Just by Chance? by Diamond Dave

Just by chance?

Not too likely.

Just because the reason is now unclear

Doesn’t mean we won’t know

One day,

If we hang in,

And out,

Follow the stream

Right down to the sea,

Look up to see the stars

And really see the sky,

Undeterred                                                     

By conventional-thinking

Shortsighters,

Deaf and blind to the spirit,

Naysayers, killjoys,

Wallbuilders, doorslammers,

Vision-slayers, doom-sayers,

Scribes and Pharisees of science,

Theological engineers,

Lords of the system of things.

New morning,
Spring sap flows,

Fingertips touch, eyes glow.

In the night of the living dead

The poets remain alive,

Walking down that tightrope wire,

Looking out for one another,

Just strolling down

That moonlit path,

That good red road.

Dreamweavers,

Spiritbenders,

Healing the pain,

Soothing the silent screams,

Warriors of the Rainbow

Just singing a freedom song.

It’s about this:

It’s about it be darkest

Just before the dawn,

But when

And where

You least expect it

Help will come along.

Like green shoots

Thrusting through

The damp, dark earth,

Love will spring anew,

Life will spring anew,

Just breaking through

The ice.

On Lavoy Finicum by Davis Hammon

In light of the circumstances of Lavoy Finicum's death, a flood of emotions and memories have come out for his friends and family. Davis Hammon has been Lavoy's neighbor and friend for the last four years and shares his perspective.


I care not to partake in the spite around Lavoy Finicum’s death. He was valiant and chose freedom right up to the absolute end, giving not a hook for them to claw into his life. As he drew the fire away from the truck and the comrades inside he knew what he was getting into, so the word victim doesn't fit here. He chose his ground, where he would live free or die. He knew that the corrupt laws would stack against him in a nightmarish court system and that they would crush the open country from out of his heart. As his hands were up and that first bullet ripped into him (I believe from the first agent running toward him from the right) he had faced his enemy. He could have come out of that truck with pistol in hand firing, but he didn't. Violence was not his motivation. But he wasn't going to cower either. He did what he felt he must: face them, with hands up, to communicate that he meant no aggression, but really face them as he shouted, "If you're gonna shoot me, just shoot me". Most people cower at the site of a gun pointed at them. But not Finacum. No, he stared straight at death with the fierceness of courage and freedom running through his veins. Not many comrades can do that.

What matters to me is not whether this was an execution. Of course it was. Not just because of the events at the very last, but more importantly, the way the Feds slowly strangled the holdout, the people and the cause judiciously and calculating. I don't think they pre meditated Lavoy or anybody else's killing. They want all this to blow over and lose the public eye. And killings attract public attention. No, they wanted to strangle these people in court while the general populace quits paying attention. That's where they have them on their turf, with their corrupt laws and their playing rules. Then they can stamp guilty and keep the status quo going. It's harder to do that when there is wide attention by the populace.

What matters to me is that we don't lose focus. Lavoy's death has brought about a lot of awareness about the ideas he cared about -- the ideas he died for.

I really enjoyed spending time with Lavoy and his wife Jeannette over the past few years and was over there last fall to discuss what so many desert dwellers talk about: water! We were neighbors sharing a well and were discussing possibilities. But conversation soon veered toward the land--the Arizona Strip and the spreading grass across the monsoon drenched landscape. And how much this land mattered to us. He began sharing how he had chosen to quit paying the Feds for grazing permits on BLM land and that instead he had taken the money down to Kingman (county seat of Mohave) to offer them the payment instead. This was part of his belief in action in that lands belonged to local governance. That we, the people, of our own communities are responsible for the care taking and hold the rights to our own land. The federal govt had no right to enact monuments that gather large swaths of square miles, robbing the county and states. And that the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was a horrible blow to our freedom and a dangerous slope toward over reach. The act, among other things, granted the Federal govt to collect dues from grazing on public lands and furthered the shift of power away from the states as the main administrators.

