The center that splintered

News cycles come and news cycles go
and let the best and worst of us show.
For example, a new building in lower Manhatten
Has caused wallets of news pundits to fatten
"The “ground zero mosque” is a place" they say
“Where terrorists will be recruiting all day,
It’s an insult to victims that simply is wrong,
That will let Al Queda sing victory songs,
More than 100 mosques in that city alone
Why another, so close, so soon?” they all moan

A fundamentalist says he’ll burn the Quran
Unless they move it (then changes his stance)
Then out come commercials saying Islam is our foe
They’ve put mosques where they’ve conquered since long ago
It’s true this issue has increased the flowing of
Tries to monetize on Islamaphobia
This place was announced last year so it’s weird
It’s a big deal now (an election is near)

Outcries have come from the left and the right
Everyone chiming in on the fight
People of all faiths have come in defense
To welcome the center and help it commence
Those against have no legal basis at all
The mayor and president stand by the law
Everyone’s flag here says “don’t tread on me”
Anyone against freedoms is free to leave

The issue however is not about rights
It’s about sensitivity and cultural fights
60 workers and their worshipping place
Were Muslim and also came down that day
Though their ashes are spread all over the boroughs
Disrespect towards them has been much more thorough

Their fellow Muslims have suffered the most
From bigotry since, from coast to coast
This new building could serve as a monument
A celebration of diversity, not just tolerance
To show ignorance will be destroyed by the truth
That religions don’t start wars, people do

So many people have uninformed views
They only see Muslims when they’re in the news
Anyone would want to take back their faith
From those who try to put a mask on its face
Lies must be undone from their very core
To heal a wound one must go to the source
To put peace back where peace was erased
One could not think of a better place

To show an Islam that’s not on Fox News
Of friendly faces, like jews and hindus
They’re part of America, and they’re here to stay
They will not live in fear and will not run away
They’re just people with rights, enough “them and us”
The dead horse has been beaten, let’s end with the fuss

Universe of Each Other

Why don’t we notice each other? The infinite splendor within us all is more than we'll ever know. So much food is wasted while people starve, so many buildings lie empty while people shiver in the night, so many people go to a cold bed at night screaming “somebody fucking touch me!”

Eyes stay lowered to the ground on the dance floor, in petrified fear that someone we don’t know could *gasp* interact with us. We tirelessly toil and spend to attract some kind of the sustenance known as attention, intoxicating, concealing, and trying to be someone else, in unabated desperation that someone will see us.

In public our friends often shield us from the fountains of awe, enlightenment, and endearment flowing from beautiful people whom we do not yet know. A sedentary force field of those with whom we are familiar hinders our ignorant minds from the eye opening conversations that come from seeing with someone’s eyes whose are not our own. In our hometowns, we foolishly walk into a room looking to talk those we know so that we can feel comfortable, while a wise traveler walks into a room comfortable in talking to those whom they will know. We fail to realize that we are all travelers, and every time we walk out of the door, we journey into the foreign land that is the present, where anything can happen, and any connection with another human can be life changing.

So often we weaken our immune system to become sickly, anti-social creatures, through technology, we talk more and say less. We withdraw into a cocoon of artificial barriers we construct of secret societies of people that look like us, where age, culture and judgments imprison us, enslaving our decisions, sterilizing our interactions, and making us all very, very lonely.

In our stupidity, we blind ourselves from one another, because we fear the sheer magnitude of the transcendental majesty we all possess. Our imperfections make us perfect and even more fascinating to complete the treasure we owe each other because we are each other.

We shared the molecules that run through our veins with those that would become the galaxies, stars, our earth and each other when the universe was a baby. The carbon we share when we kiss was shared with supernovas. When we look in one another’s eyes we do it with oxygen that flowed from stars to planets. When we touch each other, we feel with hydrogen in our skin that traveled billions of light years to get here and put itself together in the delightfully unbelievable symphony that is life in us.
So can we please, please, notice each other, and share the universe within us all?

I want to be a slam poet

My chest opens in pain like the chains of the jail cell when she screams about snail mail and obama's war like what I had in store when that microphone tapped in my lungs and exploded like spindletop with the oil it brung that was burning with the flames of poetry!

What the fuck am I talking about?

OH, oh yeah, I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I want to make circular reasoning make sense cause it has a ring to it then dab it with seasoning to give a zing to it that people will feel because I act like I mean it and they're obliged to applaud.

