By Godsil
People’s History
It’s the history of regular people That’s best for the soul of humanity These days.
It’s the common sense of regular people That will save us from the dreadful.
People’s history given voice Is what our children need and crave.
Allowing My Rage Clear Passage
In deference to my eldest And in consultation with the Friend, I have edited a poem For the better.
Have you ever been
Inspired by a Roy?
Have you ever found yourself In the presence of a Roy Whose breathtaking venality Coupled with a Faustian deal Awakened energies You dare not dream of Steering?
Have you ever been so inspired By your Roy?
I have.
It’s grand. To survive Share the story Keep your eye On the prize.
In bits and pieces
Over the next 38 years…
I’ll tell the story of How my bitter enemy Was transformed into… My sweet friend.
What has Roy done
To become my sweet friend?
That’s the story I’ll share Over the next 38 years, God willing.
I’ll invite Roy
To tell his story too!
Olde
Life the Day After I Was Inspired by My Roy
I was so engage The night of the day I was so inspired by my Roy That I went to bed at 6 p.m. And slept until 6 a.m.—12 hours!
I awoke refreshed and Filled with resolve, Grateful for yet another day.
I told two of my golden partners the full story, And was inspired by their powerful and deft response.
Beauty and grace will be nice to enjoy, they both said By their actions and their words.
I met and talked with a wonderful group of people In the trenches of the bio-diversity cause. They inspired and comforted me.
I fixed a tricky leak on a roof high up, And taught a young apprentice Some of the truths of my trade.
I returned home to my loving daughter Who shared good news about her new life.
And I danced.
Olde
Everyday Popes and Elder Queens: In Harmony
Manic moments, sublime,
Marbles lost in ‘99,
Then again, in ‘01,
Unspeakable despair,
Not fun.
Everyday Popes And emerging Elder Queens Cannot be… At every battle waged.
But their reach can be long And their presence deeply felt.
Be not afraid In this highly painful World of being.
I’ll do my best.
But be careful…
Not to ask me…
To exceed…
My destiny.
We are not afraid.
We shall overcome.
Why not?
Olde
Good Food and Beauty at Shorewood High!
Eric Gietzen told me that Aldo Leopold,
Perhaps in “Sand County Almanac,”
Said that history is the land.
Land creates its own destiny.
It’s natural potential manifests. And…
We can be land’s partners.
The Shorewood High City Farm
Manifests the Call of the Land.
The Full Circle Stamp:
From “Grasses,
To Classes, to Chases”…
And Back to Grasses,
Greens, Fruits and Veggies!
Eric found a student-made stamp
Of the very sight to become
Quite possibly, a Great Lakes destination:
A Student/Community City Farm Project.
The stamp celebrated the arrival of
The asphalt parking lot!
From grasses, to classes, to chasses.
And now we’re coming full circle.
Erik, Mark, Linda and Mark Keane, Martha Kipchak, and others,
While walking a month past the asphalt parking lot
In a no-use state, Felt the pull of the land.
“Why that parking lot?”
“Life went on quite well without those cars
In our midsts.”
The land called for a more enlightened use.
And the Shorewood High City Farm was born!
Godsil
Bodhisattva Pancakes at the Riverwest Cafe Co-op
Dear Sweet Ones of the Blueberry Pancake Moments,
If one of us gathers in our Name We can all be there enough To enjoy.
I will be in Brooklyn this Sunday Searching for Blueberry Pancake Moments Beyond the Holy City.
Saturday night, October 27, 2007, Is my daughter Rachel’s 40th Birthday party, I pray I’m am blessed to attend.
At what age does the child become the parent?
Rachel has been a child so pleasing to experience It frightens me!
I miss Fathi and Madame Gay!
And each of you!
I wish I had the wherewithal to
Have bodhisattva pancakes in Brooklyn
With each of you.
Olde
When London Farmers Prepared to Meet Milwaukee’s Will Allen Growing Power
Dear Jeanette,
I had heard about a gentle giant professional basketball player Working wonders with wastes and worms and kids in the ‘hood But was too busy with life as usual to check this out closer.
But then a gay neighbor who opened a lovely art bar Was shot by a 15 year old kid from the hood In Riverwest, Milwaukee, where I was once “mayor.”
The citizens of Riverwest responded with mind and heart, Inspiring me to “do something” and I did… I drove about 20 minutes to check out this Will Allen Growing Power.
And because of that I now find myself working with Will and his team And dreaming of witnessing profound transformations of communities Across the planet, one school or neighborhood garden/farm at a time.
And welcoming connections with good people like yourself from London,
And nourishing visions of mighty collaborations that make a mark,
And eating perfect cherry tomatoes and arugula from my backyard “farm.”
Viva, London Farmers! Viva, Growing Power!
It’s the ‘Hood, Sweet One
It’s not now Hitler, nor Stalin, Not fascists, not commies.
It’s not the KKK,
Not even Al Queda.
It’s us. It’s us!
Only we, can
Green our ‘hoods.
