Friendly Fire

Friendly Fire

I'd had a long career
as a National Guardsman
--soldier in the war against
ourselves--until that day
Monday, May 4, 1970.

That day I shot Jeffrey Miller

on another grassy knoll in Kent, Ohio.

Graduated JFK High School
Plainview, New York, had transferred
to Kent State from the University
of Michigan after his brother left.
Had left a hole in his life—they’d

shared a birthday for twenty years.

He made friends quickly,
loved his new life. Wrote home
to his mother. Studied hard.

That morning I fought with my wife.

The dispute arose surrounding
the burial site of our only son.
A casualty of that other war,
the one over there, in someone
else's backyard.

Our choices were Arlington or an old

family plot. A hero's funeral or a son.

We come from a long line of
servicemen--cops, firemen, soldiers.

Jeffrey had been late to class.

Used that area to save time, not

knowing  it was under siege.

He threw a can of tear gas back

at me in defense, not defiance.
Neither a revolutionary nor terrorist.
Both of us responding out of fear.

Both caught in the crossfire.

I remain armed only with words,
even the unsayable ones

Worker Bee

Worker Bee

You have been here one month

lying on your back, unburied

leg raised skyward

blackened, mummified

fallen, mid-flight

wings intact— upon

a shroud. Faded, yellow

tablecloth

covered with imitation

black-eyed susans

on the raised platform of a deck

hidden from the sky

under the protection

of the overhang

your life’s work, divine purpose

one drop of honey beside you

fossilized amber

gold gleaming in the sunlight.

Divine Intervention

Dear Joan--

How much easier for you
knowing your part in The Big Plan!
Divine purpose being so much
less ambiguous than say
Temporal Lobe Lesions
causing Extremes of Emotion
with Hyper Religiosity
and sensations of 'Eating' or Yellow
like Van Gogh or Plath
or mere outdated Daddy Issues

Although perhaps while burning
you may have briefly
experienced a lapse of courage
lost your faith
thinking your God had forsaken you

In your day they took it seriously
when one claimed that God
or the Devil made them do it
although a sign being still
required  for you the word of a king
being good enough

Had you not fried
like a KFC menu option
your Black Box
as the Almighty They
have decided to nickname the Brain
and all its complex
reasoning and faulty wiring

would've become lab material
more food for Men's brains
and merely Science instead
of World History

Thankfully no 30 minute meals for you
that don't account for hours
of shopping and chopping
and prep time
or traffic to contend or compete with
recipes to swap from The Chew
or bad Facebook photos

or your mother's loom
as you would've preferred

You skated really
the day-to-day torture
of a needy man
price of gas, carpools, weather
bitchy teenagers
crabbing that their iPad knockoff
isn't as good as the real one
with Retinal display
or enough memory for infinite apps

cyber bullies
online ophiles
cars and bars and other divine wars
Righteousness and martyrdom
so much less complicated
than malls and groupons and xanax

O to be a warrior in God's army!
Fighting on the side of Justice and Light
alongside a man in his natural element
away from diaper changes
and electric bills
and pubescent rages
easy-no-tool furniture from ikea
latest virus or diarrhea
no broken homes or alcoholic parents--
Just show up, fight and dramatically die
dressed as a man.

We should all be so lucky.

Everyday Goddess

Used to be all women rolled into one;
Yet many days I felt like none.

Once able to shine, thought I could sing;
Told you think you know every thing!

Daughter of Zeus and Leda the Swan;
No chicken or quail, a bird to look upon.

Trapped by marriage to a boring man;
First chance to leave I took up and ran--

Vainglorious wings once broken free;
A simple Wooden Horse betraying me.

An end finally came to the war I'd caused;
Whose carnage only serv'd to give me pause

That one face could launch a thousand ships;
Slaughter of young men for a wayward kiss

Igniting all the same Old Men's Wars;
Those who never learn from bloody shores.

My husband Menalaeus came at night;
Claimed his Queen of Sparta as his Divine right

Drew back his sword and swore an oath--
How long will it take this bitch to roast?