Now, the Taylor Grazing act was enacted in large part in response to overgrazing and destabilization of land soils. A lot of grazing has been harmful to the grasslands over the years, sometimes devastatingly so. Lavoy was not aloof to environmental care of the land. Just the opposite. I was impressed by both his knowledge of the plants and his love for being out under the open sky, sleeping on the ground and breathing in the sage smell after a summer rain. He talked about how over the years the overgrazing in the Arizona strip had fundamentally changed the way the water interacts. When the grasses were more intact many, many years ago the river would delta out and spread out across the surface, nourishing a large swath of land. It was the grass roots that held the soil. But as the grasses dwindled the roots could no longer hold that soil and the water began to cut down, instead of spread out. This resulted in deep gouges and washes forming, where the water would rush away, leaving the surface dryer, which made things even worse. Eventually this resulted in more sage and rabbit brush moving in and fundamentally changed what was once a primarily grass dominated land to sage dominated. This was Lavoy sharing all this with me. He knew what bad grazing was. And he also knew how to change the grazing practices and was already doing so. He knew that a herd, if managed properly, can actually rejuvenate the grasses and slow the water down in the desert, thus spreading out and nourishing more roots. He knew how to keep the cows grazing heavily for shorter periods of time, then moving them away to allow that land to resurge with the natural dung and hoof activated seed planting.

He was no rancher for short term profit. No, he was in it for the long haul. He really believed in not only the people of a land, but in the land itself. He believed in care taking and that a people only survive because of the dirt under their feet. So, I say what if we considered ourselves as care takers. That we the people, within our own local counties and communities, take responsibility for our own lands. Not for our gluttony, but for our children, and our children's children. We do survive because of the dirt under our feet. Because of the food it brings and the space it provides. And do we really think that some bureaucracy located thousands of miles away will care for our spaces with the same passion and dedication as us, the people dependent on it the most. Lavoy was about bringing it home -- to claim what is rightly ours and stop offsetting policy to a body of demagogues that don't walk here.

The Peddler and his Goat by Robert Ennis

(Read out loud or to yourself in a Punjabi accent. Like you're from India.)

Once upon a time, in the East, a peddler moved spices along the Silk Road. He was tall and gaunt, with blue eyes and very dark skin. He was thin because he was never getting enough to eat. He had a large and angry goat that pulled his small cart alongside him. The peddler had to be careful because his goat was fat and clever, although he was strong and pulled the cart along even dangerous rocks.

One night the peddler was camped along a mountain pass, just off to the side of the dirt road in a little hidden culvert. He thought it would help him avoid robbers: he was told in the last town that there were many thieves along the road, but he hadn’t seen a single soul since he left that town. Not even a bird, nor a squirrel; no lizard nor even a humming insect. The next village was another day’s travel down the road. The peddler scratched his goat behind the ears, and leapt out of the way just as his goat met his gentle hand with a head-butt. Pawing the ground, the fat animal spat and cast an unreadable gaze at him. The peddler gathered himself, dusted his long smock, and gathered some firewood. The awful goat seemed to have freed itself from the bindings that held it to the cart. The peddler noted with dismay that the expensive leather straps had been chewed, and marveled at how little time it took the beast to chew through them. Replacing them would mean a much smaller profit on his already-diminished cargo.

A few weeks earlier, on a hot day in Shahr-e Bijar, the peddler was discussing staying the night in the barn with the local miller when the contemptible animal had quietly ruminated its rope restraints and fled straight toward the river to cool down. However, the lingering rope had become entangled around the goat’s rear leg, so the cart still followed it. The racket of the cart banging against the ground frightened the confused goat so much that it fled with extraordinary haste. When the peddler finally caught up to it, the goat had lost half of the expensive crates in the river. The kind miller took pity on the peddler and allowed him to stay the night at no cost, and even helped him recover as much as he could of the lost, moistened and generally ruined crates. That very night, the goat chewed through the rope that held it in place, and gnawed its way entirely through the wooden fence that held it in. To make matters worse, the fixated animal gnawed through the fences and ropes of all of the miller’s animals, and they ran free that night and trampled crops and gobbled most of the herbs in the garden. The peddler had to sell nearly half of his cargo to pay for the damages done to the miller.

Now, in the little meadow, the goat seemed content to chew on the different bushes, ripe with brightly-colored berries. A bitterness filled the heart of the peddler. He resented that he had spent so much money and time on this evil animal; he was beginning to believe that the goat was sent by God to afflict him for his sins. On some level, he believed, it was the will of God that this malevolent animal should ruin him. He mused to himself, “So the goat is free. So what? Let it run off into the woods and get killed by wolves!” At that moment, the peddler’s rumbling belly reminded him of the absence of his last meal. He looked at his hands. They were dark, dehydrated, and thin. Thin. Maybe the goat could earn its keep after all.

