No ideas, but all the motivation.
All the reasons to do it yet no reason at all.
Like a marathon, hitting a wall.
Just spit it out,
Put it on the page! Put it on the Page!
Forget if it makes sense, forget the grammar and spell checks.
Fuck making sense.
Just put it on the page,
Gibberish or garbage is better than nothing.
Just put something on the page.
Reading a book alone in the Redwood Forrest
On the observational scale,
I do sit here in the redwoods in lotus pose,
with a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
on a stack of logs next to me.
What is the catch?
Is that but the paranoid disillusionment
of the redneck hippies near by
just now learning that they aren’t the real rebels?
They are not heroes,
They can only dream of being such.
The true meaning of center,
of the power of human capability,
If only imagined,
that is all we are,
Then that is the best
and the worst
of our imaginations.
What Place Do The Artists Have in Revolution?
PRODUCE!
Must produce content!
For fame,
For a following,
Quite literally and painfully so,
thanks to the stench of both words.
To produce is to manufacture,
To manufacture is to produce.
The workers are the ones who produce,
So the artists,
the writers,
the creators,
we are the workers to.
We are a part of that thing called revolution,
And we must forgive Marx for forgetting us.
Artists!
Artists of the world, unite!
We have nothing to lose but our chains,
We have everything to gain
when we gain the freedom to create!
The Teacher As The Poet
Content’s production,
Ease of mind and constant rush,
Narcotic ease,
And still the voices don’t stop.
Stagnation is a creative mind’s enemy,
as is cowardice.
We are our words,
our letters and symbols.
Intentions mean nothing when they fail,
Yet success is still a subjective term.
I am responsible for the quiet dawn
of these minds,
if only for a day.
What world do we live in now?
What world was it before?
And what shall it be?
This is not a journal entry,
Poetry is public record,
And to be used,
On what was “just” another day.
Art in Our Times
Piss poor excuse for a joke,
All the un-ironic irony in real life.
I have always said it,
Life is a parody of the self,
We live in Chaplin’s Modern Times,
We are the machines,
And the proles.
We are wheels,
Turning and obedient to the driver,
Circle after circle,
Loop after loop.
Never changing,
Always moving,
Who are we, you, I?
Identity in these times,
Matches no other,
Identity in the past,
Must be laid to rest.
People are tired of cliches,
They need new ones,
New tropes,
New motifs,
New characters.
We,
The artists,
The writers,
The workers!
We must create something new.
We must not merely express our times,
We must change them.
What are the times we live in?
What will our era be called?
What can one do?
to help,
to change,
to move forward?
What can one do to stop the delay?
So that art,
and liberty,
can save us all.
So many tears,
So many years,
So many fears,
So many beers.
So many jokes,
So many tokes.
So many drugs,
So many hugs.
So much pain,
So much gain.
These are the things to live for,
So many things,
And so many more.
A fearful night,
and a burned bridge freshly smolders.
Such is the life of a hopeless radical.
Less sexy than a hopeless romantic,
but more useful than a hopeless idealist.
Two are ideal hands of the state,
whose hands when pressed against us
create our struggle.
Our struggle,
Our political struggle.
The hopeless radical knows
that identity is not solidarity,
and logic cannot fixate on rhetoric.
The pressing hands,
They ignite and explode gaslights
To burn and humiliate us.
This is the life of the hopeless radical,
Of the unbowed optimist.
The state, the struggle,
The hands against us,
And our rhetorical traditions.
This is our life,
The life of the unbowed,
of the unbroken,
of the hopeless radical.
