The Reverse Excalibur

 My mind is a sword's edge

I walk forward until suddenly

I lean to the left for 

twenty minutes

Chasing a bubble of question

Down a hole

I walk forward until

Suddenly

I lean to the left for

five minutes

Sheparding an electric 

alphabet soup of communication

I walk forward

Intentionally turning left

Passively turning so far left

Until I move

Backward,

chasing my future to do list

Slicing it down with

sharp swings to the left

Thinking I am making progress

while

I unravel 

An infinitely longer list with

My efforts

Ten years

Slicing faster and faster

Only to realize

I have only worn a barren

Stretch of Earth

and made my left leg so long

I no longer stand on the right

But seeing Share in struggle

I look around and 

Realize we are all

Wearing beetle galleries in the Earth

with no exit holes

I swap my sword for

A flashlight

Bend my left knee,

Right leg out like a kickstand

I spin one-and-a-quarter 

Clockwise circles

Dragging my right foot

From barren soil

to Earth

to barren soil

Until sprouts form

I hang my flashlight

On the moon

Aimed down at me

And I sit on the Earth

In the circle of

Sprouts I have formed

Until one seed grows up through the

Cardboard tube

I call my vessel

Turning my feet and legs brown Ground

and The Green Rest

My neck elongates toward the moon

Frozen in its place 

To illuminate transformation

I expand into a 

Monarch Sequoia

With a stillness of 30 Elders

Forever stretching my neck to the sky

A microphone tucked

Into the stars

So they can catch up

With their distant

Dust cousins we call

Soil.

A 24 Hour Place

 I return to the city and it takes 24 hours to put my armor on. I don't want to carry the weight. But it's shut out or shut down in a town full of frown.

Suffering screamers slink down the sidewalk throwing nervous spikes into my ears. My heart does a loud double tap until I see what's happening. Another soul blowing in the wind. Their consciousness splits into one more piece each unsafe hard night on the cement. The rising sun vaporizes it and blows it through the city, making each resident a little more rushed.

Productivity hamster wheels weep wealth through the calloused hands of weathered workers. So rushed that the movement makes the roads rumble and tempers tumble into hands on horns. Rushing so fast the world becomes the edges of tunnel vision and when not in prison they need screens to funnel vision out of focus and focused on stimulation and a snowball of distraction disease.

It's hard to be a whole human when you watch the soul slumped on the concrete possibly dead. Speaking in tongues a daily occurrence with no church in sight. Ghosts and ghouls account for hole of spirit with meth plus no sleep. 

Infernal boiling alleys host reading rainbow of experience. The relaxed charm of laid back reading on carpet quickly punctured with hunched on chair, needle in bloody arm. 

How many people can my heart witness committing slow-motion suicide?

Those poor unfortunate souls wither away with no voice, which of us makes that choice? I've seen a twenty-something, every day for years, living a 24 hour alley life.

Old lady screaming and crying in pain on daily route passing our warm loving home. 

Does my witnessing help or should I help myself to less distressing yelp? I have but one soul I can make happier, the rest must choose for themselves. 

I have a cup of water, not a hydrant, but what does it do to live in a city full of locked burning buildings? When to fight and when to rest and when to be best or be like the rest? 

Should I move to Less Pressure In Chest?

Should I live where the screams are from hawks, where you build not smoke rocks, not people in box, rumbles not from Big Rigs but waves and leaves, highway hum replaced by wind in the trees? 

My soul knows the answer is yes, yet Capitalism says I have not completed the test. 

Time will tell what the Red Tailed Hawk carries with the wind and if I can breathe out as long as the Sycamore breathes in.

48 Hours To Feel

 It takes 48 hours to take my armor off. It feels weird. Naked. Third day and I'm learning to walk again. The lost tension feels unsafe. Where's my rope? How can I climb the tree of life without tension in my line?

What if I fall? 

What might fly into my eye if I unfurrow my brow? 

It feels like someone is behind me like the other side of "Did I lock the door?" Knee jerk insecurity trying to pull me back to the known while I try to climb up.

