This New Year

This New Year,

Let us hope that the humanosphere moves swiftly to break its vector toward nuclear doom.

Let us hope that war is recognized for what it is: a black hole of lies sucking us all down.

Let us hope that care trumps greed, so that by next Samhain nary a person believes that cash is more important than a starving child’s ribs.

Let us hope that fat heads and wagging tongues yield to wide ears, and that the humble and soft-spoken are honored rather than circumvented.

Let us hope that religious fanatics lose their sick grip, and that all gods are validated except those that seek to be the one King.

Let us hope leaders stop spitting terror out of their angry loud mouths, and that flocks of fools stop kneeling in collars of fear.

Let us hope that lovers of all races mingle and mate, at least spiritually in deep companionship. Are we not all lovers in this sense?

Let us hope the light of education burns through webs of ignorance, freeing untold millions of mental wings.

Let us hope that denial and discord melt into delight, and we see as children again, tears in our eyes because each moment of color or scent or taste or touch or song is rare.

Let us fall down and beg the Fates to guide us away from a planet-killing path, the one we travel when we buy earth-poisons in the name of a pretty shine.

Let us pray we can be more than fussy ants, led by the pheromone of the purse, rushing into a Discount Hive to penny pinch.

Let us frequently take a deep breath, and realize what a treasure that one breath is, more so than any ingot or jewel--

That we have all been winners in the most important lottery: the Lottery of Life.

Down we go, into the lost wells of our minds. Some say it is healing. Others that we will never come up again.

Poem of Love: Without You

Below is my most popular love poem, based on the number of people who have contacted me about it. It was written for my lovely and gifted wife, and appeared in an excellent journal, Poems Niederngasse, which is now silent.

I never learned what happened to PNG, despite some feeble attempts. Part of my curiosity stems from a bittersweet happiness: I had a second poem accepted and scheduled to appear. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

The editor, Pasquale Capocaso, seemed an extraordinary editor whose life revolved around shared passion. PNG existed from 1996 to 2008, a long and marvelous run. Such an impressive and virtuous accomplishment needs not only to be remembered but revered.

It’s a shame how great accomplishments languish under the sands of days, as we self-absorbed consumerists fret on little preoccupations.

I salute Poems Niederngasse and Pasquale Capocaso, and always will. Two of the greatest gifts the modern poetry world has ever received.

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Without You

if my heart shatters
like twists of angels
tumbled into dice,
gin dissolving
the last of their wings,
you are gone from the
metropolis of my blood,
the achy fountains,
the soft esplanades,
the bridges heaving
over storms.

without you, the stars
waddle like geese on ebony grass,
dumb white-patched heads
drifting where you once thrilled
the linger of summer.

the weepy flesh of guitars
does not shudder like you—
you are the sound music craves
but will never be.

i am jagged without you,
stairs lacking rhythm, sine waves
flung off cliffs into petunias of foam,
into silent black bellies,
fish that clutch lightning and drown—
far from slender candles
seen though wineglasses,
their incautious pulse.

NO On 1 in Maine, Support Gay Marriage

In several days, the people of Maine will vote to support or effectively condemn gay marriage. I am fully in support, which is why I am voting NO on Question 1.

I will be so proud of Mainers if Question 1 fails. We will be the first state where the people stood up for equality, and cast off the thuggish weight of parochial intolerance. This kind of vote has apparently come before various localities on over thirty occasions (New York Times), and never has the right outcome been reached.

This is Maine’s chance to lead the nation into a fair and ethical future, where even California failed (the recent debacle of Prop. 8).

Below is the op-ed I wrote on this topic, published in the Bangor Daily News on May 15. You can also access it here:

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/106045.html

Let it come to pass that gays and lesbians can with pride join together and receive all the legal and financial benefits of connubial heterosexuals.

I am sick of the constant battle with old world prejudice. Sick of ignorance and especially sick of the demagogues who whip it into hate.

Patientia Victrix,

OWL


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Equality is Ageless

IPods that store whole music collections. Hand size computers networked across the planet. Miraculous as these would seem to our ancestors, there is an ethical achievement even more stunning: the joyful spread of equality.

Equality is old news, you say? Not for women, not for blacks, not for Native Americans, and not for gays and lesbians. Even the first glimmer of equal treatment, which applied only to landed male gentry, emerged about a century before the Declaration of Independence and its famous self-evident truth: “All men are created equal.” Given that humanity has passed the ripe old age of a hundred thousand years, this proclamation is the clarion call of a brash young heretic.

We live in the era of a mind-blowing fact: Over generations, in halting increments, civilization can wind a path of reason, even if that means deviating from barnacled social norms. Old habits die hard, but they do indeed marry the dust, even those stubbornly justified by appeals to “human nature” or sacrosanct tradition. Whatever happens next on our shared cosmic journey, we have shown that standards of justice can rise above privilege, bureaucracy, and selfishness, evolving in wonderful ways as unknown to the past as antibiotics and heart transplants.

