Blackout II

Does the black out of a few days ago teach a valuable lesson to we the energy sluts?
One would hope,
but I fear the stark reality is that like most potential lessons learned in history,
this too will escape us.
So quickly we forget the lessons that seem elementary so quickly we look ahead,
seemingly to help us forget the past.

The Black Out, as it is ubiquitously now called revealed much, yet we see so little.

SDM

The Blackout

Darkness descended,
But instead of Gotham,
Toronto, New York, Chicago,
50 million people or more,
showed clearly,
the power of positive energy,
the typical frantic behavior,
of we,
THE ENERGY SLUTS,
Turned to a quiet hush,
Our fragmented communities,
Come together,
In a time of need,
The true human spirit,
One normally suppressed,
By neon lights and subways,
Revealed,
True grace,
This was the eastern seaboard,
On August 14, 2003,
Triumphant.

SDM

Capitalisms Orphans

Capitalism is like Darwin’s answer to economics.

Only the strong survive –
Usually by chewing off someone’s head,
only figuratively of course.

Please don’t misconstrue this statement as the ringing of the bell inviting World War III – Nor for that matter as the start of the trading day.
Yet, doesn’t anyone else feel there might be a better way –
Not mired or anchored in some ages old text book ideology.
I think partly people in the industrialized world have adopted capitalism as a de facto part of life –
Which I can assure you is much easier to do while sitting in a subway car coming home from work where we can open our fridge and find abundance –
Run our taps and find abundance, turn on the lights, the heat, the air conditioning and find,
You guessed it –
Abundance!

Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the reason those outside our comfy confines are resistant too or in fact outright despise us and our capitalist ways is because they are treated like capitalisms orphans –
Fully able to see our excesses while they are left off the subway,
have no job, no fridge, no water, no education, no food and no clothing.

Perhaps, if the values that we preach of equality of life and an adequate standard of living were actually practices world wide there would not be such a violent and oppressive resistance to our ways of excess.

Until then I can only imagine and consider capitalism many orphans.

SDM

The March...

Do you hear the drum beating loudly on the screen of our TV’s?
Just as they have before, well, sort of, and as they surely will again.
The pervasive beat of one mans cadence, in a two man stand off.
To be sure, more is at stake than just the lives of Bush and Saddam,
they are not facing off in a boxing ring, no matter how much we’d prefer it.

Stand up and be counted, though both sides will discount it –
This beat getting stronger needs the healing power of peace
before this becomes something longer.
Can you hear the beat as sure as that of your heart?
Place your hand there, feel it, I assure you, an Iraqi’s beats the same,
he bleeds too, blood, not oil,
though sometimes our leaders make it seem that way.
Behind the scorching rhetoric of this economic war machine –
How many will die?
How many will die?

The beat goes on, as the expression states,
I can hear it, feel it at the very core of my being,
my retinas permanently damaged by the rape of the planet,
of each and every one of us by mad men –
Smoke billowing into the sky like skid marks, devastating,
carried away to return as God’s tears,
what goes up must and will come down.
Where do we go from here?
Where does this beat take us,
Where will we all be?
Will we again see the night sky lit up? –
Stars drowned out by mans fire flies,
trying to take down the screaming eagles, an ominous sight –
Day at night –
Who really wins?
Who has nothing to lose?
How do you know what to believe when greed so often dictates,
unopposed,
what truth is?

How many times,
how many must we plot this course?
How long before we realize the road less traveled while difficult
has a lot less dead bodies strewn across it.
That road,
a path to peace through dialogue.

SDM

CNN (State Department)

I’m scared that if I go for coffee I might miss that gong,
by implication Dan Rather saying that the prospect for peace is dim,
war is on the horizon,
brought to us by Larry King, Live,
just like this war,
live,
as assuredly the ammunition will be –
How many will die?
Iraqi?
American –
Men, plural,
women, plural,
children, plural?
One thing for certain –
ALL DEAD
and for who –
Saddam,
Damn is right for what,
oil and economies of scale.
Sport Utilities, trickle down economics and television,
ah, Ding, Ding, Ding,
N, B, C –
Home of the NBA,
Olympics and
Saturday night!