The peddler scouted through the mulberry trees for deadfall, and filled his arms with kindling while his mind flooded with vengeful and happy thoughts about eating the bedeviling goat. How would the goat be prepared for dinner? So much of the cargo had been lost, but some of the spices would still be useful. Yes, yes, the goat was large, and even if some of the meat went to waste, it was really no waste at all. A man can pull a cart on his own, with only a little more difficulty. But this small effort paled in comparison to the suffering the goat had caused.

The sun was down, but a little light remained as the peddler arrived back at the little culvert. He had become too excited about his prospects to remain careful, so when the peddler got close it was too late to hide from the three figures who had gathered around his goat and cart. All were wearing black and wildly ruffled clothing. Their feet were shod in soft-padded boots; and one carried a curved dagger in his hand.  One of the men was rummaging through one of the larger boxes on the cart. All three had noticed the peddler arriving, and the one with the dagger moved towards him aggressively.

At the edge of the clearing, the peddler’s mind raced for a solution until he settled on a ridiculous plan. At the last second, when it was probably too late to run, he cycled through a few brisk greetings in several languages; all the while considering whether the blade-wielding thief was actually so incredibly tall as he appeared. The thief, for his part, wagged the cruel knife with one hand, and barked orders while wagging his other hand so as to indicate the ground to the peddler. The implication was obvious, but the peddler was not about to die on an empty belly.

With the shouts of the thief, the peddler realized what language these men spoke. He swallowed hard before responding in kind. He said, “Welcome to my camp! I have been expecting you. Let me build you a fire and cook you a delicious meal. I have use for men like you!”

The tall thief pulled his face covering aside with a little surprise. His skin was also dark, and his eyes as intensely blue as those of the peddler. The other two men; both shorter and wiry but also dark-skinned and blue-eyed, stopped in their tracks. The tall one, obviously in charge, demanded, “Hey! What is your name? And where is your home?”

The peddler inwardly smiled, but kept a straight face. “You are thieves, no? And brigands? I have a job for you. Nobody knows a thief like other thieves. I know of a certain thief, and I want revenge. This thief stole a great deal of riches from me, and ruined half my goods in a river. I will pay handsomely for the death of this particular thief.”

One of the shorter thieves quipped, “Why should we not simply take everything you have and kill you here, stranger? Although... you do look very familiar.” His hard look softened into one of mild confusion.

Noting the thief’s loss of resolve, the peddler continued all the more firmly, “I have traveled far and wide, but I assure you this will be a simple task. As a matter of fact, the thief in question is at this very spot!” and he pointed to the goat.

All of the men laughed, first in disbelief and then in genuine mirth, but all turned severe in a heartbeat. The wind was picking up, and the sunlight would only last for a few more minutes.

The tall thief strode to the goat, which was chewing and re-chewing some berries. In one smooth motion the tall thief grabbed one of the goat’s horns and his dagger slashed across the lower part of the goat’s throat. The bleating beast struggled for a moment, but as the blood drained from its body its eyes dimmed, and its jerking muscles calmed. The peddler cringed, but felt a quiet satisfaction at the death of the creature that had caused him so much trouble.

The peddler started a fire and discussion ensued. The peddler and thieves certainly appeared to be from the same little village, albeit from different families. Conversation between all became jovial as the taller thief skinned and gutted the goat. He seemed quite skilled with his blade. Spiced beverages were shared, and the mood livened as jokes were traded. However, one of the shorter fellows seemed to become increasingly agitated as the hours wore on. By the time the goat was ready to be eaten, this angry young man insisted, “Enough! For the peddler, no goat meat! I don’t care. We are thieves, and we are supposed to be robbing people. We haven’t even killed this man. I am very disappointed in us for being so unprofessional. We need to stand for our ideals. Tomorrow we take the goods and leave him here. As for tonight, nothing but lentils for the peddler!”

The peddler froze in confusion as he believed they’d all become decent acquaintances fairly quickly. But he knew how stubborn the people of his village could be. The tall thief apologized to the peddler for the outburst from his young friend, but admitted that it would be a terrible breach of thief protocol to allow the peddler to go with his goods. They had a reputation to maintain.

Grimacing, the peddler accepted his fate. He knew he was outmanned. The thieves gorged themselves on goat meat, leaving nothing for the peddler who had naught but lentils to eat that night. The night grew long, and sleep overtook all of them.

