Touched by fire*

I said – she is touched by fire, the dead and the divine.
Broken wings across the wire, she’s clipped and then she climbs.
And I’m the idiot for hire, saddled at her side.

I can’t shut the door! I can’t shut it off!
I can’t take it off! I can’t take it!

She’s touched by fire. Across the wire.
She’s touched by fire. Across the wire.

Fire.

A toolbox, a screw and set of wires, she’ll take apart all time.
She’s got – a chaos theory mind, she’s capital for crime
We all stand right by her side
And bathe in blinding light.

I’m taking off! I’m risking all! I’m running all! I’m running!

Touched by fire. We stand beside her.
Touched by fire. Across the wire.

Fire.

* Title taken from the book “Touched with Fire” by Kay Jamison.

Conjured lights

Quito, Ecuador
January 24, 2009

In cold lines
They celebrate the rites.
And souls try
To conjure a light.

And I stand outside
With unbelieving mind
But I’d like to stand in line
If the conjure were right.

And now it’s hard
To have you in my city
As I question the conjured lights.

Set apart
Here in my city
Do you come to remind?

Old eyes
A face with familiar lines.
So right
But distant as time
And political ties.

I can’t just go along
Much as I might want.
I know I’m different
But I don’t think I’m wrong.

And now it’s hard
To have you in my city
As I question the conjured lights.

Set apart
Here in the city
Do you come to remind?
Do you come to remind?
Do you come to remind?

If could make my peace with you
I could make my peace with all.
If I could make my peace with you
I could make my peace with all.

To each their only call.
To each their lonely call.
To each their only call.
To each their lonely call.

And now it’s hard
To have you in my city
As I question the conjured lights.

Set apart
But with you in my city
Could we conjure something right…

Something to believe

Dec 2009 – Jan 2010
Lusaka, Dulles,
and over the Atlantic.

When we wake up as fragments
In some cubist painter’s mind
And form & function fail and
No purpose to our lines.

Maybe we won’t find faith
Maybe we won’t find God
Maybe we won’t find beauty
Or a particular cause.

Still we need – something to believe.
And we need – something to believe.

We sleep & sleep for we believe
Pictures in our heads
Might be the only peace we’ll find
In lands of cardboard lids.*

Maybe we won’t find truth
Maybe we won’t find love
Maybe we won’t find duty
Not in Bentham or in Kant.

But we need – something to believe.
And we need…

We’re fragments now
Finally breaking out
Out loud.
The logic lost
Comes ‘round.

Living without faith
We are unafraid
And there is still a purpose in the gray.

If there’s no design
No function to our lines
There will be a purpose to our times.
Let us write a purpose to these lines.

And we need – something to believe.
And we need – something to believe.
And we need – something to believe.
And we need…

* This verse adapted from “River”, a poem by Rachel Lewis.

Capital for Guns

Some days I wish
You could see me
In my southern life.
I know you think you’re educated;
And sure you know what’s right.
I’ve seen every pretty cruelty
Of wealth and of right.
And southern nations
Share what it’s like

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns and debt.
The hemispheric lines are drawn
And the rich are coming for revenge.
And loans like shiny things
Draw us in, but they come with strings
Their boom is our bust.
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust.

Last year, we had a revolution
At the ballot box
Our first peasant leader of Indian blood.
The rich sought to secede
They love our country only when
Our country they can run.
I fought them in the street
They knocked me to my knees
And I looked up as I breathed
And saw the models on the billboard
All were blonde.

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns, and dreams
Which they’re selling
On the street again
And someday we’ll accept it seems.

That’s the way it is with shiny things
They draw us in
Then pull our strings
And disappear and rust
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust!

Calling all ye faithful to repair
In our southern hemisphere
We work, we lay our lives bare
But capital is scarce
And change is rare.

Some days, I wish you would see us
And maybe change your life.
Change your politics before we slip
Beneath your rising tide.

When the northern military comes
With capital for guns and liquidity
And they tell us how our lives could be
If we’d only let them run our economy.
Loans like shiny things draw us in
But we cut the strings; and we’ll do what we must
Another world is possible I know
For in the South I trust.
Every day another dawn, come on now
Another world is possible I know . . .

No Hay Pueblo Vencido

I have no time for reality shows; Anacostia’s outside my window.
In La Paz, people prove when we get on the street we can still make things move.
Hey perhaps, perhaps – today will be our day. Perhaps, perhaps – otro mundo es posible.
Perhaps, we’ll ask you join up in the fray . . .

Agents of the state are here standing on our throats; while everyone in Washington
wears the same winter coat. Why must I still walk alone why must I test my mettle?
Well I’m still shutting down like it’s 1999 in Seattle. And I see the improbably long march
left to go; and we’re rag-tag and unlikely I know. But don’t you look to me for no sorrow.

