Paint it Black

Hieronymus Bosch told them all to fuck off
When they came for his paint and pencils
They cut off his benefits and lower appendages
And completed his work with stencils

René Magritte painted the soles of his feet
With green apples and broken glass
The teacher chastised him, belittled and baptised him
And sent him to the bottom of the class

With bit to the quick fingernail and brick
All of the young men living in fear
Guernica depicting the a hostile take-over
Picasso don’t live in this three-dimensional sphere

Early demise for the rolled back eyes
To a crematorium corporate ashes to ashes
Africa and Voltaire and the highlights in your hair
Salvador Dali chastised with thirty eye-lashes

I don’t mean to suggest that the weave of your vest
Can be calculated in DNA strands
Or calculated formulae when put to the test
Can define the course of your hands

But rather to say that your preconceived ways
Your rules and your regulations
Mean less than your laser gun star wars death rays
And meaningless investigations

And the visions imbued with shifts in your mood
May say more than cliché desiderata
And cut through the layers of corporate soothsayers
Who would rather you lived like a martyr

View From the Treetops (24 March '07)

Red Dirt Unearthed

The Mad Poet by Michael Whelan

Shoe freak; fellow poet (and self-confessed blog thief) Red Dirt Girl has posted this enlightening advice entitled Thirty-two Statements About Writing Poetry by Marvin Bell

Statements 8, 10 & 19 are my favourites.

While I'm on the subject of poetry, please visit The Dread Letter Office where I have collected all the poems from The Far Queue - alphabetically and in one handy parchment bundle.

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Hate The Rich

Over at Counterpunch, another Red Dirt girl, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, urges us to Hate the Rich !

Oh, alright then...

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Red Right Hand

Blackwater first caught the light when four of it's 'contractors' were killed and dragged through the streets of Falluja; an event that sparked the most atrocious act of military revenge in recent history.
Jeremy Scahill reveals the dirty rise of Blackwater over on gnn.

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Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Powderfinger

Red means run son, numbers add up to nothing

The Bottom Line

On the wolf-scratched door
Dreamscaped tooth and claw
Cryptic messages left to frighten
Belt loops forced by lies to tightened
Follow your misleader precipice bound
Shout out loud without making a sound
Blind faith and patriotic duty are served
War is hell, heaven is bent unreserved
Bodies in the river; there’s new blood on the sun
Nations twisted tortured by the laws of gun
Don’t give up; grit your teeth; take the pain
“Suck it up fatty” the television-age refrain
From your personal trainer to your sergeant major
While you’re pissing blood and eating danger
The prize a hero’s welcome for stitched up lips
The prose posthumous medals and cooking tips
While from ghetto sucked the hoodwinked legions
Spit high velocity rounds into desert regions
In poverty born and to bloodlust converted
by moneymen gross, corrupt and perverted
And kicking against the pricks as they pose
To tax your intelligence; your withering rose
Your vision; your hearing; your beauty skin-deep
Your smile and your breath; your little lost sheep
Your charity and chastity; your children’s curiosity
And finance quite openly the next corporate atrocity
Don’t buy the product; the package; the plastic
Don’t drug your kids with junk colon spastic
Keep your eye on the ball; the financial transaction
Political ambition via material distraction
That serves the few who have cornered the power
And left the milk warm in the bucket to sour
Material gain has lost what’s already been fought for
Secular government; workers rights; racist politics; sexual equality…
…We’ve been here before

The Future (From Morning's Perspective)

As the blade of morning comes around for yet another slice
And the crescent moon puts yesterday considerately on ice
You smile into the biting edge of the sliver between the glass
To be studied at a later date when all of this has passed
And lick the lips of sweet tomorrows lined up on your bookshelf
And wonder if they’ll paint you crazy for talking to yourself
But here in history’s heavy haze where winter beats retreat
You find yourself another mile to wander down the street
To open eyes in wonder yet at all that is revealed
When broken ice and shattered peace brings harvest to the field
And picking at the scars that heal upon your heaving breast
You thank your heart for saving yet this dusty Rorschach test

Hello London (Jet-lagged & Jangled)

Tears held back bitter in the back of my throat.
The surface of the bay dimpled like orange peel in the morning landing
A red-haired oriental man scooping eggs and bacon at Auckland airport.
The old lady on the plane asks my life story; she: frail alone but with steely resolve, totally in control of her solitary journey. The movies on the back of the seat in front distract me from the wrench and serve to allay the panic that wells in my chest.
At Kuala Lampur I am surrounded by retired English couples returning from tours of the far east; I have never felt so alone.
Hurry the future; I need us all to be together soon.
London 2am: I am a man struck by lightning; I need to relearn my body’s position in this B&B bed; if you don’t write it down it goes out of your head.
Jet-lagged and jangled; dreams of lost powers of speech and jaw wired to the light and the BBC news 24 for company.
All the characters in my dreamscape with my face identical and in trench coats of brown remembrance, line up at this screen hoping for a chance to shine.
Rowing teams pass under Kew Bridge on insect legs; sunset on cold Thames water;
Beautiful and immense; London welcomes me with full moon blood eclipse and abject indifference; her history leaves no room for sentimentalism.
It’s good to be back.