In Between

in between day and night
this mono type and hunger strike
where words fall short
beneath heavy eyes
no sleep for the wicked
no end in sight
no dreams for the jaded
of comatose delight

these are the hours
in between breaths
between sheets
in unrest
nothing accomplished
but a heart and a chest
that rise and fall with the sun
and the moon through seasons
and years and windows dusty and webbed
dirty lights from the street
chide me with orange beliefs
of weekly timesheets and punctuality
still there will be no sleep
between a rock and fist
this screen blares on
and nothing is done
not even a lyric
worthy to hum

The Story of the Weeds at Howard Beach

I stepped out onto the A train's Howard Beach Station's Manhattan bound platform and walked past a few people I had seen on the airplane who had beat me through the hub-bub of the airport only to end up waiting together, again, with our suitcases and nonchalant faces as we try to continue pretending we didn't just spend the last six hours on the same flight from a place very different from the one we now found ourselves in. There are other people at the other end of the platform - unfamiliar faces. I walk towards them and wait somewhere in between, darting glances from the people, their clothes and early morning faces in the low sunlight and heavy shadows, to the tracks that curve behind concrete walls and metal fences, weeds and trees, industrial buildings and powerlines. No A train. Eyes catch sight of new comers to the platform and follow their shadows until they too found their in between spot to wait and dart glances at the others and down the tracks carrying no train, only expectations and anticipation.

My flight left Portland, Oregon at 11:59PM after a full day of berry picking, wine tasting, and indulgent dining. Despite the ear plugs and eye mask doled to me by the flight attendant - and a definite physical and mental need for sleep - I remained extremely uncomfortable for 6 hours listening to old men with thin hair snore as I shuffled in my seat between two sleeping women wearing eye masks and ear plugs, one hunched over the folding tray table, the other blocking my aisle access to the restroom. The first calm I felt was when I realized the cabin was filled with a faint and familiar blue light that washed out the flashes and strobes of color splashed about from individual televisions mounted within the back of every seat and two feet from every face. A man had opened his window to the cool blue morning light.

Everything was still on the platform. No wind. No hurried movements. No vibrations from passing or approaching trains. And more people. A young boy dressed in banker's attire carrying not a briefcase but a mesh bag with athletic apparel, off to some private school perhaps, to be molded into civilized man, a corporate patriot, hollow, as his iPod filled his ears with music and the weeds sprouting up between the railroad ties and white crushed rocks remained still in the cool morning sun. I desperately wanted the train to come. Me and everyone else on that concrete platform. I sat on my suitcase and tuned out the banter of some long island girls' nightlife stories in their yawning accents. Buh. Even they cocked their heads between sentences to peer down the tracks. No A train.

It was 9AM on a Wednesday morning. Rush hour and on the eastern end of the A line not a train passed. Nothing, not even a sound to carry this tired body back into the bloodless bustle of the city. An old man in an old suit tapped his cane and scowled as he turned away from the direction we all hated. Faces faced watches and clocks, then tracks, then concrete and steel, perhaps the shoes of others waiting, then back to the tracks. I felt awful. Impatient, anxious, confounded and annoyed, I sat staring at the weeds, tall between the transfer tracks and green against a gray landscape. The more I looked at them the more calm I felt and it occurred to me that there was a whole different world buried underneath the tracks, the concrete, the platform and train station, beneath our feet was a world imprisoned, held at bay beneath these heavy breathless structures and concepts.

Just a few days earlier I was walking the path back from where Tahkenitch Creek emptied into the Pacific Ocean after winding through mountainous dunes of white sand and ancient coastal forest and feeling the life of the soil give beneath each step of my bare feet, tired and sore after walking through the entire duration of marine storm along a completely deserted stretch of beach. I had never hiked so long with bare feet, from beach, to dune, to grass, leaf, pine-needled and pebbled path. The body of the earth in direct contact to my skin and my nerves, an intimate connection. And I could feel all the spaces of air between the surface of the soil and that which lives beneath. It felt light and alive, like I was walking on the back of giant animal. Living. Breathing.

There was a slight tremble beneath my feet and as I looked away from the weeds I could see others' heads turned in the same direction, suitcases lifting and rolling towards the edge of the platform. From around the concrete bend and shining sliver in the morning sun came the A train, rumbling towards the station of hungry faces relieved of their doubts, their grudges and anticipation, some still annoyed that the train was not there earlier and lifted their suitcases curmudgeonly to board the train as it roared past in metallic flare with breaks screeching it to a sudden yet graceful halt.

