THE WALKING MAN

WHO CREATES JOBS?

2012-01-30T06:46:00.001-05:00

We will fill the night with our haunted presence and come tothose places where light had been banished from and we will force illuminationto come back that we are no longer the darkened forgotten about people who livein the land of invisibility. We are now ready to take on the fight and we willdo it because like our fathers and grandfathers, who knew wrong from right, not because we want to butbecause, it is right.

Once we were them who created jobs according to our measure bymaking things that other light filled people could afford to buy for their,need, want or pleasure. Yet they took our jobs and then now call us leeches aswe dark and damned creatures collect unemployment insurance and upon themselvesthey stole and bestowed what was ours; the term and title of “Job Creator.”

Curious it is because they have an office to go to but theyhave never created a single thing, did any back breaking work, or made a jobfor anyone except vice presidents and their assistants that only labored inthousand dollar dresses and five grand suits to profit themselves at the heapstop. Hell they get richer and we are still here watching the bottom drop anddrop.

Most every morning I find my way and wait to prostratemyself where I sit begging at the wall of his gated place and in between thedays of getting mace in the face and beat until I leave his fully owned space.(I thought the earth belonged to all) either way I am always unseen as he driveson by taking another important call feeling ever so importantly, while I sitthere tears streaming down my ugly dirty mug having become the true proof ofinvisibility.

He goes to his glass tower sits on his ass orders this andthat cutting more jobs and big deals so others in other places get to work allthe while he collects his million a week and I get free food and a twice a weekshower at the shelter for the poor and doomed. I am a man too, though now darkand haunted, passed over with no work to do, I don’t hate the job someboardroom delegation gave to him as a master; after all it is still his fuckingnation he believes he can cheat into salvation.

I do though despisewhen the puffed up pundits and political prostitutes eating well at theirparty’s call him a job creator, for his only job is to guarantee the companiesprofit and dividend to raise that shareholder payout at quarters end. If in hisway he has to order my demise for him to get more pay. I have to lose mymiddlin’ way, my own niggardly parsimonious pay, and the pride in the work Idid to accomplish that end so be it, butI have to be honest with you to not have a job to create a job for another isthe definition of devastate. If what he in his tower does is a job then thatmotherfucker is absolutely great!

1/30/12

ALWAYS WITH ME

2012-01-28T06:16:00.002-05:00

I have friends that come and stay,

while others left before they

ever even knew they had gone away.

One of the things about life

I’ve learned over the decades I've sown

is that whether those you love stay or die,

the memory of them you’ve come t’ know

never moves further than a heartbeat nigh.

1/28/12

WE LEARN MORE BY SITTING IN SHADOWS

2012-01-27T07:19:00.003-05:00

Do you remember when on Saturday we would love to be inshadows

Our faces agleam with the light coming from that huge silverscreen

How easy it was to tell who was who, cowboys wore white orblack

That was how you knew who was who, the good and the bad.

We live our lives in the deep shadows,

where everything truthful is seen so clear

because the barren souls never see we are there,

listening as we watch them swear what’s ours is theirs.

The liars, thieves and thugs who report the lies as a prize

in the light, are the things they fight over in dark coldrooms.

They are ever so open to us, for they can not recognize

we are the witnesses content in the shadowy gloom.

There is danger inshadows but it is only if we fall asleep

comforted by the lies spoken to lead us to the bed ofbetrayal.

I know they all, on us shovel shit—chest deep.

Shadow dwellers are going to listen to them n their way to hell.

They speak of better times without darkness just around thecorner

but forget conveniently to tell us that the corner is a tenyear walk

down a road where they took our jobs and gave them toforeigners

a boulder strewn roadfull of bullshit that reeks, just more talk talk.

We shadow people though have learned a boulder

is nothing to stop us for we know to walk around and pastit,

or at times just pick that huge stone up above our shoulders

cast them back on them trying to block us from knowing theirreality.

And what a differentreality falls down so slowly, easily on them

in their belted pressed suits than the reality for us

who have it constantly changing at their insipid whim

saying opportunity is equal, ‘cept for stupid people whomissed the bus

Justice we want and know for shadow living has given usperception

to see them in their weedy garden of the lies they sowed,still grow.

Then try to feed us at 10 million dollar plate receptions.

But as non attendee shadow soldier you can rightly tell themto hell go

It is a sorry state yet it's always been this way of “themagainst us.”

We would courageously take a step or ten back,but to them,

who think as their the new aristocracy with themoney to hush us,

that would be an attack, cavalry bankers would rideround the bend.

To discover us in the knowing spot
then make for us at least
a horse riding Brave warriors end
but then we could win,use the knife, remove their top.

1/27/12

WITHOUT YOU THERE IS NO REASON FOR ME

2012-01-26T06:49:00.001-05:00

TRANSIENT MONEYETERNAL WEALTH

I have no money to be stolen

for my wealth resides in my heart.

True wealth does not have a dollar sign in front of it.

Money accumulates but wealth slowly grows.

One can be taken or spent and is diminished,

the other is given away and returns tenfold interst.

1/26/12

COME THE NEW DAYS BREEZE

I foundmyself in a thoughtless place

andwithin that space of mind

I took alook around to see what I could find.

Coursethere was memory

clear anddistinct and things I'd done

whichquite frankly still stink.

Yet asthe morning breeze

came upon me

for a new dayagain,

all of itleft its gloom

to makeroom

for thenew to rise within.

© M Durfee

1/26/12

AS LONG AS THERE ISYOU THERE IS ME

My personal treasury is full to overflowing

and with everything contained in there

I find myself the ability to get going

to travel free, knowing you honestly care.

I am not without fault or troubles

but I am also full of wealth beyond infinite measures

not born of financial bubbles

and e'er trying to delete tax on my worldly treasures.

Once I found you and your care

I can leave my golden love, e’ry bit and part

with you while retaining every ounce

of goodness found of my own treasury heart.

I have no need to be like those silly bears

with that nose of theirs always stuck

in the jar of someone else’s honey

to be full beyond gobs and gobs of bee money.

All I want is what I need.

Most of us know the

meaning of greed but also ken

for it there is no need.

In our hearts we find our health

That’s where honesty is birthed

the grand abundance of our true wealth

our poor folk shared values and worth.

1/26/12

FREEDOM IS WORTH THE WAR TO SECURE IT

2012-01-24T10:09:00.001-05:00

WHY WASTE A GOOD CRYING SKY?

2012-01-23T07:36:00.001-05:00

CRY FOR NO ONE

It is late January here.

It is raining in Detroit,

the capitol of the barren lands.

The sky is crying the tears

I can not cry anymore.

Physically I could replace

the skies compassion

and wash the filth from the streets

with tears of my own

but why should I do that work?

Crying for anyone or anything

is a useless tool of foolish men

and the sky

is so much more effective at it

than I could ever be.

1/23/12

I WATCH AND WAIT MYDAY TO COME

Sitting on a stool

just outside the doorless doorway

of my straw hut I puff my pipe

and wait as I watch the conquerors

slaughter the village around me.

I am thinking not of dying

but of bravery and how brave

they must feel traveling

so far across stormy unstable fear filled lands

driven by chauffer,

drunk on power and

killing every defenseless thing

they find in or out of sight.

Other huts and villages around me

are ablaze with fire as they rape

the widows and children.

Which like looting and plundering

it is a sign of their bravery.

I easily sit without qualm or worry

for I know eventually my time will come,

a snarling creature of man will approach

with blade raised shoulder high and take my head

or hip high the blade pierce and disembowel me.

Either or is fine, for now in this moment,

I get to witness the bravery of greed and conquer.

I am fortunate to see the completion of the ruin of the land

we tilled for our food and wool.

I could stand and fight until I die

but I have done that before.

This is different now.

I can fight without a horde behind me

I have done that many times as well.

What I can not fight is them who conquer

village after village

from thousands of miles away

1/23/12

WE SPEAK OUR MIND

We spoke our mind.

The torch and hayfork crowd

ripped out our heart because of it.

They took the wrong organ,

now we play on the keyboard

whatever tune comes to mind without thought

for what anyone thinks about the songs we play.

We spoke our mind.

And we were not on the tree side of the rope

when we were lynched

or the dry side of the fire hose

when we were driven back.

The chair was happily flushed out

from under us and the rafter that tried

to steal our breath,

unfortunately for them, it was weak, it broke.

We spoke our mind. (though our necks had been wrecked)

And were shot in the head (for we had no caring heart left.)

The bullet entered every ear and exited the other.

There was great joy

when that crowd thought we were finally dead.

The only thing I know

Is many things enter and exit

without having an effect.

we speak my mind.

and we don’t need

heart, throat, or brain to do it,

only soul.

1/23/12

WASTED WORDSCONFERRING RIGHTS

Simply because you have a right to do something

it does not mean the powerful will allow you

the ability to exercise it.

M Durfee

REALITY IS A PLACE NOT A PERCEPTION

2012-01-22T06:55:00.001-05:00

Walking in the Garden of the One True God I had conversationwith the gardener there. We knelt and dug the dirt and while making a hole inthe soil with our hands and knew, just knew that the seeds would grow a’rightaccording to the plan. There were many plants and flowers none in any specialorder (this was Gods garden not a British Jardain Anglais) just everything with colors and blooms,blossoms and stalks with stickers displayed. All thrown it seemed randomlyaround. I questioned the gardener about the particular piece of ground we hadjust planted in as I wiped the dirt off my hands onto my naked skin and whythere and not here as I pointed to another place was the seed buried, and whathe said to me was “Why worry? That was just an open bit and when it grows we’llsee then the color and taste of it.” Now it sounds a bit loopy to say I went awalking with the gardener in the garden of the one true God but then so didwiping dirt grimed on naked hands onto relatively clean skin.

Have you ever seen the Garden of the One True God? Or triedto dream of all the things that might be found there? Have you even ever wantedto know what grows in a place where all that is evil is stopped at the gardengate, has no power to know? Have you ever wanted to walk where there is nofilth or hate? Have you ever longed to stroll arm in arm with one you love withoutrules or control or maybe even just chat with the gardener, who if you askedwould lend you his very own gloves (which he never used?) Haven’t you ever hada dream so real that you know that there is a place where everything is goodand all that good multiplies and grows and grows and occasionally a new anddifferent kind of seed comes in through that garden gate and maybe just you andthe gardener find it a privilege of fate to plant it then sit with a cup of teaand wait for the thing to shoot up through the ground? I don’t know about you,I hope though that you do dream like that, with or without sound because inthis place the sight is far better than the noise.

I could end this little write up of God’s garden with a bit of a longing tingedlast line but then I think I would be a lying for there are days when I amfully awake and I look around at all the beauty and diversity of the color ofthe flowering folks sharing their time with me and I find myself well far alonginside that garden gate.

© M Durfee

1/22/12

I have a friend named Kristi, this is dedicated to her

THERE ARE MEN OF MEANS AND MEANS OF MEN

2012-01-21T07:58:00.001-05:00

I am a man of means not streams but streaks. There are dayswhen I look to the sky and know I don’t give a shit about any whom, what or,why. I have my neighbors all aroundme…well at least in the occupied houses and in those streaks of streams of meanI couldn’t give a shit one way or the other if any of us live or die. Let themleft behind do the crying and sighing but I look at the arguing, primping forpimping and see the useless cause of it all for a drink or cocaine fix boughtwhen money is traded for sex with a little kid. Yeah I know a person or two whoalso has streaks of mean like that and yes they did, sell their kid for an hourto bring some money into the broken down worn out Godless tower. Then came afterwardsthe power of the money, used not for food or clothes for the poor kid but a bitof weed and something to feed that crack pipe addiction where the smoke escapesthrough the crack in the pipe faster than that baby’s ten year long virginity.

If I thought with pure purity I would murder parent dear whohad no better sense than to pawn her kid, the stupid bitch. I am a rich man ofmeans not of streams but streaks and think it true insanity when I see a foolpay for something that will only either kill him or me, one of us slowly veryslowly or with a shotgun shell instantly. I would willingly and willfully do itfor them, just because I might have to because he is not a man of meansespecially streams but plenty of cowardly stripes and fools those like themthat think my position is to buy them smokes and drinks and shit for hiscracked pipe with my shit that got stolen, ripped off, taken. Some stupid fuckers have simply lostthe ability to think, I don’t know about you but with me they are supremelymisfuckingstaken.

I went and heard beautiful poetry last night,people talking about hopes and dreams and places for men to become one fillingtheir clear eyed sight where all is good and great and insanity is how we areto find our place and that being a good thing is that kind of insanity. Kind ofcrazy yet let me state it as a wonderful type of poetry and a fine differentkind of rhyming. I heard of angels call and friends who pick each other up whenthey fall and all sorts of shit like that, I wouldn’t mind a life compared withit but then of course I don’t live in sweet soft spaces like the Pointes orFerndale or even the rapidly worsening Saint Clare Shores, nope I live where aman of means lives but only if those means come embedded in streaks, not a familiesfortune of education, cash and investment streams.
I’d like to live in a great diverse pond rather than barren slum filled streets. A golden luxurious placewhere all that have life there live easily as a human race but then I see a differentworld than you, I see the scum and you see the blue. One is one and ones is oneand one is real and one is a more brutal barren and just as true. Don’tmisunderstand I would love to be able to write of beautiful things but then onecan only write of what it is that life to the eye brings. To do other would bethe lie of a fantasy and a man of means can not afford to lose what is left ofhis life’s preserving quality.

1/21/12

LOSE THE COMMUNITY BEGIN THE WAR

2012-01-19T07:57:00.000-05:00

In the land of rocks and stones buried not too deep, justunderneath the top soil and dirt, people lived as one in harmony upon the earth. Apeaceful place where a neighbor was a neighbor and everyone was lee after beinga neighbor.

No one worried much about anything, even though theyconstantly were reforming the bent plow blades, they lived by the law of goodwill and fair trade. Then one day after breaking a third plowshare one of themen who lived there in the land of rock and stones lying in wait just undergrounddid declare that these rocks and the stones too were a pain in the ass for meand for you (as well as him too).

The community came together and as one went a feelin’ anddug up every single hard and heavy one of ‘em. Just as a neighborly gesture,nothing more, one of the citizens of that land took a rock in his hand andplaced it upon another. Seeing what he had done all the citizens went to thecairn of rock and stone they had built and did the same as the other and beforeyou know it they had there, in that place their first wall, built rock uponstone and stone upon rock.

Then they saw how easy it had become to plow that fieldwithout braking anymore of the plowshare iron. Well to the end of the story itgoes like this, as every wall was built the neighbor who now owned it decidedhe no longer needed to help clear rocks and stones from any other man’s field.

Each and everyone no longer needed good will or fair tradefor all had their own yield as they decided what to plant and raise in theirown field. Some of the walls went a higher and higher and became castles largeand dark others stayed short so a jump would get you over them and you could sitand easily smoke with the friend next door.