Stop for the Love

We 

    lurch forward 

            like a vehicle

                    running 

                        out of gas

"putt putt putt" fast 

then stop 

        then fast

                    a body heaving with the weight of overstimulation

eyes gone blurry from

        never seeing the horizon

jaw bracing for a strike

                                        ears ringing from tension

                chest shallow pipes clogged with preparations

                                we look around for an external lifeguard buoy

                                not realizing we aren't in the water

everyone looks to be moving smoothly

        because their jerky pace perfectly paces our own

I stop

and

feel an explosive pressure

begging me to keep going

storm clouds form,

        thunder roars

                no one else can see it

                        but I can't keep doing this anymore

I am going to walk or stop but not

rush to wait in a jerky infinite intellectual hamster wheel of thought

                                    the showers dump a torrential downpour

                                            vibrating my fascia with salt water

until

the 

buzzing 

bustle 

of 

fear 

of 

falling 

makes me 

                                                                        Water

and my heart drops its bristles

I unclench my fist and

raise my 

Heart into the world

to spread love.

70 Years of Trauma

 70 years of trauma

a ball of yarn

wrapped so tight

the fibers afraid

so they poked out in spikes

70 years of trauma

a plant grown in the shade

light blocked out

by a plant grown in the shade

perpetual noise and motion

to the echo and locate

a spot in the sun

determined to avoid being shaded out

not realizing their perpetual positioning

burned a hole in the ground

creating a circle around them where

no other plants can grow roots

70 years of trauma

once seen and not heard

they gobble up oxygen like

a photosynthetic thanksgiving feast for one

none left for others to feed their brains

spinning and spinning

yarning and yarning

I find myself yawning and yawning

waiting and waiting

for him to see himself but

70 years of trauma

have made his eyes a danger Doppler

a blind sun-seeking heliocentrist

a sweet smelling brugmansia

only

free to express their fullness in the dark of night

singed by the harshness of reflected light

on their delicate petals

born the sun of wall of rocks

Cold

and

Dark

poorly constructed and Dangerous in the wind

meant to roam like a wildflower

I see the light through a pinhole

in the wall tapestry

now gone but he holds up a

sheet printed with bricks and

blows on it constantly

trying to be his version of the wolk

yet I choose to see the light

and I dim my ears and

turn up my heart's brightest

light and I hope he sees it's 

just sheet now and he can put

it down, know the oxygen is for all

of us

trust the light will not burn him

and express the sweet flower

he has in his heart.

Cold Plunge for the Mind and Soul

 Being present feels like movement

Like an earthquake pulling in both directions at once

Like trying to scream into a plastic pillow

Screens as hamster wheels

Spinning still and spooling 

Future yarn to unravel

Too tight to loosen the knot here

I must take a cold plunge for the soul

Only quiet still time can unleash

The Chinese Finger Trap between the ears

Sounds pull the ears toward them

And increase the pressure

I must soak them in 

Cool cold silence

The slumped shoulder of solitude separate

The furrowed ears

Because when they're up high

They squeeze pressure 

Into the neck

Hot air that can only be released by

Dragon Breath

I get to camp and

My skin becomes 

Heavy wet rags

My heart a plumb bob

Pulled down by the dense liquid

Pressurized by modern society

Into concrete blocks

They make me feel trapped,

I want to run from

The grey 

Until I see only 

Green

Blue

and

 Brown

Colors that trigger

A memory

Through my eyes and nose

An opposite charge that

Magnetically draws out the water

Like the leaves down a stream

Birds come to sing after the rain

Passes

Porque Camino

 Cuando no tienes manera de distraerte,

de esconderte atras de la piedra de comodez,

de tenerque depender en tu mismo absolutamente,

el viento te vacia la mente y llena los ojos

con la historia y el futuro que no existen y

al final te quedas con un espejo hecho

de respiros profundos que te hacen preguntar

quien sos, quien fuiste y quien quieres ser.

Full Moon Vibes

One moon

New moon

Shadow gone

Layers shed

Cells relaxed

Resistance eclipsed

Full relaxed presence

One Poem

I've spent my life in cities

but my soul is in the soil,

under the concrete,

ready to open up and breathe.

My roots graze the surface

of the concrete

like a strangler fig,

never finding stillness

until it finds open soil,

there it can grow.