I want to read off a list of societal ills that people think about but nobody spills then i'll go spend my time and money at a bar instead of volunteering at a charity or donating to haiti.

I want . To breath . In between every. Statement. For emphasis. Because I'm gonna act like I mean it, and saying this memorized poem is not routine anymore, and Im gonna get my 30 points!

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I wanna talk with a brooklyn accent because even though i'm from texas I wanna fit the preconceived notion of what a poet should be so that I can be acknowledged.

I want to speak with a trembling voice as I pout and pause. To let the profound depth of these words sink in, cause someone needs to monetize this depression, and it’s ok to profit of tragedy if it’s art, right?

I want to talk about empowerment, love, and spittin it because it doesn't get old and even though I’m a delicate contemplative man in touch with my feelings, I’m the man and everyone should know it.

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I want to say things that are agreeable, things that make people cheer and smile. Because if I criticize commonly held beliefs in the room, they may not feel me, despite poignance and delivery. Everyone likes thought provoking subject matter, but only if they are thoughts we prefer to have instead of thoughts that encourage us to reconsider. Power to the people! Hip hop is awesome! Girls kick ass! Gimme my points!

I want to say the same poem every other week cause it gets me points and hardly anyone will notice, right? Besides even if they do, regulars don’t get me paid as much as judges do, and if regurgitating the same old shit every week gets me mad points every time, why should I ever write another poem again?

I want to deliver a shtick that I say over and over again that makes it catchy and cheap but mildly entertaining like ...

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET

To make life music

There are 3 kinds of musicians, song writers, jammers and re-enactors. Song writers slave meticulously over composing a piece from beginning to end. They are always considering the endless possibilities of the convalescence of rhythms, melodies, lyrics and how these tools can adequately express what’s inside.

Then there are jammers, they make music on the spot for the moment. They have little idea of what they just played or are going to play. Whatever musical instrument around them is the vehicle that guides how the creation will unfold. The momentary mood is the driver, equipped with sonar, night vision, telescopes and microscopes to fit the changing world that surrounds, a world that has no idea where it came from or where it is going, but knows where it is.

Not to be forgotten are re-enactors. Record player players. They have no creativity of their own so they rely on others. Either they were never required or never enquired to create something on their own, so they don’t. They worked their asses off to earn the skill to execute music from others, because so often that is what people want to hear.

These musicians shape the world around us, the world within us and they are us, because life is music. A pure jammer cannot write a constitution, a pure song writer cannot fly a plane and neither can put together a computer.

I’ll pause to let you consider who you are.

Whether our strengths are synthesis, improvisation, or re-enactment , let us not use one but all. It is thinking about how things have been done that allowed us to plant crops as our forefathers did to survive the winter. It is thinking on our feet that allowed us to survive the Ice Age. It’s thinking outside the box that got us out of the cave and onto the moon.

Let us create and be created, let us change life and let life change us. Let us not reinvent the wheel, unless it makes more sense to invent a hovercraft. Let us give ourselves wings and wing it, find, write and jam a good song and sing it. Make a new feel and feel it, find a good steal and steal it.

Let us give credit where credit is due because Beetoven, Jimi Hendrix, and Nine Inch Nails deserve credit just like Newton, Tesla and Ben Franklin do. They, with us are notes in the seemingly infinite symphonies, ragas and jam sessions we call life on earth.

This world is too complex to fit in to one song, so let us all make music, in more ways than one.

The not nice paradox

Nice guys don’t finish last, they get trampled on during the race. While the intelligent, spiritual, friendly, funny and good looking nice guy volunteers at charities and goes out on Friday night only to jack off in his trash can, the self absorbed, inconsiderate, loud annoying and not particularly good looking guy watches TV, goes out on a Friday night, and brings home the exquisite and fun to be around female only to shag her rotten and never call her again, or commence in a long term relationship that baffles everyone who knows how amazing of a person she is and how much of a prick he is.

She has a nice ass, is articulate and hilarious. He has a weird looking mouth, is proud to be ignorant and everyone wonders why he is still talking, everyone but her.

Nice guy includes everyone in the conversation; he has a truck and helps you move to your new place. He is eloquent, stays in shape and cares about how his actions affect people. But he’s been single for years, and women always tell him “I’m so glad that we’re friends”

The prick guy never goes 3 weeks without action, and always has his fucks… I mean his ducks in a row. Before the monkey moves on from one branch, he makes sure he’s holding onto another branch!

