Moineau en France

afterthought

2012-01-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

5th floor, reactor 4, fukushima daichi

yes i'm sitting up now

reading about fukushima

watching the world split

like an atom and then

the inevitably collapse

in an afterthought

of what went wrong

plate tektonics

continental shelves

pressurized drilling

beautiful new weapons

into the ionsphere

like blown plutonium

into lung tissue

i need to ask because

i have an imagination:

do they really think

they can get away with it

this silent but deadly

manipulation of

universal chaos?

Snowflake - 50 Words for Snow - by Kate Bush

2012-01-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

Save our mother earth, save our children!

I was born in a cloud...
Now I am falling.
I want you to catch me.
Look up and you'll see me.
You know you can hear me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
There's millions of snowflakes.
We're dancing.
The world is so loud. Keep falling and I'll find you.
I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken hearts, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
My broken heart, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song.
My twist and shout.

I am ice and dust and light. I am sky and here.
I can hear people.
I think you are near me now.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
It's midnight at Christmas.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
I think I can see you.
There's your long, white neck.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Now I am falling.
Look up and you'll see me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
In a moment or two.
I'll be with you.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Be ready to catch
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.

stuff in boxes

2012-01-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

i don't know where anything is

but i can't think about it

because the chaos that's around me

begins to tap tap tap at my head

until i'm crazy

my house is filled with boxes

a melange of documents

perfume bottles and birthday cards

vitamin pills carved gods

novels and japa malas

a scarf i bought on a whim

last year at a thrift shop

or the dvd of a concert i saw

in 2004

god help me if i need to find

my passeport or tax return

or the vitamin d because

my levels are low

or the gold-flecked scarf

to tie around my throat

because it's cold

chaos has entered my house

and taken over my stuff

and not just in my house

but in my head

and not just in my head

but in my body

an extension of this illness

no less painful than

my right trapezius
nor less nauseating
than my vertigo

no i can't go there

i just leave it alone

the piles of garbage

the dust and the boxes

and the knowledge that

inside are the precious objects

of my life before chaos

new politics

2012-01-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

photo by John Boyd (1865-1941)

let me be what i am

a fragment

changing ions

gross matter

and something indefatigable

i log in

to comment

on politics

i'm not in the back rooms

puffing cubans

i'm flying over icebergs

i brush against daisies

warble in maples

sit stonefaced

animal vegetable mineral

i've been all of it

on the rock and roll summit

of sisyphus

i stumble and get up

i do not merge with anything now

i touch i yield i move on

blackout: stop censorship

2012-01-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

battered

2012-01-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

battered back again

to my previous pain levels

right arm throbs to the wrist

big muscle across my shoulder

grips and burns

rotator cuff in front

burns into my breast

and it's constant

i'm still fighting

for pain meds

fighting after

15 years

explaining

what my disease is

to family, friends

and doctors alike

when will they

get it?

i can't stretch it out

eat it out

walk it out

accupuncture it out

meditate it out

or psychoanalyze it out

nothing works but opioids

and when it's

this bad

i can't think at all

i can't know

what to do

what not to do

the sickness

the nausea

the vertigo

the pain spreads

throughout my body

if they don't

give me

what i need

i won't be

able to

stay here

what will it take

to stop the battering

not by pain

but by doctors?

if i only had a glove

i could give them

let them put it on

and feel what i feel

they would treat me

in a heart beat

my fear of pain

2012-01-07T01:07:00.000-08:00

i survived the ghost of pain

at midnight

making the transition

from one medication to the next

overcoming the nonsense

i had told myself

fear of pain is my motivation

for everything

fear of more pain than i have

suicide-making pain

that suffocates my reason

because i've become

animal pure mammal

licking its wounds in the brush

under cover of darkness

hypervigilant and alive

ready to flee or fight

the human in me survived

to try something new and untried

and now i have less pain

less pain and some clarity

about what drives me

the DEA is killing me

2011-12-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

a unpoetic rant about the end of oxycontin...

the DEA* is taking away my life

the little life i was left with 15 years ago

when pain ascended from hell

and took over my brain and body

like some great martyrdom

i have born it all

with the help of oxycontin

the most sensitive core of me

is light on its feet

it cannot support opioid medications

they put me to sleep

and render me helpless

with no ability to concentrate

nauseated nodding slumbering

with dreams like strange movies

but one was different: oxycontin

it took away my pain and

woke me up to a new reality

enabled me to have a life

to sit and write or watch a movie

without falling asleep at the denouement

or struggling to finish what i started

but now the DEA has declared

that doctors are under the gun

and all the states are pressuring doctors

to relinquish that one narcotic

that has given me life with less pain

without half-wittedness

and they are all falling in line

like doctors did before the fascists

and with about as much compassion

first my doctor said there were "side effects"

and i never was sure what she meant

and then others followed with "we understand

but we can no longer prescribe it"

so how about trying methadone

that highly addictive poison from which

one in a thousand die in the first five days

it's only $30 per month and though we haven't

studied it much "if i were a gamblin' man

in a casino i'd put my money on it"

well doctor i've tried it

and for a month i did not wake up

well there's long-acting morphine

puts you right into the arms of morphée

and you can stay there for a thousand days

dream away pain wake up in nightmares

and sweat feel like vomiting

then stumble around like a drunken cow

looking for a toilet to throw up in

doctor i've tried it and for a month

i never woke or sat up

and when i did i was sick as a dog

fentanyl patches perhaps

of course you do have tachycardia

which will put you at risk for

a heart attack from hell

and even though two of your friends

with the same illness as you

had anaphylactic shock from it

and another one's heart went to 190

we can prescribe that one

no doctor i refuse a medication

that i know will bring my heart

to the breaking point

poison poison poison

well there is the new opana

based on oxymorphone like oxycontin

but two times stronger

so if you are sensitive to opioids

it's guaranteed to make you sleep

plus there's no "high" like oxycontin

(whatever that means)

oh yeah i see

the end of pain that i experience

the rush of relief ist jetzt verboten

the DEA is killing me

by denying this pain patient of 15 years

the one medication that offered her

a life without narcolepsy and nightmares

without nausea and disenfranchisement

they told doctors to give up prescribing it

because they didn't adhere to the rules

didn't take it seriously enough

and now everyone wants it

and some are dying from abusing it

i always took it seriously

i adhered to the rules for over 10 years

but that counts for nothing

nothing at all i'm doomed

sick as i am on my little couch bed

i could still have a small life

stay in touch with friends and family

write a letter listen to music read an article

no it wasn't perfect it's been damn lonely

but oxycontin relieved the pain

left me awake and alive

and now they are denying me it

there are no alternatives

i cannot live with this pain

untreated or undertreated

i will die from it quickly

for i refuse to live in unending pain

or over-drugged and unconscious

the DEA is killing me

and not only me but many pain patients

who were given back their lives

in small but important ways

thanks to oxycontin

*DEA - the federal Drug Enforcement Agency

Merry Christmas and a Compassionate New Year 2012!

2011-12-24T15:22:00.000-08:00

Merci mille fois pour m'avoir lue cette année. Je vous souhaite tous un bon et
paisible 2012! Amitié toujours ~Laura, ton petit moineau poète xoxoxooxox

Thank you so much for having read me this year. I wish you all a good and
peaceful 2012! Friendship always ~Laura, your little sparrow poet xoxoxo

The B-52's "Roam"

2011-12-21T21:56:00.000-08:00

A beautiful memory: roller skating and dancing along the paved-over train track

in San Juan Capistrano, Christmas 1989. xoxoxoxooxox

pain that doesn't end

2011-12-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

there's no metaphor in me

no irony or pathos

no poetry

just a stark pain

running down my arm

into my rib cage

there's no singing

no christmas

no holiday cheer

just a wish that my

heart would stop

knocking at my breast bone

it's simple:

when pain does not end

and you know it never will

what reasons can be given

for pushing through the heartbreak

of life on earth?

i've gone through them all

over and over in my head

but i'm still left hopeless

for sickness and pain

do not have an up side

beyond the cliché

and nobody knows

what it takes to keep doing it

alone in your room

shiny toys

2011-12-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

Shiny Toys Festival 2010 - http://creative.arte.tv/fr/space/SHINY_TOYS/messages/

how sad we are

grasping at these straws

that divert us from

ourselves and one another

we're wired for consumption

hardwired to be bottomless

yet all our goods

do not unite us

we're estranged from

the very thing we want

communion with others

and unconditional love

we become

slaves to desire

for there will always be

something newer and shinier

the raw materials alone

will require brutal wars

we're standing on the graves

of starving children

Beautiful Girls

2011-12-15T03:08:00.000-08:00

Frantz Charlet, A Morrocan Beauty Holding a Parrot

Girls, your beauty will not save you

the more beautiful you are

the more the dogs will follow you

wanting that beauty for themselves

and once they are done

you will find yourself alone

because dogs have no intelligence

beyond what lies between

their legs, it is unsatiable

and no one beauty will satisfy it

i've seen the most beautiful girls

whom artists would praise as goddesses

throw themselves at the first dog

that follows them because

to be wanted is everything

to be desired is the highest honor

for a beautiful girl who has

no sense of her own value

You are not this body even if

today it appears dazzling

tomorrow anything can happen

and will happen and

it will take all your endeavor

to maintain that beauty that

dogs once found so desirable

Girls, you will suffer

girls, you will be forgotten

girls, live for knowledge

throw yourself into your life

and forget the dogs that follow you

clean out your closets and

learn to sing a song that has

nothing to do with belonging

for you belong even if

no one acknowledges you

There are worse things

besides loneliness

and the wounds you get today

a lifetime later may not heal

love and protect yourself today

for there is but one life and

one beauty that does not fade

the beauty of self-honor

Mysogyny

2011-12-13T21:29:00.000-08:00

for radical feminists everywhere and those who want to be...