Green our selves. Grow beloved communities.
Re-Spirit our sacred cities Of holy ‘hoods.
10,000 Reasons Why Milwaukee Will Win a Nobel Peace Prize by 2002
Mathi Now Fathi
Who could doubt Milwaukee’s evolution in the direction of…
The first city To win A Nobel Peace Prize…
The first neighborhood, Riverwest,
To win
A Nobel Peace Prize…
Who could doubt these Common sense visions When Sons of Africa, South Africa, North Africa,
Like Mathi and Fathi…
Bring their bags of Mindful Holiness, To “Our Milwaukee” and Riverwest.
I Love This Game and Drama
I don’t get every pitch over the plate. I don’t hit the ball solid with every swing. I don’t make every free throw. I don’t catch every pass. I don’t ace every test. I don’t practice perfectly every project.
I love this game and drama!
A new David vs. Goliath
I’m tired of slinging stones at Goliath. My arm is sore, And he’s of little use when dead
I think I’ll try to deal with Goliath, With music, poetry, and dance for a time.
Maybe at the Avalon Theater reopening celebration.
I’ll share the results of this experiment over blueberry pancackes at the Riverwest Co-Op if this story interests you.
We are each others treasure!
All the way up,
All the way down.
The finest meals,
the most eloquent bouquets.
Sublime gardens, sweetly laughing children.
When Fantasies Materialize
My lovely brain’s euphoria networks Dance with delight When images from My mind’s eye of yesterday Embody.
And even more so
When those embodiments
Exceed my farthest reaching
Visioning.
Joya’s great work reaches far beyond My utopian projections at the start of This on-line project to help spark Some kind of renaissance in Old Milwaukee, becoming something like a Holy City on the Sweet Water Seas.
My Dad’s Going to Africa
My Dad Is Going to Africa
Don’t ask me why but it’s feeling inescapable.
Mother Mary and Jacky Robinson
There have been signs of this since his Mother Mary Looked warmly at ease with Old Bud and let him know Jimmy was still a bit anxious about Walking a block and a half down the street To the tavern where Bud cleaned up And took care of the basics.
Or the lovely very dark girl his age at the A & P on Grand Avenue, A few blocks south from Busch Stadium, where Jacky Robinson Hit home runs for the people from down South who came in droves To celebrate one of their most beautiful sons astonish the world.
The Black Irish of St. Louis
Or “his” Dad, so dark in St. Louis summers back around the days
of the East St. Louis “race riot,” when Warren Harding was in ascendancy, So black-Irish dark that the light ones called him N…. Joe (as they did Dad and his best friend “Rocky” back in the South St. Louis of the 1950s).
I could go on all night about Dad’s childhood and youthful experiences
That were most fertile soil for the luxuriant growth in his mind’s eye
I’ll call for now the African Return.
We Are All Children of the African Diaspora
This is what he constantly told us growing up, calling upon the authority Of Harvard, Oxford, the Sorbonne, Stanford, the the top universities of The great nations of Spain, Germany, Italy, the Scandinavian lands, The top scientists of Asia, Africa, the highest planetary intellectuals… And more, they all told him to tell us and live his life as if we were All children of the African Diaspora. Because, he said…we are.
We’ve Only Recently Become Citified
And that’s not all. The evolutionary psychologists and evolutionary biologists Have joined with the best sociologists, anthropologists, and historians To the effect that our lifetimes as city dwellers in highly bureaucratized societies Are just a blink of the eye in the drama of our unfolding from the primal stuff Of this totally miraculous planet throttling through time and space in Some kind of cosmic orchestration so intensely profound we perhaps must Distract ourselves from its fullest meaning because our neurological infrastructure Is not just quite now up to facing this cosmic burning bush with our eyes wide open.
Surplus Suffering Is Boring
Many of us he went on and one are entombed in jobs and ways of living
That add surplus pain to this aleady highly painful world of being.
Pain that does not have to be but for this thought or that line of reasoning,
This good habit would erase, as would that friend or this friend
With expert knowledge freely given…
If simply asked.
To Know Ourselves We Must Know the Bonobos
So our hard wiring, he would say, and hear his friends say, Has evolved in the main from time spent in Mother Africa. But more than that. If 98% of our DNA is the same as our primate cousins The chimpanzees and bonobos, which shared DNA blossomed in the biosphere Over millions and millions of years, then it stands to reason, he intoned, That to know ourselves, surely a basic ethical life desiderata, We must do our best to know ourselves through space and time, Back to the Great Duration, the eons when we lived in the forests of Africa, In the plains of Africa, evolving from the common ancestors that hived off We humans, the chimpanzees, and the bonobos.
Egads, Look at What We’ve Done of Late!
This knowing ourselves is not just some kind of conceit. If the immediate past is a good predictor of the immediate future, The record of the human race with its… Hiroshimas, great city fire bombings, Gas and torture chambers, profligacy for the sake of fragile, status-seeking egos/ids, Iron laws of oligarchy and destructive oscillations toward extreme prudery and extreme license…
Let Us Accelerate Our Adaptations and Evolutionary Gropings
The record of the human race suggests the merit of accelerating our self-awareness/understanding
Lest we destroy ourselves and the rest of sentient life on earth.
