Art and Revolution

"Oakland is Baby Baghdad and Richmond is little Falujah"-Poet Dre

Last night, I attended my first "Poetry Slam". It was held in a little restaurant in Downtown Oakland called "The Oasis". I was there to hear the featured poet, Drew Dellinger who I have grown to admire after attending a couple of his lectures at the Sophia Center, but I discovered a really cool side effect of going to Drew's gigs: Exposure to other poets.

One of the contestants at last nights slam was a guy named Dre. I don't know anything else about him, not even his last name, only that he is a hell of a poet. I found myself deeply moved by his words. They were a potent mixture of rage and grief that struck deep into the seminal places of my consciousness, that is to say the very heart of right and wrong, of good and evil, of just and unjust.

"We end each conversation with 'Be safe' and 'I love you' because we know where we're at" was a line that hit like a devastating blow. I could think of nothing else as I rode the BART home. It kept racing through my mind like a runner in a never ending 440 dash. I reflected on youth that should have their whole lives in front of them but they are not sure they will live to see another sunset for no other reason then the neighborhood they live in.

Now, I freely admit that I am a child of privilege. I'm white, middle class and educated. The system works for me and it has treated me well, but nothing bitters the sweet taste of prosperity like a look at the price tag. "Be safe and "I love you" is sticker shock of the first magnitude.

I cannot truthfully claim any great insight into the life of American, urban youth of color, at least not from personal experience anyway, but I have lived my whole life in the East Bay, most of that in Richmond and I have eyes. I see these kids everyday. I see them in the market and on the bus and on BART. I see them hanging out and walking to school. I've seen crowds of them filing out of funeral parlors as they bury yet another friend or cousin or sibling. You can feel the grief and the hopelessness is palpable. The wrenching brew of rage and sadness is right there in front of you, right there in there eyes if you only take a minute away from obsessing on your own trials and look. Look and listen, you will be disturbed by what you see and hear. Violence, especially gun violence, is a fact of life for these kids, and it is a way of life for far too many. Each one is all too aware that there is a strong possibility that there future is an early grave or a prison cell. It doesn't matter who you are or how hard you try, you might meet your end just standing on the wrong street corner or picking up a quart of milk for your baby sister or even in the school yard. Life is full of dangers and risks but for these children, the risks are exponentially higher then almost any other segment of the population, that they will meet a violent death. With that in mind, the sense of fatalism that is so much a part of these kids thinking is pretty understandable.

It's no great mystery why this is. It doesn't take any particular genius to see the inequalities of our culture. The global capitalist industrial economy, by it's very nature, is based on exploitation where the "haves" use the "have nots" as fodder and fuel for the system. At first it was in agriculture and industry. The poor, primarily people of color but also immigrant Europeans were exploited as labor. Soon the great industrial behemoth that was once the USA faded to a shadow of it's former self. Jobs were outsourced overseas and opportunities have become more and more restricted to the ruling elite.

The black and the brown have ceased to be a labor pool, with the exception of the military and the police, and have become the raw material for a new industry: the prison industrial complex.

Prisons are a growth industry in the US and is becoming more and more privatized. Huge profits are made by contractors, institutional caterers and even entire prisons run by profit making enterprises. In California, the Correctional Peace Officers Association is a king maker in state government. Nobody can expected to elected to high office without there blessing.

The prison industrial complex can be seen as a wealth creating process. Young people on the bottom of the social scale, who are not inclined to military service, are processed through the system over and over again through incarceration, re-offending and re-incarceration. This is made acceptable to the middle class through the use of institutionalized racism. Working people are much easier to control when divided along race lines and taught to despise each other. It would be tough to prove that a conspiracy actually exists but it sure works out well for the ruling elite. It also works out well if these oppressed people commit crimes against each other. After all, that's what marginalized communities tend to do any way, turn on themselves. The problem is that if you want to keep a people in a sewer, somebody had to climb into that sewer to make them stay. When injustice is inflicted on one community then society as a whole is poorer for it.