On the trainride into the city the image of the weeds faded behind tired eyes and a colorful display of skin, hair, and garb. So many people from so many different paths convened in this one subway car, breathing the same stale air and all believing that we're going somewhere so that we don't have to acknowledge one another in this small dingy cabin where we are all in passing despite sitting or standing shoulder to shoulder while the cars jostle and scream along the steel rails of Manhattan bound track.

del nuevo

^^^ the view from the room I moved into ^^^

ROOTED

It's not so easy to <||up and leave||>
I wanted to get out of this hostile place
go to Portland, Oregon
live close to forests and mountains
breathe fresh air

but as I try to lift my legs west I find them ~||rooted|\~ in Brooklyn
ties not easily broken
I feel like a seed that blew into the city from a far away place
caught in some crack in the concrete
and with time sprouted
reached for the sun and grew tall
trying to escape the fissure I fell into
unaware that as I branched upwards and outwards I extended down and through
below the surface of this desolate circus
now unable to move
<<<‡>>>
but the summer sun is so good to me
and I sway in the salty atlantic breezes
just another weed in this jun≈g|l|/|≈|≈/≈|e

seduced to stay - still, I cannot say

New York City is wooing me in a summer seduction: feathers, flesh and diamonds dripping from the lips of her godless city grin. Bamboozled and boozed and suckered by material moves - these whores are good at what they do! with her fetid perfumes rising from the scorched sidewalks she talks in tongues that only eyes can walk across, twisting once, twice, around and through, I lost my soul over a drink with you - came crawling back in the middle of the night, howling unrest in lust and breast, tooth and time could buy me a line down her streets and underneath sheets only to wake in the morning heat. Again! Again! the thrill is so cheap, when the sun goes down you can buy me some drinks, make my head spin and sway in defiant electric daze. Brooklyn buzzing in my ears so sweet, sipped the nectar and swept off my feet.

hope is an island

hope is an island

crashing against the waves of adversity

overcome by a rising sea

conquered and colonized by the civilized

clearcut and fucked up by men with dreams

OH ISLAND CITY YOUR TOWERS REVERED

by hollow breasts that beat with time

sink in your streets and suffer your crimes

while the rivers on your sides all drown in sludge

from the lands you've raped and people you loved

SHE IS THE DESTROYER

riding headless and hopeless on dark muscular fear

trampling all under the sharp hooves of desperation

her salvation forsaken

her fists in the air

still gripping the reigns as if they'd lead her somewhere

THERE'S AN ISLAND IN YOU & THERE'S AN ISLAND IN ME

separated by the corpse of the sea

from atop my mountain and the tallest tree

I gaze out towards you as far as I can see

over the waves of refuse and decay

upon your shores there are children at play

and beyond them stretch a few streets of gold

into the city of a fist that you hold

up rise your towers, the beacons of fear

that scan and devour the horizon

looking for an island

to take at your will

Hello Apocalypse

Hello Apocalypse

creeping in the shadows for years, the apocalypse has now taken center stage in the final act of this pitiful opera that is western civilization. From my front row new york city seat I don't know whether to stand and applaud or shriek in horror at the sight of this monstrous force that will change everything forever in the years to come. Looming ever so tall in front of me is the largest tower the world has ever seen and it's beginning to crumble under its own weight, massive chunks of concrete and steel are falling from great heights and crashing on the ground before me as the whole structure totters and groans - very soon the whole thing will come thrashing down in a monumental collapse, perhaps destroying everything surrounding it. After this, there will be chaos like never before. Those who survive and have hope will band together and try to live off the land in small communities. Those with fear will kill, ravage, and steal from the communities of hope. Our barbarism will be revealed to us when the mask of civilization is no more.

I'd like to believe this is just some fanciful science fiction or one of the many hysterical apocalyptic projections - but no, this is the near future. All the signs in current events point in this direction: the frequency of severe weather and the damages it causes to civilization; world wide economic decline; world food shortages; energy shortages; depletion of resources; the lack of structural flexibility (everything built around oil and natural gas); overpopulation; rampant environmental destruction and extinction; denial; distraction; carelessness; individualism and greed.

If you've one of the few who have managed to detach yourself from this structure in any way, big or small - or can at least step outside it for a moment to gain some perspective - join me in the celebration of the end of western civilization! Finally, one of the most destructive forces in existence is on its way out. At the same time, prepare yourself for survival. Those of us in tune with the more natural order have felt a strong calling to return to the land, and many of my good friends have begun to make this move, to learn horticulture and husbandry in a sustainable manner. Though not all will be cultivators, each of us will have our calling, some may be suddenly drawn to hunting, others to arms or natural building techniques.

