Modern humankind,
Swallowing such a bitter pill,
This progressive nuclear age,
So far beyond stone and bronze and iron,
Entering this new age paradise,
How ironic,
Evolving into a sustainable future,
Life is a paradox,
One last condor,
Pair of ducks,
Three magpies,
Four swans,
Five chickadees,
Six bluebirds,
Seven phalaropes,
Eight red polls,
Nine pileated woodpeckers,
Ten sandpipers,
Eleven flamingos,
Twelve birds of paradise,
Like a herd of ostriches,
Seven and a half billion thinking people,
Intelligent heads stuck deep in the sand,
Plucked and roasting in a nuclear meltdown.

I know,
we're just friends,
you talk to me over your lofty fence,
I attentively listen to you speaking,
outside the walls of your impervious compound,
you acknowledge me from across your busy avenue,
I wave to you from inside my cracked shell,
you'll never open your door,
invite me in.
This is my dream not yours,
you don't want my affection,
tender kisses from me,
still I wish I could swim your deep ocean,
you don't need me,
you don't desire me,
still I'm drowning in a raging sea,
you fly off in a thousand directions,
I'm wandering barefoot in a dangerous jungle,
seeking your lost city,
searching for the key to your secret entrance,
where your veiled heart dwells,
arrested on its amber throne,
you think of me orbiting,
lost in deep carnal space,
I try to accost and rob you,
wanting a breath of your precious atmosphere,
you send tepid signals across your unexplored universe,
I keep my empty hands stuffed in sorry worn out pockets.
hoping that perhaps someday,
you'll reach out,
pull me closer,
still you remind me,
turning your back,
indifferently walking away,
in your uncaring heart,
we're just friends.

Some of us want to talk to God,
Still the towers of Babel rise and rise,
Like Fukushima's nuclear meltdown,
Worshiping a reigning toxic god,
Corruption polluting every ocean,
Destruction ruining our modern skies,
Confusing sense and sensible language,
Reprimanding us with a bitter guise,
Carving world order into larger pieces,
Massive portions of unpalatable pie.

Some of us want to sing,
Harmonize life into a better space,
But all those troubled lies,
Demanding that this modern world sells,
Fears that keep poor desperate people,
Struggling daily in a difficult place,
All that floating plastic garbage,
All those shards of broken glass,
So much encrusted pavement,
All that concrete modern sells,
So much fake tripe miring our planet,
Enslaving the world in this artificial race,
Feigning admirable life,
So many tired and sordid stars and stripes,
So few of nature's remaining blessed artifacts,
Blaming the past for all these imitative bells,
Some of us want to marvel at sunrise,
Simply whistle watching heaven's stars shine.

Take my heart so when a perfect sun speaks,
Obtain a part of me so when the angry moon rebels,
You might give at least an element of me,
 Back to God and the divine Universe,
Wearing a happy honest sacred face,
In my dreams I remember all my faithful dogs,
All my long gone horses and goats,
My husbandry life grazing a perfect line,
Heavenly milk and yogurt filled our stomachs,
Honey and perfume nurturing our wanting souls,
A wild forest place where two haunting owls,
Once came to me speaking in perfect rhyme,
Camped in that place of unblemished redemption,
A faultless place where medicine bears regularly arrived,
Guiding me in my earnest quest for food and herbs,
Teaching me about nature's natural remedies,
Education and knowledge being my earthly goal.

Some of us need to rediscover medicine,
Invoke Archangel Raphael to teach us how to heal,
All those days and nights spent listening to trees,
Holding in our hands our power stones,
Watching galaxies cross the impeccable sky,
Spoken prayers teaching songs that feed our inner fire,
Each true healer clearly envisioning,
Spiritually learning to compassionately feel.

Atop the apex of those tallest mountains,
Down deep to the bottom of the deepest sea,
God's still truth existentially lies,
All that ecstasy we discover in pristine forests,
That psychic dose where truth is revealed,
Beyond those concrete jungles where raging men,
Ranting as they daily go mad and virulently vie,
Desperately try to make some sort of sense,
Wrenched and confused in their broken lives,
A rancid modern stench making honest folk beg and steal.

People have been sold a vulgar bill of goods,
Rights are truly lost even though folk honestly try,
The way of the world has marred our minds,
So many souls barred having gone astray,
Far off our golden path that always promised humankind would heal,
But spilled blood and crude oil plus all this petulant selling,
Consumers constantly spending always buying never ending,
Replacing our sacred garden where ripe fruit once piled high,
Sacred springs and life giving wells all dried up,
Precious groundwater so many lakes and seas and rivers sucked dry,
Priceless water absconded by all this greed and corporate spiel.

A searing sun keeps turning and spinning,
Madness screaming in so many yearning hearts,
All this hurtful burning pain so many of us feel,
Superstorms and cyclones tearing this fragile world apart,
Tornadoes hurricanes and firestorms continually churning,
It doesn't matter what scientific method we try,
We can't save the broken world now,
Mass extinction will revamp all our greedy earnings.

