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Those times I read, a time I should belong.
Those words on the pages, those lyrics in a song.

Those times I heard a place I should have been,
The incredible stories,
The psychedelic trips I would have seen.

Take me away, take me to that place in Laurel Canyon.
Bring me far away from here and now.
Consider me in your world of 1970
Do what you can, take me back someway somehow.

Daydreaming about a day in LA, a walk down Sunset Strip,
This isn’t just a fantasy, it’s more than a polaroid print.
California, take me back in time, a week, a day even an hour,
Bittersweet notes rain on me, have I lost all my power?

So, tell me now, do I dream about then or live for today?
I’m not one to pray, but Jesus now I pray.
Can I live free for tomorrow or am I stuck in yesterday?

Flower and fauna

You begin again

Of course

Fold to unfold to stretch

To arrive at the station

To punch the ticket

The train moves slowly at first

Metal upon metal, steam

And then speeds by

Green trees turn upside down, then rust

Wheels thrush to a halt

I fall apart

Into the soil I turn over

Feeding the ground

This is a poem dedicated to those
Men and women who cannot help but follow
The unspoken meanings of their soul;
who will search or soar until
They unite their personas with their innate
Motivations; and
Whom will continue soaring
Throughout their vintage ages.

Toward the man who sings to the tune of
His or her own persona
Who understands the unspoken
Meanings of a jumbled heart;
And who listens to those inaudible
Words of the earth which cannot
Be found upon published
Printed pages;

And utmost to those who harbor
The drive to seek out their
Most innate motivations;
The kind that compelled Eagles
To soar so exquisitely
Throughout their long-lived,
Vintage ages.

I roam concrete cracked grasslands,
where even the grass is grateful to fight it’s way through to find the slightest sliver of sunlight

I’m forced to go to underfunded public schools where learning is an afterthought
and every section of the school needs a go fund me account
No after school programs,
making gangs the only after school activity with a sign up sheet

I’ve grown use to dodging crack pipes and bullet shells on a daily,
like a game of improper hopscotch
Caution tape collects together forming tumbleweeds of yellow misery
which are guided down the street as the wind blows

Police sirens echo in the background, bouncing off
abandoned, board, blanketed, brick homes
creating a soundtrack for the ghetto
As the track trembles through the air
it is unknown if the dj is friend or foe

Marvelous Murals of those killed by outsiders and those that live here can be found on the side of liquor stores
Each name etched into the forefront of my mind
making it impossible for any to escape
Crackheads and drug dealers populate the same street corners creating a physical embodiment of an unbroken cycle

Bad memories and lost dreams fill the poverty polluted air
making clouds of nightmares and insanity.
Breath too much and violence becomes your nature
At any moment
and without warnig
the gunshow is given the greenlight and gunshots roam free looking for a new place to call home
Allowing my couch to gain no wear and tear because it’s safer to sit on the hardwood

It begins to rain and pockets of burgundy appear on the sidewalk
as dried up blood comes to life trying to find the nearest drain to escape through,
If only I could escape as easily
Momma said we just too poor to live anywhere other than where we are now.

So I will continue to roam this concrete jungle

My Jungle
with concrete cracked grassland
My Jungle
where I play improper games of hopscotch
My Jungle
where I watch caution tape blow up and down the street
My Jungle
where I listen to police sirens
My Jungle
with marvelous murals
My Jungle
with unbroken cycles
My Jungle
where rain cleans the blood of the sidewalk
My Jungle
with no after school programs
My Jungle
where gunshots roam the air

This is My Jungle
A Jungle I call home

-Writer X-

Crann Bethadh Song Messengers, by R.L. Stephenson-Read

We embrace our Celtic ancestry
For that same time runs nigh
And seek the mystery from the Lake of Small Stones
Of a lost, ancient tribe’s practice.
Those magical Druid Holies droned, “Beannachtaí Dé”
In their sacred, Oaken Groves
And planted low-frequency seeds in spring
That one day gloriously sprang-forth, Heaven-ward.

Then you, yourselves sang glad, summer tidings
And on Samhain, lifted grateful shouts in harvest celebration
Finally, settling into hibernation with winter’s lullaby,
While Fortkind from the mouths of poet-bards
Whispered healing words of restoration
An effort of preservation to
Slow-down aging
And retain energy and life force
In unison with dolmen, stone circles;
Linked a perfectly-honed craft
Of fractal geometry,
Dependent on the majestic spruce to harness
Compressed charge.

Even now, your sacred altar of boughs and leaves
“Raises a Sham unto the Lord”
That naturally emanates joyful reverence
And encourages grace among a fellowship of fir, evergreen and nut.

Oh, Tree of Life, ever-present around the world
Primordial life, you are the most natural form of medicine
Available to us to journey toward Creator.
Please invite us into your inner body,
To transport us higher with purest intentions and awareness
And allow us to sit beneath your canopy of protection
To enjoy the splendour of your animated foliage
Or soft, sweet needles of pine
And voice a melodic cant
Praising the beauty of yew.

You encourage the wounded with loving airs
As rings outward gather to steadfast the cedar
And dream-scape a new world; of tribesmen awakened
To the fulfillment of One-ness with all who dwell in the Garden
We stewards are called together
To encircle you with thanks; our murmured hymns
Summon the wisdom of the ancients; the purpose
To build a sanctity of inner fortitude,
Which when united, we share in melodious harmony…
Slainte Mhath go Deo!

Written by RL Read, Bandruí on a mission from God
© Aye Lighthouse Productions, April 25, 2021.