Cut off my head

hands and feet

I won't grow a penis

but I've got one tucked

away if i need it

I didn't need

Bettelheim to tell me

about refrigerator moms

or Lacan to warn me

about absent fathers

I've wrapped myself

in yards of sackcloth

since I was girl

yet I still had to hide

in too many closets

Nature or nuture

philosophy or psy-ops

religion or culture

each one is founded

on Mysogyny

Throw off the masculine
ideological shackles

Women will never be free

until we're ready to

start from zero

Little creation, big message

2011-12-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

mars and venus

2011-12-09T04:26:00.000-08:00

Mars and Venus by Di Cosimo Piero (Renaissance)

come jupiter

come mars

come venus

night after night

until the ego folds

and you realize

how small how fragile

how enduring

when mars was setting

over the house next door

blinking blue then red

it brought up your body

your memory

because mars fought with

venus in you

and i had to run across

the icy street to find

venus rising

just to complete

your life cycle

if only you had not

needed to fight so hard

for every bread crumb

if only you had been able

to follow your nature

and succomb to romance

the toro that was you

still rides the skies

and now that i see you

rising and falling

in these crystal nights

i know a little more

how strong you were

how strong was your love

and mine

and it breaks my heart

love never dies

it just rises and falls

every night with

mars and venus

red mars

humbug

2011-12-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

cartoon by Chris Sims

yeah they're coming around again

all my friends

with spiced wine hot toddies

and all the myriad problems of

early christmas shopping

i told them christmas is dead

and god too for that matter

they've got telephones dripping

from their greazy fingers

they love to make calls to

their loved ones back home

and talk for hours

i told them i don't have the infrastructure

to talk long on the phone

i'm too weak to maintain

a two-way conversation

that's okay they love me as

i am broken at the kneecaps

they can manage the call

all by themselves if necessary

ho ho ho they stammer

ringing my bells

as if the messiah of hope came

and lit a 26-hr candle

and when i'm quiet for a couple of days

it all fades back into the woodwork

where it came from

that's okay with me

because i have nothing left to say

no christmas presents

no wishful thinking

no thinking at all to be honest

Mano Solo - Janvier

2011-12-06T20:01:00.000-08:00

désolée que ce blog est si silencieux... j'ai une pneumonie, paiement pour paris. bisous. xooxoxooxoxox

habitude

2011-11-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

i took the latch from off my door

and woe is me could write no more

i danced a holiday in france

drank with friends and spun romance

climbed up to sacré cœur at dawn

smoked cigarettes in the light of the moon

visited my buried love in the père

wept with the shattered dreams we share

then i came home again to rain

my little couch bed, my muted brain
the gray skies reflect a very sad song
but even then with anticipation

the floodgates are broken yet nary a word

there's no music in joy for this broken bird

kestral with broken wing

"We are legion"

2011-11-26T20:00:00.001-08:00

Packing for Paris (Tales of Moineau)

2011-11-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

I can't see straight in the morning light
I'm blindly far-sighted and dry at the mouth
and sleep will come if I would just lie down
but the miles I have driven hover and pound
'til I'm black and blue and deep crunchy fried

Yes! I'm hypo but hazy listening to the rain
The traffic is heavy for a Saturday
It was four thirty-five and now it's eight am
I'm still compiling the list of my alibis
plotting my excuses, summoning some lies

Dear God, I'm human! How much more
bodily pain am I supposed to ignore? "All!"
Select the suitcases, then pack up the pills
as the clock in the kitchen goes tick tick tick
and another day goes by and I still sit

My mask of preparedness begins to slip
My do-or-die mouthpiece is starting to drip
and I'm scared to walk because I might slip
back into the kingdom of the fearmonger
back far enough to feel my infantile anger

Oh Mama! Paris is at my feet
if i just stay awake and complete my list
Two shirts, two pants and one umbrella
insulin, eye shadow, this list is Orwellian!
'Cause the world is gonna end the ninth of November!

Look it up! You can see an asteroid is coming
or a planet or a comet, they aren't sure what
and I'll be in the air on my way to France
but so what so what so what so what
if the world is crushed to ashes and dust

For then I'll use my sparrow wings
to navigate another blue morning
A foghorn blasts near the Columbian bar
as boats launch into a tipsy blue ocean
and Moineau sets off for another adventure

LA VIDEO en avance de la sortie de "L'homme à tête de chou" de Bashung!!

2011-11-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

One week before I take off for Paris... They are using my subtitles! Hurray!

Extrait de l'album « L'homme à tête de chou » à sortir le 7 novembre

http://www.alainbashung.fr

Production Company : ChezEddy

Director : Maxime Bruneel

Producer : Nicolas de Rosanbo

Line Producer : Coline Six

Production Manager : Anne-Lise Mallard

Animation : Antoine Ettori - Emmanuelle Walker - Matthieu Gaillard - Vincent Verniers - Gaëtan Louet - Hélène Marchal

Editing : Manuel Coutan - Olivier Guedj

Subtitles: Laura Tattoo

Fragile - Sting

2011-11-03T01:57:00.000-07:00

Lest we forget how fragile we are

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one

Drying in the colour of the evening sun

Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away

But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant

To clinch a lifetime's argument

That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could

For all those born beneath an angry star

Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall

Like tears from a star like tears from a star

On and on the rain will say

How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall

Like tears from a star like tears from a star

On and on the rain will say

How fragile we are how fragile we are

truth what truth

2011-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

do you really want to know the truth
really really really
the brutal truth of a killing
at the 11th hour
far from the maddening crowd
or where the maddening crowd was found
with fisticuffs and daggers and guns
who descended like crazed crow to carrion
who drug a mad king out of his tunnel
then pummeled his head so hard
his blood fed the desert floor
all the while laughing and shouting
allah akbar allah akbar
and who knows what else since
most of us don't understand the language
yes sodomized punched and stabbed him
in some kind of righteous victory
psychopathic glee
then decided to shoot him
this chieftain clown king
this magnate of 40 despotic years
snuffing out the lies and the truth
boasting about it on video
how i shot him in the head and chest
when they came to bring him to justice
justice shall be mine sayeth the lord
and believing himself to be righteous
even as the clown king did before
he shot him dead but not until
the rebellion boys had had their fill
all they had raped killed and died for
to prove beyond a shadow of doubt
to record and distribute
their manhood oh yes
and the war's triumpant end
are you ready to watch it
are you ready to ask questions
to be caught in a sandtrap
to see it all through the eye of a camera
to hold back your nausea
and withhold your humanity
and afterward to ask
why men are such barbarians
why the rule of law has no more merit
and how far away from truth
we will have to get before
it's you you you you you and you
sliced up on the hood of a truck
or thunderstruck by an aerial drone
or put in solitary for years unknown
because you are vanished
stripped bare and humiliated
tortured until you'll say anything
to stop these crazed headhunters
these masters of video war
and its main stream press surrogates
and its agent provocateurs
who have stoked your anger until
they put in your hands a gun
in the name of your father
in the name of jesus or allah
and tell you you can't fail
they've got your back
it's the perfect plan hallelujah
are you ready really really really ready
to plunge into this illusory world
or shall you have a cigarette first
change the channel and exclaim
that they all had it coming
the truth so veiled that if you heard it
you'd declare all nations insane
i won't go there angel
i'll just leave you with these images
and believing that you are freer now
than before we killed them
as these same mocking madmen
sell you and me further down the river
all of us the 99%
like herds of cattle to slaughter
but none the wiser

Song for an Occupation

2011-10-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

Marcos Santos for NY Daily News, Rainy Day at the Occupy Wall Street protest

I'm shuffling through a street

filled with brown fallen leaves

I'm whistling Dylan songs

and slugging eau de vie

I've got nothing but goodwill

for myself and others

And then a crowd gathers

like birds of many feathers

each with a song and then

a chorus and then

a harmonic consensus

It's late October and

the night air is chill

We will fly in spite of it

My sisters, brothers, cousins

unfurl flags like wings

to honor the birth of another

Occupy Wall Street

our little hope and change corner

where justice and peace

confront terror and greed

and every bird shall be free

"Rise up oh ye phoenix hallelujah

Our hope has never died"

Cohen - First We Take Manhattan...