In the morning, the peddler awoke with a jolt. The embers of the fire still smoldered, but something was wrong, even considering the bizarre circumstances. His eyes darted around in horror at the scene that lay before him. There, surrounded in the culvert by green leafy trees and bushes with bright berries, were the leftover bones and skin of the goat next to the cart. The thieves lay where they had slept, their bellies torn open. The thieves were unquestionably dead, surrounded by their own blood, with long streaks of red trailing off into the woods around them. As the peddler examined the bodies for just a moment he came to a dizzying realization: The flaps of skin and cloth that hung ragged around the burst stomachs had the marks of goat teeth upon them. The peddler rubbed his hungry belly with a little bit of gratitude that he hadn’t partaken of the goat last night. There was truly no restraint that the evil goat could not chew through.

Joshua Tree by Christina Osborn

A voodoo mask

of stiff needles

screamed defiance

at a streetlight

on a Wednesday night.

And all nights,

since the city

isn’t likely to take

the plight of a tree

very seriously.

I noticed as I sat

in a patter of rain

that the tree,

Joshua by name,

was leaning

at an extreme angle

away from its

electrified companion

which also happened

to be due west

and away from

the sunrise.

Not so unlikely

since the sun

and the tree

would tend to be

best acquainted

from eleven

to sunset,

there standing

a mountain

fifty feet to the east

tall enough to

shade through

the morning hours.

Still,

I could see

there was an

enmity between

these two tall fellows,

though painfully

one-sided,

since light posts

can’t sense

the rage of others

nor feel smugness

for their obvious

upper hand

over lovers

of darkness.

Trees aren’t,

in my experience,

usually so foolish,

so I concluded

that some poor ghost,

hungry and lost,

had lodged itself here

on the approach

to Skyline Drive,

in the shaggy bark

carapace of a

normally calm

and silent

desert

dweller.

The Beach (Poem for Ali) by Christina Osborn

Someone dropped me off by the ferris wheel
And I stayed there all day
Until a policeman told me,
"We have help for people like you."
So I cleared off the boardwalk
And sat with an old clown
With feathers and beads
And a circus of teenagers
All drinking in broad daylight
We talked over the waves
And smoked cigarrettes
The opium haze of 75 degrees
And rim to rim sunlight
Settled like plastic wrap
And I looked down the shore
Half sea and half sand
Thinking
Beyond here is a vast land
Filled with fishes and barges
And lonely sea dogs
And hurricanes and sandbars
And the music of the shells
But here we have rock n' roll
And old dudes in vans
and the lives of ten thousand bums
And the inexorable wait
For the setting of the eternal sun.

Winter 1966 by Christina Osborn

I had none of that trap
Only two suits and a notebook
And a splintered toilet bowl
And a rattling whistle
Of the New York street wind
It was everything I wanted
The grease tasted like gravy
And the girls were all geniuses
Cupping their empty hands
I seemed to them kingly
An old world tycoon
A stranger to each at every moment
And I felt my weight
Shaking the cobblestones
As they whispered to the earth
Here is a great man


It was raining when I called
With a note from a friend
And a few old things
I'd been showing around.
Her curtains were clean,
They brushed the wooden floor
And the afternoon waned
As we drank to the city,
Our mutual lover.
When the sun filtered through
The cracked western window
It caught in her hair
As she paced, straight backed,
Laughing like a lioness at lunch
Her eyes two blue roses
In a gray tangled wood.

No Name #2 by Ryan Rutkoskie

The walls of her room are alive and pulsing with reminders

the obsessive pen renderings

a reminder of a long gone relative

and I wonder what substance accompanied the cracks of his mind

on his journey through the countless carefully connected lines and the colors that leap about them

