Poems of a Moment                   on the brink   the world is not cookie cutter clear we do not connect the dots and color between the lines we work for any time and paper we need to write our own tale to see beyond our neighbor’s nose it is not enough to get rid of your tv if it is even wise it is not enough to vote your conscience it is never enough the world is not cookie cutter clear we do not connect the dots and color between the lines which is for children and even for children it is not enough the paper before us is blank the story behind is written it cannot be rewritten not by our own hand or any other   the story ahead awaits we must choose the hands                         skin soil   sun stone and water tree snow face and hawk path   moon creek and wind rock rain hands and owl cave   rapid walk through stellar sky whisper whisper whisper why   sun stone a snow face water tree a hawk path   moon creek the rain hands wind rock the owl cave   rain hands and snow face owl cave and hawk path   rapid walk through stellar sky whisper whisper whisper why   rain thought water path creek hawk sun hands   owl hands wind face moon stone cave rock   rapid walk through stellar sky whisper whisper whisper why                   people   people who work hard and do not dwell on it   people who are kind and do not laud themselves for it   people who are careful to avoid social situations of unhealth   people who are trapped who flex and get out   people who are too engaged to brood   people who are compassionate despite all   people who can be counted on in every move   these are the people we become in becoming people                     adolescence   is ancient             as fear and blood and silt   children know what time deplores the heights and depths and weights   adolescence is ancient             as fear and blood and silt   children know what time ignores what clings and seethes and burns   their youth                 a refusal to allow tomorrow to be just like today   allow me the moment i saw past the blank horizon of this life   the moment i slipped   the moment i felt yesterday's creature become tomorrow's horror with no respite in between   i want to remember the feeling of losing our lives forever— of being perfectly sane for a moment—at least i want to be clear i want to remember—i felt   clear   of the present....   i knew the direction   and needed tools for the journey     Lessons in Language     He was young drew pictures   eyes layered with secrets. He never wrote a word   nor once spoke yet poetry spilled   raw and clear a rare smile.     She was young compelled to learn.   One day she wrote the ceiling is the apprentice to the sky.     I was young supposed to teach   imaginative writing. It was all I could do   to translate— not poetry   not Spanish nor English—   other things.                       Hard Speak     This is not my language this too hard clay.   My teeth break and my tongue is sored on the pebble-pocked clay of speech.     This is all my language this fertile clay.   My teeth create and my tongue is soared on the pebble-pock clay of speak.                 Reprieve   This summer I will stand in one spot until my blood and my bones tell me to move and then I will move until the fibers of my body from my brain to my toes tell me otherwise.                       Ecnmc Chrncld Blues   Millions if not billions of people on this earth live under worse conditions and more pure horror than you have ever seen on film. And you say you do not live in a sheltered little concrete corner of the world. You are so far from your brothers and sisters, you forget they live. And how. I'd sit here and try to understand you if I thought there was anything to you.     P.S.  Don't forget to pick up some milk on your way home from work. Cheese, too.  American. And some honey. We're out of honey.   Milk and honey, a little bit of cheese. The whole story had the flavor of a shopping list. Tasteful. [Tasteless.]  Exact. [But trivial.]  Literature for the ages. [Transient ones.] Faded, smeared computer printout, throwaway tabs, fractions of a cent to your favorite cause. Cheap and poisonous. Poetry for the ages, and especially the dispensable moment.  Bland. Boring. Scarcely in need of a second glance.    The too-real irrelevant writing of the day—economic chronicled blues.           The Children's Movement   The 5 year-olds strode first leading waves of children none older than 9 walking 20 and 30 wide filling the street for miles holding little potted flowers and protest signs crookedly some upside down with slogans like— love kittens free the world and daddy isn't always right 8 and 9 year-olds on the flanks provided security for the rest tens of thousands of children.   Once the procession stopped children bewildered tugging each others' sleeves then slowly they moved forward past a few five year-olds who held hands in a ring a rosy protective circle around three small butterflies trying to get comfortable hide or nap (it wasn't entirely clear) on a single dropped flower around which a ring of children the five year olds held hands and sang songs of sunshine as the march flowed around and on.           Power Play   How long have they sat dismembered in their burning, dice rolling from fingertips like crimes they are about to commit, an arm broken and misplaced here, a knee crushed and found over there, the heart with a thighbone staked through it, the conscience drowned in a burst of blood forgotten along the dull path of their trespasses?   In their daily flaunting of ego, their hourly dose of fear, they flaunt and reek while rivers of time drip and flood by washing away everyone expendable, leaving them there with their dice, leaving them semi-vague and anonymous if well known, believing wholeheartedly hardheartedly that their policies are good, as can be.                          the human predicament   you are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your actions   you are not a leaf falling from a tree   you are not a cricket pre-programmed to chirp   you are not a drop of water pulled by gravity frozen by cold sublimated dissipated evaporated you are all that you are more you are human you have to choose and in the fields land mines you must choose to dismantle you must choose planting flowers   along the way                       prism   we must slow down or speed up to our mind’s natural tempo not our body’s slick act   we must realize that likely we will not say what others wish to hear and likely we will not hear what we would usually wish   we must act and hope that what we express has filtered long through what we are and what we ought to be and hope to be and wish to be and might be   the prism of another's model perspective will reflect refract or refuse us   and if reflected we hope humane   and if refracted we hope in understanding   and if refused to be bettered           existence   resistance   in a sense we are all refugees stranded in the unfamiliar driven hapless from homes taking up camp in unknown realms for a time we are directly dependent upon others then with a little luck we begin to move on our own it seems to provide for our families our neighbors ourselves while working to raise the level of existence hand in hand with who and what we can we may never achieve all we imagine or seem to remember we may never even escape these camps  for safe haven or home no promises the reality of being                           caring for children   as refugees we would do well to know that we must shelter yet cannot hide from children the reality of our plight and the nature of our struggle ongoing