Beautiful women tell nice guy, “Don’t change! You’re the best catch in the sea! The girls that are worth it want someone that is beautiful on the inside and outside like you! I mean, you’re the… oh wait, sorry, annoying douche bag man-whore is giving me a booty-call, I gotta go, goodnight nice guy!”

He’s tried dating friends of friends, doing poi with the local fire-spinners club, and talking to random girls at coffee shops. He’s tried match.com, okcupid and craigslist. After the last date from hell from a girl that seemed nice at first but couldn’t stop talking about herself and her dog, he had enough!

With the question “Why do all good women only like assholes?” spray painted on the biggest sheet of poster board he could find, he marched to 6th and Congress Avenue with a milk crate in hand. He found his spot, set it down and stood up, brow furrowed and lungs filling ready to shout, until he was caught mid breath by a gorgeous woman around his age standing on a ledge across the street with a shirt on that said “Why do all good men only like bitches?” suddenly silent with arms caught mid-gesture.

Eyes locked, and 20 years later they’re still that happy couple that makes everyone want to puke. Ladies’ man douche prick is working on his 5th divorce.

Ode to Calculus

You are my salvation, and my greatest enemy.
You are my muse, in the sense that you inspire me to do other things.
You torture my brain daily with the flint you use to sharpen it.
You simultaneously make me feel smarter and dumber than I really am.
You are the foundation for reality yet seem to have nothing to do with it.
You are my lead weighted nun chucks, giving supreme confidence at times, but you are unafraid to beat the living shit out of me if I act like I know what’s up.

Who are you?

What kind of soulless beast would require I sledgehammer my skull to understand this?
It was bad enough making sense of numbers, then I’m taking the square root of letters, now I’m performing surgery in Greek and this is supposed to be math?

sigh.

You are here to rescue me from my lack of job skills, my stagnating brain, and my poor understanding of the toolbox of existence yet for some reason, a friend who wants to hang out, a tasty meal and a good nap always swoop in to try to rescue me from you.

Oh calculus, your puzzles make me delightfully suicidal, your logic fascinates the head I repeatedly slam against the desk, you make me say “HUH?” (I don’t understand) “OOOOH!” (I get it!) “UH!” (I found the answer!) “OH!” (It was wrong!)

You are robotic, emotionless, black and white, yet nothing brings out in me every color in the spectrum of the raw extremes of human emotion.

I remind myself with you that if all everyone ever did was make art, music, and dance, none of the problems of hunger, environmental degradation, poverty and un-sustainability in the world would ever get solved. Yet you are the biggest problem in my world.

I do realize that you are a beacon of hope that will help me achieve what I want to accomplish in life, and you may want to caress, fondle, and make love, but make no mistake. I will make you my BITCH!

Facepot : The tragedy of trading habits

As I get older, I become as increasingly tactful as I do inappropriate, as increasingly logical as I do irrational, as increasingly social as cooped up like a whale in an aquarium. This last aspect is an unbalanced self inflicted self indulging public spectacle of self mutilation. It illustrates in pixar clarity a struggle I experience with millions of young people every day. It lubricates the decline of society as we know it, it neuters our collective ambition, and reduces thousands every minute to a mere shadow of a figment of what they once were. It is the epitome of how cool I used to be, and how pathetic I have become.

I have replaced pot… with facebook.
I would wake up with a bowl and some Ween and Flaming Lips.
I now wake up to facebook notifications and NPR.

I would change up my routine by getting a new bong and smoking with a friend.
I now change up my routine by getting a new profile pic and adding a “friend.”

I used to have an experience and relish it with a cloudy THC tingle.
I now have an experience and wonder how I will word it in my status update.

But honestly, let’s delve into this, are they really that different?
I’ve replaced superficial acquaintances based on burning joints,
with superficial acquaintances based on burning daylight.

I’ve replaced using weed to pay people to talk to me,
with using twice as much valuable time to pay people to talk to me.

I’ve traded an inability to complete sentences,
With an inability to stop arguing with my fox news aficionado friends from my small town while looking at people’s travel pictures before realizing that it’s 2 in the morning.

Both time vampires, slippery slopes of social ineptitude, and border line habit forming to addictive by products of human culture are forces to be reckoned with in our modern society. But for me, NOT ANYMORE!
I kicked the last habit, and I will now kick the final habit by committing facebook suicide!


Alright, facebook.com, email and password, account, remove my account!
NO NO NO I’m not sure CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL!
Sigh…. Oh cool Raga Fuck is playing a show tonight, let’s go!