Hold On and Let Go!

Hold on and let go, America.
Those cows leaned against the sub zero wire,
ice building on their brow, are ready to calve,
full of tomorrow. The winter clock ticks twelve,
the light returns-it's a promise.

There will never be enough TVs to cover
the ground of your being, no way to wire
or franchise the invisible heart.

Hold on and let go, America.
You've seen enough green grass crack
the sidewalks of false promise to know the ways of earth's winnowing pulse-
schemes come and go, no one really wins.

We know about the rise and fall of all things;
we create glory and destruction everyday;
feel the wave. It's time to invent a star shooting through the falls, a personal word, relevant and elevated, collective lexicon for the new republic.

Hold on and let go, America.
The runaway child forging freedom's path became the overbearing adolescent on this teeter,
teetering totter; neighborhood house on fire.

Growing pains hurt everybody within range
and now there's no more "over there",
no place to throw things called "away."
Be the wise older sister!

Hold on and let go, America.
You crossed a four month ocean to be here,
survived Victoria and the loss of buffalo,
crawled under the wire, rode that 2:am railroad,
hid in the hold with garbage and ice–
you're as tough as you want to be.

Some say they're too poor to fight,
to rich to think, to busy rushing
toward tomorrow to consider the future,
but this is your time to strike the bell–
if not you, who?

Hold on and let go, America.
There's not enough duct tape nor
hollow-eyed gas masks to silence your song.
Those baggy-panted truants and truck driving girls
are meeting on the same corner-
every square they tell you to stand in
gets blown away. You're moving with the wind.

What's right is admitting wrong. Only freedom
is worth defending. We blew it-
now you're stepping through the fire,
setting your board down on a street
that's going somewhere. America,
hold on and let go!

—Stewart S. Warren /
Mercury HeartLink © 2005

Stewart is a writer, performer and evocateur, born 1950 into the affluent southern society of Tulsa, Oklahoma where, Stewart says, he was raised by slaves and all night gas station attendants. After completing 9th grade he hitchhiked from the grasslands of Oklahoma to seek an education in the counter-culture of San Francisco. Inspired by song writers, troubadours and poets of his time, Stewart focuses on his intimate and often ecstatic experiences with the undiscovered and inescapable landscapes of the American Southwest. Allowing himself to be inspired by the shape of a hill or the texture of grief, Stewart reflects upon the human condition: our struggles, our beauty and our heartbreaking determination. He currently lives in Del Norte, Colorado. He is a member of Sparrows, Colorado's Performance Poetry Festival, and puts on a festival in Del Norte. Shape Of A Hill: poems, prose poems by Stewart S. Warren available online www.heartlink.com

Some things
still need to be said

It should go without saying
for the intelligent,
for the respectful of life,
for those awed by beauty;
but I will say it again
for the few stragglers
who in their pain
postpone evolution:
war is no longer an option

It should go without saying
for the economists and mathematicians,
for those seeking a bigger picture,
for the realists and the teachers.

It should go without saying
for the congregations who pray,
for those who follow saints,
for the faithful and devoted;
but I will say it again
for the few misguided
who in their confusion
stumble on the road of evolution:
war is no longer is an option.

It should go without saying
for those who raise babies,
for gardeners and farmers,
for anyone aware of others.

It should go without saying
for historians,
for those capable of comparing,
for anyone thinking about tomorrow;
but I will say it again
for the fearful few
who in their mistake
postpone the safety of evolution.

It should go without saying
for the business-minded,
for those interested in success,
for the proud of their species.

It should go without saying
for widows and widowers,
for survivors,
for anyone who's lost a friend;
but I will say it again
for the few sleepy heads
who in their slumber
postpone the glory of creation:
war is no longer an option.

—Stewart S. Warren /
Mercury HeartLink © 2005

One Free Man

A stomach growls.
Claws itch.
A shrouded gland secretes
The acid that will consume
The newest dead,
Cleansing battlefields again
Of any trace of misplaced blood,
Of every hair untimely torn
From the trusting young,
Of every shattered
Fragment of bone
Until nothing remains,
No talisman for the mantelpiece,
No charred artifact to serve the
Fragile hope that
Grief might, this time,
Outlive forgetfulness.