in the far corner

a marker board reminder of Buddha

an erasable placement of permanent wisdom

mirrored doors present written reminders of who she is

and I realize

who we are is often the easiest thing to forget

regardless of how sharp we think our memories to be

volumes stacked by her bed

collect up every quote to ever touch her

conjoining in her own open ended bible

they provide her with a roadmap to a god more

internal than eternal

She reads me her short story

it regards the storm swept wreckage that clutters her existence

she illuminates it in a way that's so bright and beautiful

I want to gather it all up and carry it away with her

and I see us together in that mirrored door

crowded with all its revelation

and I feel as if my reflection has never been clearer

it finally shows me that part of myself

that allows me to feel this way about somebody

without fear or pretense

without the weight of expectation

without the adornment of some foolish mask

we're not trying to complete each other

but we help make each other complete without trying at all

and the walls

so totally covered yet so naked

reverberate and sing to me

and I already know I've never known such a complete person as her so completely

and all our time and experience

all we've learned, accomplished and become

it's encircled us, pulling us together into this moment

where we can be truly be perfect for one another

The One True Church by Michael Jurgensmeier

Basic Guidelines for Missionaries of The One True Church

Welcome to the Mission Training Center and congratulations on your decision to help spread the truth of our prophet’s plan for salvation to all the Godless heathens of the earth! Let us begin by first making it known that your dedication and service to the lord will not go unnoticed to us here at the One True Church and ultimately our prophet who has joined the great spirit in the sky. As you are reading this a lagoon style pool is being erected in your honor in the highest degree of heaven and will be completed and ready for you to enjoy in the afterlife as soon as your two years of service are finished! Constructed by master-craftsmen, who are the souls deceased Christians who almost picked the right religion, but just barely missed it and as a result have been granted the privilege of being our servants beyond the veil! Your fun and stylish lagoon style pool will be the toast of the afterlife as you invite your friends and loved ones over to your celestial mansion for virgin Shirley Temples and games of Marco Polo! Your lagoon style pool will come complete with a white marble plaque displaying your years of service and a tally of all the souls you will save through baptism on the journey you are about to begin! So let’s get started mmmkay!  

Dress Code 

Remember, a well groomed missionary is an obedient tool of the lord and prophet and thereby a happy missionary! Our required missionary dress code here at the One True Church has been referred to by Vogue Zealot magazine as the fashion standard for heathen convertors of the world and as a result we here at the Mission Training Center find it imperative to follow our renowned dress code with same diligence and bloated self-righteousness the One True Church has become known for! 

Now you may be saying to yourself, “Golly jeepers! How am I ever going to maintain the high-standard of dress and grooming One True Church missionaries are known for? Until I decided to serve a mission for the prophet I was one of those ratty American teenagers walking the earth looking like an unmade bed!” 

To that we here at the Mission Training Center say, “Now calm down Brother Smith/Young/White/Whatever, let’s make this as simple as possible and relieve any sort of pressure you may be feeling about our dress code. Just remember, if you can’t follow our standards to neurotic perfection you will be sent home to your family, community and church where you will spend the remainder of your life labeled as “that guy that got sent home”. People will avoid you, employers will not hire you, women will not mate with you and, of course, there will be no lagoon-style pool for you waiting in the highest degree of heaven. So shut your mouth and calm down silly-billy and listen as if your livelihood depends on it, because it really does! 

As far as grooming is concerned there will be no facial hair of any kind. No five o’clock shadows, moustaches, sideburns and certainly no beards! Hair will be trimmed and parted to the right. TO THE RIGHT! Our barbers will make that beautiful blonde head of your shine on the mission-field sun with our years of experience giving everyone the same haircut. And don’t worry if your hair-color is the devil’s brown –we will cut your hair as well! 

One True Church missionaries are required to wear the whitest of white dress shirts and thin plain black ties. ONLY BLACK TIES! Let’s not be a rebellious-riley and wear ties with designs and certainly nothing with cartoon characters. We here at the One True Church enjoy having a good time as much as the next prophet/God-fearing zealot, but we are here to work not make any kind personal statement. We do not wear loose-fighting clothes and robes at any time; rather we wear black slacks and plain black belts. 

As far as foot-wear is concerned sandals are forbidden, instead you will be issued white, Nike sneakers that are to be worn at all times including times of rest and relaxation. The sneakers are necessary, along with the packets of drink mix, in case the time comes when the comet Zothar returns to the earth from the celestial planet Kolib to return us to our maker! --but let’s not go into that right now. Oh, listen to us, we’ve gone and said too much. 

By following our dress code you will go from being this guy…

into this guy…

Mission-Field Basics

The rule of thumb for One True Church missionaries is simple. We don’t understand the word “no”. In fact we aren’t exactly clear on, “I’m sorry I’m not interested” or “Please leave me alone and never come back here”. Just remember, everyone wants to join the One True Church, they just haven’t realized it yet! Don’t give up! No matter what!

Should you come across a person who’s heart has been hardened against the truth we are offering just know that the more angry a person gets with you the closer that person is to accepting the gospel of our prophet. It’s not that they aren’t interested. They are just testing you! So let’s pass that test with flying colors and continue to harass them until they finally give in! 

It doesn’t matter if you are simply getting doors slammed in your face, things thrown at you by passing traffic or people start suggesting you go back to where you came from and begin fornicating with your mother once you get there. The world needs your help! Keep at it! (Unless the police are involved, in that case you are on your own and we have never heard of you.) 

Should a person be rude to you while attempting to share the gospel with them, act deeply offended. Disregard the fact that you showed up on their doorstep on their private property and basically mocked their religious beliefs by declaring that you are right and they are wrong. Let them know how deeply hurt you are by their candor. Then cheer right back up bucko and try again! 