Yes if it twerent for them rocks and stones no man would tothis day ever live in a land alone but once is was uncovered that stones madewalls and rocks made them as tall as a man wanted them to be, that was the endof community and society of loving peace. It was then when invention came aknocking behind the wall, at every other door and soon enough in the peacefulland of dance and musical chords, filled with neighborly intention, man learnedto turn plowshares into swords.

Then came the first formation gathering on the first rockcleared field that neighbors, now wall divided and dissension torn, could turnagainst each other and put their hands to war. And here is the end of it all,if we had left the rocks in the ground you and I could have remained togetherin harmony being neighborly. But once we separated ourselves with walls ofrocks and stones we turned to envy and jealousy for it seemed that either yourcrops grown were higher or your grass greener than my own. And death came tothe world for a rock and stone became a wall and a wall a war where we learnedthat the only way to be free was to own it all.

1/19/12

LIVING LIFE ON NO ONES TERMS BUT MY OWN

2012-01-18T06:24:00.000-05:00

We find the reasons for our actions as we look at the waysof others. Not logical, not moral, none of someone else’s choices are worth adamn from the spirit held in the soul of any lone man. I find my way and gladlytake responsibility for actions I’ve undertaken and I do not know how to runfor cover under another. Be the onslaught tempest or weak storm, either or isof little consequence. It matters nothing at all if I can not stand face toface against it on my own, straight and tall, no pretence. The hand of another,never to be shunned or discarded is normally a wonder filled event, yet at thetime of trouble it comes to me that it is not heaven sent. Hell may have me be draggingthat helpful friend down onto the slippery slope of slimy shit with me. Andthough they may be more than willing and a wanting to go, I every time will sayno. For when that kindness is gone horribly wrong there is the basis of regretand eventual hate, then loathing grown strong. I can stand in this barren landalone. Stand aside leave me be to face my own fate. And then when finally comesthe date under skies light and cloudless or cold, damned wet and gray, when Iam finally lowered down into the dark bottomed pit, all I ever want is one tosay “The Son of a Bitch had a Life and He fucking Lived It!”

1/14/12

THE LAST UNDERSTANDING

2012-01-17T07:49:00.004-05:00

Do not come with me, for it is a solitary journey through meaningless time andspace. It is a place both where the spring pansies and posies sown by anotherwait for me to lie abed upon them. A place where I can be still and watch theclouds scud across the cerulean blue while being warmed by a golden sun andchilled by a silver moon. Meaningless is its end where the beauty is only foundin perception, not in truth. A place where nothing changes and all negativesare mathematically reversed to their rightful place in the equation of thescience that formed this meaninglessness green glade hollow amidst themountains of knowledge. I had been here before, though I have seen it only once,I yet do not recognize it as a familiar spot. It was once the craven junglewhere blood flowed freely and death came from the barrel of gun or cannon whilebombs rained down like shit from an overfed flock fleeing carnage. It was asmeaningless then as now, even though the pansies and posies grow in theircolors for their season, they too are without meaning for death as well istheir due too. I again have my way bungled into where I belong not, again andnot going to where I should be, could be. I will to place my feet in the landof headstones and of graves that I might see my mother again, though burned toash and hidden from my sight the dear woman who would have been able to tell me,direction me saying “question nothing for you have finally come, cold andfriendless though it is, to the place of rest.” I have no more need to see thefields of flesh, flowers or the sky for my journey has gone on as far as I wishto go and there is nothing more of man that I desire to see. I have no morequeries for spirit or men. For the answer of all is “evil has won, right hasbecome wrong, and faith is buried here. Move on.” Take no care of me and toss mybody, living or dead from the cliffs edge and let me fall to land or sea,wherever it will travel to, for all that once was a chest of treasure hasbecome measureless to me now. It is nothing but a carcass useless, to tired tofight, to uphold what was long well dead, the two things of great meaning goneahead of me, before I was e’er born on a summers night—truth and right.

1/17/12

Be Not Afraid

2012-01-16T07:46:00.001-05:00

I am going to be being sporadic for awhile both in posts and comments. I will read as I can and write as I will but in the main I will not be able to be sitting here for hours on end. Soon Dr. Frankenstein will have me strapped to his table in the laboratory and experiment on this old carcass again whilst trying to invigorate new life into the part that attaches the head to the shoulders.

DON’T GET HOOKED

2012-01-14T09:07:00.003-05:00

In the barren land today I found a bit o’ bait, I should have squashed itbut I laid it to see what may chance upon to find it. The squirrels were tooshy and stayed up high jumping limbs a way up over it and the birds though beakishpecked and poked at it, none of them took it. Then along came a man who saw theglam and glitter of it, stopping and thinking himself finding fortune he bentand in his pocket put it. Now if a truth there in the pudding is the proof forfinding he took there and then upon himself the charm of bad luck and hardkarma for though there was beauty upon the face of it the brutal part wasburied beneath the false smiles filled with humor and wit but speaking charmingfrom it’s damned mouth lies were all that was ever coming from it. He lovedthat barren land bait and put it away tucked it inside a fire proof, pick proofquadruple layered safe never knowing any thing again that required certainproof. For every time he questioned a spectacle he went to his locked box andconsulted with his beautiful bait found barren land oracle. It was easier tolisten to it than to set and discover the truth.

M Durfee

1/14/12

I HAVE TO LOOK TO FIND

2012-01-13T06:55:00.002-05:00

In the dusty hard soil of my mind

I lay out a string grid on mental land

twenty miles square to see what I might find.

I begin to dig using the tools at hand.

With ice pick, paint brush, tooth brush

I get through the loosened soil

to find the remnants, fossils and rust

I may have forgotten there after years of toil..

It is no easy task from today taking stock

of a past forgotten, melted away

to impression now turned to rock

after so many passed by lived days.

I know there once was someone I had been

and I want to find that curious man again.

Gently layer by layer I dust the crust away

using the small tools in clumsy friendly hands.

What I might chance upon or find I can not say

yet whatever it once was, is buried in this land.

It may be a fool’s journey

but in my thinking each of us

need to break soil and occasionally

practice a bit of self archeology.

1/13/12

WOULD YOU CARE FOR A FRACK OF GAS WITH YOUR TEA DEAR?

2012-01-12T06:02:00.000-05:00

I felt the tremor in my chair

saw the ripples in my coffee cup.

Must still be fracking in Ohio

because one small shake and quake

wasn’t enough to make the frackers feel

their love for our death defying earth.

I have seen enough to know their love

of the worth of a few bits of money.

Does anything not self serving

matter to anyone anymore

or has the world all come to be

ruled by two bit whores?

Money sluts who would happily gracelessly

kill a million to make a thousand

to gas pass ten million to elect one

pimp who will protect them all

with an ignorantly stupid

land destroying poorly crafted law?

Just remember this,

when you feel something amiss

as you slide over the edge tumbling

into the rumbling darkness of the abyss.

That while you’re endlessly falling

crying wailing and hopelessly calling

for someone to save you and your life,

that you had your chances a many time over

when it was time to make a choice

between their money and the soft green clover

you chose to not raise your voice.

1/12/12

OF COURSE THE GEM OF MY LIFE WAS DRIVING AND STOPPING EVERY TENTH OF A MILE FOR THE LAST MILE TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THE ODOMETER AS IT ROLLED...IT WAS THE LONGEST FIVE TENTHS OF A MILE OF MY LIFE!! BUT WE GOT OUT OF THE GRAY GHOST HUGGED, SHE WAS HAPPY AND I WAS GLAD IT WAS DONE.

A PLACE OF NO SOLE

2012-01-11T06:56:00.000-05:00

If I ever found a place under the sun

where all the children of creation

could freely joyfully run

happy care free of any deprivation.

A small space wi’out barbs or brambles

to shred their shoe less feet to bloody shambles

I would go there, not to parent them,

but to simply be a shoe less one of them.

1/11/12

NONSENSE: EVERYTHING IS FINE

2012-01-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

Give me a radio signal with news of something alien carried upon it and I willbecome a seeker of the golden light that we hope comes to rescue us as ourmadness encroaches further into a world already half insane with a show full ofcrazy. I love it that all of the store shelves are full of alien manufacturedgoods and I can stand outside and see (see not afford) them. It is a sign thatI will have gotten closer to my searches end and then I can move on to the nextthing, the sign that points me not skyward but the port of exit and entry. Weall love our outer space toys imported from places most of us will never affordto visit. I suppose that getting this close in my quest is not a bad step inthe right direction of finding visitors from another place on the planet.

Surely (don’t call me Shirley) this is just a poorly timedjest.

How did we get so out of touch with reality, that we find iton 72 channels on our alien made TV’s. The way I see it I look and find 72 is24 times the number of channels found in my time as a kid with dreams of being simpleliving and kind not the human reception receiver of pitch after play that tellsme I need prepackaged pre-measured pre-calorie counted meals pre-deliveredmonthly to my door if I am going to find then maintain my alien searchingweight. I guess (yes another guess) that the pre-organized, precooked,prepackaged, microwave meals is our slow alien transformation drug to creaturesof earthly creation into something from somewhere else that in future evolvedgenerations will be more enlightened after the total transformation from humanto alien is complete. We'll find me and us and them all living somewhere else because the opportunity for happiness dream is greaterthere than here. Or will it be?

I really don’t know because I don’t expect to be living when the transformationis complete. Not because of my age but rather because them who own the stagewill not want me and my kind upon it, we are just not enough generic to fit inanywhere on it. It is God damned hard at times to care about it all anyway. Ididn’t grow up to be hip but now that I am the age I am I know I can safely actthe way I will and say what the say I will because my new excuse for everythingis “I am waiting for that alien space ship to take me on a long—long trip.”

1/10/12

THE JEWELS OF A DAY

2012-01-09T07:24:00.000-05:00

The house still smells of last night’s dinner.

We ate together

And later we went out together

and looked skyward

at the ring around the late evening moon.

We have been anxiously watching

The Gray Ghost’s odometer,

less than two hundred miles,

actually less than one hundred twenty

and it rolls all 6 digits into the three hundred thousands.

None of this is important to anyone but her.

That the dinner was good,

the ring around the moon was

display of power

of atmosphere she can not control

and the odometer is a bench mark

she has been talking up for two weeks

she really wants to watch it roll over.

I wish her enthusiasm was infective.

These are the things that please my wife,

the little milestones

that embed for a long time in her memory;

these are the kind of jewels that make her day,

that lift it to a place of momentary awe.

She made an excellent dinner

and she knew I liked it without question,

when I ate the vegetables,

the ring around the moon was huge,

too big for the camera lens to capture,

and lord please don’t let me be driving that car

when the odometer rolls

because the one thing I don’t want

is to deprive her what little pleasure

there is for her in this barren land.

1/9/12

LIFE FOR THE CAPTAIN’S STEWARD

2012-01-08T06:14:00.002-05:00

4 AM, she knows it’s time to eat,

her first meal of theday.

She woke me out of my near sleep state

to make sure I knew it too.

On mornings like this

I always find myself awake,

as she falls back into her bed,

fed and satiated for another few hours.

I find myself cigarette and coffee in hand

outside taking the measure of the barren sea chop

bathing in the bright silvery glow of a moon

which was on the other side of the sky last I saw it.

Silence punctured briefly

by the suck me to the rocks

Siren’s wail swiftly choked off.

A switch flipped creating an

abrupt silent wave washing over

my burning butt again.

The mist of my breath in the chill air rises straight andtrue,

safely on course to the cloudless sky. Illuminated in brightsilver

as if there was worth found in that exchange of lightand fumes.

The thoughts fall faster from the sky

than I can breathe them in

or pick them up

for I wonder at nothing anymore.

It all is as it is

and in that there is only sad uniqueness

of the sameness in days that roll on

in this never ending cycle of food,

cigarettes, coffee, half sleep

and eerie quiet sporadically broken into measures

of the night time and its silent music

prodded, wailing into ringing the quiet into my ears.

In these moments of peculiar solitude

I want to do a standing press of the world,

lift it, hold it higher,

make it better for all of the beings upon it,

but I am on the wrong side of life to lift it

and have not that kind of strength anymore.

I am worn, rounded, and translucent as the sea glass

that heeded those sirens call once.

Once is all it takes to get broken

upon the rocks in this barren place

where mortality meets infinity.

One absent minded moment

sets course towards the night song

when the day watch

helmsman should be sleeping

rather than dark thought stewarding.

The only truth to be found

on a morning like this is

if the cap’n doesn’t get her food

she won’t go back to her bunk

and sleep a while longer,

her dogged hunger will trail my wake

until I obey,

and I will still be awake,

far away from the void

of dreamlessness and peace.

1/8/12

TURN BACK NOW OR BE FOREVER FOO(le)D

2012-01-06T05:51:00.001-05:00

Following the trail

of snakes, scorpion and spiders

rarely leads a wanderer to water.

Have you noticed how parched

the once green land has become?

Do you care or even pay attention

to where you put your foot down on the sand

or is your only thought

on how thirsty you have become?

I have learned to spurn the uncharted paces

not from fear but rather, why burn,

over dead land? Am I’m to fight

in the unmapped and barren places

where only the scorpions, snakes and spiders bight?

They are lonely there without you to feed upon,

to entertain them as they watch you

do your death dance again and again

after they time and time again infect you with greeds venom

Snakes shed human skin to show the way of becoming a serpent.

I have learned and seen and now I know the dryness has noend,

until and when you arrive at the unknown uncrossable abyss

of evil’s madness where you will choose to go over the edge,spent

for hunger of thirst for humanity you will never find in thatdesert.

It is the place of scorpions, snakes and, spiders.

not naturally yourown. It is the home of thieves and liars

Edge slowly back, away from the spaces you have no need tobe,
or do you honestly desire to live in places you only thought to see.

Hope, have great hope that your steps back to the land ofthe living,

the verdant and growing can be retraced through watching,

seeing the goodness left wi’in you. Pray you, pray yoursteps remain

that the wind has not a’ready passed over them, blownover them

that memory of you lives that you can find your way back again.

For it is then that you have become truly lost in the strifealone

with snakes, scorpions and, spiders that own

the dry loveless wind blown where you’re only good

is as food and plunder for them happy in Hades desert home.

1/6/12

IT DON”T BOTHER ME FATS, JUST PLAY THAT STRIDE

2012-01-05T07:24:00.002-05:00

Where is the direction to the face of any city?

Is it found amidst the old and haggard

or young built new shiny and pretty,

the architecture or the people ragged

that keep the hustle in the bustle

or the cry in the babe’s born crime?

What is it that makes or takes the wrinkles

from any place where we live out our time?

No matter where it is we live and give

we all get the same sky, same watery sprinkles.

Is it the constant rage of depression

and desperation that keeps the ugly

and worn out in the torn out?

Or the knowing of a hope

some folk can’t live wi’out

that keeps the serenity in places pretty

as they grow into mature community?

I have my own ideas and tastes

formed over many a decade

about what makes a place a home.

I know where the look that’s pasted

and smells of mine comes from,

yet that pertains to what I have tasted

and may be no companion to your own.

Still there remains the one question

about the face of any city

and how it found it’s direction?