2011-10-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

...Then We Take Berlin! My vote for occupy theme song!

Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone (Welcome to the 99%...

2011-10-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

no matter where you've fallen from...)

a woman song

2011-10-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Laura Nyro

time, i've almost forgotten thee

as if you or i never existed

the listless hours spent

scanning row after row

of movie covers on the roku

while my limbs are ricocheting

off the couch cushions

kicking away the blankets

then lying very still so as

not to awaken more demons

it's a time of teacups and pain meds

and i find that i'm addicted

to coffee again

just to have something warm and

flowing to fill the deep hole

the steam swirling about me now

a white fog that reminds me

that my brain is dying

and how time dies away

when the dignity of unique thought

and my passion for words has fled

as readily as i was born with it

grief knows no time

it ridicules all escape clauses

like trying to read a book

when i can't remember

the last paragraph i just read

or picking up the book

only to realize i'm reading the

same chapter for the fourth time

and i don't realize it

until i'm halfway done

and then i can't remember

what will happen next

i'm watching gods and monsters

as passionately as a child

watches her favorite movie

over and over learning

and relearning the songs

do adults do this too i wonder

as i slip into a wormhole

i'll wake up like arthur c. clarke

on a strange new planet

or rip van winkle with 20 years gone

knowing no one

time is forgetting all about me

and everything i accomplished

i think about laura nyro

and that "one child born in a

world to carry on to carry on"

like her, i only wanted freedom

i too drove away demons

and hit refresh but it's never any use

i'm left with my own woman song

and a little bit of time to forget

the treason of chronic illness

even as i will be forgotten

Deathwatch (from 1977)

2011-10-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

C. R. W. Nevinson. A Taube. (1916-17)

Silence, amigo, men are dying.

Once a fiery cannonball, blazing missile,

now the perfect arrangement of strewn youth.

Who's today's hero?

Lenin is dead

and so are the children of this dark place.

This impermance suffices to say,

well, maybe in the next loophole,

that we all gotta go.

Saturated in the emotional counterplay, wait!

Who's dying? Not I.

Who's arguing the cause of existence?

Or its annihilation? Or its subterfuge?

The rights of these generals and undergraduate

innocents, the rights of the children and

what was once playtime...

Once a lovely view through Chicago,

now ghetto mania, ripped apart by city planners

and big rats.

Look, when you live this far out into space,

the whole scenario unfolds slowly

quietly violently until the entire population is

blinded by syphilis or controlled by

machine gun or worse:

When is the final Judgment?

Overwhelmed by hostility and a protective instinct,

the war could be won by pregnant flies.

Does God mind? Is he sinking into an old skin

or rummaging through letters we've sent him?

Does he save our prayers like birthday cars?

Mi amigo, I look at the stars

blasted in my imagination and they break apart

as real as I am sitting here,

letting the tape type and erase all this

deathwatching.

Tired, tired, tired of your slender view,

I swim to the backroom, open the window,

call your name, "Omega!"

and then reform.

Audience is not necessary for my anger,

eating leaves is natural.

Friend, friend, at best

we can move to the suburbs

or buy a condominium in Miami and

learn to speak Spanish.

I march from living room to

kitchen in search of Russian refugees, I want to

feed them and breed with them and

perhaps hear their stories.

Is anger hereditary?

If so, we'd have a wild race of

democrats.

You and me, amigo,

standing over these deceased,

we've got a long way to go.

The feeling is living in the skin, dormant

and yet,

at best we can heat ourselves on the death

fires escaping from the bloody nostrils,

and I won't cry through

the gates anymore or open my view any

wider than theirs and we may be safe

a few more years if the rats

don't find us first or God

decides to make a kind of emergency landing.

As long as he sleeps and the flag

keeps on flying, we'll be fine.

(May 30, 1977)

prophesyin'

2011-10-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

a pinch of this
a pinch of that
and we'll all die happy
lulled to sleep with
valerian and poppy
unoxygenated
crushed between rock
and joblessness
outfoxed by a media giant
who told us
once and for all
that there was a magic bullet
called demogoguery
yet all along
it was a siren call
for sleeping pulpits
and upraised goblets
from which we drank the blood
of christiandom's nipples
but were never satisfied
no, not good to the last drop
no, not nourishing but
a sexed up huffa
huffa huffa doll
going down faster
than it ever went up

they call me the c team
curmudgeon, corpuscle
join me on the mattress
and let's get it over with
and when it's done, brother
sister, when it's done
we'll wrap ourselves up
in our magic dragon
and fall asleep
listening for a starship:
there ain't nothing
that matters here no more
nothing another puff won't cure
or riding that huffa doll
into maximum vinyl
ain't nothing nothing
NOTHING more important than
how i love you
now get on over here
to the c-side, baby
we'll put on our
crash helmets
and ride into the sunset
just nickle 'n dimin'
huffin' 'n puffin' 'til
the big one comes

♭♫ and we won't give a damn
no more ♩♪♩

Tu mourras moins bête

2011-10-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

mais tu mourras quand même! (You'll die less stupid, but you'll die all the same!)

Part bd, part science, the book is out Sept 22, 2011. But there is also a delicious science blog by Marion Montaigne (click her name to visit!)

Two Sonnets

2011-10-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

                          I.

I spied a girl in deep concentration
Whose very heart the stone she sat upon
Kept 'til daybreak her own fascination
And followed where a mirror could be drawn.
Her life was hidden in a bloody vessel
The rim of which its contents could not hold
And which the age of leisure could not lessen
Entrance of death in the night of her soul.
Her body fades away of clear distinction,
And sight and sound and light they all converge:
For light's sake the memory extinction;
For light's sake the power and the purge.
     Her body and her heritage have flown;
     She sailed over the valley on a stone.

   II.

When all is said and done we sit
Like stoic pictures on the wall,
When every line is carefully writ
Lest we lose our course and fall,
Digest we fragments of the truth,
We, the dark-encountering clan
Spew our matters toward the sooth,
The celebrated birth of man.
We do not fear the awful cost,
(Like fools we hold a beggar's cup)
And covet thus the minor loss
Of time and words and death's triumph.
    Of darker poets still ye see
    They do infect the air we breathe!

                      (1980)

Paintings by Edvard Munch: A Nude and Moonlight on the Shore

New Bashung! L'homme à tête de chou

2011-10-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Nobody's positive that this is the cover of the new cd that finally (finally!) is coming out from Barclay/Universal but it's making the rounds. // Rien n'est certain sur la pochette mais cette image vogue sur les sites... Nov 7, 2011!

Oh ça me coûte le goutte-goutte/ Goûte goûte!

rain song

2011-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Crow in the Rain by Rea N. Radifer

in the rain crows go quiet

they rest on wires

ruffling first one wing

wringing the next

then sit as still as statues

until a sudden urge to float

throws them down to

eek out worms

rain has much the same

effect upon this poet

who sits non compos mentis

on her little couch-throne

eyes barely open

in a rain-soaked dumbness

the will to live gone

yet eeking out poems

postscript.

after i wrote this, i watched a little tribe of soaking wet

sparrows pecking at seeds on my patio. it was such a

pathetic sight. it seems the heavy oregon rains are back,

along with the struggles of all us birds and bird lovers.

~lt

winter song

2011-10-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

Melancoly Laura by Edvard Munch (1899)

a winter song is springing

to my alerted ears

the soft roar of rain

that replenishes my tears

soaks open my heart

and takes in the winter songs

of dead and the dying poets

i wash and dress their bodies

gather the last autumn roses

then lay them on a boat
for the long journey home
standing on the shore as rain
falls down upon my head
i hope someone will care for me
as i have cared for them

i wish (but it's all in vain)

2011-09-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

i wish (i wish i wish i wish)

i wish (i wish i wish)

but it's all in vain (it's all it's all in vain in vain)

~Chumbawamba

Morning by Edvard Munch

i wish i could see troy davis

sitting at the right hand of the father

encompassed in a hallowed light

while angels at his shoulders

sing the hallelujah chorus

and all the little beasts of burden

throng at his sandaled feet

i wish i could see jews and arabs from

all the great lands of the middle east

hand each other olive branches

and call each other auntie cousin niece

as tears stream down their cheeks
in a moment of great reconciliation
with acts of heroic forgiveness

i wish (in vain perhaps)
that western powers would donate
one meal a day from each of its citizens
and that such a simple act would lessen
the body fat of overweight americans
and end the hunger pangs of
continental africa and everyone else

i wish someone would tell us

what those planes crisscrossing
the blue skies are spraying and why
i wish i could stop thinking about it
and watch the old cloud forms roll by
as sweet winds cool the summer heat
and rains fall down to cleanse the earth

i wish they would discover
the cause of my disease
and i could experience a day again
without this pain and misery
may no one else live 15 years
with perpetual pain and zero care
and the disbelief of ignorant doctors

i wish we would destroy
every weapon in our arsenals
all the guns of china and russia
pakistan israel columbia
india libya united states france
every weapon yes the end of wmd
talk to everyone and live in peace

this fragile peace does not exist

not peace but cold wars
cold wars turned to hot wars
violated women innocent children
begging dinars at car doors
and at the end of the fumes
an iraqi sunset and the bitter dregs of war

i wish i wish i wish
but it's all in vain but it's all in vain
i wish i wish i wish
but it's all but it's all but it's all
in vain in vain ...

