by Joey Bada$$
marooned
An erasure poem from a page in M. Moore's classic:
Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West.
Rumex crispus
Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West.
Rumex crispus
Yellow dock
alternate
whole
even in the snow
ditches and sumps
roadsides
and streams
drier meadows
thick
roots
boil in water
consume
after
marooned
by a pond
alternate
whole
even in the snow
ditches and sumps
roadsides
and streams
drier meadows
thick
roots
boil in water
consume
after
marooned
by a pond
RITUAL
Rituals intend to confront a specific life issue with the purpose of bringing about a desired change, vision, or transformation. They are enactments of the myths. They are bigger than ourself and challenge us to action. Rituals are distinguished from dance as entertainment, dance as spectacle.
- Anna Halprin
ring composition #2
twisteveryvertebrae
upsidedownalign
spellincantationprayer
invocationchantmantra
humansong equinoxsun
elemental oaknests
groundletter
writepowerpowerpow er po w er powe rr poh or pohwe e r
I create
Standing
Squatting
Leaning back
Slimy
Sticky
Hot
On a pole
With breasts
In your face
I create
MYTH
Myths evoke our long buried and half forgotten selves. They are answers to the inherent need to evolve a community expression that reflects the emotional and creative needs in society. They give us the permission to go into the unknown. To explore, discover, and arrive at a new state of consciousness.
- Anna Halprin
ring composition #1
magenta sky
copper
memory
of full
arch
spectrum
I breathe
color
untangle
bones
be born
die and be born
again and again
an d a gain
comelatewind
arousebeloved
beyondancient
a wildpatience
a wildpatience
underwateragain
and again
turquoise
hem
apricot
linen
dream
I breathe
color
I won’t sing America
The flag that flew over the Occupation of Alcatraz 1969-1971, designed by Lulie Nall, a Penobscot Indian
I won't sing America, a villanelle
I am the white daughter
Told to mind my manners
Sit pretty and sing America.
Marry and have two kids, drive down
Streets lined with asphalt and concrete,
So fortunate to be the white daughter.
Pity the poor and ignorant: buy a gown,
Drink wine for charity and for me, drunkenly.
Why won't I sing America?
After all I got out of the kitchen, kind of, but still bound.
I dined with the company, abided his abuse and neglect
Rather than come clean: I am the white daughter
Photo'd with a smile at the lynchings in town.
(Wills signed and bank accounts prove it.)
Oh no, huh uh, I won't sing America.
Hold my hand. Feel my heart pound.
Don't pine away in fear and sorrow.
Say I am the white daughter and
I refuse, I won't sing America.
Retro 90s part 2
Cigarette butts
I walk city streets daily and see those butts everywhere: the number one item collected on coastal cleanup days that are so toxic to wildlife and the land and water. Someday (hopefully soon) tobacco users will have no filters or reusable filters or pipes only.
Here's a poem I wrote back in the 90s that helped me to finally get off cigarettes, after almost a decade of smoking. It's been on my mind lately...
Cigarette Still Life
in six parts
I.
You of French spelling in packets of twenty:
I am lured by your co - lo - ni - al charm
like in the Hollywood movies of the U.S. of A. -
I am seduced by Bogart and Bergman in Morocco,
and Hepburn on the Amazon. I am hooked
on your gold band and leopard-like filter.
I dig your rising smoke in its swaying style.
You are oh so sexy. I aspire to your power!
See me on my hands and knees praying
for your most highest, precious grace...
II.
You got me Marlboro man, pioneer, rugged
individualist. Won't you come on down
from that billboard and take me away,
far away, from these harsh city streets
and sirens...
III.
Nah, I want to be the tough and fearless martyr.
Joan of Arc must have smoked. There she is
in the center of the city on her galloping horse,
a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from her lips.
IV.
Cigarette Still Life look at what you've done:
I wanna be working class and buy cartons on sale
and chain smoke inside with the windows closed,
the air conditioner on and watching my daily soap.
Fuck you, you're the best with booze and dope.
Damn you're cool in pool halls and roof tops.
V.
Oh, this suffering poet needs you my friend,
my comfort late into the night and early or
just about any time. Life would never be the same
if you leave my side. Only a few bucks a day and
I am filled with pleasure and contentment.
VI.
Cigarette Still Life: you lied to me in dying, old,
addictive ways. You’re conniving, capitalist greed
who told me to smoke for fun and adventure
yet you are the same boardroom topic
for targeting teenage girls. The same tobacco
of The Slave Trade. The same arrogant asshole
who smothers Indians and Mexicans. You are
petroleum by-products, the freon and fiberglass.
You're that creep on TV with the perverse smile!
You are the murderer of millions. You are death
hidden behind a cloak labeled "freedom."
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?
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?
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)
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 -
by the fairy ring -
how much can change
in a month?
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
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,
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
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
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
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*
bodies breathe
thick walls
echo
for you
clary
sage
steamy
jacuzzi
clary
sage
steamy
jacuzzi
lemon
balm
balm
huckle-
berry
mountain
mountain
stream
from us
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
METAL aka WIND
- Zhuangzi
EARTH
NI PENA NI MIEDO
Without Pain or Fear
- Raúl Zurita
'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
'Bout A Thing
cycles of leaf
fall where
your songs
nourish
mouth and
warm eyes
touch luscious
FIRE
you are all in those spaces
that stretch
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
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
fern and
acorn
gather
warmth
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