What about innocent souls?
Millions more children born,
Mixed and stirred into this troubled messed up deal,
God take those pure souls to a better plane,
Maybe Mother Nature will create a better reel,
 Where Eden still exists and birds freely fly,
Children born wearing a happy joyful face,
Dwelling in different sacred place,
A world where trawlers and draggers haven't mined every sea,
A place where everyone hasn't been robbed everything being stolen,
A world where freedom hasn't been blindly chained,
By covetous minds patenting every viable seed by and by,
But now our damaged earth has been changed forever,
Corporate robots are all the modern world now sees.

Surrender or surely mercenaries will torch your peasant homes,
Unless this world of indentured masses bends,
If good men and women resist or even try,
Wickedness enslaving working men and women in this wretched time,
As the hopeless wind wanders through the crying trees,
Still the sun will rise and shine,
Scorching unprotected souls to the very core,
While wanton greed always calls for more and more.

I dreamed this road we're traveling,
Paved with dead water buffalo,
Black shimmering hooves and skins,
Shining under the relentless sun it seems,
I dreamed this avenue is piled high,
With the last great whales,
Dead sea turtles tragically washed ashore,
I dreamed every ravaged forest lay decimated and destroyed,
Nothing but sorry remnants now sawn into planks and beams,
I dreamed heaven was calling and trumpeting,
Angel choirs weeping and praying for us,
Our good Mother Earth simply needing more.

Reflected by your eyes,
All the green of the earth,
Reflected by your hands,
All the blessed rain that falls,
Reflected by your face,
All that precious life provides,
Reflected by your feet,
All those difficulties you must overcome,
Reflected by your words,
All the love and hardships you have endured,
Reflected by your mind,
All the fishes in the diverse sea,
Reflected by your divine soul,
All those generous gifts God blessed humankind with.

The King has taken away our thirst,
And now we have nothing to drink,
The King has taken away our hunger,
And now we are empty with nothing to eat,
The King has taken away all our loneliness,
And now there is no joy or happiness in our hearts,
The King has taken away our pain,
And now we are destitute and homeless under the doubting sky,
The King has taken away our angst,
And now we feel nothing because we are all dead inside,
The King has taken away those many barriers in our lives,
And now there is no freedom in our country,
The King has taken away all the chains that shackled us,
And now all our hope lays buried deep in the fragrant earth.

There's an old man,
Sitting in my paltry shack,
With garbled tears streaming,
Down his weathered wrinkled face,
He sits beside me sometimes,
Astride me with his crinkled lines,
Even dwelling inside me,
Writing cankerous poetry,
Singing ardent love songs,
Clearly thinking in cryptic rhymes.
I wonder as I watch and listen,
If he'll even wink or nod or ever say hello,
Or if someday I'll turn to see him wave goodbye,
Disappear in time like all my burning dreams,
Evaporate like molecules of dried up steam,
Escape like a final dying breath,
Vanish like an unheard scream.
Still I wonder if he's ever truly here,
Or is that odd old man,
Just another fragile thought,
Just a reckless daydream,
That doesn't really see or hear,
A writhing fantasy,
So it sometimes seems,
Just another painful moan,
Another sorrowful sigh,
Just another fleeting figment,
Just another lonely lie.

If it wasn't for the music . . .
If it wasn't for the rain . . .
What would be the use . . .
Of all this earthly refrain . . .
If it wasn't for the sun . . .
If it wasn't for the moon . . .
Where would planet earth be . . .
Or would it be the same . . .
If it wasn't for all our dreams . . .
If it wasn't for love and joy . . .
Who would ever live here . . .
Would heaven be somewhere . . .
Or would God just be annoyed . . .
If it isn't for compassion . . .
Would birds still fly and sing . . .
Before dirty oil . . .
Weren't people still employed . . .
Wasn't there economy . . .
Wasn't there good life . . .
Or are we meant to survive this modern foil . . .
As we witness Gaia's strife . . .

Tears in My Eyes

Dust to dust,
Salt of the earth,
Such deep oceans,
Like turmeric and beet juice,
Staining my hair and colouring my face,
Life reflected in our pigmented eyes,
In God's mystical light,
Such glorious harmonies to be heard,
If only we would listen,
If only we would love,
If only there were abundant fish to eat,
Sweet rice to fill our empty bellies,
Like a lover's tender kiss,
Nurturing us on a moonlit night,
So many bright stars twinkling high above,
So many cherished dead buried below,
All those strong currents and tides and storms,
Trying to wash away all the hate in the world,
Trying to give righteousness a foothold,
Trying to let divine light enter every crack,
Before the last spark goes out,
Before the Sun is forever extinguished,
Before brother kills brother,
Before nation destroys nation,
Before all the sacred mountains tumble,
Remorseful and broken into the raging sea,
Before the Universe betrays all its faithful galaxies,
Before God whispers one final prayer,
Before we wish we would have loyally listened,
To what the colours of the expectant wind,
Was so anxious to tell us.