Video by moineau

Elle avait de la chance

2011-09-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Marc Chagall, Paysage Bleu, 1958 - Click photo for glorious enlargement!

Il y a deux ans

Il y a trois

Ça n'a aucune importance

Elle regarde la nuit

Du troisième étage

Et elle ne sait pas

Qu'elle avait de la chance

La nuit froide tombe

Sur la terre qui a soif

Elle fait des raies

Sur la verre à vitre

Mais jamais sur son visage

Et elle ne sait pas

Qu'elle avait de la chance

Quand les fleurs reviennent

Et le soleil est fort

Quand la mer appelle

Et tout le monde sort

Elle s'assied à la fenêtre

Et elle ne sait pas

Qu'elle avait de la chance

(9 février 1980)

je suis francophile

2011-09-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

i want a croissant

biftek poulet alain bashung

i want a new language

a post cinema verité

an avant garde nouvel roman

i want a song about lyon

or strasbourg or toulouse

i want to be pédé in gay paris

or bi- in bretagne

I want to sit in an old theatre

and drink in bérénice

then go home and

write poetry à la ferré

i want to be risqué

i want to be un grand

i want an old barn for maison

and a terrace sur la seine

i want to take a train to cannes

and try this poem over again

i want to say "je vous aime"

like a true patriot

for once in my life

i want to say "vive la france"

without the guilt

and throw off the shackles

i've felt since i was twelve

this American nightmare

adieu vietnam

bienvenu afghanistan

an endless maladie

tying me to a couch

with pills and pain

year after year after foutu year

my heart bursting with desire

my soul longing to speak

but the words are always foreign

always à la français

so no one gets the poems

even if my accent is good

6 avril 2008

the dregs of nightmares

2011-09-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Edvard Munch, L'enfant malade (1882)

the world is different today
since she woke from that nightmare
a hostile place where
two crows chase an osprey
high into the sky
taking turns diving up at it
across miles of treeline

a place where a sick person
abandoned with a child
cannot rise to the occasion
doesn't have the ability
to go out and take the bus
figure out where the schools are
or go grocery shopping

meanwhile the guilt
of being a total burden
hangs like bitter fruit
and while all these thoughts
are deafening in her head
everything seems to synthesize
into a blinding blankness

what to do what to do
with all this nothingness
her body throbs with pain
as the incessant september rain
returns to oregon and
pounds down whatever is left
of intelligent consciousness

there is always sleep
temporary or eternal
one precluding the other as
her heavy eyes and slack jaw
drift down to the keyboard
and the roar of cars through water
becomes a hymn for her hopelessness

Bel hommage à Alain Bashung

2011-09-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

tu vas toujours continuer dans nos cœurs, tous les mots sont les tiens, tu es partout...

Hommage - Alain Bashung by Muse-iciens

before the fall

2011-09-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

Pieter the Elder Bruegel, The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562)

if i learn one lesson

let it be this

there is a tripwire

in my consciousness

and in front of it is a pit

that is endless

once my foot gets caught

and i begin to fall

my eyes will be blinded

by sand and rock

and my ears shall erupt

in the rapid tumbling

my mouth will utter

bits of jumbled tongue

and i won't know what

i am saying anymore

as the centuries rush past

ringed with corpses

and all because another

injured my pride

and all because my ego

was brushed and bruised

and who am i and who are you

on this battlefield

if i am to remain true

let me finish in beauty

my life on this planet

and let me ne'er forget

that we were one person

before we were two

conversation with my dead husband

2011-09-11T01:30:00.000-07:00

a stream of consciousness remembrance...

there's a lot of love in there, in that big heart of yours. i don't want to let it go, i want to keep it all right here next to me on the bed to sing about when i'm dying. i want to sing about all the love i knew now and then, love for you, before you, and after you too. love when i was cracking up after we split, love when i was getting back my health after the abandonment, love when our child moves through the world without knowing what it meant. it meant everything, our marriage.

some love goes on even when two people separate after years of fighting. it goes on every time the other person walks into a room as i walked into your hospital room two years ago not knowing that i was seeing you for the very last time. there were no goodbyes, just see you soons, and though the prognosis was not good, they told me at the beginning of summer that you could live a year or more. they were wrong: a heart can give out sooner because it's invisible, no one can see what's happening on the interior. you were tired, that's for certain. no one worked harder than you did.

i don't believe in an ever-after, i believe in the now of your memory, and even if i idealize who you were, no one will ever know because you're not here to show them, not standing in front us with your redundant talk about selling stuff and getting rich or your childhood baggage or your corrosive jealousy. no, you're here as a ghost and i'm just remembering how i felt when i came home from work and you were already stirring chicken dumplings at the stove. you'd been on a tar roof in the hot sun all day and yet there you were, standing in the steam. you even went to the store first to get the ingredients. you did things like that all the time. i used to talk about equal relationships but you lived them.

remembering you is easy now and i can even allow myself to feel angry at you without any guilt. it's easier to have bad feelings about someone when they live. it takes honesty to say i'm still mad at you. and it takes even more to say that i never stopped loving you for so many years after we split and even then, i loved you as an old friend. you were the father of my child, you were the plague of my existence, you abandoned me when i was at the height of my love for you and you know what? i wasn't a saint either, i wasn't miss perfect. i was cold sometimes and tired from overwork, i was ambitious. but you loved me tirelessly until you stopped believing in my fidelty but i swear one more time to you alive and dead, I was always faithful. it had to be psychosis to make you doubt that. it had to be the terrible lack of self esteem from when you were sent away to boarding school at 4. i've thought about it until i'm dizzy with rationalizations. but it doesn't matter now. just believe me when i say i loved you and only you for all the years we lived together.

tell our son that his mother needs him. i remember how when he came to live with you when he was 10 and as he grew into a young man, you used to tell him to call his mother. he needs you to remind him again. he wants absolute freedom from some dim memory of me as a rotten mama. he never knew the back story and even when he did, he chose not to believe it. i wanted that absolute freedom once too, but now i know something about needing another person because when you get ill, you no longer have a choice: you're dependent or you die, it's that simple. well, i chose life, richard, and you did too. you chose to make your death heroic, and i was privileged to be a part of it.

please just tell him to call me. we're all we have left now that you're still dead. remind him that it wasn't all that terrible. help him remember i-hop and bowling, candyland and kung fu. help him remember blanquette of chicken and genoise cakes. help him remember massages all night long when his legs hurt. help him remember how proud he used to be of me and of us. help him trust that again.

now go on and be dead, as i'm sure you're used to it by now. we never quite arrive at the same comfort zone. no, we miss having you in the world. xoxoxoxo

cruel mistress, lazy doctors

2011-09-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Roberto Matta Echaurren (1911-2002)

she's back with her weaving web

into the synapses of my insula

stimulating my shrinking adrenal glands

and i can't keep up

her frenzied lightworks

assume the better part of me

as she stuffs her ever youthful hand

deep into my gray matter

this ghost of pain past and present

burns through complex networks

and all the birds stop singing

when they hear my agonizing cries

yet nothing emerges from this throat

but small yelps of helplessness

there are pills that could save me now

but my doctors won't give them to me

they cannot feel her sink into my skin

my lymph, bones and intestines

they do not have the courage to look

past the invisible into the neural

she is there in black and white

with over twenty years of scholarship

yet they will not take the time

to enter search words into a browser

and so i am left with her foot

poised ever harder on my erratic heart

as blinking lights of the autonomic

flash their warning signals

heat rises, lights go brighter

sounds swell, smells nauseate

and the pain is so great i must keep vigil

at the gates of sleep and wakefulness

narcotics will not kill her

but they diminish her all-consuming flames

they will let me wait in relative safety

until the research comes to save me

Stand now and remember

2011-09-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

On the 10th anniversary of one such September 11th... inspired by a segment of "Democracy Now",
featuring Ariel Dorfman: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/8/epitaph_for_another_9_11_reknown

For all the dead of all our September 11ths,

for India, South Africa and Attica,

for Chile, Haiti, and NYC, my birthplace:

Know that our resistance shall be infinite

and the lies of the purveyors of violence

shall be lit up by sunshine glinting off our tears.

