Anthem & Alchemy


26

So this was Earth
Handfuls of light
Europe on reverb
Beaches covered with
Ancient jars like

Star-shells fragrant
With some golden empire
From which they came
I saw young bodies
Throbbing breasts

Heart-beats of infinity
Shells rose-pink
A blur of traffic
So this was Evolution
In the minds of

Organics where
Drifted thoughts
Of arms spread open
For the coupling of desire
These youth who

Would one day pair off
And the sky’s veins
Would not recall
Who was with who
Or how children came

Each has no handles
The waves touch
The pebbles each time
They curl on to the shore
Like time, formed by clay

They gather tools to
Change themselves
Civilized barbarians
Becoming barbaric once again
So this was Earth

I’d heard the stories
Souls that could not
Be unmade, they learned
And grew somehow
In a software of

Reincarnation, I knew
Their minds emptied
Death was beautiful
A simple reset and
And the slaughter of

Selfishness, what a sight
Wheat doesn’t take long
To ripen, sex doesn’t
Take long to become
But a whisper in a life

Desires melt away
Attachments drift
Hopes once so vital
Seemed secondary
Each dream separately

Lulled, like the birds
Who cry at morning
Going quiet, at the coming
Of the Sun, it was
Just natural, and perfect.

Disinherited Europe


To Spain, Greece, France and Italy These decades are birds of passage The years overwhelm with Information, change, economy instability I hear the beat of the future Hang low in the dewy atmosphere With a beat of glowing snow I … Continue reading

Inequality


33

This is the secret: these hearts
I held out to you, they weren’t mine
They were all the broken-hearted

All the poets I read, all the wives
I’ve witnessed abused and thwarted
My sensitivity wasn’t mine, it was

My personal reaction to the tragedy of others
I’ve seen, our own obstacles don’t seem like much
It’s this world’s capacity to suffer

That astounds me, that outrages me
The exploited, the underdogs, the innocents
This is the secret: when you want to help the world

You put others first, somehow, for community
Is what binds us together, waiting to be cared for
It’s not only your children that need your help

Meanwhile, we refuse to do more than survive
Our comforts suffice, our legacies are private
After we have inherited so much more
Than they can ever hope to receive.