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Why write, Sally, you who are alive
today, the twenty-seventh of January year
two hundred thousand and nine?

Why write: let me spell it for you.
There are twenty-four hours in a day,
and sixty minutes in each hour.
I hope that of these multitudes I can spend
at least one-sixth sleeping;
from eight o’clock to four I attend school
(this being a modern and stable state
dedicated to the well-being and
improvement of its youth)
Beyond this there are the tasks assigned
to me by others,
by myself,
and by the universe.

Write: because the spoken word does not become me.
Write: because the spoken word is far too easy.
Write: because there are few who care about remembering,
but that is what this day is about

The time for war is over.
laugh and say,
naive youth – activist pacifist environmentalist feminist artist
and I shall say
Yes.
This is the twenty-first century,
it has been long enough now.

Sleepless

I'm a little iffy about putting this as my first post here, as I have several things I'd like to change. Or just scrap completely. But Mitch told me to get on it, so here it is. Ideas would be nice, because right now it a) goes no where and b) is more like a bunch of sentences than a poem.
Much love,
Sally


Sleep, I said sleep I said, you need to stop thinking all the time I said, sleep,

but instead I opened the window and
nearly slitting my wrist on the sill
stepped into the night (sky that we thought was black but
really white and grey with water
tiny shining drops reflecting thousands of city lights
glowing mockeries of the stars they hid)

I was suddenly standing in the rain,
surprised, I had not expected it.

When I lived much closer to the road,
the pounding music and trucks that rolled by at two in the morning
were my lullaby and ever since
the sound of traffic has made me calm.

Once, when I was small
and felt more alone than the last living thing
I waved at trash-collector man
as he stopped by the kerb
late night in the rain
He smiled and waved back.

I remember the incessant rain but more clearly
the unearthly beep of the trash truck
more like something you hear while you sleep
and remember years later,
the recollection welling up
and engulfing you with aching familiarity

(That's all you really need in life,
some one who smiles and waves back.)

Utopia

Utopia

I sit here

dreaming of what could be

but I am enfranchised to the crulest of

all masters.

They have me bound up

and they want to cut at me

with a dull knife.

I am pressed to the ground.

Mud covers my face and

they can't look me in they eye

and see the horror of what they are doing.

They neglect the scars

and are blind to what was.

I feel a bolt of enegry

rush through my body.

I jolt but the rope

digs into my skin.

I remember then

when everying was more complicated

and look at it from now and I

realize that

it wasn't better then

and it won't ever be better.

A stone is applying pressure

to my face

and

I cannot

move to

get it away.

I want to tell them

to free me from my chains

and that I will comply 

but they hold my mouth shut.

I know what is going to happen.

The knife is cold

and my blood is warm and I can

feel it running down.

I am nothing.

If I could scream,

I would.

Only a slient

groan is emitted 

from my mouth.

And I see what I was,

being eaten by a dog...

"Teacher."

Oatmeal every morning
Clean up the floor if it's dirty
Laundry is a happy task
Remake the bed if it's misshapen
And leave for school
Forty-five minutes early

Like the pin ball in a machine
there's only so many options
of what to do, where to roll
the highest score recorded
how fast to accelerate
from the starting point

but faced with mortality
and something that might come to an end
sea salt on my face
seems like a pleasant vacation
from pin ball machines and routines
look up at gulls and feel down into sand

And the beached jellyfish in Mexico
Or the tourist crowds of Hawai'i
Maybe with Mom, building castles with my brother
Or watching your cousin tan like a cookie
to golden brown?

a private place that would be hard
for others to find and others to seek
where we could go and smell the wind
watch the crashing waves rock back and forth
without any danger of drowning.

"Chairs."

Chairs.
That sit under a table
unlike the scrounging dog
black comfortable leather
and now that I think of it
matching black
to the speckles in the marble
the microwave vent
the stove top
and the oven
where spilled pizza once was.
A wise choice
for a modern home.

Untitled

the bum

the bum wanders 

from here to nowhere 

he doesn’t want to be

here yet he chooses

to go nowhere

there is his utopia

visible to us yet 

barely to him

and chooses to stay 

here and to go nowhere

and he is the grand

malingerer 

without ambition

for his own ideas

and without

ambition he is free

to construct the

destruction of time

the chicken is a

symbol wandering 

in a sober stupor

waiting for the end

and they collect by

the cesspools to

take a drink

and they stand 

in the rain to wash

their feathers

of the mud that

stains them

this is our credo. image-driven poetry, symbolism for sanctity;

this one isn't for the masses, however, which i regret--but we're working on that.
"endgame/."

sleep beneath
the moon, the
old guard of
the earth,
awaits you
I am older
than time
itself
I am the
roots of a
burned redwood
tree.
I am look-
ing from my
mountain perch,
between the mold-
ing crags of grey
peaks; the end-
game is an old
beastial thing
living
in a cave
the waves
lap
my feet.

The Initial.

here is your introduction to the juanucho cobbon sociedad de poesia. we are bosses, let's get that out of the way first. this really doesn't fit our credo but enjoy,
enjoy.

"jam I."

if i was dead with a gun to my head
in crossfire, friendly, of a poetry slam
what glam would you come in with?
What kind of uncle sam goddamn
Best shit ever written, righteous
like thirteen stripes eclipse fifty stars,
I am you and you are I, why?
do you know me, my mother?
well, shit mom, mother poetry
is destroying me.