Gandhi knew that only nonviolence

and personal sacrifice could defeat

the stranglehold of the British masters.

Allende, the hope of the Chileans

knew that one day his countrymen and women

would reconstruct their own futures.

Mandela sat, studied and survived for freedom

and Aristide waited seven years in

South Africa to return to his people.

The ghost of the twin towers stand over us

begging more questions than answers about

how we will fashion the remainder of our years.

Each corpse in the street, each dead family

is awaiting a justice that must come and

will come when we wake up to who we are.

Those who need to massacre to keep power

to steal resources and make themselves fatter

shall find themselves at the back of the jailhouse.

People are starving for food and for love;

they are emerging from caves and snakepits

to pick up invisible arms of righteousness.

Only when we see ourselves in the other,

when we stand up for the weakest amongst us,

when we cherish and protect all our children,

will our calvacade toward September 11th stop

and each day for a moment we shall stand

and remember the end of corruption and violence.

Stand now and remember together:

Vow unto death not for revenge but for justice

and then go out and make it happen.

8 septembre 2011

au pavillon des lauriers - bashung

2011-09-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

An incredibly beautiful song with this amazing video by our friend, Filoutry (Fred)!

From the album "Fantaisie Militaire"

Words: Alain Bashung/Jean Fauque

Music: Alain Bashung

(as translated by Laura Tattoo)

Des toges me toisent
Men in togas sum me up
Des érudits m'abreuvent de leurs fioles
Erudites flood me with their flasks
À quoi c’est dû cette assiduité

To what is owed this assiduousness

À sillonner sans répit ma macédoine
To plow without respite my mixed vegetables
À quoi c’est dû

To what is it owed

Au pavillon des lauriers

In the pavillion of laurels
Il est tard pour se demander
It is late to be asking oneself
À quoi c'est dû ces lauriers
To what is owed these laurels
À quoi c’est dû ces chaluts qui n’entravent que l’océan
To what is owed these trawlers that only impede the ocean
Au pavillon des lauriers
In the pavillion of laurels
Il faut voir à ne célébrer
One must make sure to celebrate
Que l'insensé
Only the insensed

Je veux rester fou

I want to stay crazy

Derrière mes paupières

Behind my eyelids
Filent des régates
File the regattas
Mes années-lumière sont pas des lumières
My light years are not lights
Mais je veille
But I watch over
Sur un grain de toute beauté
A grain of complete beauty
Un grain de toute beauté
A grain of complete beauty

À quoi c’est dû
To what is it owed
Ces attributs
These attributes
À quoi c'est dû
To what is it owed
Ce duvet pachyderme
This pachydermal coverlet
Ces alizés camisolés
These camisoled trade winds
À quoi c'est dû
To what is it owed

Au pavillon des lauriers
In the pavillon of laurels
Il est tard pour se demander
It's a bit late to be asking
À quoi c'est dû ces corvées
To what is it owed these chores
À quoi c'est dû ces résidus d'amour aveugle
To what is it owed these residuals of blind love
Au pavillon des lauriers
In the pavillon of laurels
Il faut croire qu’on a savonné
One must believe to have lathered up
Liberty
Liberty
Je veux rester fou
I want to stay crazy

J'adresse aux rivières
I address the rivers
Des lettres de brume
The letters of fog
Les anniversaires j'ai l'air dans la lune
The anniversaries I have air on the moon
Mais je veille
But I watch over

Sur un grain de toute beauté

A grain of complete beauty

Un grain de toute beauté

A grain of complete beauty

À quoi c'est dû
To what is it owed
À quoi c'est dû
To what is it owed

je te suis

2011-09-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

pour Zérélia

j'aime tes mots que souvent je ne connais pas

mais tu me les enseignes avec tes visions macabres

la lune monte et sa lumière montre

les choses qui par jour vont disparaître

les survivants qui posent dans les coins de ténèbres

attendant leurs proies dans leurs marches funèbres

leurs dernières marches comme les concélébrants

qui donnent la dernière cène à jesus christ

et voilà il n'y a plus dieu, il n'y a plus mal

il n'y a que la vie qui a faim énorme

pour la beauté de la mort, une vision céleste

de voir Morpheus descendre et mettre fin à ta peine

un sacré rêve réservé pour les adeptes

qui traversent les eaux de la rivière styx

c'est toi qui ouvres la marche et moi je vais te suivre

car de ma douleur sans fin je dois enfin enfuir

The earliest poem I have, 1972

2011-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

Woman Lying on Floor, Martha Sawyers (1902-1988)

When I woke up this morning,

turning out from my soul,

on my left lay some half-finished,

half-understood philosophy,

leadership potentiality,

an acceptance like the vague

nodding on a head,

and on my right

an ashtray lay overturned

I picked my bones up off the wood,

returned the book to its shelf

and swept the floor.

Silently the room turned with the earth,

and I followed suit––

There was nothing more I could do.

Cold Wars (a very old poem)

2011-08-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Cold Wars

I pick up the child with scorched hands,
My head all bundled like a Russian woman,
My mouth unpainted and white like Siberia.

Inside the cataclysm, the warstorm.
I'm feeling like a Bolshevik,
Rather martyred, rather burned by the Party,

Rather like this wounded child.
She's got my eyes and pale lips, her
Swollen breast equals my cry, restrained

Only out of necessity. Maybe she is me.
Maybe I never made it past the age of three.
Maybe I never made it to heaven.

She's beautiful. Her warm blood
Touches my frigid skin and as I kiss her,
My lips turn red with her life,

Ending in a tremor I shall never forget.
Wrong! I scream in between the cold wars,
I was mistaken. I was mistaken. I was mistaken.

~laura tattoo
5/26/77

not with the crows but with the sparrows

2011-08-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

the world is falling apart
and i can't keep my damned eyes open
baby crows the size of dogs
flood the overhead wires
and remind me of the war on terror
war without end greedy selfish
war for oil for ownership of the future
for who will control what we do
what we have what we know
the same old media tug of war
upside down to get the blood flowing
back into the feet the legs the head
a deep breath before going under
to scan the mud bottom of the
lake to escape the underbelly
of the beast one peek and
it's back to bed and sheet
for the hopeless like me who
can't breathe in the slaughterhouses
no i must withdraw and die elsewhere
not with the bellicose crows
but with the silent sparrows
with the rest of what's left
of what were once humans
not warriors but healers
not death angels but geese
flying southward in harmony

i saw that today
and it changed everything

pain, a discrete branch of medicine

2011-08-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

A few days before Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida".

This time i'm not rushing to get there

we've given it three hours and i'm plenty early

it's a hot 85º outside so i hole up with a

book i've been trying to read for

a month in spite of motion sickness
a french book nonetheless just to

make it harder on myself

roll eyes, cue exhaustion,

drop the book on the floor

jerk awake, hear my name called

Standing in line at the

prescription counter (main pharmacy)

i take a number - #0013
it gives me time to decide

if i'm actually going to buy this poison

the new doc has just prescribed

or if i'm going to stand by my guns

and tell her to go fuck herself

A year ago out of the blue my pain swelled

so hot and white that all i thought about

was getting out out out of here

the bottle of pain pills was full at the time

it would have been so easy, so

righteous, so in or out of your face

depending on our relationship

all without a shred of salvaging guilt

instead i got an increased dose

then decided to titrate off all narcotics

i got to half my usual dose and stopped

before the pain punched a wallop

Six months later in her office, I tell the doc
that i need extra 10s to break the pain cycle

breakthrough meds like i used to get

before i titrated down to almost nothing
"our little experiment didn't work 'cause

i hit a pain wall and it was a knockout

my shoulders are up to my earlobes

and i'm carrying a second body around
there's a burning fire i can't put out

in my arms, in my breasts, in my lymph

i've been surviving like this for 12+ years

and i think i know what i need to control it"

"well, it's still more of the drug, dear,"

smiling with a sardonic glint

as if she's already read my script

and disapproved of my editing

"besides," she suddenly announces

"this pain med is going off our formulary"

and she offers me another neuroleptic

the one another doc had recently said to avoid

at all costs: "the side effects are awful"

but that doc had another one to try

because each new doc has a favorite kind

"prescribers" i think and i sigh, resigned

At home on the web I read pages of comments

by patients transitioning from one pain

med to the other, to the one my new doc

suddenly remembered to discuss with me

after 40 minutes of useless arguing

"oxymorphone is 2x stronger than the one

you're on", when all I really want is not

to be knocked out, to be able to sit up

and take nourishment without an overwhelming

desire to throw up and maybe write some poems

is it permissable to still want to write poems

with a 24/7 pain condition?