SDM

Babylon Falling

Babylon will fall,
History does not betray this fact,
Fallen once, so it will again,
Not the curse of history or time,
But of our disobedience
Flagrant towards God,
Our own design –
Free will –
The nations of the world and all their constituents will feel the earthquake when it falls again. The effects of which will be felt at the four corners of the earth.
We all, falling victim,
to our own greed,
pride,
envy
and lust,
it seems so easy to reverse our pattern,
yet we don’t.
Modern Babylon,
like histories,
will fall –
DRAMATICALLY!

SDM

Future Concession

I find it troubling that as I write these words
I am curious as to how I might receive them many years from now –
Am I just an ideological kid dreaming of the way the world should be
rather than living the way it is –
This thought worries me;
systems like mind sets come and go –
Is it time for the 2nd fall of Rome;
I am not some nay sayer
nor am I particularly a hawk,
I do not long for war,
nor am I so foolish as to think that in the way this world currently is
sometimes military force is justified,
but in this case,
at this time,
why kill hundreds,
thousands,
tens of thousands or Iraqi’s and Americans
when all the world really needs from Iraq is Saddam's head
and I’m sure most Iraqi’s would be happy to give it;
so Why not give diplomacy a chance
without a gun to innocent Iraqi’s heads
yet a fully loaded one on Saddam's?

SDM

Innocence Revealed

I saw wisdom unadulterated today,
in the eyes of a child who couldn’t speak words to me but made me feel volumes,
as many as Churchill wrote and then some.
The child looked right at me,
for a minute or longer and seemed to understand what I was thinking
and with a reaching hand,
smile and eyes wide open told me that everything would be okay.
Better than okay as long as I stayed the course,
learning,
growing,
becoming, being.

So much warmth in that child’s eyes –
so much to say –
Yet very few ways to convey it,
except that the eyes are the window to the soul
and this child’s soul was wisdom –
Pure innocence!

SDM

Words

Sometimes and without warning I’ll look to my left or my right and without provocation you just might hear me say; “Hey can you give me a word or two?”
Most of the time the unwitting wordsmith will without hesitation and give me a few and somehow my pen begins to weave its way across the page utilizing the words that I’ve been given.
Some people when I turn to them seem to be hearing my words but act as if they are some foreign language, like they don’t understand, so, without the benefit of their words I turn to the next supporter, enabler if you will, for these words which tell a tale.
Words, in any language, are a very powerful tool, they can motivate, debilitate, frustrate, initiate and move.
They can cause very quickly, or at the very least inspire; Love, Anger, Fear or UNDERSTANDING.
That’s why, in a darkened room, or on a sunny street I may turn to you, out of nowhere and ask;
“Hey could you give me a word or two?”

SDM

On the run...

Of all the crimes that we’ve committed
it is difficult to intellectually differentiate one from the other in terms of severity.
For all the crimes we’ve committed are in point of fact
conspiratorial and built upon a previous crime.
The atrocities that we commit in the name of innovation,
the willful blindness, incredible apathy or just down right ignorance
are charting a path into the human condition…
As sure as blood flows, as sure as death and taxes,
as surely will be our ultimate undoing,
we see the world in Black and White…
Good and Evil…
Us and Them…
You or Me,
with little or no room for both!
We have with the passage of millennia moved further away from truth and closer to pain… Despite obvious and simple actions that we could take we instead,
every time
choose the easy way out.