I know in some ways I probably sound like some scarebrained hillbilly ranting about the alien invasion - but, seriously, it doesn't take much more than common sense to see this one coming. If you haven't felt it in some way, shape or form, you've got to be an expert in denial or severely numbed by the soma you're fed from western civ's sugar tits. Like an animal before the onslaught of a storm, I feel it in my every being - but perhaps I'm just a crazy uncivilized beast!

Who knew the amish would be so well suited to survive the apocalypse?

NYC got nothin on me

i'm floating in this city and feels great
nothing left to fight for
no home, no hope, no worry
just watch as it burns itself down
step six feet back into the sky
from bridges above this candy skyline
nothing to hold in these dirty hands of mine
no dream to reach for
no reason to try

two eyes and two wheels
I cruise through the lines
past suits and heels and children telling time
while gypsies and whores hawk from behind

this is no land of mine
this make-believe world of money without crime
has nothing on me but a rhythm and a rhyme

|||hotter than sin, this mess we're all in
|||streets that stink of decaying flesh
|||heat waves and blackouts
|||make summer daze
|||/lost in island asphalt haze



Looks like I'm staying in the city for the summer. Hot yoga taught me to appreciate sweat. I bike through the hot streets, cars pass like scorching bullets ready to burn, breathing out blistering machine blown air in my face. Children play in the sun and whatever water they can find, splashing in the gutters with their bare feet. The parks are a pathetic paradise. In the shade of the London Plane, a sanctuary from the drone of the city and the length of the day.

I'll be moving into a new living situation in August. I'm looking forward to it. I want to have a positive home-life before I kick this city to the sea and plant myself on a farm far away from the clutches of this culture. Besides, it's a sinking ship anyways and I can't really stand to watch them add another "new" ("green") coat of paint to this rusty hollow hull and try to sell it as salvation. New York City... still re-inventing the wheel after all these years.... and people are still buying it....

A lesson learned: never trust a smoker. anyone who is willing to harm themselves will have no problem harming others. truth.

if you're reading this and you're a smoker, take care of yourself, love whoever you are, love life. There's no need to harm yourself. The only way you can truly care for others is if you first learn to care for yourself. It's never too late to turn things around. Start today. Start right now. Find your inner beauty and fall in love. You'll never hurt what you appreciate and love.

Hills of Sleeping Horses

my horse is dead
run over by an suv
my dog forced from me
by cruel and empty threats
a friendship maimed
false power gained
beat down in this city
by the fists all fighting for fame

let her ride her high horse
she needs it
frail heart
frail mind
an illusion of authority
from her soapbox she decries

in this corporate kingdom
castles built out of lies
glamorous parapets guard against a hollow inside
seated at the throne: science, progress, and pride

I can see right through this beautiful shell of you
sold your pearl for a slice of pie
holding your ticket for a turn in line
telling yourself you'll make it in time
rise in the ranks of this hierarchical prank
believing you're happy when your only tied in
turn the crank
unleash the sin
contributing your life to this mess we're all in

you lured me close only to push me away
sold your heart to get rid of the pain
as you whore yourself to fabulous fortune and fame
masked in virtue
a poster child for the new
same brand repackaged
as more to consume

and I want to believe and to forgive
believe that inside there is hope for sunrise
mend this broken hand and forgive these crimes
forgive people and this city
believe that they care and want to learn to change

still clinging in fear to the culture they revere
New York has them bound by their feet
never forget this city has no soul
they will rape me again the first chance I give
save my love for those who want nothing to hold

too good for the city
I will always offer my love
to those who are without
to the city of none

so rape me, my friend
with your smiles of concrete
fortune and fame never stung so sweet
drag me across your broken sidewalks and streets
you will never destroy what you cannot defeat
your threats and violence are useless to my ears
you cannot control what has no fear




artwork by Paul Antonson

taking the hits

This city all over again

pulling my arms, pulling me in

to this glowing hot waffle iron grid


"C'mere bitch! You thought you could leave?"

hit me with an SUV

bike smashed

arms scraped

and I walk away


How have I lived this long?

How did I survive that with only a scrape?

What am I doing living in this hostile place?