And this is a good thing. We need flexible thinkers to deal with the implications of a headlong lunge into a future as daunting as science fiction. We need to be open-minded to merge the wisdom of the past with the liberations of discovery. Backsliding is not an option. Neither is mediocre performance . If we are to survive this Buckaroo Banzai ride into the Space Age, a place fraught with speck-sized computers and genetic re-scripting, we need to live not in the past, the present, or the future, but rather in a clear-headed mentality joining all three.

Tradition is indeed essential and liberals often fail to realize this. It provides a brake on reckless change, galvanizing debate and impelling a cautious pace. The Bible will never be obsolete; and yet its omnium-gatherum of parables and strictures, as has been the case since inception, is amenable to new insights.

Consistent application of the principle of equality, not blind faith, should be our guide. It will not do to restrict gays based on Biblical passages while ignoring similar passages that curtail women, ethnics, and pagans. Before the Civil War, the Bible was used to justify slavery, but we moved beyond that. Reason took another step. A fairness-based interpretation of Scripture brought us to celebrate one of our greatest accomplishments: Emancipation.

The fight over gay marriage is just the latest in a series of bouts with prejudice. The basic weapons have been the same for centuries: fear, outrage, misery, and hope. Both sides lay claim to all these, and in the end we must turn not only to consistency and fairness, but also to the proven point that humanity can rise above fear using the ladder of reason. In this task, our surest rung is that self-evident concept which distinguishes enlightened progress from the medieval lethargy of hierarchs and despots: Equality.

Chapbook Review!!!

Gordian Butterflies is the name of my latest chapbook, which receives a featured review in the current issue of Arsenic Lobster (20).

I am beyond delighted to have a detailed examination of my work appear in such a fine literary venue. The reviewer, Lissa Kiernan, is also the poetry editor of the journal. I was very nervous before seeing her impressions, then ecstatic afterward. She really FOUND me in the words, and revealed elements of my style even I was unaware of.

If you want to check out the review, go here: http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1review.html

Enticement: The review reveals where the Gordian Butterflies are hiding, so you can see them for yourself.

Purgatory

It has taken me forty-six years to embrace the obvious: Earth is purgatory. By this I mean an in-between world, combining elements of Asmodeus and Amaterasu. It is a realm designed to require and even invite killing. Even vegetarians inflict death on plants. Any kill destroys not only life, a wordlessly profound gift, but great beauty as well. Is not a leaf more exquisite than a Picasso?

Nature abounds with ravage and miracle. The lion crunches the larynx of the terrified oryx. Ants stream to gnaw the throes of a monarch butterfly. The Artist behind the scenes is no kindly god but rather Competition most merciless and cruel. Legions suffer, fail, and rot so that a few might survive and toil onward, shackled to that brutal overseer: natural selection.

This is our global habitat, replete with hurdles and wonders. We endure fickle charms, like weather and health, and our insides swim with little creatures, rendering us cauldrons that seethe with conflict.

Some of these microbes, seen under the lens, resemble spiral galaxies. And are not we humans microcosms of the Earth itself, foaming with battles under the skin, unseen from afar?

Worst of all, we slay each other. History is a grievous march of bloodshed, despots, and torture. Rape and incest were, and to a huge extent still are, ubiquitous and impervious.

Even Jehovah hops on the bandwagon: “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh.” (Deuteronomy 32:42)

As does Muhammad: “Paradise lies in the shadow of swords.”

Here’s the catch. We as individuals can’t escape the general current of weal and woe, but we still have choice. This purgatorial world, loom of wicked and good threads, pastiche of the terrible and the magnificent, is the perfect judging ground. Both heaven and hell are in evidence, as are hooks and carrots each way.

The Buddhist notion of karma holds serious relevance.

Who is judging, I don’t know. Maybe only a nonexistent magistrate of what-could-be. A diaphanous angel of what-reason-could-do.

If even one person succeeds in not abusing whatever little power she has, a statement is made about a possible future, and a lone soul achieves a rare greatness, one far more deserving of gold than those chests of murderous generals, which shine with numerous gleams of awful and perverse vainglory and pride.

Pentakomo Cyprus by Irene Koronas

Irene Koronas, a great poet and wonderful editor at WHL Review, has published a new book, entitled Pentakomo Cyprus. Check it out here:

http://www.thelostbookshelf.com/index.html#Pentakomo Cyprus

Irene is a passionate, intense and magical presence, with an outstandingly fearless mind. She is one of those rare artists who LIVES it. Not only that, she is far less selfish than most.

Yes, it’s true, I am not a fan of snooty geniuses with ears of stone and haughty tongues.

If you support her, you are supporting an entire community of poets; for she interacts with Wilderness House, the Bagel Bards, Ibbetson Street Press, and other groups of word junkies, who crave to mainline that rare fresh blend of perfect meaning and sound.