1/4/12

IT'S BEEN THIS WAY FOR THIRTY YEARS BUT NOT THIS BAD

2012-01-04T18:15:00.002-05:00

Ring of Gunfire: Detroit EMS Unit Stranded on New Year's Eve : MyFoxDETROIT.com

Listen to gunfire....that is about 1/2 of what my neighborhood sounded like from 11PM to 3AM, on New Years day I heard the last gun go off at 6:20 AM. Since then the 'hood has been pretty quiet, I don't know if it's because everyone is out of ammo or if now they realize that everyone who has a house is well armed. Funny thing was is that the only ones on my block not firing their weapons were them that were veterans or the one cop.

DETROIT IS NOW ROLLING UP THE SIDEWALKS BEFORE DARK

2012-01-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

Detroit police precincts to close to public 4 p.m.-8 a.m.

Our Tax Dollars at work!

AD MAN—A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

2012-01-03T06:29:00.006-05:00

While the three hundred stood strong in phalanx formation

ferociously fought the Persian army enemy, to their own destruction.

Finally overpowered, their dying in their fiery hours.

That we never forget that amazing feat, endurance's length

Ad Man has memorialized the strength of them as one

by naming after them and their famous holding strength,

three hundred styles of lubes and latex never broken condoms.

1/3/12

What could be more appropriate for the three hundredth post since the last time I deleted posts way back last May?

THE USEFULNESS OF A HUG

2012-01-02T07:41:00.002-05:00

Nothing can change

without a hand to change it.

Ever all will be the same

unless and until ideas for change

come to a mind to put the hand to work.

If pragmatic realism were a form of art or a disease

than all should catch it and turn their hand to it,

using their mind to guide the change that comes from it.

I will not count on another hand to change my life

but I will count my fingers when I finish shaking that hand.

Not because I do not trust the owner of it

but because I trust that my own hand

won’t work as well if it is not whole.

Actually I prefer to melt into a hug more than handshake,

that way if need be I can feel if a hand slips into mypocket.

Quickly everyone should right now hug your government!

1/2/12

FIRST POEM OF 2012

2012-01-01T09:04:00.002-05:00

So comes the sun again with the earth just a degree closerto it, enough to make the rain wet rather than the wet snow. Another rotationfilled in the waning beginning with hour’s worth of gunfire from all sides andyet I stood on my porch and never cocked the hammer as I listened for spring tocome.

No one fires their guns on Martin Luther King Juniorsbirthday, I think the people of Detroitreally only celebrate that memorial by sleeping in late against going to jobsthat there are none of to go to. I guess you have to be older than fifty toremember when King was king.

Maybe Detroitwould see things a bit different on Memorial Day if we included all the bodiesstill lying undiscovered in fields, not of Flandersmaking, in this city in the remembrance of the urban warfare lost.

So comes the new day, the first day of the new whatever andit all sounded the same on the way in as the old did on the way out.

The death toll hasn’t been published yet but I just know thateveryone who died stupidly, violently was either one of the last or one of thefirst in what will be another continuum in time that will remain the same as ithas been for too long an age now, a long time with nothing changing.

The bad will still be bad and the good will still be goodand Detroit will still be Detroit,the can that got kicked not down the road but into the river of a dream.

I wish I still loved this place but I know that is toodangerous of an attitude,

it wouldn’t hurt to like it but that doesn’t fall in therealm of smart either.

Instead I respect it. To do less would get someone killed,me or another.

We cherish what we call respect every day of every year theonly problem is in our schools we never teach our children’s children the correctmeaning of either anymore.

Now cherish means lust and respect means fear me. I don’tworry for the first and I get my share of the latter.

Fuck it all. The dogs still need to be fed and I will dothat, after I go outside light a smoke and make sure that there are no holes inmy house, garage or bodies that made it over the fence line. I’d hate to haveto be feeding the dogs and calling the cops at the same time on New Year’s Day.Same as I would have hated it yesterday I would hate it today and tomorrow.

To think otherwise would be a fool’s errand.

12/1/12

MEET THE NEW YEAR SAME AS THE OLD YEAR

2011-12-31T07:44:00.002-05:00

In this post modern over mechanized outsourced world

where the only correct answer is

“Whatever the company policy dictates sir”

don’t dream or wish or pray for a happy new year.

Sights, sounds, situations do not change

simply because a page is torn off of a calendar.

The number at the top may be different by a single penstroke

(most years)

but the boxes below that number remain the same

and in one day contain all that you mean and are

to the world of liars who brokered your life for more power.

Those boxes have not changed

except as a dream, a wish, and a prayer

for them to not remain the same.

For that spell is an incantation of stagnation

where there is life but it is a rotting life

growing not the green blooms that feed schools for food

but the red that kill them that learn there.

Red blooms of ink that say we can afford this for us

but not that for you for you are the many but we are thefew.

They wield red pen to murder the humanness

of hope’s progeny in torturous slow poverty bound for death.

Life is easier for a man

because a robot

can do the job faster, better and with more precision

than any man can and then works tirelessly, effortlessly

with no need for vacation, week-ends

or children to carry Chinese factory made names.

Let go of all your desires and notions

that everything will begin to change

as the hangover of the thought of a new year

full of hope and change passes as will the hangover

from self medication that allows temporary escape from fear

of a reality that truth dictates

nothing will ever be the same

as it was when we worked as one

to overcome the divisions

that split us in the time and time again.

Bow, bow now on bent knee

to the new aristocracy

of the world gone insanely mad.

Bow wow before them and pant with the sad look

only a dog can give for that job that will yet allow you

to still put food in the belly of children who carry yourname,

worthless though that name is become.

That is if you care about those kids

and the squalor of their life.

It is easier to fuck bare and feels better too

while making them than it does to take care of them

in this era of post modern mechanized outsourced reality

that has already told all seven billion of us

that we are expendable, commodities, spendable peasants

reduced to something less than the robot

that took your place reduced your presence.

And in finally understanding that there is no job you can do

that means anything more than wealth grown for someone else

and that wealth you created for another is taken

and is used against you

in this post modern, over mechanized, outsourced world

where you are the page torn from the calendar thrown away

for your usefulness has come to an end

and company policy dictates that the machines work

in a clean, safe, non-polluted environment

overseen by a corrupt government.

Remember as you tear the page

or open the new

that it marks the days

and you

are not worth even

one of the appointments written upon them.

Now there are only three backs left you,

broken,

give

fight!

12/31/11

A MAN IN AMARILLO NEEDS YOUR EYES AND EARS

2011-12-30T17:01:00.001-05:00

THIS CAME TO US VIA TRAVIS ERWIN POST ENTITLED HELP FIND HALEY. ESPECIALLY TO YOU PEOPLE IN THE WEST LOOK OUT FOR THIS MAN'S DAUGHTER HE IS SCARED AND WORRIED FOR HER. IF YOU CAN HELP PLEASE DO SO.

THANK YOU ALL

BE WELL

mark

TWO ROUTES TO>>>>THERE

2011-12-30T08:05:00.001-05:00

*SHRUG*—YOU WANT IT,IT’S YOURS

This is my place

but if you want it you can take it,

own it, share it, care for it, love it

or let it break down

for the dogs to piss on after

leaving their pusillanimous piles of shit on it.

It makes little difference to me

for what is ever honestly earned

and truthfully mine

can never be taken from me

this I have over the years learned

through lessons taught hard and easy.

I have come to see

that it is not a matter of space

and my standing in it that matters

but rather it is the peace in deeds

not placed anywhere but within and there,

in that peculiar space you have to find your own heartsrelease

And then when youfinally do come to that personal calm

you too will know that the garden of earthly delights

is but an illusion painted on your face as a snake oil balm

concocted by the collusion between fake, fraud and fiction.

Yet there is still truth to be found and from me you'll get no friction

you can trust me or not, joy is never found on any piece ofground.

12/30/11

COMMUNITY ARMY

I stand in my place at times

and wonder at how this space

sown by another became mine to own,

to dwell in, what right did I earn

to deserve to call this time mine, mine alone?

I have walked roads both hard and easy

and realize my journey is at its root

the same good, bad, strange, normal journey

as all others who looked about them to see

where they were deciding they owned the place they stood.

We, and yes no matter where the feet are planted are a we,

not them or those or a he or she, we came to spot and alonechose

to stop only after a long walk along a longer road.

I am you, you are they, and they are us, not a them or those

Now can we all stop acting like idiots, less we really dobecome toads?

Become and be what we are—people standing ground

without a need for words to know how us, care for we?

Community is often found in the unspoken silence

the places where there is needed no explanations or sound

together troubles, wherever found, we'll face them,
as we stand proud and strong upon our ground.

12/30/11

THE SONG OF FLIGHT WITHOUT KNOWING THE LYRIC

2011-12-28T05:12:00.004-05:00

You don’t need to know

the words to the song

to sing it.

Let the wind get them right

while you soar upon it,

taking your flight to the places

you’ve e’er wanted to be.

You don’t need to know

the source of the warmth

to feel it,

let the sun shine upon you

as you revel, comforted

flying within it.

You don’t need to know

every answer to e’ery

heart found question

to simply be it.

Inquires come and go,

some you’ll know

and some you won’t.

Yet without having words

you have the answer

to be it.

The rising reply

that warms another’s soul

is in showing some one

else how you learned faith

to fly in your spirits freedom.

12/28/11

For Sarah

A LITTLE EASY ON THE EARS THIS FINE CELTIC MORN

2011-12-27T09:05:00.001-05:00

THE INHERITANCE

2011-12-26T07:17:00.001-05:00

I died yester eve and left myself to myself

and saw that within that being was

another inside the heart long on the hidden shelf.

One encrusted with stone

of differing colors, brilliances blinding

and hard thoughts not easily sanctified

by a holy day turned to evening’s finding.

Every day is as holy

as the night before it allows.

In the solitude of my dying

I was content, filled not hollow.

I was not concerned with the thoughts

that accompanied that old wasted place.

it was not my space to roam through anymore.

I no longer knew of any work or chore.

Nothing left undone for one such as me.

Vagabond trouble eater. Stalker of hate

finder of my own world weary destiny.

In that living place I sat quietly and conversed for a time

with my father whom I had not ignored nor set aside.

He was never been hard to reach out to as I daily die.

I die and leave myself of yester to myself. I know mycrimes.

He told me that yet still unseen inside the one seen within,

within that being seen within what once was I

was another that I found was me, free focused learning tofly.

I woke from death’s dream and was pleased

to have finally found what lies behind

the door marked release from release.

I was fulfilled, alive, content at peace.

©M Durfee

12/26/11

THE CHRISTMAS STORY OF 16 MILLION UNEMPLOYED

2011-12-23T06:00:00.003-05:00

Quietly they cry

so the kids will not know everything

they could not afford

to give this holiday season.

They remember when the myth of reality

was no myth and the holy day flowed

as a clear pure mountain stream.

Filled with every want and dream.

Today they look and see

the pollution of heretofore

poverty they are encumbered with.

Nothing in the wallet left over for a gift

Such a short amount of time between then and when.

Their good life came crashing down all around them,

and they tear up thinking that they had a responsibility

to do more than just feed and clothe those children of theirs.

Knowledge learned from a lifetimes worth of blaring muzak

and blasting commercials of corporate greed telling theparents

that it is a holy duty to ensure their kids have more thantheir need

as they run happily down the stairs for expensive Christmaspresents.

Now they struggle just to keep a roof over them

and their beings and beds away from the holes

where the rain, cold and snow leaks through.

At wits end, tears are all they have left, nothing more todo.

They remember all of the times they asked their parents

what they were getting for presents under that pagan borntree

the answer that came back “underwear from Santa’s deerPrancer.”

They remember the fear of that answer, they couldn’t wait tosee.

Today still young but ever so much older, from workingharder

now those parents that once were kids being teased, weep.

For underwear is what they have wrapped in dollar storepaper

as gifts for their children. Its underwear and not toys theyneed.

There is good in the day though for these parent know

that a politician who needs a photo op, will be attheir church

with them as a prop while the camera’s roll serving themsome food,

at least that will be a gift that will do their childrensome good.

12/23/11

JESUS WAS NOT A MOONSHINER

2011-12-21T07:06:00.003-05:00

I don’t ever picture Jesus as a moonshiner,

though I am certain he would not

have been adverse to a taste of lightning.

No I don’t ever picture Jesus as a mountain man

because in order to be a perfect human sacrifice

he would have had to have all his teeth.

At least until the police state took him

beat the shit out of him, to murder him,

he had to have had all of his teeth.

Perfect sacrifices are like that you know,

good, kind, no defect, or fault.

And most importantly unlike the leaders of today;

he didn’t sell his soul to the devil

for power over others, a couple of bucks

a few properties and a good piece of ass.

12/21/11

POETRY IS A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS

2011-12-20T16:03:00.001-05:00

WHO ARE WE BECOME?

2011-12-20T07:31:00.002-05:00

What right is left?

We have become hounds

sniffing out the terror in the hearts of others

and rather than ease that fear

we find great pleasure in the chase.

Run rabbit run

for once in my masters jaws

you are destined to be excrement.

I chase for I know aftertheir meal I get the empty dry bones

to splinter with my own, now dull edged, teeth.

I know you and I have become tools for a predator,

a killer too lazy to hunt its own prey,

but one day we too will no longer have the agility to chase

and then it becomes our turn to become excrement

and splintered bones in the mouths of hounds

too hungry

to do

anything

other than

what they are ordered.

12/20/11

IN THE MOMENTS OF THE BELLS RINGING

2011-12-18T17:37:00.004-05:00

At ten minutes to nine

the church bells

rolled their loud two tone

three stroke melody

out into the heavy silence

that had been shrouding the neighborhood

calling the people to prayer and ritual.

I closed my eyes and listened

for slamming car doors or the people noises

in a bit of a rush to get inside

and be one with God for an hour.

I didn’t hear anything like that

even though I was less than five hundred feet away

With closed eyes I saw not the congregation

that no longer uses this neighborhood church.

Instead I saw in an instant

all the sacraments that over the past sixty nine years

that had happened within that cavernous hall.

The babes baptized,

that first confession done in a dim lit booth,

words of contrition we were willing to admit to.

The little girls in white and boys in too stiff new suits

receiving their first communion after months of instruction.

Then a few years later and a little more jaded

about the holiness of rites

that passage to confirmation as complete Christians,

when the bishop himself came to tap them

with his ever holy hand

gently on the glowing innocent cheeks.

Brides, some pregnant and showing

some not,

but all dressed in flowing white dresses

with their grooms,

both filled with nerves and hopes for a future together.

and then finally the multitude of caskets

that have passed through those heavy great brown oak doors.

I had a thought of going over and taking a look,

maybe even sit and watch the priest perform

what is considered his most sacred duty to God.

I didn’t go.

I finished my cigarette instead

waiting a few more minutes for the dogs

to come run to the porch

so they could get out of the cold.

It would have made no difference if I had gone over

for that is no longer any path I travel on.