He stepped on my shoe, so the natural conclusion…
I need to shoot him…
He/She controls that thick black luscious liquid that I need so…
I’ll just invent truth (relative) and start a war that I know with little uncertainty I will win… Oil for me.
We extol to our children the necessity to embrace their innocence
to know what is right and wrong, good and bad…
But then we expose them to institutions extolling the EXACT,
EXACT OPPOSITE
of what we’ve spent years teaching them.
Lost or loosing?
I wonder…

Naturally we’re on the course we’re on…
Our actions speak volumes louder than our words
and until that incongruity is resolved we will know the human condition
the way we have made it…
Always on the run…

FROM OURSELVES!

SDM

My Inner Battle

Censoring myself, for reasons yet to be known,
contemplating far off worlds as I write in this book like its my microphone.
In another dimension my thought goes through an ascension brought on by the most high – Discovering enlightenment with only a moments notice –
Oh no there’s no pen around,
so my microphone goes dead,
as the sound of silence rings louder than the speed of thought –
Wondering, waiting, wandering through the everyday
probing for the meaning that we all crave, finding it inside the human soul
as long as you are in touch –
with it, with you –
Are you I wonder in touch – Do you ponder realities of far off places while you see the faces of the fellow shipping you out.
So now back to the question at hand –
my feet now squarely on dry land
I’ve come full circle to examine my own catch 22 –
Should I, could I, would I deny the words that I right – Oops write, right!
And the unfortunate answer is
yes, or is it
no,
perhaps this page,
these books a different reality will show –
But for now, back to this dimension and did I mention,
alternatively the power we all have inside to direct,
to love, to motivate –
Wouldn’t it be great
if we could finally demonstrate
something other than hate before they penetrate;
Oh yes – They –
We all know who they are,
or do we?
Us!
Trying time,
minds frying,
Stand up!

SDM

Lift, Light & Inhale

Lift, light, inhale,
Lift, pop, swallow,
Open, lift, sip,
They are all the same and yet,
So different;

Marijuana – The beautiful stench of the sweet herbs,
Smoke filling my lungs,
With God’s relaxation;
Lifted to another plain,
Eyes open and tranquil.

Zoloft, Xanax and Prozac,
Others drug of choice.
Sitting in their glass houses,
Uppers, downers, red, blue and greed –
They never let you down do they?

Liquor – Ah liquor,
Three fingers and that’s all, okay maybe three more,
Perhaps just another –

We all have our reasons
We all have our escapes
We all live our lives.

Choose More!

SDM

Fog

War,
Populations silence,
Warriors win,
Populations struggle,
Questions,
No answers,
Less information,
As secrecy codes expand,
At this moment
Paratroopers land,
Questions,
Can war really go as planned? Can it?
Answers,
None;
Just smoke and mirrors,
CNN,
A better street magician,
Than Davids Blaine and Copperfield combined,
CBS, NBC, CBC and ABC no better,
Smoke and mirrors,
Except that eventually smoke clears,
And mirrors break,
Seven years bad luck,
No answers,
Fog of war!

SDM

Celebrate Love... Today

Today I celebrate love,
which means I celebrate you,
from the tips of your sun kissed multi shaded hair
to the chill curled toes at the end of those long and inviting legs of yours.
Today, I rejoice in the grandeur that is this love,
revealed to me in silent volumes each day on this path that we have chosen.
Today, I stand witness to the incredible power that love has to improve the human condition, to touch the deepest regions of the human spirit,
to embrace it,
making fantastic the everyday, everyday.
Today I celebrate you as every other day,
for the incredible mind blowing, spirit enhancing and soul empowered woman that you are.
I celebrate the rareness of your being,
complete, with all the talents, skills and beauty that you share with the world everyday: Passionate.
Today I celebrate love which means I celebrate life in all its rich complexities.
The vibrancy of life renewed,
no invigorated,
by the great pleasure and privilege of knowing love as I do.
Love, Charmaine, Love,
the same for me, your name and love –
synonymous as each day you live love,
sharing it with all you encounter,
so yes,
today I celebrate love,
with you!