I could bark a million questions into the wind

hear a million voices echo within

and still I'd keep taking the hits


this city is a fist and I'm black and blue

a bloody pulp still beat until dry

but these tears held in

too many reasons to cry

a broken heart

a broken mind

broken dreams and 8 million lies


I surrender to you, New York

I care not to try

your game is hollow

your only virtue: pride

destroy me while you can

this bloody mess you've made of a pure hearted man

New York City is a Nuclear Bomb

It has to be admitted, permitted into dialogue, confessed, accepted:

New York City - one of the "greatest" cities in the world - is an ecological disaster, an eye sore on the planet, comparable to a nuclear wasteland. This is the dying heart of the war machine that breeds destruction all across the globe, propagating it's hostile culture generation upon generation, while raping other cultures in an attempt to satisfy it's appetite for exploitation and domination.

There's no way in hell this city could go green. For it to be green would mean to undo a century or more of ecocide - it would mean that the city would have to die and be reborn from it's own ashes with an entirely new purpose for existing - not commerce, not profit, not grandeur and luxury, excess and pride. This beast's heart is still raging and will not pitter out or change easily. If anything, it'll explode - implode, rather.

I've tried it. I've been here and I've honestly embraced as much of this monstrosity as I could without being completely repulsed. It's just not for me. I grew up outdoors, playing in fields and along irrigation canals. I'm from a different culture. I speak the language of the land.

Of course, the dominant western culture was shoved down my throat, forced into my veins through television and the educational system. I had no choice but to drink the poison. And it made me sick, maimed and tamed me - domesticated me like a house dog or zoo animal.

Then I spent time in the desert and the rain forest. Listened to the voices I had known as a child. Let heal. Let go.

But western culture is so good at domination that it perhaps never fully left me. I was always hooked in some way, surfing on its flawed structures, dependent on the resources it took by force and offered me with so many easy choices that any alternative was beyond recognition.

I can't say why I came to New York - the belly of the beast - other than that I was drawn here by the mystery of it all. The cities I knew of in the west were still small craters in the vast and open spaces of the landscape. Nature was never too far away and always felt like a greater force than the city, looming in the mountains that never leave the horizon. But here you get the feeling that the city really did conquer nature. There is no reminder. Everything living is domesticated in some way - forced to live in a very controlled and bleak environment.

It's funny because sometimes I'm fooled into believing that I'm experiencing nature here - when the trees are all in bloom or when I'm walking through the parks - but it's just a prop, an artifact, manipulated and poised for the purpose of serving man's interest. If the trees in the city existed for themselves no one would have planted them. Sure, they make it look nicer here. If this city had no trees it would be absolutely intolerable - but it would reveal what a wasteland it really is. The trees are prisoners forced into 3x3 squares in concrete, their roots suffocating under asphalt, sprayed with dog urine and herbicide - all so city dwellers can go on pretending like everything is okay - "look, how beautiful, spring in New York!"

And I'll confess I'm guilty of these crimes. I've fallen prey to this city on several occasions. It's so easy to. But I'm learning with each time I get hooked in that it's just a gimmick to keep me satisfied, to keep me spending my money and my time here, to keep turning the wheel and propagating this war machine.

I often liken myself to the savage, John, in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and his experience in the World State (huge city) after being brought there by Bernard. It's clear that he's so alien to the city, from another order (nature), and can see it's emptiness and wickedness, while everyone else finds him attractive for his novelty - a new commodity to be exploited, dominated, manipulated and sold.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself. In a way I feel like if I retreat this island I'll be giving up too soon. On the other hand, I feel like I'm hypersensitive to environments and cultures and can clearly detect the inimical effects of living here. Staying in this city is only subscribing to it's destructiveness, supporting the war machine by paying taxes here, and promoting the lifestyle and culture by participating in the structure. Granted, I'm clearly not living the typical New York lifestlye (I shop at the coop, work for a non-profit environmental organization that educates the city's imprisoned youth, and ride my bike - to name a few).

I mean, I came here thinking if I could change or influence New York I could change anything. But is that not also a desire to manipulate and control? Even if it is for the good of the planet? I'm starting to wonder if the best way to stop this behemoth of a civilization is to leave it - rather than try to dismantle it from within. Is it time to jump ship? I have a plan and a life boat.

Bombs and Babies = Destruction

so I've given in to New York - wooed with blossoms and soft warm air.

I'm a deity of warm weather - and people take notice

as I also notice other people, now divulged from their chrysalis of cashmere and wool

bight colors on bronzed skin

so many beautiful people

how am I single?

Yet I have the whole city to share a romance with

a bike that can take me anywhere, anytime

I'm kinda in love with it all right now

and then I see babies....