I stood steadfast prepared to die;
But no Goddess ever dares to cry

Swallowed hard pulled back my robe;
Exposed my heart remained composed.

Beauty and honor moved his sword away;
His wife once again I became.

*Helen of Troy

Now I scratch my head and my nose;
My skin is dry between my toes.

Its true all they say about a rose--
Yet she dares want more than to be a rose

Though others envy or prize it highly;
She prefers to be another thing entirely.

dear water music variation from mw workshop with tony p

dear water music  
        You called me here without your voice

you know exactly        
               and we switched life stories--

how I love my coffee        
                    ancient tellings

shaded with delirium    
        you think are lost to time

friendly fire        
        but let me remind you that time

on sunny mornings   
                    is a convenient illusion

clearly offering something        
                         and 'lost' just a process of returning

unknowable        
        back home

familiar treacherous clumsy translation   
         ghost of coffee

of a violet symphony and earth toned
                               brewing in the morning

stained glass monogamy
                  we both know

creating harmony
                            its always been brewing

accidentally on purpose

Unravelling the Fabric of America (working title)

Unravelling the Fabric of America (working title)

by Danny Baker and Kelly Powell

Driving down the highway

Looking for something meaningful to do

On a cold, sunny March afternoon

At the Crossroads of Spring and Winter

Feeling a bad election coming on

Gonna work that line into a better song

More and more and more good, hardworking people

Getting less and less to show for it

The Man grinding slaves into a machine

Chorus:

I feel a Revolution coming on

In the backroads and streets of America

I feel a Revolution coming on

Millions of working in poverty strong

Occupied a piece of prime real estate in New York City

A couple of years ago already

With sleeping bags and speeches, books and high ideals

Rhetoric for evolution of the masses

We felt a revolution coming on

Millions of people strong

We felt a revolution coming on

Nothing truly gained, nothing really changed

Look at what happened to Tankman

Had the power to stop a tank with his bare hands

in Tianenman Square

Disappeared into history, tortured and annhilated

Or did he just end up running a tourist shop in Schnectady?

Which ending makes us feel better?

There's a Revolution coming on

Everyone breaking into song

There's a Revolution coming on

Probably already too far gone

Kennedys and Seegers dead or done cleaning up the rivers

Nader stopped running, whining no one came out to vote

But I hear on the small print at the back of the newspaper

People keep writing in his name on ballads (ballots) just the same

Someone's always crying for a Revolution

Mostly don't know where its going

Someone's always crying for Revolution

Just not looking at what they're doing

Then they're crying when it comes

The Other King

Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero. Others hate me. They say I deserved it. Other people, I can hear them mocking me for when I called for an end to the destruction, like I'm a fool for believing in peace.

--Rodney King

They found him lying in his pool
like a Whitney Houston or Brian Jones
engaged to be married
to one of the jurors
who presided over his civil case
against the City of Angels
and the officers that beat him
mercilessly

They found him legally
intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine
at the time of his beating
and at the time of his death.

He had enjoyed several years
of sobriety before succumbing
to one of his terminal diseases
celebrity or life

The Mistake

Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo
d'un pelago d'aria
(We live submerged at the bottom
of an ocean of air.)

--Evangelista Torricelli

I knew immediately
you were a mistake
that I had been tricked
as had your birth mother before me
into something I should have resisted
but for desperation
for a home, for love
and a cosmic error--
and a malady, not a melody
as might be the autocorrect
version of this story. 

An illustrated version
of why some believe that evil
is created at the point
the infinite meets the finite.
Autotune your way out
of that one
on your way out. You will find
your exit
more graceful than your
entrance but equally
as excruciating

But your mathematics were so beautiful
your poetry an acquired taste
I was fooled into thinking
that your soul must match--
unfortunately this turned out to be true
a predator always
shows his colors in the end

Neither the fullness of emptiness
where the divine is easily
found through simple
machinations in equal measure
to the complicated
but the emptiness
of a black hole
at your core
the coldness of deep space
inverted at the plane
where a star goes to die
because it had nowhere to hide

I think of you with indifference now
it took great courage
and came at great cost

and what helped the most
was that it impeded you not at all
and yet you held on
to something that had been mine
after I had thrown everything
of yours I could away.

