I subscribe to several poetry journals.
I do not find kindred spirits there,
only other wandering souls who seek
no connection with the poetry I find
pulsing under the surface of the world
that has a natural rhythm, that breathes
its own cadence, that does not merely wish
to impress with some artistic notion
of importance.
I have been a musician my entire life.
Playing jazz, classical, bluegrass, country, punk,
rockabilly, metal, goth … and combinations of them all,
I find too often that the emphasis
is on the next gig, the money machine
that seems to feed on other genres too
and leave bitter, isolated writers of songs like me
wondering why anyone would consider
themselves a professional (meaning for the money)
versus an amateur (because they love doing it);
and an attitude that seems antithetical to the expression
that music is the universal language.
There are more partisan barriers in music
than between the left and right wings of government.
I belong to a number of pagan organizations;
and there are too few members of those groups
who understand what it means to harvest anything,
yet subscribe to some version of mumbo jumbo
that insists they have a harvest festival,
that fail to hear the voices of trees and plants
and somehow still feel that human beings,
as opposed to other forms of energy,
have a right, nay responsibility, to focus energy
for their specific purposes.
I have been a liberal since I first took a political stand.
And I have been a vocal American.
And somehow, today, when the voices of victory are raised
by those who appear to believe that America is right
by virtue of them affirming it is so
(and in the absence of any factual evidence to back it up),
I realize as I have said before,
that the lesson Napoleon failed to learn from Elba was this:
All men are islands.
Some are just in better climates.