The one star in the polluted sky at night, 

Jupiter and I draw one another in to the past

when we danced

before Earth was Earth,

reunited with

family

once again

in the deep dark desert sky.

My skin became concrete

from so many years

in the city.

My soul sneaks out the window

of my nose

in the forest

to party with

the terpenes 

once seen as but timber.

We meet in the forest and remember

the wild part of us

that will be never captured.

It lives on the wind.

It invades the city

with

raindrop paratroopers

coating our casas

at night

and impregnating our dreams 

with wilderness.

It blows in between

dust particles and diesel fumes

to tickle our wild side.

To survive their entrapment

and divorce from the horizon

eyes are capped with screens

to temporarily pause the wildness.

But it cannot be stopped.

It is in each breath

you take

and take it shall

you

to where your wilderness lies.

Beyond the lies 

you tell yourself.

One step.

One choice.

You are one breath

from connected

and

yet connected to

the whole cosmic soup

in every breath, drink, poop or

reflection of light.

The entire universe of light

is reflecting differently

because you are here.

Love it fully

and

shine that light back out

into your cosmos.

Cone Climbers Closing Statement

Remember You

Some of you came as  young bud feeling the spring sun for the first time.

Looking upon an infinite green carpet of needles.

Looking upon an unknown future of pollination, rainfall, fire 

and a potential long path of travel through

a dark place before you can race to the sun again,

in nature's cyclical tree climbing competition.

May you give yourselves the determination of a young bud and

meet the sun daily with preparations for your

critical, challenging and illuminating journey

to becoming a tree climber at the top of the canopy.

You are the bud of reforestation.

We have given you four days of light.

This is only the beginning.

The rest is your work.

Blessings on your journey tree lovers.

We need your best.

And so it is.

Ben

Seventh Street Heading into the Sunset

Exiting the freeway

Watch that speed

Black & Whites in lay

Public coffers in need

Gated Communities left

Public facilities right

Economic immunity fight

Education and vets

Not worth amputation nor a lifetime of debts

Cruise past the golfers and well entrenched clout

Keep those slopes green even in a drought

At the end of the fairway 

Our families are out

Throw your care away

You can even shout

Honks and horns

Needles and thorn

Even public officials

Burn our heads with scorn

Food is fast

Health is last

Don't look just drive past

If you took time to observe

For sure you would be aghast

Right before that freeway onramp curve

Full of diesel fumes and gas

And the last two things you see strike a nerve

Elementary students and cement-sleeping ass

Accountability and Grace

 I am a human being living in a particular time and place but I am the same as all who have ever existed in that I have a responsibility and debt to the planet for my existence.

I cannot understand those who perpetuate(d) the horrors of this planet and why some cannot see our sameness and dependence upon one another.

As the leaf breathes out I breathe in.

I pledge to continue to be the best person I know how and I ask that I be judged by my actions and how I use my privilege, but not dismissed because of how I came upon it. I am not responsible for the body I was borne into, but I am responsible for how I use it.

Remove the Crust

 As I sat and meditated in front of my cat who has an unknown heart issue I felt hte excavator remove a large trench of soil down my middle. It was as if two inches of thick salt-crusted-soil had been removed from my collar bone to my waist between where my backpack straps would hang. That part of me felt young like walking after a deep stretch and moving in a way that feels free, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. 

How long has my soil been crusted over? 

What shall I plant?

Nixta Red

 It takes the energy of the sun and makes building blocks from it.

Without soil and water it can't function, but the weight comes from light.

It give me breath while blooming into form.

Flower becomes fruit only from the flow of the wind sizzling through flower and husk.

It forms carbon Lego blocks in rows, sometimes parallel, sometimes spiral.

Blue, red, yellow or white it stacks cubes of synthesized sunlight into a cylinder wrapped in a rough paper husk.

Too much water and it rots, too little and it shrivels.

It partners with ancient biology in the soil, exchanging sugars for distant and difficult nutrients.

Fusing light, water, wind and soil, it reaches to the sky as if meant to feed the Heavens.

We leave it to dry up there in the sky, finally pulling back the layers to reveal our prize.

We store it away somewhere dry for a needy tomorrow.