I can sit with the spirits of all I saw

and them that ever entered that building

no matter where I am.

As the sound of the bells faded back

and the silence again took the area back

to Saturday night’s recovery sleep,

I did my holiest duty of the morning,

I fed the hungry.

12/18/11

THE END COULD HAVE BEEN YESTERDAY

2011-12-17T07:15:00.003-05:00

The wine is old

as it should be.

The earth again tilted

has descended cold

upon the north as is only right.

Man is old even though survival

is never guaranteed for we fight and fight.

Raise a cup for your hearts warmth

for that is the way it should be

if we could ever constant remember

we don’t have to wear the same finite face

for all to see the unneeded ferocity

as we live in the infinite portion

of this short time temporary place.

12/17/11

NO ONE MAN

2011-12-15T08:47:00.003-05:00

What are the burdens of my brothers,

why do I carry them?

I did not start the wars

nor the floods of pain

that over time

has made us continents apart,

never to be reconciled again.

I will take the responsibility for your pain

even though I do not feel it is mine to carry.

Yet if it would make the land

and the people upon it heal, be content and merry

gladly I would all of your burdens carry.

But I know from having lived this long

and seen so much distrust behind every door

the offer would be rebuffed as a liar’s song,

I have whistling in my mind to steal what is yours.

I have my own pains and hurts

but they are neither in my mind nor my soul

and of all of them I know the cause, the then;

some were and some were not under my control.

I honestly can not pinpoint the when,

and never will I understand though,

for I am simply a no one man

how greed

became the greatest sin of man.

I know an answer to the problem only

but do not know where to begin

to hold forth that compassion savored

could actually be mankind’s savior

while there is still life growing

on this ball of rock and mud.

12/15/11

THE TWELVE STANZAS OF CHRISTMAS

2011-12-13T08:01:00.003-05:00

The twelve stanzas of Christmas

are upon us and I will be honest,

this is my least favorite time of year

if I could I would take a complete pass.

I don’t hold to any of the traditions, myths

or lore of days gone by as any thing

that touches the dear places or fills my wishes.

The trudge through the days now are a bit harder

because the crowds are ruder

as they grab tinsely shiny expensive things

to garb all the trimmings for their larder

to make a family happy with stuff and things.

Crap that for a moments worth

of pleasure they might bring

all the while I move on

in the simple progression of days and nights

waiting for it to be all over,

get back to normal sounds and sights.

Having a Christmas

is not going to power my furnace

or keep my lights on, any more or less

nor will it make me a better man

because I held or don’t hold

close to a social commerce made and rigged plan.

I can go without all of the harm this time of year brings,

not that I mind carolers who sing (do they still do that?)

but I willingly let the parking lot robberies,

bell ringers included though it be a different kind of thievin’

or regretted stolen moments of drunken

office Christmas party adultery copy room secluded

and it will not bother me or find my heart sunken

It can all pass me by, e’ery bit o’it

every commercial television, radio or print

that tell me of all the deals and steals

on things I am missing out on

that I do not want, don’t make me sprint

for the doors to the nearest stores.

I am not against them who revel and joy,

simply I’m not anything about Yule this time of year.

Even those insane ones who look forward

to it starting on day one of the New Year

are now normal to me.

I know my lack of joy at the commemoration

of the birth of that baby boy is my own shortcoming

but then I won’t have to attend

any dysfunctional family dinner and pretend

that everyone, likes me for example.

With all the others who’s only care is for the while

it takes to rip paper off of store bought funk

to see who got the bigger pile of junk.

There is no gift that any soul,

human or spirit, can give to me

because there is nothing in this reality

that can bring truth, equality or peace.

I don’t need for even a moment

to forget what the real world is.

I have no need to wonder what I will get

for if there is any thing at all I want

I’ve named it above

but let me name it again

in a way that might easily be more to understand

for Christ’s sake in heaven above

learn how to truthfully, honestly, fully one another love.

12/13/11

GHOSTS IN THE BARREN LAND

2011-12-12T07:51:00.006-05:00

It has become routine around here now,

barren land ghosts of empty promises of dreams

that many people had over the past seventy years

stand empty and still, void of hope or reclamation.

Never again will these ghosts live

to know a festooned tree or lights

blanketing the bushes under a layer

of Christmas time snow. There will be no presence again.

Families thrown out to go somewhere else,

anywhere but the place they could no longer afford

so the building can empty sit. Hopeless of a new tenant

day by day dying as the metal takers locust through them.

I stand outside and smoke on my porch

look through the brick ghosts

see all that was when White people lived there

and then Black people and now no one.

There were birthday, Christmas

homecoming and anniversary parties

in each one of these houses now empty

of even the plumbing, water heater, and furnace.

Weekly I count them come and those gone

as humans come looking for shelter

only to find that there is no warmth,

not even the stolen kind

It is a kiss of death if they stay so they move on.

Hoping to find one where the utility company

hasn’t killed the last bit of the life yet

No departed soul can give life to a vacant building

That for decades had once, many times been a home.

I stand and look and think and a times a small tear

comes not for the building but the lives that were,

That could, that should have been there, in the ghosts beating heart.

12/12/11

A writing competition at White Cat Magazine

293 FEET OF SEPARATION

2011-12-10T06:13:00.002-05:00

You live your life in waves

as I stand on the cliff watching you,

wondering how it feels

as you break yourself

on the rocks of fear at cliff’s base.

I swan dive off the cliffs

and miss the damn things

only to drown in the ocean of emotion

I have for you and your pain.

I don’t mind the drowning as much

as I do your fear for me as you watch me dive,

because you forget what you’re headed towards.

12/10/11

SHEDDING ATTACHMENT

2011-12-10T06:02:00.001-05:00

We lift and carry,

push and pull

then find at times

the load we’re burdened by

overcomes our strength.

I find that to be a good time

to leave it, walk away.

It gives me reason to say

“fuck it, I don't need

that shit anyway.”

12/10/11

THERE IS NO SENSE IN NONSENSE EXCEPT FOR THE WORD

2011-12-08T06:51:00.002-05:00

MADE TO LAST

Sitting in a wooden chair

with lathe turned spindles

pressing into her back.

She likes to lean it against the wall

on two legs with her feet dangling,

as she smokes and thinks of yesterday.

Her mother always told her

sitting that way would break the chair.

Same chair,

Same legs,

same feet dangling,

different smoke.

Most of her life has passed now

and it’s only the chair that never broke.

12/8/11

A RATIONAL GIFT LIST

In this barren land of consumerism

where the locusts that still

have not learned, travel from

Wal-Mart

to Costco

to K-mart

and every mart-co

in between.

They are found eating every

foreign made thing the stomach

of their plastic can fit before it pukes

the January invoice out.

I find that the more I see of it

the more I want

two blind eyes,

muteness,

and deafness,

for consumeass.

12/8/11

AT LEAST YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT A WHORE

Where did your promise

to yourself go

that you’d have millions

by the time you were thirty?

Remember those days

when you thought the world was yours

and you could squeeze its nuts

to become wealthy, famous?

Reality sank in and

you finally learned

that money

really does not grow on trees?

You have to work for it,

be smart with it and

still count in the

mystical intangible

of generosity.

Unless of course you make

politics your profession

then you don’t need a brain or a trade.

All you need is nice lingerie

And a capacity to lie

while faking an orgasm in front of

hundreds of thousands

of people at the same time.

12/8/11

REMEMBER WWII STARTED 70 YEARS AGO TODAY FOR AMERICA

2011-12-07T07:10:00.005-05:00

WE FORGOT THAT WE WOULD NEVER FORGET

The brave warriors

are old and rapidly dying off now.

Few understand anymore

what they did saving the earth from a Nazi

and Japanese imperial scourge

even though it is well documented

in 70 years of movies books and TV.

I find it rather humorous that this country,

attacked while its back was turned,

never learned to post five guards,

one each with eyes pointed

to the cardinal compass points,

and one turned inward

where the last and worst

America destroying attack occurred.

12/7/11

Go now brave troops to your final rest you gave the world your worst and defeated it with your best. It is sad to realize that nothing about peace was accomplished. That war is not the same but the same outcomes are expected. I salute you every day for a job unwanted but well done.

AN OPEN DOOR NEVER KEEPS ANY THOUGHT OUT

He sits and reads Poe

while listening to Chopin

and the house next to him,

with the door that never latches

blows in two directions with the wind.

His likes and dislikes

never much mattered to the door

he never walked through

or anyone he ever called family

It is a hard place to go when failure

is your middle name and sweet Lenore,

gone never to be embraced again

while the Raven quotes

passage after passage

as the bell tolls on his life.

This constant knowing of what he is not

has become a curse,

a keening howl from a dog in the distant night.

He sits alone

while thinking about the doors

of someone else’s thoughts

and broods,

knowing that there is a way

to silence that damn door

ever distracting his simple pleasure,

calling, calling him with its clatter and bang,

but he knows he will never climb

through his window to silence
his kind, the damned.

He welcomes

the angel of death

called by all men

hoping it leaves someone behind

to bring him cognac at his grave

where he will find comfort,
saved from the forfeit of his failures

of being what he

could never be.

12/7/11

BILLBOARD INFORMATION

2011-12-05T06:29:00.007-05:00

Old Fat Brad use to sit on a stump

selling whatever junk he could find

lying by the side of the road.

Used tires and hubcaps,

clothes, things like that.

There was the occasional

certain articles dumped from cars

(probably during a police chase

as the two raced away one from the other.)

Old Fat Brad used to think

while smoking a pipe

he was sure he got from his dad

but couldn’t quite remember the when

only that there had been a then.

On his stump he’d sit

with his homemade sign

placed up the road a bit so them that wanted

would have time to stop so they didn’t get hit.

Now some folk thought Old Fat Brad

and his sign a bit queer in the head

because it read “by sum junk

and feel a bit o’ someones

elses life, trubles, and fears

fore you’re, yourself dead.”

Old Fat Brad never thought much about the sign,

he’d made it as clear as clear could be

and even if them who passed his stump on by

didn’t get it he knew what he meant to say.

You got to see a bit of others people’s lives

so you’d have a bit of a measure to know

whether you're a shrinking or on the thrive.

12/5/11

I LOVE DESPITE

2011-12-04T06:49:00.002-05:00

The rain falls,

hits my bare head,

gently wetting my face

as it rolls off the baldness.

I allow it,

luxuriate

in the coldness of it

while I feel its chill
warming me.

One can not hate

the sky

for being the sky.

I am buoyed

with the knowledge

that the heaven

cold, dark, gray

is not fallow and yet,

is still impotent as it

tries to

drench me

cover me

in this barren land.

12/4/11

THE USE OF A LOTUS BLOSSOM

2011-12-03T08:57:00.001-05:00

We run but never really

know what it is like to escape.

Until we do.

for

one

will

never

faster

than

I will

for I do not fear capture.

No one can harm me,

only kill this bag of flesh

and it is not me.

I know wherein

lay my ability.

It takes little learning

to understand

that ignorance and fear

is passed on generation

to generation

just

knowledge

what

chasing

you

and

who

you are

is learned

one

lotus

petal

time.

12/3/11

THERE IS NO MANUAL FOR FREEDOM everyone finds their own path

2011-12-01T16:55:00.000-05:00

You place your foot down without looking

and know without having to be told

that you are in motion.

Where did you get the idea,

the notion, that you needed permission

to walk in your own chosen way?

I will at times choose the easy road

the path of least resistance

but that way oft times makes little sense.

If taken every day

I am never confirmed

that I am yet living

life my own way.

I am gratefully spurned

by them

them

who want to

own me,

control me

have more

than me

telling me

in their own dearth

my lack of worth.

I laugh heartily

I am free

I gratefully know

what it is like to be

un-ruled,

true,

able to grow freer than free.

Have no doubt

when you crush your fears,

weep them out if you must,

freedom is worth

the salty water

of your

heart felt,

soul filled,

spirit willed,

tears.

Cry your freedom

out proud and loud

until you can shout

no more for lack of voice.

Then trust that even

seemingly alone

your only necessary choice,

is to set the pace

for when you see

you are free

you’re never one alone

there’s always

an unseen other who comes along

helping you towards your real home

as you walk and freely talk

with your hearts faithful father.

12/1/11

IF THIS IS REALITY I CHOOSE INSANITY

2011-11-30T06:04:00.008-05:00

Deify what you objectify

and never think twice about the reality

of the television heroes of that screen.

We love to watch the glutton preen

hero hands raised so high

making him into a god of gods on the television screen

because he can eat 15 pounds of food and not die,

then the fool does an on camera interview.

All I wonder is how often he has to throw up what

he gluttonized on to not get overly fat

or does he spend all of his off camera time

traveling in a port-a-potty taking shat after shat?

Oh how we love that American Gun bad ass

who expends a thousand rounds

before he hits whatever the fuck he was aiming at

and we love every bit of it

by purchasing a forty dollar pay per view ticket

to watch leotard canards prance around a ring

that they too might make big bank

and what do you get out of it?

You were entertained, didn’t get hurt

while someone else got kicked to shit?

We watch the daredevil kid blast his dome

on a self made video taken from his home

and when he takes a bare head skateboard fall

from a poorly constructed ramp in the street

we laugh and find his young stupidity funny

even though they never tell you of his closed head injury.

Just like when some drunken college prom queen

underage and almost alcohol poisoned dead

takes center stage still drunk signs the release form

for her fifteen minutes of fame on TV. I wonder if

even their parents find a way to feel the shame?

Or is it we have bought glory from shame?

It is absolutely true

we have turned living

into a sick game of

round and round the wheels go

cheaters and housewives of suicides

as if life were a game show

we all live vicarial through.

Do you really care about Kim’s

fame produced by leaked for a fee porn ass

or her stupider than shit on the ground mother,

who is a total greedy breathing carcass?

No?

Then why do you watch them and the sisters,

why do you pay attention to that bullshit?

Then there once came along Jon and Kate

the people who bitched about having eight

we loved those kids and now Jon hates Kate

because when she blew her lid

even though finally gone, she got the dough and he got hid

yet through the miracle of television

each of their kids them we enjoyed as we cooked and ate.

And what about those nut job buggers the Duggars?

20 and counting, are you going to dare tell me

those two fools never heard of putting on a condom

before he did his Christian duty by mounting his brood mare?

I am sorry but this crap is just not reality to me

but a way for no ones like Palins

Kardashians Duggers and the rest

to collect huge contracts and fee’s

getting rich and all becoming beauty queens

without a shred of talent. Time to turn it all off relent

from watching commercially produced reality.

And in all of it we wonder why we spend

a thousand dollars or ten

that we don’t have

for the things we don’t need?

Is it simply to show them

we can keep up with those of reality TV

who live by the rule of

“good is thy greed.”

When in the end by watching all of that crap

all we prove is that

we are from the same idiotic seed.

M Durfee

11/30/11

TEACH US

2011-11-29T06:52:00.002-05:00

Show me a way

to not be lost

in the light

and

I will find

my trail through

the darkness.