So what does that leave us? It leaves us with the intentional neglect of youth, the exploitation of immigrants, a pervading sense of hopelessness in the neighborhoods and carnage on the streets While this poverty and exploitation rages on in the cities, the denizens of salons and country clubs of the suburbs get fat on the wealth created by this injustice.

One miscalculation of the oppressors is an underestimation of the intelligence of urban youth. They see whats happening to them and they have a good idea who's behind it, and they are not going to take it lying down forever. In clubs, in galleries, on street corners they protest through art.

So there I was, the oldest person in the room by at least twenty years and a product of the white middle class to boot. Was I nervous? Actually no. Firstly, I was warmly greeted and made to feel welcome from the minute I walked into the joint. I sucked down a couple of Red Stripes which added to my festive mood. Mostly I got the feeling that these young people all had had a stomach full of violence and were done with it. This shows their wisdom as violent revolution results in more exploitation and a destroyed society that will take years to rebuild. Peaceful resistance is the "neutron bomb" of societal change. It destroys the structure of oppression and leaves the people. standing. I also felt shielded from the anger and hatred that is the neo-conservative right that is flooding into our institutions and rotting our leadership. I was able to take comfort in peaceful non-violent resistance which is the only truly effective weapon that the progressive forces of change possess.

I am thankful that there are such dynamic and talented young people to carry on this struggle. It was a joy to witness it last night.

It's You

Gazing into long lost eyes
Gentleness returns
In memories soaked in tears
Yet brightened by a smile
The bittersweet recollections of long ago

Parted in youth
Different roads journeyed
Reunited at the crossroads
In a time of transition
In a time of renewal

Late in the evening
At a dining room table
Fighting fear and worry
With milk and cookies
For a friend near death

Solace
Eases teenage pain
A gentle presence
to my fractured heart
The hand of freindship

It all comes back
years later
in middle age
so much has happened
yet she is still an angel

What Did I Do? (with thanks to Drew Dillenger)

This was inspired by the poem "Hieroglyphic Stairway. You can check it out on "You Tube". Just search "Drew Dillenger" and it will come up. I also posted in Facebook. In fact, if you spend any time with me at all, you can't avoid this particular work. It was and still is a great inspiration to me.

What did you do once you knew?
Awake aware
No place to hide
Knowledge, blessed but heavy
In the severe light of consciousness

What did I do once I knew?
I loved, all I could
I walked, through hill and meadow
I embraced, even they who despise me
I armed myself with plow shares and pruning hooks

What did you do once you knew?
Joyful terror
A mission in the learning
a long journey
that continues beyond mortality

What did I do once I knew?
Speak out
Anyway I could
In poetry
in action, expression, resistance

What did you do once you knew?
No place to hide
No cleft to shelter
Its laid out before us
no luxury of ignorance

What did I do once I knew?
Break the satin bonds
Cast off the chains of ivory
Trade the gilded cage
For the hard ground of freedom

The Rain

It's raining again. It has been a very wet winter. We all have spent a lot of time confined indoors and our backyard is a quagmire. Every day I seem to have a conversation with somebody along the lines of "God I wish it would stop raining" or "Gee, whats up with this weather?" One can hardly be blamed for being a little stir crazy.

I take comfort in looking at the rain in a different light: Imagine the journey of a rain drop. Imagine how atmospheric moister condenses and forms into droplets which join with other droplets as it free falls towards the earth. Imagine how in hits the ground and soaks into the soil where it is absorbed into the roots of a plant that becomes food for an animal. That animal becomes food for another animal which expels the drop as waste where it once again journeys into the soil. Eventually the drop will evaporate and continue it's sojourn in the wind to once again condenses in another part of the globe and start the adventure all over again.

Each drop of rain is the gift of life. Each drop of rain is a gift of God.It is certainly true that the rain sometimes causes problems like floods and mudslides and the like, but these catastrophes are usually indicators of the folly of man. In our greed, we sometimes build where we shouldn't or try to change the course of nature or otherwise fool around with what is already perfect. The rain can hardly be blamed for our own lack of foresight and caring.