DEAR GAELENE, by Mercedes Webb-Pullman

I’m pitching a script about a journey
discovering new lands. A clever captain
but he’s shipwrecked. A remarkable
love-and-murder story illustrated
by the captain and his new navigator;
he is English, and she Polynesian.

(Quick back-story about a Polynesian
woman who sets out on a journey
inspired by dreamed maps, a navigator
who steers to a fame-hungry captain.)
Same old love story, easily illustrated.
His insanity makes this one remarkable.

Native canoes are truly remarkable;
trees thanked before use, Polynesian
design, local rangatira illustrated –
leaf, tree, thicket. This new journey
worries the shipwrecked captain.
Can he really trust his navigator?

He’s lost his heart to his navigator.
She steers by stars through remarkably
open seas, subverting his role of captain.
In his mind history shifts, Polynesian
society beams him visions; a journey
through death, through fire, to life, illustrated.

His designs hatch into life, illustrated
dreams lie, show him his navigator
on a dangerous, double-crossing journey.
In a cataclysmic shift of passion, remarkable,
the once-beloved, once-worshipped Polynesian
is seized and tortured by her captain.

He’s no longer sane, her captain.
He kills her. And he eats her. Illustrated,
shocking. A woman, native Polynesian
in an alien world, brave navigator
of life, her way of death remarkable.
Imagine a movie of the whole troubled journey;

a lovely Polynesian navigator, wooed
by the shipwrecked captain; their remarkable,
sad, and morally illustrated journey.

—

Four Days, by Les Bill Gates

Remember me?
You betrayed me today.
With a kiss, you showed them the way
And collected thirty silver coins.
You whipped me and mocked me.
You crowned me with thorns.
So grovel in the dirt, pick up your pay.
You betrayed me today.

Remember me?
You killed me today.
You sent me to the cross, then washed your hands
And set the murderer free.
You cursed and mocked me and made me a joke,
You threw dice for my cloak.
As the curtain was rent, night replaced day.
You killed me today.

Remember me?
You mourned for me today.
You pronounced me dead, laid me in the tomb,
And sealed it with a stone.
Though you denied you knew me, you still had hope
That death would have no hold on the Son of God;
To the Father there could be no other way.
You mourned for me today.

Remember me?
I rose for you today.
The stone rolled back, the tomb was bare,
There was no one there.
I died in your place, so your sins could be forgiven.
I defeated death, so you could go on living.
With my blood, your sins were washed away.
I rose for you today

POETRY Reading:

fan the flame
let it die out
or set fire to the kitchen trying to make breakfast
with you at four in the morning

take a walk instead

paint the winter canvas of town
like a boot on the moon

trip on the ice and knock your head into mine
watch our breath intersect in the space between

run back to the apartment and strip
as if it wasn’t below freezing

our bodies slipping against themselves
sliding backwards through time
crash into each other

the craters will tell a story

when the match we keep close flickers
the world becomes as small as our hands

vodka soaked words spill from our mouths
stray
thoughts are doused in gasoline

step outside
but don’t wait on me to light a cigarette

burn yourself like incense
fill the space around you

underneath the kitchen sink
a fire extinguisher lies empty
the sound of water dripping reverberates

wear your intimacy like a scarf
loosely draped around your neck

I can hear the snow as it falls

VIOLENCE
February 27, 2021

Violence starts at home
Violence starts
When you are willing
To burn cherished friendships
On the altar of precious opinions

Violence starts
When you shut out and silence those
Who happen not to inhabit
The machinations
Of your mind
Of your convictions
Of your articles of faith

Violence starts
When you prefer to look
For the grand oppressor
Out there
While the petty tyrant
Inhabiting your heart
Whispers in your ear
Whispers and whispers
Incessantly
Until you believe
His utterings
Believe them to be
The voice of reason
Or
The voice of love
Or even the voice
Of your very own heart

And that is
The point of no return
When justifications rise
Rise to still
The remaining stirrings
Of your conscience
While offering up
Your true north
To the self-righteously
Indignant
To the self-righteously
Outraged
To the self-righteously
Wronged
The self-righteously
Deeply wronged
Utterly offended
By those
Who would dare follow
The dictates of their own heart

Their own heart
Open
Open by its very nature
Open to listen
Open
To give the previously unthinkable
The benefit of consideration
The benefit of the doubt
The benefit of validity
When offered
By those dear to them
Or when offered by wise men
Even
If not of their own conviction

And thus those voices
Those voices other than your own
Are stilled
Are cancelled
With Machiavellian fervour
Those other voices, ideas and experiences
Are silenced
Burned on the altar
Of expedient censorship
Burned like the ideas
The art and the music
Of The Other
Burned like the undesirable books
Of last century
Burned as a prelude
To the burning of Jews

A prelude
To the burning of Gypsies
A prelude
To the burning of Gays
A mere prelude
To the burning
Of the Deplorables

Yet in allowing the vilification
And the glorified burning
Of the inconvenient
You too are removed
Removed
From the wonders
Hidden in the caverns of your mind
The true wonders
Only revealed when you allow
The unfamiliar
The unknown
That which has not been
Incessantly regurgitated
And that which is other than
Tepidly digested news
Proffered up as Truth

In allowing this vilification
Of The Other
You are removed
From the doorways
To mysteries

Mysteries
Hidden underneath
Every single storyline
Of Truth
Hidden underneath
The place-keeper
Of all that is waiting
To be discovered

©2021 Fella Cederbaum