Home Makeover While a Billion Starve

Various sources have reported the sad fact. Over a billion people languish in chronic malnourishment. (“World’s Hungry Reach More Than 1 Billion in ’09: UN,” New York Times, Oct. 14)

That’s approximately 1 in 7 of the supposedly most powerful species on the planet. So much for the “Green Revolution” of the 60’s and 70’s. Back then, our leaders and scientists boastfully proclaimed that technology would end world hunger. How they loved to brag and swagger and tug the public along like a dumb coaxed beast.

Same old same old.

But technology won’t save us. Not only that, petrochemical fertilizer and erosion fomented by the “Green Revolution” have decimated the health of Gaea.

Will we ever take off our blinders, and realize that technology is dangerous in the hands of an immature humanity, and that in order to survive we must grow up and get aware?

Last night, while channel surfing, I came upon one of those remodeling shows. You know, strip down your perfectly livable house and put it back together again.

And there it was: a beautiful sun-filled home, complete with marble counters, cathedral ceilings and capacious bedrooms and baths.

This was the “before” preview, soon to be destroyed and redone. A major facelift, so to speak. And I thought, “How many billions of people would be so happy and thankful to live in this magnificent domicile, even for one week of their miserable hard-working downtrodden lives?”

How many untold sufferers would do anything, even whore their soul to Satan, if their children could live in such a lovely home, instead of wither from hunger --not to mention other scourges like oppression, disease, and war?

And then the TV screen filled with the show’s guest couple. The lovely bourgeois. They had just bought this home, and yet they weren’t smiling or happy, even though they were in the wealth club, an elite minority who could afford such a place.

No, they were frowning. Deep, heartfelt frowns. The sort that cut the soul. This house wouldn’t do. The husband rated the master bathroom a 3 out of 10. It wasn’t “male enough.” The wife gave it a 7 out of 10. The color scheme and texture were wrong.

Remember Marley’s Ghost from A Christmas Carol? How its hunched form, wrapped in chains, accosted Scrooge? The Ghost told the quivering miser that the irons were the poundage of greed.

I bet that if we affluent folks could feel the hands of all the exploited billions--those whose countries were wrecked by colonization, the slave trade, diamond mining, and all that--if we could feel their scrawny fingers, tied around us like rope, and sense the weight of their taut ribcages, just as Marley’s Ghost bore the weight of his avarice, we wouldn’t be so callous and shallow and numb and immature and contemptible.

Feminist David Brooks Kills Capitalism

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, writes not infrequently about the latest highbrow research on the brain. His eloquent expositions should shock anyone wedded to the belief that humans are internally harmonious and self-aware creatures, who make crucial choices through logical calculations.

In other words, the model of the rational ego, cherished by economists, has been shot to hell by Ivy League science. This, of course, has implications for capitalism.

And unbeknownst to Brooks, apparently, much of what he says concurs with feminist thought, which rejects the autonomous ego for a radically different notion.

Following in the footsteps of Carol Gilligan, who initiated a new Weltanschauung with her classic book, In a Different Voice, feminists see a person as defined through myriad relationships, which occur both within and outside the mind.

Sound kooky? The latest research validates it. Described by Brooks:

“People don’t have one permanent thing called character. We each have a multiplicity of tendencies inside, which are activated by this or that context. As Paul Bloom of Yale put it in an essay for The Atlantic last year, we are a community of competing selves. These different selves ‘are continually popping in and out of existence. They have different desires, and they fight for control — bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another.’”
(“Where the Wild Things Are,” Oct. 20, New York Times)

Weird stuff. But let’s remember that Carl Jung, one of the founders of modern psychology, postulated a mind crowded with archetypal personas. This was in the early 20th century, far before Bloom’s revelations at Yale.

Brooks and Bloom take a stereotypical slant, seeing relationships as competitive. Feminists see them as cooperative. A healthy economic system should be at least as cooperative as competitive. Competition that harms the individuals in its grasp implies a collective mental illness. It is out of balance, neglecting the holistic and emotional aspects of life.

Here is Brooks again, invoking research and rhetoric to shatter the basis of free market capitalism:

“Over the past several years, the [scientific] momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine ... Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.”
(“Neural Buddhism,” May 13, 2008, NYT)

Fairness, empathy, attachment, intuition, emotions, love, and as Brooks goes on to say, spirituality and God, all figure essentially in the nature of mind. Say hello to feminism and goodbye to patriarchal capitalism. It’s time to pitch the simplistic idea that life is a war for fancy stuff, devoid of virtue and teeming with people whose hearts are black holes.

The theory of narcissistic rational actors is flawed. It doesn’t reflect the self’s true nature. Ask Brooks. Ask Gilligan. Ask the time-honored psychologist Abraham Maslow, whose Hierarchy of Needs has nothing to do with hoarding froufrou, bauble and glitz.

Capitalism does not reflect the nature of mind. David Brooks and feminists are in concert on this.

Our souls started out as elements of gods, just as our flesh started out as elements of stars.