I mean not to offend, but to have a baby at this time in the evolution of life is..... so selfish. The amount of resources that a human life requires while living within this techno-industrial civilization is simply criminal. Any yet, it's spring and there are women all chatter with baby fever, mom's with strollers, and children sprouting up through the sidewalks like dandelions.

There's this great idea I have where all babies, or fetuses, would be property of the state until the parents could prove, through a comprehensive application process, that they would be suitable to raise the child. If a child was born illegally, it would be seized, the parents fined, and placed for adoption. Basically all children would have to be adopted, just some would be adopted by their birth parents. I know this sounds slightly like orwellian state-control madness, but it would be effective at ending overpopulation and irresponsible parenthood. If only the state wasn't run by corrupt corporocrats....

eventhough Nueva York is seducing me right now in a serendipitous splendor , I haven't lost sight of the state of the world. If anything, I feel more alive and more concerned, more impassioned - all this beauty is worth the struggle to save it from careless and greedy human destruction.

I'll leave with a few quotes from a book that I'm reading, "Listening to the Land" by Derrick Jensen, recommended by a friend of mine who's a truly beautiful human being, working hard to make a positive impact in the urban environment - and elsewhere.

"The history of the world has been a parade of doomed civilizations, some noble, some corrupt, all of which thoughtlessly destroyed their ecological base. We may be following that same march to oblivion, unless we have the courage to change.... Our particular culture has become so inimical to life that in the next generation it's going to destroy one-third to one-half the species on this planet."
- Christopher Manes

"you can't take a California Condor out of the wild and put it in the L.A. zoo and still have a Condor, because the being of the Condor does not end at those black feathers at the tips of its wings. It's the rising thermals over the Coast Range. It's the rocky crag where she lays her egg. It's the carrion she feeds on. The Condor is place... and we are place too."
- Dave Foreman

Yet here we are in this zoo of artifice, concrete and steel - lost from our place and clueless where to find it. Throughout the book each conversation evokes a similar call - that of courage. Courage is what makes someone capable of facing extreme danger and difficulty without retreating. It implies not only bravery and dauntless sprit but the ability to endure in times of adversity.

Can we let go of this culture we know and hold so dear? Can we relinquish our fear of the unknown, be brave and listen to the land so it may guide us to our place?

Be Brave. Have Courage.

....and Love

Urban Doggie

Photos of BC and I at Brooklyn Bridge Park in D.U.M.B.O. today.

a pitbull, a knife wound and a good deed

His barks scrape through me

one after another

growing hoarse and hopeless

but still crying out for what?

I hear myself in his raspy call

the same desperate longing

all this hot breath into cool spring air

only to be carried along with fallen flower petals

down and out amongst the howling city sounds

Was I wrong to think I could save a life?

"That's a good thing you're doing"

and at least he's not dead

but still, he barks because he's alone

the time I have to give isn't enough

and never will be - this is temporary

so now I carry his hulking cries along with my own

a companion in my crime of virtue

reminding me with every harrowing yelp

that I will come home to an empty house of chores

cook and eat my meals in solitude

seek out the little that sustains me

before this consciousness abandons me

leaving me to dream alone in my bed

howling in my sleep for what I'll never have


Hah! I read this over and it sounds so pathetic. I guess it's okay to "be" pathetic at times.
But really, there are times when I feel so terribly alone and I wonder if everyone has these moments in their lives.
And why do we feel alone? Why do we bark? What it is we are howling for?

ADDENDUM

The lyric above is an attempt at communicating a complex matrix of emotion, a moment's feeling fluxing into the next. What it means is irrelevant. What it evokes - a complex thought or feeling perhaps - is all.

Fostering a pitbull hasn't been the easiest thing I've ever done. Over the past few days I've been asking myself why I did this - which leads to thoughts about why I choose such things for my life: service and volunteer work, teaching inner city and at-risk youth, environmental activism, riding a bike instead of driving a car, eating vegetarian or vegan, scrupulous consumerism and cooperative living, and on and on.... any of these things aren't easy in themselves and yet I think I can do them all at once. Why do I choose to make my life difficult? Why do I make myself suffer such hardship?

Don't misinterpret the text here. I'm not complaining, just asking why - as a critic. I mean, there's a reason not many other people do this kind of stuff. It's fucking hard. Why am I drawn to it?

It's a question I'd like to explore. Am I really getting anything out of it that I wouldn't be getting if I were working for a huge corporation or some fancy firm? What if I spent my time on a yacht or in a laboratory? And am I doing these things because I'm looking to gain something in return? something that isn't money? Or do I do it simply because I enjoy it?

Questions barking into the wind....