You’ll find, you’ll find – no defeated people. No hay, no hay – pueblo vencido.

I’m patient now, and all because of loss. See I’ve fought for dreams and I know
how much they cost. Your irony is cheap. Follow me to Freetown and see if they agree.

Puede ser, puede, today will be our day. Puede ser, puede, otro mundo es posible.
Perhaps, I’ll ask, you get out of the way . . .

She fell on the bridge, silent; bleeding from the throat
While everyone in Washington wore the same winter coat.
Why must I still walk alone, why must I test my mettle?
Well I’m still shutting down like it’s 1999 in Seattle.
En mi parroquia luchadora El 23 de Enero
Enfrentamos los poderosos y su dinero.
Pues póngase de pie compañero

You’ll find, you’ll find no defeated people
No hay, no hay pueblo vencido.

To Make a Rebel Behave

These are the people
Of childlike races
So the generals say.
This is the culture
Of familiar faces
The prisoners play.

I was one of the young prodigies
Conceiving a new day.
My imaginings
Drew the stern hand
These are the ways
To make a rebel behave.

These are the ways
To make a rebel behave.
The prizes to the pious,
And to the rebel the shame.
Prostrate; silent.

They will gather us in the stadium
Drug us and drop us from planes.
Dismiss and disdain the cadence
To make a rebel behave.

These are the ways
To make a rebel behave.

Power is all about memory
And the writings of history
And if we fail to get ours in . . .

I’ve a photo of you praying
On the day of the invasion
The one keepsake I’m saving
Against the day
They make a rebel behave.

Now the problem power faces
How to occupy the spaces
Of the memory we’re making.

Today the poets dream a nation
From memories we’d forsaken.
Our conquered imagination
All the ways
They made a rebel behave.

These are the people of childlike races
This is the culture of familiar faces
Now the lines of dissent we’re tracing
Disappear
These are the ways
To make a rebel behave.

All is hope. All is hope.

Caught in a Lie

I feel like I’ve seen so much
24 karats or maybe years.
I’m sure I seem out of touch
With who you are, but give me my orders, I’ll fall in
Fall in.

I know you well enough
To know you’re never well.
And I’ve held you close enough to not care.
I’m not the only one
Who’s tried to make you whole.
And I’ve no illusions, only intentions
The best that we can bear.

I
Won’t be caught in a lie.

You know me well
I cannot lie to you
But maybe myself.
I’ve sold it well.

I caught myself in a lie.
I complicate you, and that’s the part
That I like least.
Love thyself, but who should thyself love?
We all want a piece of you
But you only want peace.

I
Won’t be caught in a lie.

Statues of Simón Bolívar

August 2004
Tucupita, Caracas and Mérida
Venezuela

Ever since the end of us
I’ve been talking, talking
To statues of Simón Bolívar
Who’s never asked me wrong or right.

And if I’d only surrender
To his clean swept marble steps
I could sleep before Simón Bolívar
For 360 more nights.

While I’m waiting for a word.

I’m waiting for a word.

Ever since I last stood before Bolívar
I’ve been working at a desk until I
Barely recognize my life.

Wrestling with the legacy
Of pointed words and staring eyes
And staring far too long in a mirror
In a harsh judgmental light.

Y me hace falta; me hace falta
I am missing something every night.

I’m looking for a light.

We’ve been quiet far too long
Your unquiet mind that questions right and wrong.
But if you’d hold me just this once and mean it
Under statues of Simón Bolívar
I could believe in you again.

In the dark I’ve fumbled
Past & present, future pain
Come clarity before Bolívar
I make the choice to change my life.

I’ll be in the plaza
Collecting courage for one more fight
I cannot count on talking to statues of Simón Bolívar
Statues of Simon Bolívar
If I’m to have you in my life.

And I don’t have the answers; I don’t have the answers
But I’d like to look together if we might.

I’m looking for a light
Together tonight.

Elizabeth La Paz

Elizabeth
I believe in many things
But none here today.

Dance
With extravagance
Elegant at night.

From a high hotel
I watch colonial churches
And write our lives in a line.

For I’m looking from La Paz
At 12,000 feet
And it’s dry and cold.

Elizabeth
Don’t we tire
We could write our entire lives in a line.
A single line.

11th floor
To the cobblestone
Lights in archways below.

I am so removed
At this altitude.
I’m looking from La Paz
We could write our lives
We could sacrifice
We could set the price
I know…..

We could write our lives in a line.

I was made
For darker days
A future vision
Things fall apart.

Remain unchanged
Four point restraint
I’m in opposition
And permanently marked.

We could write a life in a line.

The singer’s job
Is to entertain
But an artist tries to teach.
And the listener’s job
Is to listen well
To words as well as beats.

Elizabeth
I cannot focus on the tedium
Creation beckons me.

And Elizabeth
I suspect
I’m becoming more
Than anything we’ve seen.