SDM

Irony

Struck by the irony of sitting in a rail yard
while half a world away many national populations are hunkered down,
some with gas masks,
some with prayer.
Under these lights I can imagine the extreme discomfort of those people,
while all around me people complain of the temperature,
or the rain,
or their clothes
or lack of food,
it is strangely unsettling how relativity changes perception
as people seem too obtusely go through the motions
oblivious to the horror in someone else’s backyard.
Back though to the point, sitting here, in the oil stench filled room,
I know blood is being shed so this aroma will not subside,
at least until all the dinosaur bones have dried –
Fossil fuels for fossil fools,
tonight I pray for the world.

SDM

Hippo Crite

I’m now witnessing the rhetoric of a supposed spiritual leader: Pat Robertson is lecturing his audience of the 700 Club as to the appropriateness of French involvement in post war Iraq. From upon high his spiritual throne he uses words like outrage to define any potential French involvement in any reconstruction or Oil contracts. The separation of church and state seems beyond the reaches of a corporate televangelist. Hypocrite. Do you think that God is outraged by France, or is that Freedom, has the official name change taken place? I am blown away by his (Robertson’s) moral authority used in this way – Furthermore, as he stands in front of Operation Prayer Shield, a clever bulletin board of pictures of soldiers deployed overseas with weapons – Is this what we have come to? Church and state, propaganda machines at least on the 700 Club it seems.

Shame!

SDM

Demonstration

I feel the wrath of remorse,
That there was nothing I could do,
Like 99.9999% of the world,
I was an observer,
As democracy,
Became demonstration of might and will,
The Coalition of the Willing,
Now billing,
US!

When is enough enough,
Capitalisms answer,
Never,
Communists,
When they say so,
Lost in ideological boundaries,
Created by a very powerful few,
Those willing to sacrifice,
Principle for results,
Maybe history will show me the fool,
Maybe it will show me right,
Yet,
In this moment,
I’m lost in confusion,
Muddled thoughts of the annals of time,
And I feel red in the face,
As I take my place as a man,
Curious about our collective fate,
If and when we ever wake up,
If and when,
How and why,
Ask yourself!

SDM

KIA

The newswoman speaks of today’s reports with a matter of factness that seems to suggest absolute awareness. Yet I wonder if the talking head can decipher the truth of our current state through the supposed objective reporting she duteously relays. I wonder if her mind, like mine, draws the obvious parallels between a suicide bombing report with five American soldiers dying in Iraq and the guerilla tactics which so ravaged the American war machine in full splendor in Vietnam. Obvious! Yet, how many are willing and able to draw that conclusion? At the beginning of Gulf War II, as is common of our western world, our arrogance, save that, the arrogance of the Coalition of the Willing, caused widespread belief that this war was going to be a cake walk. That all Iraqi’s would just roll over and play dead –

Tell that to the families of the roughly 55 killed in action this week.

SDM

Update Since I wrote this more than 3100 more soldiers have died and approximately 100 - 150,000 Iraqi's.

Aware

As humans,
At times we usurp ideas or symbols,
To create a specific expression,
Such was the case,
With Hitler,
And the NSDAP,
The Nazis took a symbol,
The Swastika,
And perverted its meaning,
Creating fear and unrest,
At its very sight,
As humans,
It is our duty,
To be aware,
Always!

SDM

Silenced Screams

I can close my eyes and feel the shattering of glass,
hearing each individual shard hit the ground wondering if a child’s foot will run over it bare.
I can see the tattered wood and brick of a city under siege with massive machines of death, the B – 52 raining down tones of destruction.
I can smell the rancid odor of wells on fire,
choking the environment so that maybe a madman can hang on for even one more minute.
I can hear the screams silenced, of a people who for twenty years have lived under the scourge of tyranny,
fantastically rich as a nation,
but spiritually raped by the long years of an unopposed dictator –
Unopposed for fear of death.
I close my eyes and feel my spirit torn by the wholesale misery and sadness of this step, which should have been taken in 1991 –
Cut the head of the snake,
kill those that you must,
But no more,
so that renewal can begin.

SDM