

our
Red Books

in frayed
pockets
of dingy
flannel shirts

but
Lennon
unlike
Warhol
didn't
like
Mao

so we
dropped
Lenin
and
listened
to
Dylan
tracks

hysterically
laugh­ing
tickled
to death

with
Marx Brothers
Horse Feathers

Down
on
funky
Broadway

we
traded
our
Dashikis

for
coo­l

Che
emblazoned
tees

a weekly
special

at the
Silk City
boutique

whom
the
capitalists

cleverly
omitted

breast
poc­kets.

leading us
to displace
our Red Books

forcing us
to adopt

the
revolutionary
logos

of store front
entrepreneurs

Teabagger's
have

a little
red, white and
blue book.

They call it
the Constitution.

Its more of a
totem

a convenient
fetish

the Koch
Brothers
believe

empowers
them

to
pursue

the liberty
of

an unbridled
id

and the
freedom

of banksters
and oil companies

to swallow
anything

that they

can sink

their

insatiable
fangs

into

laissez faire
tolerance

for their
gluttony

is codified

by the grand
celestial
ledgers

of a greedy
God

down with
capitalism

Qadhafi,
has a
Green Book

he holds
it like
hand
mirror

peering into
his vanities

infatuated
with the
beauty
of terror

the
perfect
reflection

of his heinous
malevolence

the fiat
of his
ad hocracy

the
repressive
rules
of totalitarianism

are all
spelled out

the gory
details of

corporal rule
and capital
punishment

suggestively
enforced with

the stern
mutterings

of dictatorial
diatribes

the certain
cruelty

of whip
and stick


Morning Joe
has a book

the incessant
suggestions

of righteous
Reaganisms

a self serving
rhetoric

a stirring
oratory

of narcissistic
prattle

the banal hum

of feigned
wisdom

egoistic
affectations

cuddled and
encouraged

by star stricken
Mika

the critical
thesis

its first rule

thou shall not speak
ill of any other
republicon

the infallibility
of potentates

is always
self evident



Oakland
2/27/11
jbm

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