The rain day and night falls,

with knowledge,

I can stay dry

if I choose to

but

ignorance of how

to construct shelter

will make me

wet every time.

11/29/11

CUSTOMS OF…MADNESS

2011-11-28T06:34:00.000-05:00

Custom, customary, customarily

It’s not the word but the

definition

of them that is killing us all.

You are not,

no matter what you’re told,

you do not

no matter what the past was,

you can be

but a faint shadow as you age,

but you can never be

you can not do

anything except be similar

too your parents generation.

And that ain’t all bad

But remember

customarily

customary

custom

leads one to think

that what was is

compared

through customs

to what was.

and in the balance I wonder if it be so?

Was the better of the customs brought forward

or would it be better while executing those customs

if we simply did things different

than the ways that did not work?

What is then

does not have to be

has to be now

which

does not have to be then

and ain’t no where near

where we need to be

if we want to, as according to custom—live.

11/28/11

STOP LOOK AND THINK

2011-11-26T06:19:00.001-05:00

How much shelter can we find

under the permanent sky

that sees everything produced

from the mind of advertising man

now that the dogs of consumer war

have been loosed according to actuary plans

and the hounds of discount hell

have been unleashed upon the society of man

while some non profit, profits

from the yearly ringing of that damned bell?

Are you truly soothed

by the CHRISTmas muzak hypnotic sleepiness

that into every public address system moves

where the money changers attack not so subtly you

as they work the temple of consumptions steps?

Can you find no other way

to tell your loved ones

of that love for them ‘cept

through a present purchase,

while you dally fighting for the deal in store alleys,

bought on plastic or

from your dwindling supply of shrinking salary?

Can your mouth no longer find words to say

therefore you have to let your purse speak for you?

Do you no longer trust the work

of your own hands to do something for you,

to prepare a gift for your children

ready for prayers of Hanukah or Christmas day?

If you have yet a house to walk through,

try this—walk through it

and look at the things and different kinds of shit

you have from CHRISTmas past, look closely at all of it.

How much of what you can see is readily identified

to forever last as a memory from love that’s fond

or are you seeing a store sold thing, bought to bond?

How much was given you

with thought sublime and pure and new

or to try to get your favor for a time

beyond a day, maybe two?

You know there is no law

that ties Christmas to consumerism

but there is one in the books

that weds consumerism to doomerism.

11/26/11

LIFTED

2011-11-25T07:23:00.002-05:00

I am lifted daily

to places before unknown

and in that rising

I know I have no wings

Which means

it has to be the other

that takes me upon

shoulders strong and wide

and allows me

on their back to ride.

11/25/11

THANKSWHENVING

2011-11-24T08:31:00.003-05:00

If you had nothing you were thankful for yesterday or the day before, then what makes today different?

A NOTE TO YOUTH ABOUT BIRTH CONTROL

2011-11-23T06:51:00.008-05:00

A NOTE TO YOUTH

Do you like sex?

Like screwing,

love to make love,

do the bop,

fuck your brain to orgasm,

use that dick and pussy

for something other

than pissing out of?

Touching places

that no hand or finger

has rarely

if ever been before?

Yes?

Good,

now think of your parents

enjoying the same things.

11/23/11

THE WISE LOOK UP TO SEE DOWN

Looking up to where the valley of darkness

has been since time etched it at its center

there is a well dug deeper still.

As you ascend to the depths

wondering what bodies will be discovered

at the bottom of this great height.

As you move ever up to the depths

to see in your own mind and peace

what has been left behind to find.

What is within

the ever present massive cut of darkness

that will nourish you, strengthen you?

Knowing that the difference

between knowledge and information

is absolute truth.

You understand that there in that high depth

there is nothing but instinct

that tells truth, the only truth.

And yet as you fall to rise

rising as you're falling upwards

you find your instinct telling you look down.

Look down that you may see the cosmos

of ten times ten billion galaxies

created just for you and your kind.

Nightly I must fall as I rise

and find again that above me

is the dark canyon of reality.

Real, where truth is found

if one only looks up to find

there is the way to see down.

11/23/11

SING

2011-11-22T05:49:00.002-05:00

A thousand dogs barking

are heard less

than the singing of a single bird.

11/22/11

WHERE ARE YOU NOW MY HOMELAND

2011-11-20T19:34:00.000-05:00

I want to be an American. I do not know where America has gone or where it now resides. The people who live in the southern part of North America, them just below the Canadians have changed. They will dress themselves in and wave that flag of thirteen stripes and fifty stars but that is a symbol for something that once was; it means little more than a marketing gimmick to me anymore. There once was a country, a nation built on an ideal that all that came here for whatever reason would make it a better place for all because it was one boat and we all needed to pull the oars together to make it move forward. For almost three hundred years we did just that, some would disagree of course because you can not have two people together always agree on everything much less 325million. Yet in the end the boat stayed on course and them who disagreed pulled as well as they could.

At some point in the past, a point I can say lay here or there or this thing or that action where a subtle shift began to happen. There is a place where we started to not become American anymore, when we forgot that so went the nation, so went her people. We became a place of tribes, just as tribal as any Afghan society. We became a church of exclusion. A place that says if you don’t think as I do, you’re no longer welcome here.

The history of this place goes back much further than my memory and I readily admit the portions of it that I did not have direct experience with, I read about in books and have to make a decision about the author’s ability to garner truth when I read their conclusions. But despite that my memory goes back fifty years, I discount the first seven years of my life’s memory as having little bearing on where my nation went.

The clearest memory I have from my childhood was watching on live television the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, to this very day I can close my eyes and see a large man in a black suit with a hand reached out and hear the reports of his gun and Oswald falling. From that point forward my memory catches the other points in time that made an imprint. I begin with the assassination of Malcolm X ending with the destruction of the World Trade Center. That is an awful lot of death of leadership, though by the numbers it in no way compares to the hundreds of thousands in other places who were killed for their political or religious belief. We have simply turned into a nation that kills its own people either at the command of them at the top or for crime.

That is not the America that stood in the face of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, and aided others in toppling that great cruelty perpetrated on the earth before I was born. But it was after that when America began to grow and while growing we began to either ignore or actively support the despots of the world that did come after I was born. We were tired of war yet we again when asked went and fought the Chinese and North Koreans, not to save our political ideology but rather it was a fight that needed to be fought. Was it worth it? I doubt it but then history and its outcome is not for me to decide, for the outcome is never decided until the end of the action taken.

America is now fractured and splintered into thousands of thoughts and ideologies of whom and what we are as a people?

Two months ago a few people threw a few tents out in a place in America’s largest city and said we are here and we are standing up for something that is indefinable other than we in good conscience can not stand aside any longer at all we have seen in the past eleven years of our national history. At first it seemed a throw back to the 1960’s and the antiwar movement but with a different set of principles. Everything was looked at, by everyone not living under a rock and each came to their own internal conclusion of support or disagreement with that undefined set of principles; just as America had always done. A majority of us stood on the sidelines and waited. Waited not for success or failure of this occupation but waited for what the older among us knew was going to come.

Police. Men and women who swore to preserve and protect the constitution of the United States of America as well as the laws of the place they were hired to police. In general police have one main goal in this violent society that has emerged since that day Oswald was dropped while in their custody and that is to go home to their families when their shift is done. Everything else is secondary to that daily goal. Now that this movement has spread nationwide, not as a single entity but hundreds of organisms with the same indefinable principles except knowing that things have changed for the worse for most of the citizens of this place, the police an arm of government have been ordered by their superiors to in many places attack with as much non lethal force as they have in their arsenal.

What portion of the body controls that arm of law enforcement, what portion decides which laws apply and which don’t, which portion says this is constitutional and this is not? The answer is not as simple as the chief of police or the local elected official who heads the local government. They all rely on a power greater than theirs to be able to function and retain their job. So who is it, the head of the state government which still has the same constraint on them as those who head the local government? No the entity that controls the actions of the local police forces is not as simple as laying the blame on those that lead the federal government either, though the head of the administrative branch, strangely silent on this issue is supposed to be a constitutional scholar, the blame for the violence is not to be laid on them either. Though they do, I believe, have a finger on the pulse and stir the pot as they think they can get away with it unknown to the average citizen. Yet rarely does history support any grand conspiracy theory and I do not see one here.

One benefit of reading and understanding history is the great lessons learned there, the greatest being if you want to understand today then you have to follow the trail of time back to similar situations and what was the root cause of official reprisals by them sworn to protect those they are assaulting.

What caused the murder of Americans protesting at Kent State, or them protesting in Washington DC in what was known as the Bonus March, or them killed in the Whiskey Rebellion? What causes American officials to turn their weapons on other Americans? Not in any single case of the past three hundred years has the police powers of the state been turned against the citizens of the state at the will of a single individual. Never have Americans killed Americans because a trooper followed orders to kill as many as you can, because that order has not yet been given, though there are them among us that would give that order if it were in their power to do so.

The great lesson in history is that them who have wealth to preserve, will purchase the will of them who have the power to control that arm of government that controls the weaponry and then with always increasing force use that arm of government until someone is murdered by it. Then the fingers will point to the one who had the gun, or their commander maybe even as high as the local leader but never once will it point to them who ordered the arm into motion.

I do not care who has billions or even millions of dollars, I have food, clothing and shelter and every time the government takes more of my dollars from me I adapt by using less, consuming less, leaving my home less. The money of others is no concern of mine but the preservation of the money of them who have billions and millions is of great concern to them. Maybe they fear poverty, having to get clothes from a second hand store, food from a food bank or shelter under an expressway bridge or a steam grate, whatever it is. They fear this movement and the question that needs be asked is why?
Most of them in that portion of the boat will never have to fear that great a loss of wealth for they manipulate them who manipulate the markets to their benefit. So the only answer I have in short is they fear their loss of power and control over which way the oarsmen pull the boat.

When man fears he fights and when he fights he doesn’t go into the fight to lose but rather to crush and do away with what is opposing him. In general thus far the problem with the old modality is that in no case has there been an assault on them who actually have the power. They are now seeing they must desperately protect what they have and stand to gain, less they lose it.

The America I knew never before had leaders openly bought and paid for who unashamedly work not for the betterment of the nation but for the benefit if them who can keep them in office. That is not America, not yours and not mine.

This indefinable battle started by them one day in New York City and that has spread throughout the nation is one of money and control. Control of the population has always been an easy thing, like children we have spent decades chasing after the newest, best brightest bauble which we bought on credit that was abundantly available and in turn fed them who were amassing the great fortunes needed to buy the world’s largest economy and then the government. I don’t want to admit it but no where in any history that I know of have we been in this position before.

We are in uncharted territory, for even among the poor there is support for the wealthy and derision for them who are trying to express their first amendment rights of free speech and redress of grievances with the government. All I know from all the history I have read is that the turning point comes not with pepper spray or any other non-lethal attack but rather with martyrdom. The death of one or a few who are standing on the right side of the line of battle is always the spark that generates the will to fight the powerful.

Yet from this current administration who promised to do away with it and the past administration that through the use of fear instituted The Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security, them who are controlled by those who have the true power in what was once America can take anyone of us away for no reason and hold us in permanent detention which for all intents and purposes is the same silencing of a voice as murder, except the rest of the population will never know or wonder what happened to that voice because there will not be so much as a stain of blood left to gather around.

There is a fight happening from the largest city to the smallest village in America and you will not, can not, should not fight with violence that law enforcement arm. That is a useless exercise and not proper use of the power you do have. You fight money with money. You conserve your money. You do not donate to anything with even the stink of politics on it. You do not support mega corporations by buying their goods and services; you do not go where you do not need to be thereby slowing your fossil fuel usage. Yes this will crash more of the economy, but you have no other weapon that is effective. Do not spend and the economy will shrink further. If the economy shrinks they lose money while you simply save it. For once use the almighty dollar to your benefit not your detriment. We the retired, the disabled, the unemployed have for hundreds of years been able to find a way to meet our basic needs for we have intelligence and street smarts taught through a hard knock life, we know we will survive and if we die it will not be in vain. It will not go unnoticed by any except them in power that allowed that death.

They may have more money to fight with but I believe that the more they spend to retain power the more they lose in terms of power. Money does not vote and if you can not be bought then you stand as equals to them who have also only one vote. Do not vote as functionary of a party but research whom you are voting for and vote in terms of who is best for America.

Do not believe the lie that them at the upper reaches of our economy are the “job creators” they are the manipulators of what the true job creators are, the engineer, the builders, the thinkers who make new ideas come to reality, it is them who give the wealthy a chance to exploit products and ideas they themselves never would have been able to think of for themselves for they, like the Koch brothers, are manipulators of something someone else made a reality not job creators. Even Mr. Romney who hails himself a great businessman was a job destroyer and I do remember his father, a governor of Michigan, a great man who worked for the state and unfortunately his son is no job creator only a wealth by any means producer. I have no quarrel with the man but I have memory and it is a fair comparison to compare the job of the son with the accomplishment of the father.

I want to be an American—again.

Mark C Durfee

SAVE ME FROM LETTUCE!!!

2011-11-18T07:00:00.003-05:00

I tried for hours to talk him out of it, fight my way away from it, but eventually The Walking Man wouldn’t take my shit anymore, he hijacked my blog and forced me to write this shit and then…He wound up writing HERE

Shit happens.
A cavalier phrase often tossed carelessly about.

Shit happens.
Part explanation. Part excuse. Part bumper sticker. All true.

Shit happens.
Karma's crude cousin.

No, shit isn't glamorous. There is a distinct quality to the nature of shit. It's nasty, smelly, and downright disgusting at times, but for those unafraid to get their hands shit dirty or at least blissfully unencumbered by the shit others unhesitatingly love to give another, there is gold to be found from the shit life dumps upon you and if not gold then at least at times some lumpy wisdom.

No, this post is not an infomercial looking to recruit plumbers, fertilizer specialist or septic tank clean-out men, or others interested in a shit centered career. This post isn't even about dealing with the shit of others. No, this is a narcissistic post about MY shit. And given the fact I'm a writer, giving shit here at a poet's blog, I’ve reduced myself to metaphorical shit. For you see that is what we literary types like to do, spread shit, metaphorically speaking unless of course it’s an allegorical type of shit. Not all shit is the same. Just as tea isn’t coffee and Budweiser beer isn’t Shinerbock or the Detroit Lions aren’t the New Orleans Saints. Shit comes in a vast variety of flavors, colors and talents.

Now let's delve into the plot of some chicken feed shit.

Plot is nothing more than the collection of shit occurring to the characters in a story. Of course some books, movies, and stories have far shittier plots than others, but that goes without saying anything other than—shit happens.

Without shit happening to them you have characters frolicking along, doing only the things that bring them joy and while utopia sounds wonderful it makes for really dull entertainment and shit lying under the holes of a double wide outhouse.

I wrote a book some time back. I tried hard to make each and every page as shitty as possible, and eventually I found an editor that said, "Hey Travis, we like your shit because it made us laugh. We'd like to spread your shit far and wide in the hope it will bring about more greenery." At this junction I have to say I am speaking of ornamental greenery not edible, because as I have explained many times at One Word, One Rung, One Day that edible greenery is nasty shit.