In Conclusion

There will be days when you feel a little blue and you may be asking yourself, “Why don’t I stop bothering strangers and assuming I know what’s best for them and go get a real job?” To that we here at the One True Church Mission Training Center say, “listen you little punk. You will do as commanded or so help me I will fill in that lagoon style pool with manure. We are working very hard for you in the after-life so stop you sniveling and get back to work.”

That being said, best of luck out there gentlemen! And remember, we know what’s best for everyone! 

Beating Life by Marianne Hales Harding

When you’ve alphabetized the books on your shelf, Life pulls them all out into a pile on the floor.

When you’re busy making dinner, Life steals the permanent marker and draws on the kitchen table.

When you’ve put away the vacuum cleaner, Life dumps cereal on the carpet and holds a dance competition.

And you wonder why Life (who is billions of years old instead of just two) doesn’t know better by now.

Why Life doesn’t give you a freaking break.

Yes, Life inspires you to halfway swear.

Life is getting on your very last nerve.

Life is flitting about the room, giddy, because you’re realizing, yet again, that you can’t force it to do anything.

This is the point where even the most mild mannered, peace-loving person would beat the living snot out of Life.

You’d ball up your fist and feel the crack of your knuckles against its jaw.

It would hurt like hell and you’d just keep hitting.

Preferring the stinging of muscles and bones and skin to the smug grin on Life’s face.

Because Life is not a child.

Life knows exactly what it’s doing and it is enjoying it.

So civilized people must rise up and say, “That’s too much!  You’ve gone too far, Life!”

And Life laughs and Life sticks out its tongue and hotwires your car so it can drive it off a cliff.

And you shake your fist and cry out, “You’ll never get away with this, Life!”

Because, like parents of toddlers and teenagers, you have SO MUCH power over this little imp who is so bent on defeating you.

Unseen Fire by Robert Ennis

Merely a gate;

I've become an

infiltrator.

Not quite floating

until the right

moment arrives.

Not my doing:

but plans of a

mind far greater.

I must ignite

souls like flame with

supernal light.

I Prefer Girls by Sky Flower

I will not claim I'm straight

Nor will I claim I'm bi

Pansexual is rarely used

Asexual takes too much time to explain

I am not gay

But it seems that way because I simply prefer girls

Not to say I couldn't be with a man…

I've been with a few, more than I can count on one hand

I guess

Sexuality is such a mess

But they just expect you to tie yourself to a label

I feel like I'm lying if I claim any as mine

My sexuality is evolving all the time

It's fluid

Like a river that runs down my cheeks asking "is this me, is this me?"

A question that gives my not so accepting distant family a hope

That I will go back to men and stick with them but I won't

Because I simply prefer girls

I don't need to go into my libido

Or my sexual past

Abuse I've had

Relationships that made me mad and still effect me now

I do not need to tell you how I cam to this place

I just am who I am

And if you ask me again, I'll repeat what I said

No, I don't need a scale

And I'm not just confused

I simply Prefer girls

Playing School by Darren Edwards

Let’s talk about education.

Let’s talk about the power of knowledge

and the desire to learn.

Let’s talk about the hundreds of thousands

of schools Oprah didn’t buy

new computers for,

or the millions of African kids

whose school house didn’t just get

a new roof because they don’t have

a school house to put it on

and how we pat ourselves on the back,

fluff our pillows and drift to sleep

thinking happily about the lesser half of these

equations.

Let’s talk about desire.

and the returning student

whose fifty plus years

have taught her more than her twenty-eight-year-old teacher

could write in a hundred books

and how she still shows up to class

because of a belief that even this young arrogant shit can show

her something new.

Let’s talk about how she shows up to class

despite sickness and shakes

despite struggles with bi-polar disorder

despite memory loss

caused by the electro shock therapy

Harvard doctors put her through  

in the sixties.

Let’s talk about the day

she suffered vision loss

and shook in a way that only those

who’ve had their concept of reality

spun on a top can understand,

the rush to the emergency room,

and how she cried as her son guided her to the car,

because all she wanted

was to learn.

And what about the single mother

reading “Good Night Moon” to her daughter

dreaming that the inner-city school

the girl will attend could get more funding

or the upper class high school quarterback

whose pockets should be filled with vending machine

change, but are filled with the pills

he needs to keep up with the pressure

of expectations and ideals thrown on him

by parents and teachers and a society that only

cherishes the individual in success or distress.