The rain will come and go in it's own time and of it's own authority. How wonderful it would be if we looked at the rain as the gift that it is, not as a nuisance. Get some good rain gear and take a walk in it. Celebrate it, embrace it. The sun will shine soon enough and springs explosion of life and color will be the legacy of the rain. Praise the creator for this wonderful blessing.

Transition

I am a security officer in a high rise condo. It's a thirty story building with 583 units. To put it in perspective, imagine serving a neighborhood of 583 homes in a variety of ways. I have a great many persons to person contacts with a great many people on a daily basis and I am often in a position to observe the full circle of life. I am sometimes in the lobby when newborn residents make their first trip up the elevator and it is procedure for a security officer to escort residents down when they make their last, either to hospital, hospice or mortuary. We try to remain detached and professional because that is what we are paid to be but we are also human. We develop relationships with the residents and it is never easy to see someone you know on a gurney.

Last night was one of those occasions. A resident that I have known nearly twenty years (he's 95) had a serious stroke. I rode down the elevator with him and the paramedic team that was transporting him, as is procedure, but I couldn't help feeling an overwhelming sadness. He has always been so kind to me, greeting me by names and occasionally sharing a joke or story. It is those constant little signs of respect that a service worker remembers. It was hard to see him clinging to life, barely conscious and unresponsive connected to an oxygen bottle. At age fifty-one it was a real moment for me to reflect on the concept of mortality.
By the end of my shift last night, I had heard that he was still alive but had a brain hemorrhage and the prognosis was grim. His wife was with him. I am deeply saddened but, upon reflection, I am feeling a profound sense of gratitude.

I like to think of myself as a very spiritual person. Prayer and meditation are a regular and important part of my spiritual practice particularly when I am in an enhanced emotional state. In times like this I think about others in my life who have transitioned. My parents, my old friend Dana, family and friends whose time in the mortal journey has come to an end. I find myself grateful for the wisdom of life.

My greatest joy in life is walking in nature. I love the redwoods and the boreal forests and the roiling grass covered hills near my home. I love the wisdom of nature. I love watching the never ending pageant of life and death in the wilderness and how it all comes together and makes such sense. Everything and every creature has a purpose and nothing is wasted. From death springs life which ends in death which brings about life.

I am grateful that the loved ones who have passed on have taught me such a valuable lesson. We grieve the loss, that is natural and proper, but we must always remember that we are part of something huge: the universe. We all have are part to play during our time on this earthly journey.

One of the constants of life is impermanence. Life is letting go and to not allow yourself to do so is not love but merely attachment. The wisdom of creation is the ultimate beauty and it is pure love that we are a part of it. Transition is a vital part of the role of beings, let us embrace it. Live to love and love to live and when it comes time to move to the next place, rejoice in the continuing adventure. Peace to all.

The Scone Zone

It was a gray and rainy day at work today so I thought I would take a time out and enjoy a cup of coffee and a raspberry scone from Roya's. My tongue and taste buds cuddled beneath a crumbling blanket of cookie like pastry while the bright flavor of raspberries waltzed throughout. Then, a rich warm bath of coffee washed the entire mixture joyously down my throat into my rejoicing tummy with all of the glee of a child on a water slide. Then, the process repeated over and over again until the scone was gone and only the celebration of it's memory remained. How wonderful life is and what a gift it is to be able to, once in a while, enjoy a really good scone.

Note: Special thanks to Roya's Garlic Garden, the provider of the celebrated scone. Thanks Roya!

Late At Night

Late at night
is when I see her clearly
Colored with blue longing.
When I miss the music of her voice.
Late at night.

Late at night.
When my world is cold.
When my arms are empty.
When my heart is heavy.
Late at night.

Late at night.
When my gardens are dormant.
When I quietly mourn.
When I miss her warmth.
Late at night.

Late at night.
A hole in my heart.
An emptiness unfilled
and desire unslaked.
Late at night.