Abalone III

Pendant

on  a  brain  tanned                         

                        smoked  to  protect

deer  hide  strand,                                    

                   polished  and  notched 

                       by  Indigenous  hand.

Is it cultural
       
                  appropriation

to wear it?

                                     Real       and           

  

                                                  spirit 

                                               stories,  

                           ancestral       magic.

I   come   with                         

                                         the  hunger  of     

                                an   engine   rattling,

the  greed  of 

plastic   gyres    growing.

How  can  I  know  

loving

is   easy?

The Coup - My Favorite Mutiny ft. Black Thought of The Roots & Talib Kweli
http://youtu.be/FVwEmy1TJFU

Abalone II

Paddle

rain    

           sandhill     crane

elders   tell    Harrington    

words    for    water 

for  laugh

and 

danger.

                     Raw   and

                   border less

loneliness

disguised as

loveless ness

of lost landscapes,

pigeons and gulls.

Abandoned radioactive 

mine/d/s. A ridge. 

Coal arriving to port.

A 26-foot-tall saint

points west in faux sand-

stone on one knee, lying

about Neruda 

not lost to cancer

but  loving  us.

Bob Marley and the Wailers - Concrete Jungle - 11/30/1979 - Oakland Auditorium (Official)

http://youtu.be/BJpiEGzkcAc

    The Chaw Se' Roundhouse

    Pine Grove Volcano Rd, Sutter Creek, CA

Abalone I

Photo of Knowland Park from web search (unknown photographer)

In the needlegrass field

          by the fairy ring -        

                                              

how much can change

                         in a month?

 The mossy 

                     evergreen tree

bulldozed by

rare

                  manzanita,

maritime chaparral,   

                              chamise.                            

A chestnut-backed 

chickadee

and a flicker 

escape from

prolonged 

solitude:

how to build a 

roundhouse

and land trust.

How to avoid

hopeless ness,

a draft.

Nina Simone's Feelin' Good: https://youtu.be/D5Y11hwjMNs

    Photo above from Save Knowland Park website

    10/22/15 photo of the top of Knowland Park (of the Oakland Zoo new development)

PLUTO

We got the updates about You!

Photos from NASA on how Your 

heart shines, and Your five moons:

Charo - and we've heard Styx,


Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra -

that You're cold and distant, a

stygian money making machine

for the City's parasitic hills.


You're like the weeds hemlock and 

broom, who won't read this poem,

just here to command my attention.

Someday I'll learn how to listen.

À la recherche du temps perdu

OAKLAND 1994

Tony Toni Tone - Lay Your Head On My Pillow https://youtu.be/4b92-S8Qexk

Wheat-paste and spray paint over

rum ads we had just barely begun 

the biggest Free Fred on a billboard

when caught by the Lucky Florist man. 

We got away, like the three other times   

we told the po-po the art teacher said so.

They left us with the paint  and  buckets

except our friend Mexican-Indigenous hand-

cuffed and hauled off. She was roughed 

up. We  raised  bail  that same night  

in  jail she ate a  bologna on white 

bread  sandwich.  To  my  freedom-

loving  accomplices  who  know   

we  can  get   better:  Lay  your  head        

on  my  pillow  and  just  relax, relax, relax...

Urban pastoral

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow

as if it were a given property of the mind

that certain bounds hold against chaos,

                                       - Robert Duncan

concrete     pellitory    crack.     ONE  HAND  CAN

red      admiral      butterfly.  SNAP   RAZOR   WIRE 

dead   murres  and  gulls.   I'VE   BEEN  TRAINED 

egret        neck        asphalt.   BY   EXPERTS   WHO   

sparrow     house         finch.    COVER   THEIR   FACES

cigarette    butt      toad.     CLIMB   TALL   FENCES

August        creek       for   SWING  ROOF  TO  ROOF.

tag          spray          every-    RACCOON  CAN

body's     for       cash       SLIDE UNDER 

for     petroleum      oil.    SECURITY BARS

engines      for       whine     NO  ALARMS   SOUND

not        puffin       nest   COYOTE  HUNTS

rock        crevice      lament.   YOUR   CAT

"It's       not        dis-    AND  QUAIL

continued    just    out".  COMES   BACK.

Summer Inspiration

Some other poets' poems I've added for the solstice - postmodern pastorals of the west:    http://www.poems4nature.blogspot.com/p/other-poets-poems.html

Wendy Red Star's print (U.S., Crow; b. 1981), "Enit" 2010

Onomatopoeia

I'm tucking this poem away since my intention is as an Exquisite Corpse, which is yet to happen...any art form welcome if you want to add to it:

momentum of grace*

For Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier and the 2.3 million people in prison in U.S. 

         

                   
bodies     breathe

                                thick    walls
                           
                                             echo 

for   you          
           
                                            clary        

                                            sage

steamy

jacuzzi

                                         lemon 

                                           balm                                       

huckle-

berry      
    
                                       mountain

                                           stream

from   us

                                    a   million

                                          letters 

a   microphone

                 standing

                             room

           doors  

open

                                     heartbeat

                                         of   fire

elbow

              in   elbow                  

                                          a  line

                                       of   livid

love




*title is from Joy Harjo's poem Emergence                                        

Inspired by "Stay Tuned" Ai Weiwei's sound installation with music, poetry and spoken words by people who have been detained for expressing their beliefs: IN THE CELLHOUSE - A BLOCK   

TRIPLE BURNER

http://youtu.be/acT_PSAZ7BQ
Poets Theater at its finest. Made in Oakland, CA:)

METAL aka WIND

The Great Clod (the earth) belches out breath and its name is wind. So long as it doesn't come forth, nothing happens. But when it does, then ten thousand hollows begin crying wildly.

- Zhuangzi

EARTH

NI  PENA  NI  MIEDO

Without Pain or Fear

- Raúl Zurita

    Don't    You    Worry

      'Bout    A    Thing*



          midnight     blue    

     wild    lilac    bloom

     a    bowl    to    eat    

swollen     root     inner      

       bark     ripe    fruit

            recline    nearly
   
       naked     sunshine

               heart     easy    

     in     stream     near

mountain    meet    sea     

        spring     meadow

   

    Don't    You    Worry   

        'Bout    A    Thing

        cycles    of    leaf 

                fall     where
    
              your     songs    

                        nourish    

                mouth    and    

              warm     eyes       

          touch    luscious   

                            core

                   to    gravity

*from Stevie Wonder's 1973 album Innervisions: http://youtu.be/zywDiFdxopU

FIRE

 you are all in those spaces
          that stretch

          and intend

       toward change 

- Fiona Templeton, from CELL 8, in Cells of Release

           door-       ways 

               to        roof-

                           less 

       shrine          of     

                           fire        

      breath

                           hold

                           more          

        heat

                          quench

                      

          our        

        love-           ly

                           bodies

WOOD

She opened up and fell apart
and from her parts sprouted

sleeping thoughts

 of love, livid

    in love, living

out of love

- Cecilia Vicuña, from Palabrarmas

 twist

            re-      
                         
lease

       moss

                    

   lichen   

     on   oak

trunk   for
                                
 fern      and

          acorn

   gather            

                                                                                                    

warmth    

WATER

The thing I came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth...

  - Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck

                         Before   humming   bird

                                  gets     fire,        water      is

                                     every       where.       Eagle   

                                     calls      hawk      to 

                                   
                         mountain    since       they      

                                   miss    us.     Curled     up    

                          and    sleeping,        they

                                  dream    the    Ohlone      stories.