Can we talk about these things?

Or, do they slide past our fingers,

touching only briefly,

only in passing

on our way to the video store

to rent “Empire Records”

or “The Breakfast Club”

because it’s been a long week

and I need to fall into

pop culture like the oversized cushions

on my living room couch

because the walls of my skull are still

reverberating,

still vibrating,

still trembling with the image of this

woman being helped out of my class

the class where twenty kids in their twenties

listen to one kid up front pretend

his thumb can

pins the worlds knowledge

to an overhead transparency. 

No Name by Ryan Rutkoskie

Am I Afraid of Silence?

Honestly

I couldn't be.

Already I've spent so much time wrapped wonderously up in your words and unmentionable time typing wildly to riciprocate but

what do I say to a sigh so lovely it sais everything?

I want words to circle and shape the suns magnitude

but sometimes when your breath trembles in it's own

iambic pentameter all the poetry

just wants to shrink down and listen in wonder

sometimes

it's like I'm tethered to the shattering beauty of that heartbeat

tapdancing 

on the nape of your neck

so words can't be everything all the time

but for right now

I just want them to rise up

and celebrate the silence with

and help us to unravel all that meaning

wound into 

it's every

moment

What Could Have Been a Child by Christina Osborn

Red rivulet like ribbon winds through muggy water
Slowly, giving bulk back to the body of the daughter
In an oily tub of green and silver visions of the flood
And a rich and rosy residue, thick rubber-wriggling blood

And Look! by Christina Osborn

Shorter and shorter runs the connection
Faster and faster wraps the perfection
And then stop
Cut around the holes and you find a series of
Tunnels under wax paper stretched over styrofoam
Climb in and down to the blackness out of which
We each and collectively arose
And stop
Rest there in the limbo between emptiness and
All your things
Given by others and your nature and
The sting of dreams
Now drop
Your hands are built for grasping even when your
Eyes forget to look
And so the sin of asking punished only
If you believe the book
So feel
The grip that rips your hands
Will dig beneath the flaps and drink the blood
Forget the things you thought you knew
Switch off the engine, throw up the hood
And look!

U. S. Dollar, The Tied Down Damsel by Ryan Rutkoskie

America's back bone writhing

hotly burned by our worthless struggle in the bound places

our sense of progress stifled

then

stagnant

we simply stiffen with fear

when the tracks begin ringing at us

physics claim the train

can move now

only toward us

as a disaster hauled by stubborn steam

our position

is fixed

roped down with a pemanence

the world has reserved only for Washington ideologues

it's that persistance we admired

the desired die hard partisonship grip

defined and hard-wired by party line whip

that

for which they've all been hired

and as train cars crack on our nerves set fire

and our little helpless hearts retire

the tracks

sing us to sleep like a righteous choir

Here's My Advice by Christina Osborn

Here’s my advice: don’t reach for the stars.  Bear with me, I know that apathy is scary and we all feel wasted and wanting sometimes but take your eyes off the skies and look instead at the ground.  It sounds insane but if you focus your brain on the heaven that is the present you will never lose sight of the road that is the right road for you and all of your endeavors.  Here’s my advice:  find out what you want.  If it’s playing or working or staying at home or painting or making a scene or dressing up in black and green or masturbating or eating or drinking or navel gazing, it’s what you want.   if it’s what you want, no one has a right to taunt you or tell you you’re making a mistake or losing your way.  Your way is your own, and no one’s path is the same.  Here’s my advice: play the best hand you possibly can.  We’re all set up with a few good licks, and in a short time you’ll learn the tricks you’ve had since before thought or time or walking the line.  If you’ve got great legs or a beautiful mind or a flair with a pair of scissors or a passion for lizards, by God, run with it.  Run through your life holding that thing hard to you, like it’s the last day of existence and all the resistance has fallen into the dust.  Here’s my advice: Lose something every now and then, it’s good to clean house and clean head and maybe in a corner of the garage or a box or a bag you’ll find a thing you haven’t seen for a while that brings you back your smile and reminds you of childhood dreams and how possible it all seemed.  Here’s my advice: know yourself well.  Put yourself through hell if you have to in order to learn what kind of person is walking around in your shoes.  Ask those questions that people don’t want to hear the answers to.  Here’s my advice:  stop making nice, and start living life.  Universal popularity is a pure insanity and the more famous you are, the further you fall from that particular star, the more people who know your name, the less likely you are to win the game without stomping on a few fingers and toes but it’s okay, because everyone knows it’s cold and lonely in space, and to reach that star, you get frozen or burned or scarred for life.  So here’s my advice: don’t reach for the stars, reach for the phone or a pile of clothes or a pen or a knife or a guitar or a fight or a place to call home.  Reach for yourself and hold onto what you find.