It contains ancient starlight and sunrays, winds of distant lands, the soil of my place and every cycle of water since the beginning of time.

I place it into a pot of boiling water with a spoon of my best copy of wood ash.

It lights up the room with the aroma of time and place. Imbuing the house with Earthy aromas and moist air filled with the tears I have shed into my garden. I feel this place and time enter my nostrils and disperse into my bloodstream. I recall the time I have spent and feel the time people have spent this year and for hundreds of years, to bring this kernel to my foreign place of domestication.

I feel time in the nixtamalized corn as I feel with no other food. Perhaps those little antennas pointing to the stars every night put a little star dust into the kernel and the elements I call me call to their long displaced brethren.

The Earth wants to express something through me and I often find myself searching for it like a problem-seeking missile wanting to blast from my path any potential detour-inducing objects. But as I smell and then ingest the corn I have grown, dried, nixtamalized and cooked I find myself as a simple conduit again. I find myself absorbing the wind, water, soil and sun only to return those elements back. I am but flesh wrapped around a passageway for recycling elements and nutrients for the next generation. Like a plant, I find my existence a regenerative part of an ancient cycle.

As the smell of corn and campo slowly dissipates over the next day I find myself drawn back to the spring planting and summer harvest, warmed by the thought of the coming seasons. I have been grounded by the corn while also exited for the future. It is a kernel of truth, the fruit of my labor and a seed of connection.

Here's to the love of corn.

Freaky T Raps

 I slap a raccoon

and scratch on a flee

I go bap bap bap

on my en-na-mees

I love da dry food

I go nutz for dem snacks

but teh thing I love the most

my nose in kih-tee-smallz crack

Livin like the master piece the-a-tuh

yeah it shows I'm a very good eatuh

Cozy warm one time burned my nose

fell asleep on the he-ah-tuh

I got two human servants

I named Mika and Ben

Yeah they feed me 

That's nice 

But my homie is Heatie

I got them humans trained

they know I play before I eat

and that the truth is my

favorite smell is stinky feet

So word to the wise I might be a blubber puddle looks aslpee

But you better know better than the think n try to creep

I'll snatch you up, I'll scratch you up, Dra you inside and then I'll play

Cause for me I'm Freaky T, it's just another damn day

Independence

 On this day of independence

I am the birds fleeing their nests

I am the cats huddled under the house

I am the dogs in the corner with their tails tucked

I am the possum, the skunk, the raccoon hiding from audiovisual war

On this day I pledge my allegiance to

the birds, the cats, the possum, skunk and raccoon and of course the trees, who will eventually give us fresh air to breathe again.

I declare my independence from the Human Race.

Turn Off

 Dichotomous age of division, self-centeredness and disrespect, fear & anonymity, FOMO and unreliable people, blame and lack of accountability, people fearing love and truth and peace

Fine

 I'm mad at him/I'm afraid of that/I'm sad/I'm fine

Water Flow

 Unfurrowing my brow

I sit naked

Water Flows

Securely Climbing Higher

 Self-conscious

Who am I?

I'm just getting by.

Wasn't long since I gave

door knocking a try

Cut my teeth on fruit trees

Daily truck rental for these

Long days on climb and ground

Trying to not get ground down

Bright lights at night to figure

To climb safely trees which are much bigger

Got a big shot but no trigger

Until I throw with more vigor

Blakes hitch and leather saddle

These trees I would battle

Loppering piece by piece

Man that was a beast

Michoacan, Rope Wrench and eventually Runner

Oh man how that made my work a lot funner

Eventually even a groundsman, my Rasta man Paul,

And a chipper JoBeau so I take nothing at all

I know insecurity should be lined in chalk

But I am quite skilled at finding something to gawk

How far do you walk

Rarer diseases do you talk

It is more and it is less

It'll put you to the test

But one day told I was 

Part of the best

Cone collecting crew in the world

My mouth edges curled

What they saw was unfurled

Into the crew I was burled

Then they asked me to teach

Even the ISA would beseech

I'm Holistically Long Beach

Then they told me I preach

I taught them to climb sans spurs

I taught them to converse

I coned the biggest trees in the universe

Now it's time to send insecurity out in a hearse