So we grunted, groaned and shaped my Texas tale of shit until it was ready to come out in a nice little package.

THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES is about my days working at a dusty Texas feedstore. My boss was and is the most morally bankrupt man I've ever met. On the surface we had little in common: I was a rosy-cheeked boy of sixteen; he was a twice-divorced, thirty-year-old high school dropout. I'd yet to go on my first date; he was trading sex for horse feed in the back room. My boss was a lout, a liar, and a lecherous derelict. I was a foolish and naive teenage boy.

A lot of shit happened while I worked at Pearl's Feed and Seed.
Scary ... Dangerous ... Embarrassing shit.
And most importantly funny shit.
Of course sometimes shit is just shit. In which case you have to dump the metaphors and tell it like it is. Here is a brief passage from THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES for your reading pleasure.

Some customers came in, purchased their items and left, but
many lingered. Every bit as much hangout as place of business,
Pearl’s was the redneck equivalent of Starbucks. However, our
coffee was the kind of dark, smelly fare that only men would
drink, and I’m pretty sure they only drank it to prove the potency
of their testosterone. I’m talking about the kind of coffee that
makes a person growl after every swallow. The kind of coffee that
grows gills when left on overnight. Or sprouts legs over a long
weekend. The kind of coffee that Darwin loves, and theologians
fear. Never mind putting hair on your chest, the feedstore java put
hair on your tongue. I wasn’t tough enough to actually swallow
the brew, but on occasion I would pour myself a mug and stand
around trying to act manly.

If this sounds like the kind of shit you'd enjoy to get away from Walking Man’s shit THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES is available via Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and most other book retailers.

REQUIRED JOURNEY TO HOLY PLACES

2011-11-17T07:54:00.001-05:00

I stand and crane my neck upwards

as far as five fused cervical vertebrae

will allow while listening

to the lightning thunder of freight cars

being locked together

on a siding three miles away.

I face the East where Mecca lay

and then turn my pain

to the West where the stars

are more brilliant and bountiful.

Stunned at the beauty of the night

I am once again making my Hajji.

11/17/11

THE COMMON GOALS OF MEN

2011-11-16T05:38:00.002-05:00

THE SILENCE OF NOTHINGNESS

There is never silence in the city.

The ocean too is never quiet.

The desert sometimes comes close.

Sound appears from the over there

everywhere in the background.

Matters little

man on the street,

fish in the sea,

sand grown cactus

it seems that there

is ever the noise of us

baking,

washing,

surrounding,

assaulting

the silence

inside o’ me.

11/16/17

WHAT ONE CAN FIND ALL CAN SHARE

There is a place where the rule untold

is always quiet peace and not war.

It is a small principality not remote

but tucked safely behind a border.

There is a thick walled room in my mind

and I can at will enter there.

In the ever present silence I always find

all that is there, that I treasure.

I do not want nor need

the gold or riches or power of other men.

I long ago found a tiny seed

that grew stalk strong as peace ripened
within the very depth of the being of me.

11/16/11

I NEED A BATH BUT WONDER IF I'LL EVER BE CLEAN

2011-11-15T06:44:00.002-05:00

BETWEEN HERE AND THERE

Walking through the lands

of between there and here

I met many a man who asked

where he was on that road.

I have no map, nor direction to give

but I know for them that are somewhere

between here and there, they are not

where they belong if they need to ask for a location.

How fast they get

From here to there to where

is up to them. I am content

at my own pace.

11/15/11

DESTINATION HARMONY

Of all the actions you could do,

climbing the mountain

of your personal fears is the greatest.

Once on top

you realize you have risen above them.

There is never again

anything else that needs be conquered.

All that ever held you

to the ground is now beneath you,

you have discovered

that the harmony of self is within.

11/15/11

NITTANY LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS OF THE JUNGLE

2011-11-13T18:34:00.011-05:00

Belly to the ground

the nittany lion stalks its prey.

Looking for the

youngest, weakest of the herd

for the lust is satiated easier that way.

Standing around, in high tight suit collars

laughter comes easily to the hyenas

for each year brings in 50 million dollars

and articles of prestige for these men of means.

Spending decades as gods

bowed before, adored at sports alter,
gods all who only oblate to the great dollar.

They have no thought for the captured kid

forced to suck a grown mans Nittany cock

or having it rammed up his young rectum.

None of them care that he can be a kid no longer,
his rape makes no impact on their ego's spectrum.

A great new place in the pecking order

comes to the gorilla witnessing the entire play.

When he whisper what was seen to the elephant

and the entire event retires and goes away,

with a slight look and ever so elegant
with little loss to their sporting events.

And they all FORGET that the

mountain range of those boys preyed upon

in the charity the nittany lion formed to stalk,

are watched over silently by

that spirit of all creation that walks

in this world of men who live and die.

The Spirit of creation knows

that not all the wealth of the world

or glory and acclaim, and cheers loud and bold

and the long long winning careers

are worth even a 50 trillionth ounce of gold

compared to one single destroyed child’s soul.

11/13/11

The origins of "Nittany" are a bit obscure, but most likely the word comes from a Native American term meaning, "single mountain." http://www.psu.edu/ur/about/nittany.html

The Indictment *WARNING THIS IS A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF THE ASSAULTS AND LIES TOLD TO COVER SANDUSKY AND PENN STATE

ALL THAT IS

2011-11-12T06:03:00.003-05:00

Standing under a night sky

illuminated by a moon

that creates only dark shadows

as it makes its own journey.

I met your spirit as it boarded

to embark from the pier

for a different state

than the one

just completed.

Why did you turn to me

asking if I was afraid?

Looking up,

a reflecting mirror

of all that is.

I could only think

of how in this place

where there is neither

cold nor warmth,

the time for fear

is behind me now.

11/12/11

2011-11-11T08:06:00.000-05:00

John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

FREEDOM

2011-11-10T08:05:00.002-05:00

If fought for is it a gift

Why do the masters

of this barren land

consider freedom a gift

given to us from them

that rule us,

control us,

when we are

occasionally

allowed to look

from our bondage,

and whatever
the bars and chains

they have placed us in,

and see the intent of that word

they openly enjoy

through rigged power

and stolen wealth

that the children of so many other

nameless mother's

have died to make a definition for.

11/10/11

i am already small

2011-11-09T08:23:00.001-05:00

Make Yourself Small

Hey guys, the time is here! Make Yourself Small is at the printers. I hope this November is finding everyone well and ready for the holidays, if one can be such a thing. I'll be posting more pictures and more commentary soon. Life is getting crazy, what with being in mourning over Kim Kardashian's ill-fated union, the Occupy movement doing its thing, and Herman Cain being accused of more than just thinking Godfather's Pizza is actually good pizza. I've been drowning in a sea of work and black clothes (if I think about how much time in my life I have spent and will spend searching for a black sweater in a pile of black clothes, I could weep -- it's roughly equal to the time it might take someone to write three books), but I remain in good spirits. More soon!~~~~Michelle Brooks (Michelle's Spells)

If you like your poetry a bit on the dark and real side I recommend this book when the printer releases it.

O' TO STOP THE THINKING

2011-11-08T07:39:00.003-05:00

Bare bones of wood

propped up by three times

underground that which shows above

allows me to see where the squirrels

and birds

have been nesting for three seasons

They hide their homes when it’s warm

and know that when it gets to cold

they can be just as bold for they are

the hidden and unseen invisible

in the open as they are

hidden in the full leafed trees.

without fear or joy those creatures

make their way through the day.

Now as winter arrives

there is no mystery left

as their homes are exposed

for all life’s creatures to see

I know they have

their own way to survive.

For they always feel as if everything

is theirs on any given day

and then comes the cold

with homes mystery’s end to reveal.

They yet still come and go

run and play

search for food

wherever they wish to run and play

do little harm, do little good.

I now know which place belongs

to which being and that

allows me to drink

thoughts that maybe

tree living might free me;

help me lose all of the think—think

ever a bother and trouble to me.

11/8/11

THE TRUE WORTH OF TUITION

2011-11-07T07:25:00.004-05:00

I learned every lesson in the plan from A—Z

and in the hearing of them I could see

that the more I learned the higher society

perched me up on a pedestal

and on that ever rising tower,

so mighty, so tall, so very intellectual,

I became very knowledgeable

too mighty to ever be

without wings and fall.

There was no need

for those last few bits of knowing.

I had come, passed every test and exam, I see it all,

everything about me is “growing and grow!”

I was so far above the teacher now though,

his final thoughts to me were unintelligible,

his final words, though shouted,

were to far away to be communicable

as my great height commanded

that he approach and speak before me.

The pupil surpasses the master I demanded.

For his voice finally lost its professorial tone

and pealed as if it were a begging niggling plea.

Nonplussed the professorial one sent a note instead

and what it read was:

“wisdom is not knowledge buried in a mans head

but rather it is the fair application

of something wonderfully learned.

Go, take thee forth, while the earth yet turns,

Far away from this costly collage of words

and quit being part and portion

of the ever “only thinking of me” herds.”

11/7/11

RUMORS OF A WAY ONCE OPEN

2011-11-06T06:58:00.002-05:00

There is an old time rumor

of a lost way.

Stories told by working men

grown old and gray.

They speak of

what once was a path to travel

that led to a place

where the grass was green and

the mountains clean

with nothing dead upon them.

For decades I have

looked for that road but now

it must be overgrown

hidden to the eyes and with its loss

all we can do

is think goodbye to all that once was

and what the lost cost.

Wrapped in our blankets

of cold unfamiliarity

the eyes are open and see life

today with a different clarity.

From the tales told there was

charity upon this lost path,

neither locked doors nor blocked steps

only a clear way

that anyone could walk and find their way

forward to a place

where kindness and compassion met.

I look inside me

as I listen to these stories vetted

from days now gone being

told by them grown very gray and old

as they too wonder what happened to life’s

undercurrent of the story told.

Even in the worst of days they knew

about it not being easy

but that hope was with them,

they worked and dreamed and found it pleasing,

the best was just ahead

directly around the next bend.

But now,

now we know that for the vast majority

that song is dead, gone

and the way has finally forever been lost.

It’s not sad

that there is no more way

it is not evil

that we can’t ever there again

find that place

where play was so gently easy.

No what is so

saddened in the human soul

is that we

never even look anymore,

that we have

accepted this place of now

as the best there is,

nowhere else to go

and apparently we are gladdened

now at this end.

It is them that once told us the tales

of that lost road

who are saddest of all for as they die off

there be none left

to remind us there once was a place

of internal peace

that to all of humanity called.

11/6/11

HIATUS

2011-10-22T17:27:00.002-04:00

I believe that I am going to be taking a break from this blogging thing for awhile. You all have always been most supportive and generous in your comments and contributions to making the Walking Man Blog work and for that I sincerely thank you. I don't know when I will be back just that I really do not have much of a heart for this right now. Yet at the same time I want to attempt branch out into other avenues of self expression, try some experimental poetry and other forms of writing.

I am not going to delete the blog or anything on it but until Google complains I am just going to let it sit on their server untouched for awhile. How long? Well that is the one thing I do not have an answer for but keep me in your mind if you have me marked in your RSS reader don't delete me for a bit because I do intend to start posting again but like I said I have to let my feet figure out which way they want to take my mind and go (metaphorically) on a walk-about and see where I end up at.

Anyone who needs or wants to keep in touch please feel free to use the bdd44m5@gmail.com address.

Again thank you for the last 6 years of being there to bounce this writing off of, you are the best audience I have ever performed in front of. Many of you I have come to know and cherish and more than a few of you I have met face to face and a better bunch of people in my entire life I can honestly say you have been the most accepting of all them I have ever met and for that I thank you and wish you nothing but good health, solutions to all of your trying times and above all else continue to have fun and cherish each other as you do your families. That is how I have come to think of you and if we do revert to a tribal society trust me I can't think of one of you I would not want to be cave dwelling with.

Be Well and Remember to always be as kind as you can to them who appear in your path.

With great affection I wish you all nothing but peace and forward progress in all of your endeavors.

mark

COLDNESS

2011-10-20T20:05:00.000-04:00

SAME TIME SAME PLACE NEXT YEAR

Look to the last free found fragrant scent of the wildflower

departing on the winds to other, more hospitable climes,

where the dirt is fresher and the air needs a bit of scrubbing

more than that where the circus of fragrant booths have

just packed away from because cold is cleaner yet holeyer.

There is no more need to stay behind,

no not even for awhile, for the job there is done

and others places seasonal need

the entertainment of clown colors

fresh grown from fertile fields

that have waited fallow in their season.

O man dreamer of dreams

that no one but you can feel or find.

where will you go when all is decay?

Where the fields of dreams

now empty of the color

and the tents of scents that pleased you so,

where will you go to find your being

on the morning after the wind has taken from you

what was never yours to keep but only to savor for a season?

10/20/11

CHILD OF THE FLOWER FATHER OF THE CACTUS

Oh child of the flower

and father of the cactus

what road will you follow

now through this wintr’y desert?

Where will you lay your head

with no home to shield you

as the frost gathers at your feet

and your knees, chin drawn,

know only the snow that blankets them?

There be no warmth left

as the hard times now fall upon you.

Brutal is the day and worse the night

when them with much more than you

come to take their pleasure with fists and kicks

what is not theirs to possess?

Is there will enough left to fight back

not only the cold

that has no bitterness in trying to kill you

but to keep your life as you’re beaten by men

who one day will be like you,

remembering better days.

Time that once saw you with more

than a concrete roof or a naked bush

or are you going to be found

when the spring returns

to the world and your step

alive and...showing the newly made

children of the flowers

how to father the cactus?

10/20/11

AN HONORABLE PASSING

2011-10-19T16:57:00.000-04:00

The leaves on the trees

commit seppuku before

the throne of their coming winters majesty.

They taste the sugar one last time for energy to

change from green to their own fearless true colors

blazing in the face of the brutal master of their time .

They or their faithful kaishakunin,

the wind, the rain, or the servant of the master, ice

assists them on that final journey through their short life.

We humans make mass pilgrimages

to watch the colors blaze away before our eyes,

think of beauty and wonder, never the glory of an honorable death.

The leaf confidently obeys the natural voice that orders seppuku.

I think at times that leaves born for but a season, but ever glorious

have more honor than those of us who never know to change or obey.

10/19/11

http://www.win.net/ratsnest/archive-articles21/fog0000000384.html

For a short explanation of seppuku and kaishakunin

from the blog of John "Akatsukami" Braue posted Friday, July 19, 2002

MARINATING IN TIME

2011-10-18T18:35:00.002-04:00

I am at the place of me,

a place I arrived at

one or a few days before yesterday.
Arrivin’ by walking aimlessly

until I got to someplace

I wanted to stay

or a fork or quarter corner

where decisions unmade

needed to be tested before

I could stop and get meself rested.