Two back to back warriors,
Light and dark,
Good and evil,
Life and death,
Have marched away from each other
These eons of labored time,
But the earth is round –
The shape of peace –
And this duel has brought them
Face to face once more.
Now let this beast
Feast on me, grind its teeth
On the sun-white, sand-worn
Stone of my bones. I was the
First to die ages ago
Between dragon jaws and
I need no keepsake
Framed in crimson
To look into hungry eyes and
Remember my name:

One free man.
One free man.
One free… many.

—Alan Wartes © 2005

Alan is a poet, writer, musician and filmmaker, and a member of Sparrows, Colorado's Performance Poetry Festival. He lives in Denver.

Wu Chi - Be Angry
Wu Chi: a basic, balanced pose of the internal martial art T'ai Chi.

That public men publish falsehoods Is nothing new. That America must accept Like the historical republics, corruption and empire Has been known for years. Be angry at the sun for setting If these things anger you... —Robinson Jeffers

Well I am angry at the sun for still setting over those who have god on their side, and think they can decide how I will live and how I will die. And I am angry at the sun for still rising over those who deal with old problems in old ways. We swung from African trees out to the wide savannah sea; walking and walking, spreading and settling, hunting and gathering, caring for the family, the group, the tribe, stumbling into agriculture: standing above the sacred fields in ancient river valleys there, in sandstone canyons here, standing with cold fingers through long winters building the first cities that begat the first nations that grew and grew until their walled borders overwhelmed their leaden sedentary citizens, who forgot how to walk while dragging their nuclear arms. Now here I am under the wide sky, angry. And I will be angry until the sun sets above savannah walkers everywhere who learn once again how to walk, how to move with new behaviors reflecting new knowledge. We Have Brains. We have eyes to see. Hold on, hold on, hold on to your anger Bring the world back into wu chi. —Danny Rosen, © 2005 Astronomer, poet, climber, and teacher, Danny was born in a far land with Saturn rising. He teaches astronomy in the traveling Western Sky Planetarium. Danny loves the dark regions and helping people learn to see by turning off their lights. He is a memeber of Sparrows, Colorado's Performance Poetry Festival

CUP OF DEATH

Who are these small, sightless and thin
twisted dark shadows of false men
who wish to bend the peoples' will
by offering us to sip the rancid swill
from their golden cup of death?

With their every deceptive breath
they give the gods of destruction their praise
shrouding their purpose in twilight haze
to hide the bloody altar 'neath the golden cup
offering us death as they hold it up.

The Rumsfeld Worm goes far back in time
to the greasy septic seeds of crime
planted in the thorned Garden of Dark Power
bloating more than growing in this final hour
where the Worm entwines this cup of death.

He infuses his Puppet with holy breath
to speak to We the People of their holy war
that we may willingly drink the holy gore.
"God is with us" they cry, enfolded in their flag
yet their god is an oozing, viscid, eyeless hag.

They wrap her in gold and tell us bold lies:
they'll give us a war with the conqueror's prize,
a tidy, swift war packaged for CBS and CNN
with microwave missiles, smart bombs and twisted men
who greedily wait to dine on death.

Children of Allah suck fear in each breath
knowing when the War God unleashes its hand
a nightmare twilight will shroud the land
giving smoldering enemies an excuse to assault
without reason or thought or favor or fault.

A "tidy swift war" is a politician's lie
while he's safe in his house the children die
flyblown flesh in the rubble is the tidy war's end
famine, bacillus and radiation loose in the wind.
For the Rumsfeld Worm and his Puppet this is peace:
when all life is destroyed, then wars will cease.

—Kenneth O. Walker © 2003

Ken is a certified bampot, artist and
musician, and one of the founding
members of LocoFotives.