Seagull

What have you learned Seagull?
Have you learned how to love the wind
and rolling sea
or do you weary of your freedom
storms blowing--
of survival. Do you fly alone?

Do you tire of your role as Symbol
of Christ
of sacrifice
of loss and pain

mistaken for an Albatross
a weary evangelist
flying nest-to-nest-to-nest
instead of door to door

water wearing away
your resistance over time
washing over you
without a marker or sign.

Suffering through More Suffrage

Suffering Through More Suffrage

10/10/2020

Back in 2013 two friends who shared

An October birthday put an ad in the Classified section

Of Poetry Magazine calling for like-minded

Women to form a political action group

That wanted to change the world—

Again.

They were living in a homeless shelter

And took up a collection from their meager means

To purchase the ad and changing the world

Gave them something to do between

Dinner chores

Bathroom duty

Housing search

Hopeless job interviews

Recovering from addictions and battering

By husbands, boyfriends and society

Being raped and thrown from vans

Naked and high into Stop n Shop parking lots at 3am

One woman actually saying these words

Well if you put yourself in that situation—

Someone read a statistic in a local paper

That stated Female registered voters outnumbered

Male registered voters 2 to 1 and 20% of male voters

Will vote for female politicians

Regardless of their preferences, politics,

Policies or character. Armed

With only their passion and this misinformation

They decided to take over the government

Of the most powerful country in the world.

In the beginning they drew up fliers with only scrap paper,

Crayons, and glue as this was all they possessed.

They evangelized on buses, at church, and

At the railroad station. Somehow the word caught on.

At first a nebulous crowd formed by word-of-mouth

In unused public spaces bringing women

From all walks of life—businesswomen, housewives,

Homeless, activists reliving their glory days

Of student protests in the 1960’s and the

Occupy movement of the early 21^st century

But this time slowly a clear leader emerged

From the mist willing to take the heat

Even with kids at home and a husband

Who allowed her to do whatever she wanted

As long as dinner was on the table by 5

And his needs were met.

Finally they had a candidate

And it took 7 years but they eventually took over

The government but another less idealistic

More opportunistic group

Rose to challenge them and stole the election

In Florida and won and instead of reform

Of corrupt social programs and systems

They abolished them altogether

Threw adulteress women in jail for life

Shouting Jez- e – bel! Jez- e – bel! Go to hell!

Made abortion illegal and thousands

Of women unequipped for motherhood

Became burdened with unwanted, unexpected babies.

Children were forced into homeschool camps

Surrounded by barbed wire and 7 Seals

And we have gone back to an age of ignorance

And repression no one alive can remember.

Found on old newsprint

Riverhead County Correctional Center

Worker Bee

Worker Bee

You have been here a month

lying on your back, unburied--
legs raised skyward

blackened, mummified

fallen, mid-flight, wings intact
upon a shroud—a faded yellow

tablecloth. Smothered by imitation

blackened eyed susans

on the raised platform

of the deck, hidden from the sky

under the protection of the overhang

your divine purpose

a single drop of honey,

your entire life’s work

crystallized beside you

fossilized to amber gold

gleaming in the sunlight

Pyrrhic Victory

Pyrrhic Victory

What you see on the surface

a jail sentence

abject poverty

obfuscate

my recent 

we shall overcome

moment

considering myself a political prisoner

doesn't counter the traumatic

ongoing experience

of my son's father

waging a war of loyalty

when countering my petition

for therapeutic visitation

with my teenage son

ravaged by years of war

with a willful violation 

of child support

unjustly assessed

hiring a shark

in a pink fitted suit

with barbie icon on her pocketbook

to annhilate my requests

for mediation

reconciliation

to save his own sorry ass

I gave him a hug

at our first session

I did that for my son

who I desperately hope

I can save

Iris

Iris

  after Jamie Abatella's painting

  bj spoke gallery 9.14.12

crucial texture

fluid conflict

crowded posture
amnial parenthesis
ceremonial offering
fledgling boundaries
passion trembling

Epistle from the Collateral Damage

Epistle from the Collateral Damage

I took it personally
that you diminished me.
Shooting me from a loving place
doesn't make me any more alive
or feed my family.

