Monday, May 1, 2023

May Day

 

May Day morning at Wrenheim in Naturita Canyon

May Day

“Let the millionaire go naked, stark naked!”

                     —César Vallejo

May the multi-billionaires bankrolling proxy cock rockets for the 1% to escape stop.

May they instead fund food desert grocery stores, wellness checks, dental exams, universal health care, apprenticeships, journalists, trade school, college, trains, buses, marching bands, drumlines, symphonies, poetry readings, and neighborhood puppet shows, two free cold drinks per attendee.

May solar panel and wind turbine farms replace golf courses and parking lots.

May megachurches, shopping malls, and munitions factories shelter the shelterless.

May corporations and the rich pay their taxes like any entry-level janitor.

May minimum income let no one hunger.

May guns become curios.  

May not one more child be shot.

May all go garmented as wanted.

May no one struggle between lights or groceries, groceries or medicine, medicine or rent.

May throwing money at problems solve them.

Unlimited music streaming services, tiny homes, and spicy vegan snacks for everyone!

My brain’s a pessimist, my heart a Marxist, stomach an anarchist, feet the downtrodden.

My soul’s on the side of kids throwing rocks at cops.

May only their helmets and shields be thumped.

May anyone ill be healed.

May the North Atlantic garbage patch—marine debris and microplastics hundreds of miles across—be engineered to serve as refuge paradise for everyone whose islands rising waters overwhelm.

May personal solar-powered cooling suits be distributed to the populace, embroidered with one of three slogans in Esperanto: “Hot and bothered,” “Just chilling,” and “Sorry!”

May hands exert themselves for common purpose.

May the sleep of the people be bountiful.

May the dreams of those sleeping in work clothes contain no labor.

May we wake with the happy idea of infinite wishes.


Sheep Mountain

Saturday, April 8, 2023

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

 


Colorado Times-Recorder

Denver media progressive Jason Salzman is putting out an in-depth on-line newspaper with Colorado news and op-ed.  Here's one poem of mine that just appeared as opinion. For the published version, go HERE



Day After


April Fool's

almost missed 

the subtleties of circle fractures

in the poled skin of the snow


As Gerrit Lansing once told us

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

"All life long/the dew falls from heaven

... trees climb up from underground waters"



Holding palm up on the unburnt trunk

of a Thunder Trails yellowleg pine

in morning tai chi -- chanting

 needles, rootlets, hyphae


News alive again

with Mar-a-lago shenanigans

blowing ill-will like a militia howl 

before a Rocky Mountain storm


Not surprised really, Irate, saddened. Right

& left, vicious or vicarious, some furious

li bingeing on outlaw fantasies. We

Americans love our bully pulpits. Our puppets



Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Ziggie's Open Mike Zoom Series


 Julie Cummings is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.


Topic: Ziggies Poetry Open Mic Featuring Art Goodtimes
Time: Apr 6, 2023 05:45 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting HERE


Meeting ID: 830 9558 4158

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

BARDIC TRAILS APRIL 13023

 

Talking Gourds Broadside by Daiva Chesonis
Talking Gourds Broadside by Daiva Chesonis

Diana Whitney

Fischer Prize Finalist 2022

 Happy National Poetry Month!

If you missed registering to join us for tonight's Bardic Trails at 7 pm Mountain Time, find the zoom link below  

After Diana reads, host Joanna Spindler will lead a Q&A session

followed by our Passing of the Gourd for those wanting to read a poem

 Bardic Trails is held on the first Tuesday of every month as a collaboration of the Telluride Institute's Talking Gourds poetry program and the Wilkinson Public Library

Topic: Bardic Trails

Time: Apr 4, 2023 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

JOIN ZOOM HERE

Meeting ID: 820 8592 7190 



Diana Whitney writes across the genres with a focus on feminism, sexuality, and motherhood. She is editor of the bestselling anthology YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE EVERYTHING: POEMS FOR GIRLS BECOMING THEMSELVES, a Best Book of 2021 and winner of the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award. As the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Diana featured women poets and LGBTQ voices in her column. Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Glamour, Tinderbox, and many more. Her poetry debut, WANTING IT, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award. She is finishing a new collection, GIRL TROUBLE, supported by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Find out more HERE



Sunday, March 26, 2023

Tuning into KTMH 89.9 Light Praise Radio

 


Christian Democracy

Capt. B can see heshe was raised on the Christian 
story. Found Ramadan a whole lot like Lenten 

fasts pre-easter. Before the palm leaf & alleluias 
Ask herhim, "So who's God?" & heshe'll say

A great big bearded Old Man who knows it-key all
Infallible as il Papa, the Pope, according to the

Bible of the Vatican (never vacant) Holy Roman
Empire Church where all too often itki was  

the clergy (even some of the Redhats) who're 
first in communion & last out of confession

Capt. B can't see red for blue, or even green
unadulterated. To herhim  itki's the Radical

mess of the Middle where itki's best
to bend a knee

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Vernal Equinox

 

Morning Crustbusting


My snowshoes don't sink

Aren't lead weights dragging my glide

down into the subsurface melt zone


No  deep step break trail

plod of tracks into sinkholes

of afternoon sun slush


Poles flash like outriggers as I sail

across a night freeze snowpack

tacking to the storm's light flakes


Pausing for just a moment to  swig

a canteen & lay a hand blessing

on my favorite pine



Friday, March 10, 2023

Snowshoeing

 



Perception


Putting on the gloves & turning 

southwest to my poles

I catch a blast of gold mahogany 

on the Utah horizon


A knock-out break in the dusk's 

concrete gray overcast

Light peltings of snow crystals 

melt on my parka


The coda of the clouds chases me 

down Oak Hill's slopes

where, on the ropes, I can see 

through the storm's 


weakening punches. A peek of blue 

sky east towards 

the Wilsons. Mist rising from 

the ring of Wrights Mesa


I snow-walk my tracks back 

to Thunder Trails Road

where my patient bot-mobile waits 

for me & life's key


McRedeye sez

 "I'm no determinist like Einstein

WISIWYCM.  WISIWYCM

What I See Is What You Call the Multiverse

I call itki me"