And in all that wandrin’

I have spent many an

hour upon hour ponderin’

all the many things my eyes

have been open enough to see

and look back and say without a weep,

where did all that time went?

I can say that in between

there was nothing I have missed

for I al’ays let my feet decide

the direction they wanted to take.

I never question where I have been

or what I have done anymore

for that would be a mighty mistake.

There is no past, ripe for changin’

nor one able to deconstruct

to honestly set about rearranging.

Though I may traverse

a bit slower these days

I am after all aging

but then I have seen enough to know

there is still only one way

for a man to grow and

that is walk the road at a steady pace

while never trying to get to the place of you

until you ha’ gotten there.

10/18/11

EATING ME

2011-10-15T09:06:00.005-04:00

Standing at the head of the path

that leads to and through that place
where the headstones
are all lined up in military precision
even though

I could be buried there or another similar place,

I would rather be left in the open

for the vultures and crows to feed on.

It would be like life that way;

everyone who wants a piece of me

simply comes and gets it.

It is good they find my flesh

tough and gamey though,

I’d really hate to taste like pap fed veal.

10/15/11

THE UNWANTED CHILDREN OF GOD

2011-10-12T20:06:00.001-04:00

In the camp where the unwanted children of God

live they stay in tents under the plastic sheets

sealed using that fix all—duct tape.

Keeping dry and eating food

they found,

bought with saved coins

or on occasion

took using the coupon of

a finger tip discount.

We, those of us

with a house and bank account

that daily is victimized

by bank rates

equal to financial rape

look at them

and see freaks and fools

with no sense of values

or ambition other than to get to the next place

where there is a bit of warmth,

human or fire made.

Either works equally well.

They look at us and see us as we are.

We are behemoth battle ships,
before we were born

we were out dated

our usefulness as cannon fodder

soon replaced

for a new world gone crazy

for remote control war.

Now we are coated in peeling paint

and rusting where the welds once held us together.

Tied side by side in graveyard ports

where there is no more call to live

except to war against another

that is forced to stay motionlessness
at our side because of the
moorings of rope

and family

and possessions

and the hope of the possibility

for wealth

we are unable to leave behind.

The unwanted children of God

I think

are those who refuse

to wear their feet out

looking for freedom

or ways to loose the mooring ropes.

Not them who are

pierced,

tattooed,

dreadlocked

and wandering

on back roads unpaved

to a future

they have not decided on yet.

It is them,

them—who are the ones

God covets above all others

for they at least

try to find that spirit in a leaf,

and companions free to come and go

on an open road,

headed somewhere away

anywhere away

from the foolish ideas

that once meant

a different kind of freedom

and comforting but now

are torturing the blind

and mean nothing more than a memory

of how we too were once called

the unwanted children of God.

10/12/11

LICKING THE BLOOD

2011-10-11T16:58:00.001-04:00

TAKING THE PLUNGE
When you dive from the springboard

as you’re plunging those forty feet

in a predators strike position

where does your mind go?

To that hope of a perfect splashless entry

where the only notice of your achievement

is the few drops that defy gravity

or do look beneath you only to see

the concrete base of an empty pool

that was drained as you made

your long climb to the top?

Can you in those final moments passing

comfort yourself for the effort made

no matter the landing?

Or do you in that last of thinking,

whether to the water or concrete,

find a way to fear
the immediacy of your future?

A future set in motion

as soon as you took flight.

Of course the end

is always found after the effort

but the effort itself

never needs to be

made with the eyes closed.

10/11/11

AN EMPTY BOX

I have a gift to give

I can not find the love

for whom it is intended.

It is buried so deep

‘neath the loathing of my being

that I have to wade through

brackish pools of bitterness

simply to find the mud

to begin to dig through.

The place of a distinctness

that was lost

to fathomless crowds

who never knew me,

never wanted to see any

bit of me

but what

they could conjure

as an image of a man

unworthy of kindness

and void of their values

that have shed the blood

of many a good explorer.

It is not the mud

or the muck

or even the loss of my life’s blood

that bothers me so but rather

that the gift of self respect

will never find a home

within me.

10/11/11

OCCUPY DETROIT

2011-10-09T11:30:00.000-04:00

Cool,

Detroit is going to be occupied.

Twenty or thirty people

are finally going to lift their voices up

against the corporate corruption of destruction

and greed driven malfunction of America.

I think that is a wonderful thing.

Except I don’t think Detroit

is any longer considered as a part of America.

We are the proverbial hole in the donut,

maybe it’s not a donut though but a salty bagel

because things are not so sweet

anywhere in America at the moment.

10/9/11

ONE EARTH NOT ONE WORLD

2011-10-07T08:11:00.000-04:00

It is not a dense fog,

we drive through

just enough mist

to put a halo

on the brake lights.

Choose to stop, or not,

The fog can always take the blame,

Push what ever is in front out of the way

and, move on

from the destruction

of conscious choices

made by them

with no conscience.

It is the solution of them

who crashed 400 million cars

which equals the number

of vehicles they own to crash.

They know they will not suffer,

they never spill their own blood.

They personally have always liked

driving with their hands free,

control of course is in the mind

the cruise control is the auto pilot.

Their feet need to be ready and able

to kick aside the devastation

as they continually move forward

to their position in the world

where only the choices

they make have a lasting

impact.

10/7/11

FENCES

2011-10-05T08:49:00.000-04:00

SOME DAYS THERE IS GOOD OTHERS NOT

I was seven.

Just a stupid friendless kid,

he was thirteen

knew much more than I did.

There was no seduction,

there was no promise or threat,

just a touching that was absolutely inappropriate.

With but few words spoken

he pushed me down, belly to the ground,

while pulling my pants and underwear.

He was telling me that it would be fun “I swear”

so I should just be quiet

have a friend and some fun.

When I began to try to fight

I learned without knowing the words “in vain”

a few moments later I understood the meaning

of real torturous physical pain.

Pain that did not stop

as the decades of recriminations

passed over me with me always believing

I was made to be of a lower station,

on the short side of every situation.

I lived a life that would never allow me to achieve.

It was through the fear of being raped again

that I learned to not easily call

any man but myself friend,

Now fifty years later when I look back at that day

and can’t even remember his name

I wonder what I could have done different

not that it much matters for in my hearts being

after much thinking to understanding

I have forgiven that one nameless him.

He was older should have known better

but still at that time he was just a kid too.

It was after that day that I learned

the blessedness of solitude and

how alone was not that bad a thing.

There are times I wonder about him

how he’s done did he go on to a life of torturing others

or did he forgive himself

find a way to call all men brothers?

Makes little difference now to me a half century later

for I don’t dwell anymore on that day

but sometimes I think of it and I hope that like me,

he at least found a road away from disaster.

10/4/11

IT MAY NOT BE FOR YOU BUT WHAT I KNOW IS TRUE IS

No one knows what they know

until they see that what they thought could be

is.

We are human,

both the best and worst of all evolved creation.

We spend so much time on our knees

worrying about the one thing we can not know

until we see it as it is.

And in between

all we can so is stand or fall

as we rise on words that we pray to a being

who has pledged to no longer meddle

through our general human affairs.

And in that promise, never broken,

we still make our own words sound like those

that came spoken from the mouth of a divinity

that consists to most religions

of one kind of trinity or another

that never, not in any case,

makes sense within my own creed,

which I will never shove on you.

Power, money and

someone who does not matter

more than any another

gives man a definition of sanity

and calls it the third leg

of the human holy trinity.

That is a fools trinity

which I also deny,

for I am man born,

death bought and paid for

freedom fought before

leaving behind recognized lies.

There is only one truth and it is

finding a way to do

to think my way through

every chore destiny

presents in my path.

Now what I do know

to be absolutely true is that

to forsake my own beliefs for yours

is the one way I know

to attain perpetual grief,

because I have seen it is,

the one way of reaping

spiritual wrath until I learn humility

while working

for the understanding of is,

leading to relief

10/4/11

WHY OF A FENCE

I like my fence,

I can see through it,

you can too.

I like my fence,

you can hear through it

as can I

I like my fence

because it separates the two.

10/5/11

THAT CHROME COATED TIN MEANS NOTHING TO ME

2011-10-03T07:18:00.000-04:00

Every raindrop that falls upon me

can represent a touchstone to authority

from my long line of yesterdays.

And with each wet drop

I ask it as it suicides itself on my face,

who gave you authority to piss on me?

I could write more about this

but I think you see

where I am going.

Only the elements of power

are from the heavens,

the rest is self claimed bullshit

that only has the power I give it.

I put my hat on and rob the rain of its authority over me.

10/3/11

My power went out for 12 hours yesterday so for revenge I am going back to bed for an equal amount of time today!

2011-10-02T06:40:00.002-04:00

TOO LONG

2011-10-01T09:27:00.000-04:00

Long is the time

since I have looked

into your eyes

to see what

is to be seen there.

Have you

changed,

have I?

Makes little difference

now that I see you again,

you can infect me

with what ever

state of being

you have become

and I will be glad

for the seeing it

within you for

whatever it is I see

makes us one

again.

10/1/11

FINDING LOVE

2011-09-30T06:20:00.002-04:00

Through a field

of green grass

and soft clover

holding hands

we remain still connected

looking for the lone life

with the extra leaf.

Some call it a lucky find

others a genetic mutation

but I call it holding hands

walking across a field of green

where the blades bend

as the clover kisses

our feet passing.

This is one love,

walking together,

holding hands,

being connected,

looking for the not usual,

without needing definition,

being caressed by life

while acknowledging softly

our being a part

of a greater whole.

9/30/11

FOR THE WAY LOST

2011-09-29T08:17:00.004-04:00

I have lost my way

among the masses.

Blinded by time,

my steps once sure,

can barely find forward movement

and there is no going back

to track the place

where the vision was clear.

Where art thou sweet freedom?

Have you been sold

for a few pennies worth of gold

and a pocket full of lies

meant to steal me—us,

to the place where the world

is no longer a space—

owned by none?

There are no signs upon the trail

of them who came before

who gave the world a deadly breath,

a taste of the horror arising,

as they waited patiently

for the signs of their ovens

of terror to fade.

Disgrace and shame

to the masters of industry

and governments too,

who believe they own all.

The debt and fear enslaved,

who do not know they own—

the everything of nothing.

I have lost my way

among the masses

but in not knowing

of where I am willingly going.

I have found that

lovely is the scent

of freedom’s sweetness

leading me.

9/29/11

STAND NOW AS HUMANS OR SUBMIT ALL YOU ARE TO THE MACHINE THAT WILL DESTROY ALL YOU WERE

2011-09-28T08:21:00.003-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

COLONIAL

2011-09-27T04:29:00.005-04:00

I think of roofs that used to keep out
the views of the heavens that have fallen there
and the fallow dirt filled rooms
where once used to be fields of dreams.

Those places where the children imagined
a life of warrior kings as cops and fire fighters
to finally find sleep (once that blighter monster
went night night too).

The solid finger print painted wet plastered walls
now holier than the church abandoned too
that led to the loo and scrubbing tub
where cleanliness was godliness according to

the giant people who inspected every ear and nail
before allowing a run to that place where
what is now the empty drop off from the second floor
but once was not a hand carved grand staircase

with curves and turns but a well built direct set of steps
to a first floor where a lifetimes worth of knick knacks,
occasionally dusted, slept their vigilant way on mantles
through days of family life filled with unlocked doors

now abandoned through time and age worn slogans
like “moving on” and new ones “bank owned.” Though no bank
but memory could ever hold the worth of the wealth
once held under those roofs that used to shingle spell sanctuary.

© M Durfee
9/27/11

A MOMENTS PEACE

I finally saw in the nighttime darkness
a shooting that did not come from the end of a gun
but a bright blue white light bullet fast falling from the sky.

If the master of the cosmos was shooting at me,
he needs new glasses too. But if he was just showing
his fire power then it was awesome for its beauty.

It has been too long
since I saw the sky firing
instead of men.

© M Durfee
9/27/11

SING ALONG WITH THE AX

2011-09-24T08:51:00.002-04:00

In the water garden of great wealth with their puling dissent

against them with nothing I was pushed to choke on fluids

of coercion and threat, another face forced to bottom cement

to drown the words hard against them with bloods of blue

“Silence him!” they cried and yelled as they held my head

ax raised high, which came down forcefully swinging.

As the thing clanged down believing in a moment I would be dead.

Such is the lunacy of greed, none can kill truth singing.

9/24/11

Today...

2011-09-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

Is not only the 40th reunion of my HS class, most of whom I have not seen since 197, I have seen 3 folks since then it is also the anniversary of the 28th year the old lady has put up with my ass. So think good thoughts one for the old lady who is going to meet the people I grew up with and another for the people I grew up with.

mark

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 JUST ANOTHER DAY OF DEATH AND VENGENCE

2011-09-22T07:14:00.002-04:00

I wasn’t in the alley that night of cold hard crime

when Mark MacPhail was murdered removed from the realm of time

nor was I there the twenty two years time ending in the candle lit

blackness while Troy Davis waited four extra hours to die for it.

And I wasn’t on that dirty asphalt road the night James Byrd Jr.

who I imagine began to cry as he was chained with racist fervor

to a pick up truck, fully out of luck, torn apart to a bloody mess

as he was dragged to a horror meted death near Jasper Texas.

Nor was I there the evening Lawrence Brewer

was injected with his demise, making no last statement.

One took the needle declaring his innocence to the very end

and the other once said he’d do his crime all over again.

Humans calling up the angel of death

is the same as dancing on the head of a pin.

There are capital crimes that warrant never seeing life again

and there are others that have too many questions.

But that angel always comes when forced from sleep

There is no way it would not hear and heed the call

it has its place among the living, the dying, us all.

Guilt or innocence means nothing it has an appointment to keep.

Two different cases

Tried in two different places, two separate states

With outcome the same for all involved;

death, closure for some, but the root problem, hate

unsolved.

9/22/11

FEAR BEATS YOUR ASS THEN FUCKS YOU UP

2011-09-21T18:02:00.002-04:00

I knew a man who made the most terrible of sins,

he stood before a great oaken door blocking his way

wondering whether he should open it, look inside, step in.

His instinct was to turn right or left just walk away

but his mind kept saying “go inside man

at least look, take a peek

it could be that ending place you seek.”

Yet no force of God or man

could move his hand or his feet.

Hours passed, then days, months,

years as he stood still trying to force himself to decide

and think of what he should do

what was his next move unknown,

how could he cried determine “forward or to which side”

with the information known what was his will.

Grab the ancient iron ring and push

or just simply go about on his way

a longer route to his destiny.

All the while the days and nights

passed by over his head

he stood immobile, entranced

as if he’d become standing but dead.

This door after all was the seeming quickest way forward

yet at the same time there could be a heavy fine or price to pay

to finally find out the truth of his destiny.

He stood there still questioning the wisdom

of going into the unknown without first seeing

as he was unlearned about such things.

What he knew is that fate and destiny

are never seen coming and

while not the same thing they can

render a man to the same ending.