Your cause, the greater good
boundaries
stuff
nonsense
are not for me when
the sacrifice
is me.

My limbs, organs, eyes, ears, nose, throat, heart
my beautiful still fresh umbilical cord
my fledgling philosophies
my provincial views
of life and art were mine.

At least with a vengeful God
I knew where I stood.

In killing me
making me a martyr
you have planted seeds 
of your own destruction

Christ died for the sins of others
self-made martyrs
often play this game.

Your therapist told you
that you always have a choice.
Yet none of this was mine

I was innocent of dictators
and mutilators in this life--

I will get you in the next until one of us
finally gives in.
 

quiet poem

quiet poem

its just too quiet in here

for some emptiness is fullness
for some emptiness is just emptiness

but it turns out that its both filled
with joy and pain in equal measure

but that's what's intended

and you
are a bluebird
that always lives
in someone else's backyard
singing

and you always fly away
when i try to make you mine

Young Widow

Young Widow

I sat myself firmly

at the steel, round-topped table

bolted to the floor we shared

once at Riverhead jail.

I chose the empty seat

directly opposite the bully on purpose

who proclaimed proudly that

My Mom can beat the crap

out of anybody! And by the looks

of the daughter I know this

must have been true. I stayed

friendly—poked fun at the inedible

food--for a moment we shared

a common enemy.

You were seated to my right,

to my left another of your jail-friends.

You spoke of your two daughters.

Not to me directly, their father

now dead, another heroin victim.

You would never inflict a stepfather

on them—your girls—Worse than a mother

in jail? I thought. My Higher Self,

sometime enemy, sometime friend

stepped in. Judge not lest ye be judged,

he said. Always a He, he is and

He is mine, not some hermaphroditic

nature god playing his flute

while civilizations burn but

definitely a He. I held my tongue.

If you only knew how
difficult for me.

Wanted to say I understood

more than you could possibly know—

maybe even more than you just yet.

I spoke softer than this angry place

we shared—touched your arm

and you let me—told you that you’d

love again. You just aren’t ready.

Someone who would be good to you

will be good to them. I hoped my words

pierced you black veil, even if for just

a moment--I chose one of my

very few lies carefully—

I have a good stepfather. I got up,
thanked you and your friends

for sharing a meal and their

table, took my tray to the trash

scraped it clean.

Stained Glass Prison

-->

Stained Glass Prison

               As long as we’re together

                With the moonlight shining—

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                                                Meema (Ally)

                                                5 East South, Suffolk County Correctional Center

The girls have all gone out to yard—

to walk endless circles

cover a blacktop beach—t-shirts

rolled up, ripped shorts hiked up

become bikinis.

It’s the ordinary things

will break your heart. Coughing,

menstruating, struggling for soap

utensils, shampoo, shoes

for the shower.  

Trade backrubs for coffee

Cosmetics—all these girl things

still so important—a bit of lotion

chapstick, hair ties ripped from

standard issue socks.

Smells of coconut linger.  Male guard

watches them shower  from his booth.

Scrub whites in the sink, hoard bleach

and plastic bags—tampon strings clean up

eyebrows—are made into rings

Barbecue sauce made of syrup

ketchup and mustard packets

a stolen onion

a hoarded tomato

Woven mats of old news cover

toilet seats, peanut butter packets

warmed between our hands.

Girl on suicide watch walks by in her green

velcro dress and her 24 hour guard.

 

At night you can hear them singing,

Screaming, banging their heads against

cement walls, withdrawing from heroin

crack, prescription drugs

and heterosexuality

crying, masturbating, praying.

Sargent makes his rounds

moonlight shines through

an iron window grate

divine light shape of chain mail

and cathedrals

hits the floor near beds

chained to prison bars

on names scratched everywhere

even in the soap.

Night fades

and its morning

slowly familiar birdsong begins—

a cacaphony of a single bird

strong enough to nest

on this roof—sun rises

presents itself to everyone

everwhere equally

on prisons of our own making.