Wait 'Til I Forget by Christina Osborn

Wait until I forget

The sound of the wind in the fruit trees

Before you take me home

I want them to loom in my memory while I’m out on my own

I’ll remember that they’re better than the others I encounter

In my travels

Better by the year and eventually those others will disappear

And I’ll return to you, my orchard, only to find

You’ve stayed the same

Wait until I forget

The warmth of long summer rains

Before you take me walking

I want to be surprised when I feel the sun and the sky starts opening

It’ll be better than before because it’s raining on me

Then and there

And eventually I’ll disappear

Returning to the dust I was only to find

The rain still rains the same

Wait until I forget

The name of our hero

Before you read that book to me

I want to think disaster is still a possibility

And it’ll be deeper than the last time

Because I’ll feel like I’ve heard it but can’t remember where

And eventually we’ll disappear

But the words are here and always will be

And despite the wears of world and change we find

The story still reads the same.

The Hitchhiker by Christina Osborn

My brother told me once you take DMT you can taste it and smell it in everything. I'm not sure what that means, because I've never taken DMT, the drug that your brain supposedly produces just before death, expanding the horizons of your consciousness until the whole world is swallowed in the singularity that is your life. It is supposed to make you look in and in and in until you are looking back at yourself and it's just the two of you facing each other through whatever perfect metaphor your brain has constructed for the occasion and you believe it and identify with it because the one you are seeing looks, talks, feels and acts just like you. And you can feel her emotions as you watch her, your perspective fluttering between first person and third person, watching yourself watching yourself watching you. I believe there is a sliver of something caught inside each one of us golden strangers hitchhiking through the valley of shadows, a tiny slice of the fruit of life riding along in the hollow between the lungs and above the stomach, that spot that sends out a beam of light when it's too dark to see the streetlights.  That pulse is beating with my footsteps, seeing with my vision, hijacking my nervous system from time to time so it can get where it's going. And I don't mind, because it doesn't ride for free. For the smell of sage it trades an insight about the interconnectedness of every concept I've ever learned in school or on the streets. For the warmth of my lover's arm around me as he drifts off to sleep it trades a heart swelling so tight it might burst through my sternum and swallow both of us, happily drowning in our handiwork. For the play of sunshine on the river it trades a song, sung small in the awful elegance of a slot canyon, small but echoing off the rippling walls until my voice is sixty feet taller than i am, ringing up to the endless blue in an attempt to pay back that hitcher for lodging itself in my life. For the taste of a quesadilla layered in jalapeno cheese and cucumbers and peppers, slathered in guacamole we just made together, half naked in the tiny kitchen, chopping vegetables and trying to find something we disagree on, for the taste of these things my hitchhiker trades the spaces in between pleasure and pain, the distance between the depths and the heights, the weight between joy and sorrow. For my five senses the hitchhiker trades one sense as deep and sprawling as the night sky inverted, opening in instead of out, each point of light composed of trillions of other points of light, galaxies within galaxies. And when two galaxies collide, stars explode, gravity collapses in on itself and a singularity is formed, spaghetifying time and taste and truth and skin cells until the stars are not just touching, now they occupy the same physical space and time together because those words no longer mean anything rational. When you held me in the kitchen and i started to cry it was because i realized at that precise moment in time I may as well have been holding myself. That moment will never come again, not in that way, but I will savor it in everything I put my lips to because my taste buds are still singing a wordless love song to that little golden hitchhiker, who doesn't ride for free. and you know, I don't know about DMT being an ultimate ingredient in everything, not unless it has a much more common name, a name often used recklessly, vaguely, dishonestly, a name used as a weapon, as a cage, as a slave, as a curse and also as a caress on our weary muscles and a soothing hand to ravaged skin. The name of this ingredient is love and I smell it everywhere, I see it in the grasses and the cattle and the sedimentary sandstone and the waves of the rock. I see it in smile lines and glittering glassy eyes and the do in balls of the trees we planted and in your sister's skin and in the kitchen sink and under the open sky. I feel it running in my blood when you look at me, I feel it in my bones holding my back straight, and I hear it in my hitchhiker's song.  We trade love for love and sense for sense and we may not ride for free but the price is too sweet not to pay.