Thought: the eyes are made of grass.

the flesh is dirt.

frogs singling like hinges in the ditch.

Thought: According to one japanese legend

a crane in still water forgot it was a crane

and suddenly broke into bloom.

The eyes are also dirt.

The heart could be a temple or a field.

The swamp could be an ear pressed into the earth.

Grass also grows on golf courses.

-Cole Kawaguchi

God is Grass

I dreamt of the rapture last night

not the lovely type of course

not rooftop rapture:

friends on high, reciting foreverness and talking mountains,

but the rapture to which my invitation has been misplaced by equality.

I dreamt of a tidal wave of immense proportions;

one that came and swept away the whores and the cheaters the liars the gays the free lovers the hungry the underprivileged the dark the cool those who know and me.

I sat meditating despite the wrath of Your god

I sat lotus while the rules of society and Your god squashed me into oblivion.

but thats just peachy keen: I've made my peace.

not with the arbitrarities of a gilded book,

but with the Grass:

The all knowing, ever thriving, conscious silent Bodhisattva of earth:

the almighty grass over which we trod trod trod.

We give It not the benefit of (y)our doubt that maybe, just maybe, there's something to be learned there,

not trigonometry of course, not algebra at all,

not quantum,

not mathematics,

not bio,

not medicine,

not cures for the next generation of decrepit old farts

not even how to reinforce stereotypes in comfort, Indian style.

I learned infinity in the grass

nirvana in silence

peace in consciousness

and solace in simplicity

God is

grass

silence

consciousness

simplicity

Your god smites

those who love

those who give

those who think

those who care

those who lotus and learn

my God,

sitting flower

learning grass

dreaming peace

expecting consciousness

my god is not present.

Presence, is my god.

Being is my peace.

Living is my lord and savior.

cosmic accidents be damned,

I live eternal

I breathe peace,

I sit silence,

I meditate consciousness.

I love Grass

Buddha, the wisest inhabitant of 137B knows;

God is fish flakes.

CWV 4

A passion untamed

a directionless desire

I read the rantings of Allen Ginsberg

I feel the homoerotic frustration of the urbanite beats

I'm not a hipster, but I too burn for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

I understand the frustration of having a vision.

To see in a world that is determined to keep us blind

the frustration of a world that would have us feast on delicious nothings before allowing us a taste of tree-climbing nonchalant autonomy of thought

-the grass is so complex, if you give it a second glance-

I see the wide-eyed santa clause mall spectacle of a prepubescent tike

to amaze to awe to disney world us into complacency

and those who can see

(not to be confused with those who know)

feel too the frustration of a language which has pragmatically denied us the tools with which to verbally dismantle the system of subtle oppression

which wages a constant war with our minds

all the while our subconsciouses, suppressed for decency, rattle and dent the cage

I look back to days of beats and hippies, of revolution and passion, flowers and fucking, freedom and pot, acid test moon-pie skip down 42^nd street naked with peter days

I look to burning passions of ideas unformed of questions asked of vision

I look to harlots and charlatans, to big words, mental masturbation and social perturbation.

I look to writing a paper that catches my brains spattered across the table an early death picked on in middle school columbine children of the corn gone to soon Marilyn Mansion

I looked to the past for inspiration only to find that what was said in their prime remains there

ideas fade and melt forgotten but for the dusty pages of a library book unused

of a buddhist philosopher in a suit of armor mankind's weakness was always apathy

sitting in front of the TV rotting your brain dulling your mindfulness is the key to liberation

Marcuse wanted to let you know

this is a capitalist society

and language has bent to the will of the subtle oppressor my ass!

Billboards displaying half naked beauties cows killing chickens over hamburger deals of cars and cigarettes of suits and slots of happiness of content of lifestyle of intelligence

I learned I could loose 10 pounds in just 2 weeks and threw myself up overboard gone to live in a commune full of sluts and hoes of killers and thieves of the scum of society riding the foamy waves of their generation

there is no autonomy without slaves

there is no freedom without the filthy view of millions eating their ways to early deaths half-lives cut short by a radioactive decay of the nuclear japanese reactor destroyed by mother nature

she was always a bitch

my son will die for his country proud mothers praying for freedom

the bottom of the barrel is dark molten combustion driving a 3 ton car

freedom is at the bottom

I'm talkin' king lear poor tom Led Zep drug abuse use fightclub anarchist cry of the wolf of a life cut short by a clown

there is no redemption

there is no content

there is no freedom

I'm talkin' seeing jesus in a waffle, glass of milk coca-cola lifetime Hallmark baby jesus in saran wrap porcelain nativity scene destroyed by puberty

there are thinkers among us blinded by the spectacle of necessity

I saw the unfortunate truth of the captivity of my species behind bars of Jack Daniels and a fine piece of automotive ingenuity

behind Armani suits of masculinity purchased

behind hegemony and marxism behind fornication and jerry springer behind 37 world series and the highest rate of HIV in new york

of wars fought over baseball and dirty diaper politics that need not be changed but destroyed burning down to the butt of the cigarette in the mouth of a 12 year old girl

Walmart has what she needs to fit in at school house rock and roll as a scapegoat for Columbine machine gun bad parenting

I feel the beat of a heart with murmurs

I touch the cold brick of a Philadelphia neighborhood gone to shit

dilapidated house microcosm

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by apathy

I'm with you in Rockland and theres no way out but in

the next time you walk past the well manicured grass of our priv-a-ledge please lay down and let your life begin

-Joseph Vito Ramírez

From: Jail Poems

by Bob Kaufman

28

I am afraid to follow my flesh over those narrow

Wide hard soft female beds, but I do.