When the pharmacy tech arrives

i still haven't decided

so i plop down 60 bucks

and take all of it

topa topa topa max

maximum security prison

i'd rather be fat and free than

under the twinkling eye

of lousy prescribers

topa max, i think when i get home

no thanks!

been there, done that!

And then my eyes fall

upon unforgettable words
"when they changed the formulation

of oxycontin a year ago..."

pumped it full of polymers and fill

to keep addicts from crushing it

and sticking it in a needle

and how all the pain patients got sick

how it lost 20-30% of its efficacy

with burning guts, face rashes, oozing

orange gel from rectums... oh my god!
yes yes and yes, plus tachycardia!

and when the pain ganged up on me

and i suffered alone for three solid months

enough to contemplate suicide

and leave my family to grieve what

they should have done to save me
(but never could)

no one had told me about the bait

and switch of one pill named OC

for another, same color, named OP

not purdue pharmaceuticals

or my stupid doctors

"so if it's not on our formulary," said the doc

"you're going to be the one paying for it
out of pocket, so i think we had better

consider trying oxymorphone

go home and look, you're a good researcher"

and i feel a pain slither through my gut

the first alarm that my constipation is

coming to its bitter end along with

my appointment, my heart racing to 120

as I rise from the cushy chair with loads

of new options dangling from my hand
and a sick feeling like i'm sooo done

and i hit the bathroom, still unaware that

a now uncrushable polymer-laden pill

that used to work well for me before

has made me so much sicker

and that is why i have had to come

100-plus miles to meet my

great - new - prescriber

"the mind is a terrible thing"

2011-08-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

fun in the night with Tattoo and Walker

she is taking back her breath today

out of her cloud bank of busy work

intoxicating words, phantom music

all the things she does to distract

herself from pain and boredom:

"the mind is a terrible thing"

we laughed about that when we

first met until we cried on the floor

but it turned out to be a metaphor

for the way we live

pushing the envelope into the night

until sunlight cracks the darkness

and we have to admit defeat again

that sleep is overtaking our bodies

and turning our brains to pale jelly

you in your room, me in mine

the electronic switching of mass

media 24/7 until two days later

I twirl a spinning yarn and you

write ten haiku for a massacre

why bother, you say, when no one

will read it and you chalk it up

to another process experiment

in which the two of us light each

other up like glittering bonfires

spitting out romantic-era music

and volumes of epic poems on death

we, the sole loners on a sinking ship

holding hands as we go under

my pain singing with your tinnitus

in the past few days I have chosen

to retract, refract the sparks that

come at me in light years 'til

i'm that blazing bush talking to

moses and you know it frightens me

brother, i've got to calm down the

neurons, drink plenty of water

and stop these dangerous floes

because the mind is a terrible thing

it can take you in the wrong direction

i'm going away for a spell to

that now unfathomable hinterland
taking with me a thing resembling

clockworks, discipline and sleep

re-integrating my action with inaction

i should have done this long ago

but it's not too late to give it a go

while you sit at your new hammond

walking bass notes with the left hand

chords with the right for the fun of it

Day in D minor

2011-08-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

for my friends

drifting
disconnected
dystonic
dreamlike

drowning in a sea
of recovered
memory

dorment
floating in

amniotic fluid

dehydrated
dissonant
dreadful
depressed

drugged
diseased
slowly dying

nothing
i can do
about it

but regard your art
listen to your music
read your poems
and be grateful for you

Med Time

2011-08-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

I wake up from that
last dream I can't remember
and the tv's still on
I want it to be five hours
but it is only three
and my eyes and neck
are aching
Did I take my 4 ams
or did I forget?
My body says forgotten
but the med box is empty...

Then I remember Ron
holding out his hand
like a bronzed buddha
until I was awake enough
to sit up and swallow
I've seen him sit there
for an hour until
his patience is spent
and he says
"Honey, I'm tired!"
I always feel like a lump
and apologize...

So the pills are swallowed
and the tv's still on
but it isn't time
for "Democracy Now"
and it isn't even time
for "Washington Journal"
It's hours hours hours
'til a timer sounds
the half-life ends
and I turn off the tv
and start it all again:
the insidious waiting
for the end of pain

śamatha

2011-08-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

o silent witness

behind softened eyes

on curled tongue

in gently held palms

silent witness
listening to the heart

the flow of breath

rising and falling

a relaxing sweep of peace

along nerve networks

one could almost call it sleep

but for consciousness

o silent witness

each time my mind engages

i hear a whisper of your name

and everything falls away

silent witness

when prana embarks

like a rocking boat

or a rising sun

all at once you are sky

and ocean and earth and fire

yet in the sweet moment

you are unchangeable

when i open my still soft eyes

and brightness fills them

i feel you seated in

my heart of hearts

peaceful

Richard's song

2011-07-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

Why in the world

your eyes

Why in the world

those eyes that cut like knives

and bring me back to another time

I slept with you long ago

in ancient dreams

You've appeared to me every night since

We waded through deep mire until

we discovered the jewel of our wills

Why in the world

that crossbow and arrow

Why in the world

can't you see with those eyes

Where is the sweet sleep I once knew

when I lay safe in your flower arms

my muscles tight with fatigue

Why did you leave me standing here

knee deep in dreams

with no hope of awakening

(1990)

legacy

2011-07-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

secrets are not meant for keeping

children run wild at the lakeside

sunlight upon water

warms the frozen soul

i give you my eyes for seeing

i light a candle to your name

the sweet parade of daybreak

prompts a bird to sing

in excelsis deo adonai

three quarter moon

in a patch of blue sky

ascendre descendre disparaître

(1990)

"All I've got to say is that they really don't care about us." ~MJ

2011-07-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

word. (copied from my Facebook page)

Michael Jackson - They Don't Really Care About Us (Banned Prison Version HQ)

www.youtube.com

- Laura Tattoo Horn of Africa Famine: Millions at Risk in "Deadly Cocktail" of War, Climate Change, Neoliberalism: http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=hQsOXZhMgaU
  
  Horn of Africa Famine: Millions at Risk in "Deadly Cocktail" of War, Climate Change, Neoliberalism
  www.youtube.com
  Original Website : democracynow.org http://www.democracynow.org/20 11/7/22/horn_o...f_africa_famine_millions_at
- Laura Tattoo http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2011/07/21/california-prison-hunger-strike-ends_ n_906252.html
  
  California Prison Hunger Strike Ends
  www.huffingtonpost.com
  Prison officials announced Thursday that California inmates have ended a statewi...de hunger strike that began three weeks ago at Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County. The inmates organized the strike in protest over conditions and policies within the facility.Afficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo http://www.democracynow.or g/2011/7/22/pushing_crisis_gop_cries_wolf_on
  
  Pushing Crisis: GOP Cries Wolf on Debt Ceiling In Order To Impose Radical Pro-Rich Agenda
  www.democracynow.org
  President Obama and Republican House speaker John Boehner are allegedly close to... a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the deal is coming under fire from both Congressional Democrats and Republicans — part of it calAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo how they make us crazy and pull the wool over the eyes of normally caring doctors.
  The difference between science and psychiatry – again
  www.meactionuk.org.uk
  In her BMJ editorial in which she referred to “myalgic encephalitis” instead of ...the correct term “myalgic encephalomyelitis” (Ending the stalemate over CFS/ME: BMJ 2011:342:d3956), Fiona Godlee described the disagreement between the biomedical and psychosocial schools of thought about ME as “an unprAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2011/07/24/russell-brand-amy-winehouse_n_907964.html
  
  Russell Brand: Tribute To Amy Winehouse
  www.huffingtonpost.com
  As news of Amy Winehouse's death spread Saturday, many celebrities -- some who k...new her, many who didn't -- took to Twitter to mourn her. Russell Brand, who befriended the British singer when she was an unknown talent and watched her turn into a worldwide star, wrote a tribute to Winehouse on his weAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo http://www.internationalne ws.fr/article-19232550.html
  
  Vendre la guerre/War made easy (video, en/fr) - internationalnews
  www.internationalnews.fr
  ‎(Reprise de bellaciao.org et alterninfo.net)Sous-titré Français (STFR)ce film e...xpose un demi-siècle de propagande gouvernementale et de manipulation des médias qui ont entraîné les Etats-Unis da… Hébergé par OverBlogAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo à paris contre le nucleaire: http://www.wat.tv/video/jo urnee-action-mondiale-manifestati-3xgwf_3xgjv_.html
  
