ODE TO O2
You used to be able to drink the water
someone poisoned it
now you buy it at the corner store
There used to be oxygen in the air
someone poisoned it
not you buy it at the corner bar
You used to be able to plant a plant
someone patented it
THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER
That little skipping step
the white cotton dress
the pebbles rolling
down the path
The sunflowers turning
to watch her as she passes
OOPS
What if they start making globes
In Australia, or maybe even
Tierra del Fuego
And some poor farmer
firmly planted
in North Platte Nebraska
suddenly finds
his whole world
turned upside down
THEY KAMA THEY SAW
All day the tourists walk
through ancient temples
of the East
Hour after streaming hour
viewing image after image
of erotic grace and coupling
Taking it in – Taking it in
By evening statues carved of stone
have become soft flesh in them
With the women
the transformation is total
with the men – almost
LIVING ALOHA
On Kauai an average house
costs half a million or more
And half the people and more
still work for a minimum wage
Around a grass shack tenement
broken handles of tired tools
lie buried in lava gravel
and broken hands that held them
hot a cut-rate mainland beer
The wind from the ocean stirs
creaking limbs on a dry lanai
Orchid’s breath still whispering
songs of an old deep joy
NEW ORLEANS 2005
Nobody wants to leave Shangri La
When the Chinese invaded Tibet
they sent the Dalai Lama
and a ream of Rimpoches
rolling down from the
High Himalayas
and out across the world
And the world is better for it
Nobody wants to leave the city
where all the rivers lead
From the Missouri Breaks in Montana
through Minneapolis and Memphis
the gold and good earth
of America’s heart
all heads for the delta
and gathers in Basin Street
and sings
Hurricane Katrina reversed the flow
pushed it back up the river
and across the land
and America may be the better for it
MARX AND GOD IN NEW ORLEANS
The people of New Orleans are still singing
If religion is indeed the opiate of the people
seldom was it more needed and more used
than last September down in New Orleans
And yet strangely and much I suspect
to the relief of the administration
the God of the people of New Orleans
is not a God of revenge
The God of the people of New Orleans
is a God of mysterious intent
not blamed for those who die
but praised by those who live
Theirs is the God that rocks you to sleep
in the belly of the slave ship
surrounded by water
The God that rocks you to sleep
in the hold of the Superdome
surrounded by water
LEAVING TOWN
With the last house at your back
and the last dog in the last yard
tired of barking
Still standing and still staring
at a line posing as horizon
The warmth and wounds of love
drying in the wind
Knowing that the world
is indeed flat
That you are only one
step from the edge
And that you will
fall off