Poetry

***

How many resurrections does one need
in one lifetime
How many times must a savior cum to our planet
and offer himself to us
before we learn to finally evolve?
Darwin hanging on the cross
has a revelation
Fuck
put me up there please
Newton
toss rotten apples
from the garden of Eden
nail me with the gravity of the situation
stake me through my bloody Easter palms 
make fun of the loins of lust popping
 through my loin cloth
strip me of my dignity
laugh at me
I’ll die for your fucking sins
the little death
and the big one too.
Lust be ready to celebrate
when the rose of Sharon blooms
and the tides rise with the Goddess pagan moon
and your little hearts begin to swoon
create me damn it
damn it, then create me
I am reborn

oh Pandora where art thou
ninety nine point nine percent of you
undiscovered under water
under loved and under appreciated
would it be a miracle to don a wet suit
and dive to your depths
revealing what otherworldly creatures have known
about you forever?
dreams of love and hope
not even you are aware of
from this palsied position
 of suspended animation
routine ennui
springs a nympholepsy
within you, crying
for
perhaps a raffish rapscallion
or a knight in shining armor
clichéd and wrapped in myth
to unwrap your gift
Pandora's box
with a delicate blade
dangerous and unknown
launching mysterious adventure
with the promise of a hearth 
warm, inviting at the end
 
the tip of your berg my lady,
luckily for you,
serves you like a muse
a daughter of Mnemosyne
the inventor of words
so rest, assured
my strength will carry you
and all your distant far off lands
your wilderness un ravaged
your horrid depths of Hades
your glorious peaks worshipped and adored
your rivers like our life explored
and I don't know who I am
but you will someday meet me
and pirouette
upon my seeing eye

March 28, 2007©

***

Sculpture: house painting clichés

***

***

One Child Policy

Stop procreating, people!
I mean I know you love to fuck.
But seriously, there are Christians out there
that think your eggs and sperm are sacred.
Gargantuan piles of plastic meanwhile accumulate mid-ocean.
Thanks Advent of agriculture:
A layer of over-processed carbohydrate fat circles my midsection that wasn't there 20,000 years ago when I hunted and gathered.
Now, internal combustion engines
terrorize my neighborhoods with their machine gun shattering screams. 
Where is Attila the Hun 
Or Zarathustra?
The silent plunge of the blade 
of the Iron Age, or the bronze?
Thanks China, your Cathayan Dynasty, for your gunpowder!
Now I have gangbangers
Threatening my dreams
Literally stealing drugs in the parking lot of evolution
Right outside my door 
civilization'$ gun to my head
Conforming me to the fake news
Of progress.
Thanks Nazis!
Advancements in space travel
The Life on Mars
Single cells are laughing
At our alien octopi
Shape shifting color changing textured camouflaged 
Tentacled creatures 
Watching us on Television
The tender smell of fresh born babies lingering
Amongst our terrorized 
landscape, please
Make it stop!

Or write that next Great American Songbook,
the perfect marriage of Melody and Word
To transcend the barriers of 
human absurdity 
And make us dance.

March 2021 SJV

Thunder Storm

Look, yonder, a gathering storm!
With her gorgeous billowing thunderheads
Exciting, exhilarating, full of fury
Her stunning jagged strikes of lightening
Illuminating the promise of a deluge

And I really need the rain
After years of drought
the heartland thirsty for love
in a world of chaos
and nature so cruel
It might be worth
Some stormy damage, 
A fallen tree on my roof
My basement flooded
With convulsive tears of joy

The settled mud
On the bottom of my pond
All stirred up and utilized
To fertilize my starving soul

Aug 1st 2021 

***

Apopemptic, yes
inside my penetralia
See Tohubohu

Smart Phone

You're dead to me now 
you stupid smartphone
 you, that represent
contemporary Madness, 
shoved down my proverbial throat,
 You Made Me Love You
You promised me the Multiverse
 Then you took it away
died by your own hand
Suffocated, strangled, crippled
 by your own information overload
Your arrogant omniscience
Your claim to clarity and settled doctrine
Your bits and bytes of wonder
Now Broken and confused

While you lived
You showed me the truth
Held up a mirror to the horrors 
of Slaughtered children, 
and the wonders of nature
our clever inventions in defiance  
returning to bite Us in the ass

(In the sense that every new discovery
 brings new chaos,
 your contradictory nature, 
both a blessing and a curse,
like the revered gun,
on the cowboy western 
pedestal of worship,
 your unintended consequences
cannot be comprehended)

You, like heroin,
 making me want you 
again and again, 
need you even, depend on you, 
can't live without you,
 how did I ever before? 

The worst part, or the best
 is your certain Resurrection
 as sure as the sun
You will rise from the dead 
and be reborn to lead the way 
in the quest for infinite knowledge
 and the freedom to wallow 
in mires of stupidity
To make our lives easier
Quicker, more efficient
Closer to the edge
Of madness

You have all the answers
to who we are as a species 
you know where we're going 
and where we have been
You're the last thing at night
 the first in the morning
The finger on the pulse of my dreams
 please let me know 
when the James Webb 
Telescope, send us signs
 of intelligent life
 at the beginning 
of time

You, stupid smartphone
 the quintessential symbol
 of our insatiable cleverness
the apex of our progress
In the palm of our hands 
access to Heaven and Hell
As Ugly or beautiful
 as Freedom will allow 
 I welcome your chaos
 Bring It On, Let's see 
what you got


All the news you'll never get to
in a million years 
should be your motto
Your dual nature like a Hindu
 androgynous goddess God
With multiple arms 
reaching to Infinity
Too much of everything
 or just enough
 it's up to you, 
I'll see you
 on the other side
In a brand-new shiny body 
with a protective case

6-11-22