  Journée d'Action mondiale et Manifestation à Paris contre le nucléaire (11 Juin 2011)
  www.wat.tv
  Trois mois jour pour jour après le séisme et le tsunami au Japon, à l'origine de... la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima, 1.000 à 5.000 personnes ont manifesté samedi à Paris contre le nucléaire, ... - A la recherche de vidéo Actualité Actu France? Découvrez la dernière vidéo Journée d'Action mondialeAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo usa india deadly accord and beyond: http://blip.tv/grittv/grit tv-vandana-shiva-understanding-the-corporate-takeove r-5102757
  
  GRITtv: Vandana Shiva: Understanding the Corporate Takeover - GRITtv with Laura Flanders on blip.tv
  blip.tv
  ‎"The American people should see that corporations have abandoned them long ago,..." says scientist, environmentalist, and food justice activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, named one of the seven most influential women in the world by Forbes magazine. "The people will have to rebuild democracy as a living democrAfficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=ByHsPS8Maa0
  
  Heartfelt Appeal of Fukushima Mothers
  www.youtube.com
  Stop easing of radiation standard to 20milliSv/year on children! Repeal MEXT's n...otification! On April 19, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science...Afficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo bravery unsurpassed: http://www.democracynow.or g/2011/7/20/pakistani_journalist_shehrbano_taseer_on_murder
  
  Pakistani Journalist Shehrbano Taseer on Murder of Her Father, Salmaan Taseer, & Confronting Militan
  www.democracynow.org
  Shehrbano Taseer, a Newsweek journalist based in Pakistan, is the daughter of Sa...lmaan Taseer, former governor of Punjab who was shot 29 times by his own bodyguard in January. Before his assassination, Taseer had became embroiled in controversy after he spoke out against the country’s blasphemy law. Afficher la suite
- Laura Tattoo
  A ceux qui pensent
  Qu'Eve est seulement
  Une moitié d'Adam
  A ceux qui disent
  Qu'elle est la mère
  ...De tous les vices
  A ceux qui se permettent
  D'être le seul maître
  Après Dieu
  A ceux qui rient
  A celles qui pleurent
  
  A ceux qui vont
  Libres comme l'air
  A celles qui se terrent
  A ceux qui ont
  Le droit de dire
  Elles, de se taire
  A ceux qui prennent la vie
  De celles qui donnent la vie
  A ceux qui rient
  De celles qui pleurent
  
  Aux armes, citoyennes
  Nos armes seront
  Les larmes qui nous viennent
  Des crimes sans nom
  Aux hommes qui nous aiment
  Ensemble, marchons
  Et au Diable les autres
  
  A celles qu'on opprime
  Pour avoir commis le crime
  D'aimer
  A celles qu'on supprime
  Pour un peu de peau
  Dévoilée
  A celles qu'on assassine
  Pour avoir tenté de leur résister
  A nous, mes frères
  Qui laissons faire
  
  Aux armes, citoyennes
  Nos armes seront
  Les larmes qui nous viennent
  Des victimes sans nom
  Aux hommes qui nous aiment
  Ensemble, marchons
  Et au Diable les autres
  A nous, mes frères
  Qui laissons faire
  
  Aux armes, citoyennes
  Aux armes, versons
  Les larmes qui nous viennent
  Au feu des canons
  Aux hommes que reviennent
  Un peu de raison
  Et au Diable les autres
  
  Aux armes, citoyennes
  Nos larmes seront
  Le forces qui nous tiennent
  Ensemble, marchons
  Puisque l'horreur est humaine
  Sur elle versons
  Nos larmes en pardon
  
  Paroles et Musique: Zazie, 2001
  
  http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=Q4jX9uHBx2A&feature=relatedAfficher la suite
  
  ZAZIE - Aux armes citoyennes.mpg
  www.youtube.com
  Aux armes citoyennes, superbe chanson de Zazie.
- Laura Tattoo
  http://sales.arte.tv/detai lFiche.action?programId=1405
  http://topdocumentaryfilms .com/gulf-war-syndrome/
  http://www.ageofautism.com /
  http://www.mecfsforums.com /
  
  WASTE : THE NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE
  sales.arte.tv
  
  Laura Tattoo: Two generations lost to war and pestilence:
  
  "All I've got to say is that they don't really care about us."
  ~Michael Jackson
  
  "Y seras-tu?" ("Will you be there?")
  ~Alain Bashung and Jean Fauque

What's all the fuss about mouse leukemia viruses... in layman terms

2011-07-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

xmrv attached to a cell wall

Kent Heckenlively, writing for "The Age of Autism" website, does an excellent job of explaining Zhang, et al's new published paper, Frequent Detection of Infectious Xenotropic Leukemia Virus (XMLV) in Human Cultures Established from Mouse Xenografts.

Here's just a little extract:

This (the authors' research) means that every surgical patient receiving any biological product which used mouse tissue in any way has a one in four chance of being exposed to an XMLV. And that also means that any biological sample which is maintained in a facility containing xenograft cultures has a 17% chance of becoming infected.

On the question of vaccines, let's just say that only 10% of the nearly 40 vaccines children are expected to receive prior to the age of five contain mouse biological products. This translates into roughly a 100% chance that our current generation of children will be exposed to an XMLV through a vaccination.

Are you scared yet?

It gets worse.

The world is in trouble. Read more at the Age of Autism website.

When Science Journals Are Scarier Than Science Fiction

by Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/07/when-science-journals-are-scarier-than-science-fiction.html

red drum

2011-07-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

for Laura Ann Brooks

red drum

pom pom

red redder reddest

bloodshot red

through and through

like pomegranite juice

dripping from your

ripe red lips

red like passion fruit

and blood oranges

red with a 1000 warriors

on horseback
entering the valley
speckled with houses

red red red red red red red

red like a fresh wound

trimmed with plastic wire

red like steak or carrion

red red like the pain that's

dancing on my head

red red red

red with grief and anger

carving myself to reveal

bone gristle

red as the tail of

the sparrowhawk in winter

gliding into the ribs

of a white rabbit

hawk eye red

red like urgence

red like corpuscles

red red red red drum

pom pom

my sacred heart

overflowing with

love and disgust

my sad long life

finished in red earth

Footnote:
This poem developed out of a writing exercise at the weekly Astoria Poetry Workshop with Laura Ann Brooks: "I am a color." Red flashed immediately into my brain and took hold of me; the initial draft was done on autopilot, as most of them are for me. The exercises really help me break through to new ideas and metaphors. I am eternally grateful to Laura for every Wednesday night, especially now that I am well enough to leave the house once in a while: it's been a year since I last attended. And no matter how sick I am or how much pain I am in, I am able to lose mysef and forget about it somewhere in the first hour. xoxoxoxoxo

illumination

2011-07-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hope, G F Watts, 1888

just once i'd like to see
the sun at 3 am
break through my window
light up my sallow face
grace me with music
unlike the fickle moon
with its dysrhythmic phases
but a hot glaring sun
burning up the paper
under my aerial fingers

jasmine blooms through the night
i can still smell its perfume
flooding through the car window
as I drove from florida to california
i never made it: I was stranded
in the texas panhandle
shivering in a pup tent
and when i woke up in the middle
of that barren frozen universe
i turned around and headed home

memories may linger
but our best laid plans
turn to ashes on the earth
poets are made from this
deep dark tenebrous
anxious for illumination
whether in rhyme or reasoning
but it is the loss of hope
that heaviest of burdens
that oft unveils it to them

thrice have i seen the seine
wend through the city of paris
for three months i roamed
midnight alleys and quays
penning poems to goddesses
i spoke in a tongue that brought
vagabonds running
i was drunk with love
but what is sad to me today
is that i could not sustain it

The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889

Le Déserteur/ The Deserter (Boris Vian) w/ translation

2011-07-19T02:33:00.000-07:00

for all resisters and for those to come in these senseless wars...

Boris Vian - Le Déserteur

Monsieur le président

Mr. President
Je vous fais une lettre

I'm making you this letter
Que vous lirez peut-être

Perhaps you will read it
Si vous avez le temps

If you have the time
Je viens de recevoir

I have just received
Mes papiers militaires

My military papers
Pour partir à la guerre

To leave for war
Avant mercredi soir

Before Wednesday night

Monsieur le président

Mr. President
Je ne veux pas la faire

I don't want to do it
Je ne suis pas sur terre

I'm not on this earth
Pour tuer des pauvres gens.