From: Jail Poems

by Bob Kaufman

30

I have never seen a wild poetic loaf of bread. But if I did, I would eat it, crust and all.

Danse Russe

by William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shinning trees,-

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

"I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!"

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?

Tue Mar 1

The house burned down.

living room roof caved in.

it started with an oil lamp.

I wanted french toast, but cared too much to ask

we tried to put out the flames;

they spread.

the walnut-shaped (but not sized) juicer slash processor remained

I left for a moment: could bear no longer to watch

the house into which you poured your soul

crumble...

or was it fear of reprimand,

you from the tyrant of the house

and I from you?

When I returned

there was a new coat of paint on the walls

the floor was a bit bouncier.

the tyrant ripped from the closet door a towel rack

and we sat back and watched in disgust

the destruction

I cleaned the processor slash juicer

by Joseph Vito Ramírez

An Almost Made Up Poem

by Charles Bukowski I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny they are small, and the fountain is in France where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. you used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you knew famous artists and most of them were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right, go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous because we’ never met. we got close once in New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never touched. so you went with the famous and wrote about the famous, and, of course, what you found out is that the famous are worried about their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed with them, who gives them that, and then awakens in the morning to write upper case poems about ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe it was the upper case. you were one of the best female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom, but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide 3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this. recommended by Kostya Viktorov

For the man with the erection lasting more than four hours

by John Hodgen

He’s supposed to call his doctor, but for now he’s the May King with his own maypole.

He’s hallelujah. He’s glory hole. The world has more women than he can shake a stick

at. The world is his brickbat, no conscience to prick at, all of us Germans he can ich

liebe dich at. He’s Dick and Jane. He’s Citizen Kane. He’s Bob Dole.

He’s Peter the Great. He’s a tsar. He’s a clown car with an extra car.

Funiculì, Funiculà. He’s an organ donor. He works pro boner. He’s folderol.

He’s fiddlesticks. He’s the light left on at Motel 6. He’s free-for-alls.

He’s Viagra Falls. He’s bangers and mash. He’s balderdash. He’s a wanker.

He’s got his own anchor. He’s whack-a-doodle. King Canoodle. He’s a pirate, Long John

Silver, walking his own plank. He has science to thank. He’s in like Flynn. He’s Gunga Din,

holding his breath, cock of the walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He’s Icarus,

hickory dickerous, the mouse run up the clock. He’s shock and awe. He’s Arkansas.

He’s the package, the deal, the Good Housekeeping Seal. He’s Johnson &Johnson.

He’s a god now, the talk of the town. He’s got no place to go but down.

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

recommended by: Christian Cooke

The Night Colors Us Equal

Tears for a loved one

Lost in a dream

Burn Sincerity

I remember hearing you cry through childhood walls

Full circle it seems how I should now you;

alike in countenance

in temperament: foil

yet at night

with the quelling of the ego

two lost children cry out (this time I for you)

————————————

Awakened by grief

a sadness unbearable

I used to wake

up in dreams when I died

I would triumph

over my enemies and wake

gloriously

in the end

But this was different:

I watched 32 35 37

distant acquaintances

speak ill truths of opportunities lost

I heard them speak nonchalant

your inability to action

scars faded

my fresh wounds

I always thought when this happened I wouldn't feel much.

I thought frustration had turned to apathy

disenchantment to distance

... you know, they say I look nothing like my mother.

I hear you whimper, cry out through childhood walls

seemingly thicker now...

I saw

the scarlet red

of your greatest mistake

trickle from her chest

(the bosom of my being

the bringer of my life)

and meet me at the bottom

I bled too

hardened by drudgery and hops

your hands killed us both

and I bled too-

much in fact

I must've died, but

linoleum floors do wonders.

calm cool collected

a series of scarlet memories never reflected

at the bottom I lost you

I was the infant to your middle-age

I received your torch, reluctant.

I didn't want your flame.

I didn't want your trust

I didn't want your name

I didn't want your lust-

for life,

now regret

emerging at the bottom of a

brown paper bag

Bodega Blues

I hear you whine and whimper, cry out through childhood walls-

of steel

those toes on which I danced

cringed in fear

those eyes into which I poured myself honest

cried themselves sincere

those thighs from which I back-flipped

and hoped to never-land

so that I may be your little boy forever

but some dreams are just plain stupid when you wake up

I hear you die through childhood walls

and through you I died too

Bud-hardened hands

eyes stony vigilant

I looked to days of kindred flesh, but

your pain is mine

generation valley bridged

four years to fifty

the night colors us equal

-Joseph Vito Ramírez

Italian Futurism

Waiting for Life, greeted by Death

smiling eternal

What a joke this must be to the collectors of souls

Death is not an end, a means.

Life for those who, now.

waiting on bridges afraid of the fall

what a cool coincidence; regret.

the leap is Life.

to wait is Death

smiling eternal

-Joseph Vito Ramírez