We all come to places

where we have to think long and hard

before we make a choice

to move forward or backward

but that is no sin,

thinking things through

is the essence of wisdom.

No my friends greatest of sins is letting the fear

of the unknown freeze him there where

he stands un moving still trying to decide,

making no motion

having no notion

of what he should do

for behind him

was not an easy road

and the unknown

could be worse still.

9/21/11

NAVIGATING

2011-09-21T07:10:00.000-04:00

When walking in the unfamiliar

and it feels as if your boots

might be sucked from your feet

remember to kiss the place where you stand.

For then you will have loved

the earth and found the spot where

all knowledge is contained if you but look.

9/21/11

IS EVERY DAWN NEW? EVERY DAY TOO?

2011-09-20T07:43:00.002-04:00

At the dawn with the darkest night long gone

with the red sky

reflecting off the coming clouds of a sun rising,

the old sailor in me

yet says the winds today will be along.

Often times growing above my thinking

is the billowing mass of

vaporous mornings white, some day’s red,

or yellow and black too.

There is not much any one can do to change

the color of the coming day

‘cept read it and ready,

if there be a warning in it,

heed it.

My mind oft times

goes wandering while looking

to them with no shelter

on a day like today

because I know more than a few

who have only a bush for a home,

I know too many

who’ve been turned from every door,

because of the baggage they carry

they’re the ones who know

what it is to be in the rain a’ready.

Prepared for the storm

they can through stupor feel coming

above the one

that it seems is never leaving.

It is hard luck living

for them who went to live awhile in places

they never should have gone

and seen blood enough spilled to taint the coming

dawn of every day.

No one ever stays the same,

for all at some time

youth is stolen, lost or just vanished away.

Not the just wealthy or the poor,

but everyone goes

through some kind of change.

Some sort of life changing door

they wished they never walked through

but can remember no more,

Many wish for a life different,

whether in mansion or under bush

satisfaction is elusive

but often begun in discontent

and ever changes with no human hand

to guide it on its own way across the land,

while the dawn rises a new color every day.

9/20/11

RICOCHET

2011-09-19T17:07:00.002-04:00

One has to watch when they pull the trigger

because there are times where

it’s not the target blood drawn but that of the shooter.

Clowns and compassion are not generally comparable

but I suppose when telling a lie or parable about a dog

I would call the clown Roscoe and the shooter Fido.

I do not understand the expanding fear of the unknown

but clowns I am familiar with and let me tell you sis,

as a Bozo impersonator the real bigot in you is deeply sown.

I have a’ready in truth exploded more than many

and now I am watching you sucking inward imploding

dentist glass mirrors that only expose you soul’s cavities.

I think the bigger the tent the less the rent

but in the crowd that large, you may find yourself

just as big as a prize winning bigoted pig hell sent.

What I don’t understand, I am after all only just a man in my place,

is how can one who must have felt the hell of oppression

and suppression be so god damn willing to fall so short of grace?

Especially when it comes to the color of a person’s race

have you forgotten in your own aged white face colored mind

that no matter your feeling there is still yet only one tribe?

Or is that part of your soul behind that erupted clown’s face?

Al Jolson a singing clown too didn’t much like his either

for popularity's fortune he just like you performed in black face

9/19/11

AFFIRMATIVE SELECTIVITY

2011-09-18T19:22:00.000-04:00

Everyone wants to be as they are,

accepted as the same.

No one wants to be made to feel outcast

ashamed at the person grown, become.

No one trusts it, but truth is

that is how all wars are started son.

There are so many differences among the human species

yet collectively, if you’re not like me, you’re less than feces.

It seems there within every one of us waiting is a bigot

while hostility sits biding the right time to open

a valve of disgust to spew hate for others

from the pious self righteous pie hole spigot.

Individually everyone wants to walk their own way

totally convinced that their churches steeple

is the only right way to love under the common day

by seven billion planet inhabiting people

Then—when called out on that hate

comes the walk back to a

hypocrites—kindness—their accepting of the human state

“But I was just kidding, I think you

over reacted to the humorous hate I speak and spoke,

c’mon man, same color, same creed as me it was only a joke.

I don’t really dislike those chinks, niggers, kikes and queers.

I just think they are a little off, not really for me you know.

I respect all mankind even if I can’t find any good

in all those not like me who can’t see

with the same exclusive eyes I have in me.

Don’t call me a racist or a gay basher fascist

I am after all just like you, I just hate

a different don’t know anything about them group.”

Everyone wants to be welcomed without shame

Wants to know that in order to be accepted

for whatever they are they don’t have to be named

by you or me as acceptable, our kind, the same.

9/18/11

WIRE BASKET BATTALIONS

2011-09-17T07:31:00.002-04:00

Shopping cart army takes boot camp

in the aisles of the grocery store.

Running laps past end caps

and doing the obstacle course down aisles

crowded with other recruits

advancing towards that store paper sale.

“How fresh is this melon

and are these berries going to get all fuzzy and stale

or they are best eaten today

especially since they traveled from half a world away?”

These are just two of the questions

on the boot camp shopping cart army

graduation day test.

But the true training is when the time comes to go to war

how will the army do when their two hundred dollar cart

becomes the only refrigerator, storage space,

pantry and cupboard they have

and will they be able from day one’s start to

tell the good from the bad

when into the dumpster they go to shop.

Dropping in from above hoping to find

something from some crop still good enough to eat.

Or will the battalions

not advance but retreat?

How well will the shopping cart armies

go when fighting that only

form of their weapons transportation t

hrough the mud and slushy snow?

Will they remember training

where to go to get some socks

or will they just forget it all,

let it all go to the rivers edge

and freeze on the rocks?

I don’t know, it is an army after all

and everyone heeds differently, duties call

but this is not quite the same thing,

not really the same sort of warring

we have become used to,

but no matter the military style

it is ever the way all the while

and not fucked up

an army always travels

on its stomach.

9/16/11

ONLY THE BUTTERFLIES BATS AND BLIND FIND IT SAFE

2011-09-15T13:42:00.002-04:00

Somewhere in between where the bats and the butterflies take wing

most of humanity sails silently by trying to get from point A to B

without being noticed or overtly seen.

We are all right it seems as long as we remain to be

not cognizant of what sails around us, don’t look don’t see

long as we are still sailing in heavens vault doing no harm nor assault.

So happy are we become, to drone through the polluted firmament

with our own objective in sight no matter how far off it be.

We are simply focused on the speed of our own wings,

not on the other humans beings wants or needs

nor on what we breathe or what we hear

and not on any toxic thing off to the sides we see.

I can find no fault in this, the most human way, to take flight.

For it is better to move ever forward, flit quietly silently in fright

than to be noticed, by the sharp eyed raptors eyesight keen

when they come from mid-air snatching up their prey.

The mighty swiftly a’wing screeching darting from sky high parts

turning us trying to be gentler humans to food for the swift and sharp.

Those dreaded last moments spent among the powerful beseeching

before being torn flesh from bone, feeling that dreadful end.

There is no shame in flying by, eyes forward, ears to the screams dead

not looking at the thing all but the charmed butterflies and feared bats dread.

For we all know if we take time from our own flight to show any sign

of the deadly scenes we are always witness to, we become next in line.

9/15/11

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN?

2011-09-12T08:56:00.004-04:00

Cute as a laughing eight year old button on any given day can be

She was cackling and chortling as her and a friend made their way

to her home on my street.

Now this young child is black

but not as dark as coal or light as coffee with cream

but somewhere nicely shaded

in between.

She was laughing at what she had done.

To my “thought I’d seen it all” old eyes I could tell what it was

and honestly thought it messy and pretty dumb.

She’d covered her arms and her petite hands too,

she had taken her school supply of Elmer’s glue

and spread it all up and down,

with youth filled gusto she gave those hands and arms

a good gooey gluey white pasty coat.

Now as a nickname I call this child Trouble,

not because she is

but because she just likes to have more than anything—

whatever it is an eight year old considers as being fun.

“Trouble”

said I—pausing for a moment trying to figure out why

before I let my mouth further fly—

“What in hell have you done, why did you

cover your arms like that in all that gooey glue?”

Raising those twig sized arms high to the sky and passing clouds too

she told me straight out

“I covered myself in this glue
because I want to be white just like you!”

Words like that coming from an eight year olds mouth specifically

didn’t actually convey the social and political implications

of a truth often spoken by the black community,

how if they had been born, not black but white,

there’d be more social unity, times would be easier less of a fight.

life would be better,
filled with less depredation mixed with degradation,

But with this laughing having fun child

there was not much I could explain to the wee dear

that someone’s skin color doesn’t make them better or worse.

That being white didn’t make anyone's ability easier to learn or hear.

Being born black was not a God given curse.

How do you tell a kid that uses her eyes

and sees what she sees with those beautiful brown orbs

That in the great scheme of things, a persons color

never answers truthfully the question of why

that when you get right down to it color doesn’t count more.

That there’s enough inequality for all to go around.

There is only one great whole

and in what she said to my ears sounded in my head

as if she wished her African heritage to be dead.

Some are red, yellow, and black, or white, brown

and combinations of each to reach

the whole world round but the absolute truth is there is only us.

That it is all there is a diverse community of one

where every single and whole one of us

of every color that to the world brings

both the commonality and dolor of social justice.

9/12/11

9/11 911 SAME NUMBERS DIFFERENT MEANING SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY

2011-09-11T12:30:00.003-04:00

Not to diminish the day of mourning for them who have lost lives and families when steel failed and the days after when terror ruled but how is it that when I hear 911 I think of the falling from border to border of an entire American city that no one mourns the tens of thousands who have died violently at the hands of domestic born and bred terrorists. Gun toting teens and older thugs who have no religion other than violence and drugs as an excuse. I don’t see any FEMA help like they got after hurricane Katrina or presidents who come here to directly mourn and pray over our way too many brutally murdered unnamed forgotten dead. Yes I understand that this attack on two towers and a pentagram building, heroism shown in the sky above a Pennsylvania field are memorable hours and should be forever remembered on this the memorial day of those actions both bold and bad but try living 9/11 every day and not wonder why no one will, who can do something, a person that wears a Homeland Security hat has nothing, not a fucking word to say except “Detroit? Where's that?”

9/11/11

FROST REVISITED

2011-09-09T08:54:00.006-04:00

Everyone comes soon enough

to that Y in the road

where a choice is ever met

We stand there at the crux,

ponder a moment and wonder why

right instead of left?

There is the safe and normal track

that we know leads to security, safety and prosperity

Then there is the one we never know where it leads,

what it contains, where it goes, how it breathes.

No one lives a life without some regret,

no one lives a life wishing

they could not go at least part way back.

We burn bridges or abandon them forgetting

that in some cases though time worn they still stand.

I have lived through great moments ecstatic

and wild years erratic and all that I know for sure

is one way or another the road that I chose

has always worked out to be the right way.

Always in my inner ear there is a voice whispering

and at times it is heard distant, others so very clear

and I have to choose is this the voice of wrong choice

about to be made

the voice of that one spirit within I hold ever dear.

And yet no matter the advice given

the answer always comes

it is my choice to make.

I am the one who has to choose which fork to take

and even if it’s a mistake walk along the chosen path

through every trial and mis-step and mishap

until I have been on that trail long enough to see

that because of the work I do clearing the way

even if wrong in the beginning,

it is now the right path for me.

8/9/11

THE WALKING MAN

WHO CREATES JOBS?

ALWAYS WITH ME

WE LEARN MORE BY SITTING IN SHADOWS

WITHOUT YOU THERE IS NO REASON FOR ME

COME THE NEW DAYS BREEZE

I foundmyself in a thoughtless place

andwithin that space of mind

I took alook around to see what I could find.

Coursethere was memory

clear anddistinct and things I'd done

whichquite frankly still stink.

Yet asthe morning breeze

came upon me

for a new dayagain,

all of itleft its gloom

to makeroom

for thenew to rise within.© M Durfee

1/26/12

FREEDOM IS WORTH THE WAR TO SECURE IT

WHY WASTE A GOOD CRYING SKY?

REALITY IS A PLACE NOT A PERCEPTION

THERE ARE MEN OF MEANS AND MEANS OF MEN

LOSE THE COMMUNITY BEGIN THE WAR

LIVING LIFE ON NO ONES TERMS BUT MY OWN

THE LAST UNDERSTANDING

Be Not Afraid

DON’T GET HOOKED

I HAVE TO LOOK TO FIND

WOULD YOU CARE FOR A FRACK OF GAS WITH YOUR TEA DEAR?

A PLACE OF NO SOLE

NONSENSE: EVERYTHING IS FINE

THE JEWELS OF A DAY

LIFE FOR THE CAPTAIN’S STEWARD

TURN BACK NOW OR BE FOREVER FOO(le)D

IT DON”T BOTHER ME FATS, JUST PLAY THAT STRIDE

IT'S BEEN THIS WAY FOR THIRTY YEARS BUT NOT THIS BAD

DETROIT IS NOW ROLLING UP THE SIDEWALKS BEFORE DARK

Detroit police precincts to close to public 4 p.m.-8 a.m.

Our Tax Dollars at work!

AD MAN—A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

THE USEFULNESS OF A HUG

FIRST POEM OF 2012

MEET THE NEW YEAR SAME AS THE OLD YEAR

A MAN IN AMARILLO NEEDS YOUR EYES AND EARS

TWO ROUTES TO>>>>THERE

THE SONG OF FLIGHT WITHOUT KNOWING THE LYRIC

A LITTLE EASY ON THE EARS THIS FINE CELTIC MORN

THE INHERITANCE

THE CHRISTMAS STORY OF 16 MILLION UNEMPLOYED

JESUS WAS NOT A MOONSHINER

POETRY IS A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS

WHO ARE WE BECOME?

IN THE MOMENTS OF THE BELLS RINGING

THE END COULD HAVE BEEN YESTERDAY

NO ONE MAN

THE TWELVE STANZAS OF CHRISTMAS

GHOSTS IN THE BARREN LAND

293 FEET OF SEPARATION

SHEDDING ATTACHMENT

THERE IS NO SENSE IN NONSENSE EXCEPT FOR THE WORD

REMEMBER WWII STARTED 70 YEARS AGO TODAY FOR AMERICA

BILLBOARD INFORMATION

I LOVE DESPITE

THE USE OF A LOTUS BLOSSOM

THERE IS NO MANUAL FOR FREEDOM everyone finds their own path

IF THIS IS REALITY I CHOOSE INSANITY

TEACH US

CUSTOMS OF…MADNESS

STOP LOOK AND THINK

LIFTED

THANKSWHENVING

A NOTE TO YOUTH ABOUT BIRTH CONTROL

SING

WHERE ARE YOU NOW MY HOMELAND

SAVE ME FROM LETTUCE!!!

REQUIRED JOURNEY TO HOLY PLACES

THE COMMON GOALS OF MEN

I NEED A BATH BUT WONDER IF I'LL EVER BE CLEAN

NITTANY LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS OF THE JUNGLE

for thenew to rise within.

© M Durfee