To kill poor people
C'est pas pour vous fâcher

It's not to make you mad
Il faut que je vous dise

I just have to tell you
Ma décision est prise

My mind is made up
Je m'en vais déserter

I'm going to desert

Depuis que je suis né

Since I was born
J'ai vu mourir mon père

I've seen my father die
J'ai vu partir mes frères
I've seen my brothers leave
Et pleurer mes enfants

And my children cry
Ma mère a tant souffert

My mother suffered so much
Qu'elle est dedans sa tombe

That's she's in her grave
Et se moque des bombes

And is mocking the bombs
Et se moque des vers

And is mocking the worms

Quand j'étais prisonnier

When I was a prisoner
On m'a volé ma femme

Someone stole my wife
On m'a volé mon âme

Someone stole my soul
Et tout mon cher passé

And all my cherished past
Demain de bon matin

Tomorrow early morning
Je fermerai ma porte

I will shut my door
Au nez des années mortes

In the face of those dead years
J'irai sur les chemins.

I will go upon the paths

Je mendierai ma vie
I will beg for my living
Sur les routes de France

On the roads of France
De Bretagne en Provence
From Brittany to Provence
Et je crierai aux gens:

And I will cry out to the people:
Refusez d'obéir

Refuse to obey
Refusez de la faire

Refuse to do it
N'allez pas à la guerre

Don't go to the war
Refusez de partir

Refuse to leave

S'il faut donner son sang

If someone has to give his blood
Allez donner le vôtre

Go on and give your own
Vous êtes bon apôtre

You are a good apostle
Monsieur le président

Mr. President
Si vous me poursuivez

If you pursue me
Prevenez vos gendarmes
Warn your policemen
Que je n'aurai pas d'armes

That I will not have arms
Et qu'ils pourront tirer

And they will have to shoot

Double Negative

2011-07-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

I've done my best to love you

for 50 odd years

Been there, done that

over and over

with no hope but one:

That you might become

a loving mother

But no matter what I do
it's never enough
as you play your hand
staying one step ahead
of your game to get
what's coming to you

And what's come to you
riding on a bitter wave
is that you've driven me away
with your endless demands
and your pompous façade of
perpetual independence

They say madness is doing
the same thing over and over
and expecting a different
result: the truth is
I pity you but cannot take
any more of your abuse

Fifty odd years of it
and the last straw comes
on the back of one more
slap of your jealous anger
I cannot save you from yourself
From now on, mommy dearest
you'll have to do that alone

I'm not enough, never will be
"Obviously my children don't care about me"
Tell what little world is left
that I'm a lousy daughter
I don't give a shit no more
And that, dear mother, is
a double negative

matinale

2011-07-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

la fleur de ton visage

quand tu descends le matin

de la chaleur de ta chambre
les joues encore rosés

où elles pressaient l'oreiller

les cheveux blonds et froissés

les yeux tendres et mouillés

je t'adore comme ça

mon amour, mon enfant
coquet et somnolent

comme le coquelicot

et les frissons que je ressens

hier aujourd'hui demain

me remplient de la joie

et rappellent la première fois

où tu entres et je vois

ta figure fort et adorable

et après plusieurs paroles

dans ta langue de l'ange

j'attends chaque entrée

ton visage à perpétuité

comme j'attends le soleil

après une saison de mousson

gingembre

2011-07-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

ginger candy

melting incense and amber

the long slow burn perfuming

tongue, throat, esophagus

all the way to your tripes

chicken soup
with ginger slices and pepper
salty and hot
opens the sinuses
chases colds and influenza
natural antiseptic

cake with candied ginger
can make you speak in tongues
the mouth dancing ecstatic
whirling like dervishes
in love with the name of god

rice paper wrapped
crystalized ginger
first the thin covering dissolves
like a communion wafer in your mouth
then warm caramel sugar melts
like the chimes of a family clock

raw ginger sliced
crisp and wet
shredded with carrots

ginger flowers
ginger rodgers
ginger red hair
ginger and maryann
ginger snaps
gingerbread

unlimited inimitable ginger

At the Station

2011-07-13T02:18:00.000-07:00

653 moons have shone

through my windows

since the day I was born:

How many more will there be

before my soul takes flight

and touches its crusty surface?

I long for death the way

some people long for happiness,

yet I am not depressed:

I only seek the end of this body

that enthalls me in a dying shell

and forges its bogus signature.

What shall be revealed

is the greatest secret,

and I taste it every time

the moon rises over the trees

and whispers sweet nothings

in my inner ear.

Have no fear, sister soul,

of that spinning top

moving o'er the mountains:

It is only Liberation Train

coming to pick you up

at Blessèd Station.

bastille day

2011-07-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

roses by august renoir

don't you love it

when a new birdsong appears

in the neighborhood

or when the crows act

all high and mighty

once the osprey have left

taking back their territory

don't you feel then

that you could brave anything

life might throw at you

i'm going out into that

blazing sun of noontide

joining with a throng

who love a francophonic world

if i can't walk

there will be a wheelchair

and if i can't talk

there will be music and food

there truly is nothing to fear

because i am not this body

i cannot be subjugated

by pain and loss

only made sun hot

melting away the locks

that kept me hidden

desperate and miserable

year after lonely year

i'm through with

malady and despair

or perhaps they are though

with me for a season

and when i say "through"

i mean only "liberated"

and when i say "liberated"

i mean "attempting it"

because the sun is shining

and my birthplace is joy

i am nothing without

the minute to minute revolutions

breaking out in the streets

of my consciousness

rebellion and surrender

go hand in hand

like a birdsong

never before heard

or the crazy love dance

of sparrows on thin branches

life is a drive to create

and it never stops maddening us

until we participate

until we dive

head long into the ecstatic

break a leg in the grand theater

and don't hold anything back

i dove into malady and despair

and i don't regret it

you cannot regret that

which brings into consciousness

the reasons you were born

Day of the Osprey

2011-07-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

i spent most of yesterday morning on a new bird project that fell into my lap when i opened the side door and spotted a multitude of "eagles" in the sky--or were they hawks?--landing in the old growth trees where the eagle family had been and now is gone. there were so many of them.

i rushed outside with my camera, trying desperately to capture these fast birds gliding on the cold gray air of a very overcast day; there seemed to be so many--maybe 15, 20? it was hard to tell because they kept coming from the east toward the trees, overshooting them and then circling back. i noticed that some were landing deeper in the forest, in trees that i cannot see from my porch; we are sunken down from the road and just two blocks from the great columbia river.

i actually was confused because i thought that these birds looked a lot like seagulls, with heads bent forward and a curved shaped to their wing, but they were the wrong color. also, their wingspan looked like that of a hawk at times, with that full-wide talon spread: it was especially huge when it was gliding high. but when descending, the wings would arch back like a swallow.

they were crying as they flew and after they landed in the trees. i'd heard that call before. it was a squeeky song, somewhat melodious, a sharp, throaty, whistling kind of sound

i did what i always do in such instances: i hit the web full tilt! and there they were, my osprey, exactly as i saw them flying, exactly as i heard them crying. i'll post my pictures and video... most are at a distance, but one flew right over my porch and i nailed it with my camera from underneath... big up for osprey day!

you can hear the cry in an mp3 HERE: http://www.allaboutbirds.o rg/guide/Osprey/id

akampher shot this in 2007 in clatskanie, oregon, around 20 miles upriver from us on the columbia! kismet!

for the love of god

2011-07-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

for the love of god
i renounced everything
sold off my music
wrapped myself in sackcloth
wept for explanations as i
levitated at midnight
vibrating myself into madness
short circuiting my synapses
and praying for someone to come
and explain everything

and when no one came
i projected a guru
the perfected pariah
and i followed him unto death
smeared my body with his ashes
recounted his histories
bathed his image on
the banks of the ganges
then returned home to erect
an altar of such breadth
it filled three universes

yet everything was not
as lovely as it seemed
i had little discipline
over my mind and body
never slept or rested
smoked bija
engaged in random sex
took antipsychotics
and no amount of posturing
could sustain my body
as everything was outward
imagined and flouted
like the heat from my hands
that "healed" thousands

i lost my health
to a stealth virus
by opening the door
to my own ego
the games stopped
the gurus vanished
and i was left
alone and sick
with the vestiges
of the religious
the iconic images
and in my mouth
a taste of rust
and bitterness

i threw everything
back into the sea
where it came from
and started from zero
no god, no guru
no will, no want
no words of grief
not even a whisper
of om peace
just despair and malady
for decennium
pain ad nauseum
and it still goes on

yet as suddenly
as sun appears out
of the rainy season
i again feel joy
like honeysuckle blooming
on a summer night
and a deep peace
like a river that
draws me close
as my eyes grow soft
remembering it all
children, men
gurus, domestic animals
people i've loved
all the losses
all the resurrections
the beatings
the beginnings
the deaths of

and i live every one
blessed because
i am no longer
looking for love
but i have become love
and my words like nectar
flow from a jar
that never empties
but like om peace
fills every space
and all time
relative or not
with its sweetness

Meet M.T. Liggett, Kansas artist (and crusty old bastard)

2011-07-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

from the documentary Red State 2 that examined the red-state mindset and blew away all the stereotypes...