intellectual properties

slight

sometimes i feel like i am/we are dying.

words about oakland

this has been slapped in large typewriter print on 8.5×11″ paper onto telephone poles all over my neighborhood, and i’ve been reading it/meditating on it while waiting for the bus at peralta and 24th street all this week. thx to oaktownart.com for typing it up (and for all the other stuff about oakland art/music/food they’ve been posting too…). i added some line breaks, because i wanted to.

There are millions and millions of people in the city. There are people arguing in the streets. People looking out their windows to see what all that noise is about. People driving their cars, riding bikes, walking, staying put, people moving just because they can’t stand to stay still. Cowboys doing tai chi in the park. Single moms jogging. Cops giving tickets. Haters hating. Old Asian ladies playing hacky sack. Kids throwing fits on the bus. Scam artists sitting outside of grocery stores with a typewriter, selling what he calls poems. Baristas getting hit on. Hipsters calling each other hipsters. Teen girls wearing pajama bottoms and flip flops.

People are putting their trash outside of their houses, cuz Earth Day is once a year but trash day is every week. Some people are taking that trash home, sleeping on it, dusting it off, eating it, hanging it on their wall and then throwing it away again after a week.

This one kid was killed by a cop who meant to taser him. People are rioting because of that kid. This one girl is saying that it’s lame they should torch some innocent stranger’s car and this one guy is saying that some white artist hipster slumming it up in what she thinks is the ghetto being more concerned about the destruction of property than the violence against youth of color is a part of the reason that kid was killed. Oh snap, those people aren’t talking to each other after that shit!

Someone is just going to work, minding her own business. Someone around the corner used to be in a popular band in the 90’s, The Counting Crows I think. Someone is quietly doing charity work. Someone is spitting on the liars and hypocrites in the name of Jesus Christ. Someone fell asleep on the bus.

People are playing music. They’re walking down the street, rapping. They’re performing for elementary school children. They’re only playing to the sound guy. They’re making country music, city music, fifth wave ska, traditional Balkan dance songs exactly like they have been played for centuries (they imagine). They’re taking old music and adding electronic dance beats, beats antique. They’re making the newest sounds. They’re imitating their favorite bands. They’re playing music alone in their room.

Everyone’s dumpster diving. Everyone’s watching lots and lots of TV shows on DVD. Everyone’s littering like crazy. Everyone drives up on the weekends to hit up the bars. Everyone’s wearing oversized white t-shirts and baggy jeans so the cops can’t tell them apart. Everyone’s jaywalking inhumanly slow. Everyone’s having unprotected sex. Everyone’s putting up signs saying they reserve the right to refuse service, for any reason. Everyone’s playing dice on the sidewalk. Someone’s saying its a pity. Someone’s gonna call the cops if you don’t get out of here this very second. Someone else lives here too, you know.

She’s getting the shit kicked out of her. She’s singing the Dead Kennedys songs while she bikes home. She’s teaching yoga. She loves the Lord, Lordy Lord. She walks into a restaurant, sits down at a table that still have food on it and eats.

He’s applying for a job at every goddamn corporate eatery on this goddamn street. He’s waiting for the library to open. He’s telling every young woman who walks by that she’s beautiful, but in the most obnoxious ways possible. He’s going to night school so he isn’t pushing a broom when he’s forty. He’s selling bootleg DVDs and drugs.

They’re reading the Koran, books on how to fix appliances, Found magazine, Chick tracts, the whole Harry Potter series for the 2rd time and the newest issue of Cometbus.

You are being racially profiled. You’re dressing up like a goblin for your jug band’s concerts. You’re looking good! You’re hooking up with people from the internet. You aren’t racist or anything, but you won’t go to certain parts of town after dark. You’re just looking for a decent cup of coffee. You have the right to remain silent. FOR FEAR THE HEARTS OF MEN ARE FAILING.

is this the work of some white neo-beatnik from LoBot? or a conscious hiphopper from the other end of the hood? who can tell, but i like it.

in the wake

Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.

–rumi

you did not know

how hungry you were until you started eating

how tired you were until you lay down

how lonely you were until you started loving

how hurt you were until you healed

how imprisoned you were until you broke free

how silent you were until you spoke

uphill battle

traveling without moving
into a headwind
that will surely reverse for the way back home

these buildings do nothing to protect us
only forming wind tunnels
and then collapsing when Mother says it’s time

the forest has dreams to remember

At Lake Scugog

1.

Where what I see comes to rest,
at the edge of the lake,
against what I think I see

and, up on the bank, who I am
maintains an uneasy truce
with who I fear I am,

while in the cabin’s shade the gap between
the words I said
and those I remember saying

is just wide enough to contain
the remains that remain
of what I assumed I knew.

2.

Out in the canoe, the person I thought you were
gingerly trades spots
with the person you are

and what I believe I believe
sits uncomfortably next to
what I believe.

When I promised I will always give you
what I want you to want,
you heard, or desired to hear,

something else. As, over and in the lake,
the cormorant and its image
traced paths through the sky.

–Troy Jollimore

~in the new yorker

no strings attached

i want to walk naked through the streets with you, barefoot, our bodies and minds worn clean.

.
.
.::.
.
.
i don’t know what i was dreaming, but those are the words that were running through my head when i woke up this morning.

gratitude

this wonderful life isn’t an accident; it’s quite intentional.
not on the part of some God,
but on the part of many here. with me. now.
doing. giving. being. so many amazing things.
and sharing it all, selflessly. sleeplessly. with belief.

lately, and especially for some reason today this weighed heavily on me,
i have been noting that i don’t thank the people who make it so wonderful nearly enough.
i at least always try to say thank you
whenever something has been offered to me,
or even if not offered directly,
if it was offered to the universe,
and it touched me with everyone.
sometimes i forget to say thank you.

but even when i do, i have recently been feeling like it’s not enough.
that what’s being given to me is so much more than i give.
so while i am filled up with all this gratitude,
at the same time there is guilt.
guilt that i am not giving back enough,
that the teeter totter isn’t balanced
and soon you’ll be tired of being the heavy one, sitting on the ground
while i fly.

a poem from the rooftops of Iran

with a heavy sigh on this beautiful sunny sunday here in oakland, as i pray for iran in the only way i know how, i am so grateful for my life.

alela diane: the ocean

She was always walking,
Singing to her footsteps
Dirt ditched paths and pine cones
Digging up glass bottles

Rusty springs from feather beds
Old hubcaps on a picket fence
She planted beds of flowers
Stayed outside for hours

In spirit she’s drifted to the ocean
All those years of waiting for the water
She watching’ long shadows call in the tide
But the sunset by the sea is in her mind
The sunset by the sea is in her mind

And she was always hoping
To someday leave the mountain
Domestic chores and children
The darkness of the winter

Painting all these mermaids
Wandering to the seashore
She wanted him to follow
But his heart is with the hillside

In spirit she’s drifted to the ocean
All those years of waiting for the water
She watching long shadows call in the tide
But the sunset by the sea is in her mind
The sunset by the sea is in her mind.

These days you’ll find her walking
Singing to the deep sea
But she will always love him
Lost up in the mountains

The sun set on the ocean
Gathering shells and beach glass
Dancing with the rolling waves
It gives her piece of mind

But she will always love him
Lost up in the mountains

For she will always love him
Lost up in the mountains