International Partnerships for Bonobo and Congo Bio-diversity Initiatives
But the bonobos to be “studied” require more than treatment of scientific inspection. They demand a partnership for survival and unfolding self-awareness of us and even them! The bonobos will most richly inform us of the riddles of our existence if and only if We partner with them and the humans in the zoos and those in the forest In natural and “constructed” eco-systems like the Solanga National Forest the the Milwaukee Zoo. The bonobos chances of surviving the rampaging machinery of globalization
And ancient patterns of human greed, aggression, and wanton aggrandizement Will decrease in proportion to the degree to which imaginative planetary partnerships Are constructed to support the evolutionary gropings and adaptations of the People of the Congo and their partners from the rest of the world.
to be continued…
There’s Life for Me in My Dad’s Backyard!
There’s life for me In my Dad’s backyard!
The sweetest cherry tomatoes I’ve ever had!
Wood chips, veggie surplus, Brewers yeast, coffee grounds…straw, Throwing out heat for our winter hoop house, Food for our 10,000 red wriggler worms all year round, Who make love with our soil And give birth to beautiful black gold.
Out black gold is a soil so nutrient rich That red radishes, dark green spinach, Red chard, light green peas, Giant yellow sunflowers…arugula and mescline mix Seem to grow overnight!
Our red raspberries are 5 to 6 ft. high!
We’ve 5 tomato varieties fit for the Riviera.
And now this incredible Riverwest artist, Shawn Gurath, has painted two giant horses Two doves, and either a burning bush Or the new Eden’s apple tree In a backdrop of perrywinkle blue On our once ugly garage wall We see upon looking out our kitchen window.
This backyard alive is in a quite working class ‘hood
In a community of 5 emerging planetary villages in…
Bay View, Wisconsin, On a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan!
I love my Father’s house!
Olde
Happy Fathers Day From Jung and Olde
Please know that I know, blessed with the Day-to-day genius of Mother Mary Patricia Donnelly Godsil,
The Jungian gift of animus and anima, The Budhist notion of ying and yang,
Gaian notions of Father Sun and Mother Earth, Evolutionary psychology’s discovery of the matriarchal bonobos…
Please know that I know, blessed with all of that and more…
Sufi mystic poets Rumi and Hafiz
Walt Whitman and Billy Jean King…
I know that it is entirely fitting and appropriate For me and a growing throng
To wish you Happy Father’s Day today!
You are Father to many good things.
Chaordically!
You have many miraculous Father gifts For your sweet ones.
We love your Mom aspect! We love your Dad aspect!
You are helping raise fine families, Clans, villages, and someday nations, creating…
Some new kind of civilization
That transcends the brutal one
We must quickly surpass.
You are key to the new civilization we’re building, Your mom and your dad manifestations.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Jung and Olde
Some of these were read at The Wormfarm Institute’s Reenchantment of Agriculture Poetry Night Friday July 13, 2006 Village Booksmith 526 Oak Street, Baraboo
Happy Fathers Day Al Montesi
Happy Fathers Day Al!
I think this is the first Fathers Day I’ve had without Al.
I absolutely loved the day when talking on the phone with Al
That I told him I could not resist calling him “Daddy” or “Papa.”
He was one of my most important spiritual Fathers.
But his sense of modest and irony
Prevented my calling that concept to his attention.
Milwaukee trembles a bit In excitement and sometimes fear At the small, very small doses of Montesi I have been offering the culture up here.
Al has offered a vision of sober white men
Dancing in the streets of St. Louis and Milwaukee,
Spontaneous, exuberant, joyful
At awakening to some of the divine pleasures
Sweet Al introduced so many too.
He really was superb in addressing the
Dreadful spiritual malaise
(“the dreadfall has happened”)
Afflicting Euro-American males.
And in blazing some trails Leading to a myriad of Appropriate responses To the same.
Primary among them…the exortation
Bellowed and whispered to…
Live!
Confessions of a Sissy Roofer
I love my sissy roofer self. Sissy roofers are a very good thing!
Sissy roofers wear gloves while working,
So their hands don’t turn to hooves.
Sissy roofers wear knee pads while kneeling, So their knees don’t fail them before they’re 40!
Sissy roofers send their friends to AA Or family therapists, Instead of tying one on with the bubbas And whining about their lot.
Sissy roofers loathe Rush Limbaugh,
Preferring MPR. They voted for
Adalai, JFK, LBJ, Jimmy,
And now tilt toward Obama.
Sissy roofers partner with strong women,
And look forward to the day
When the corporate boys wake up and
Offer 50 pound bundles, so
Women, elders, and small bodied peoples
Can ply our nobel trade.
Sissy roofers are like the harpooners of Moby Dick, Except they would never wish to harpoon a whale these days. They would rather ride whales, in the sea and on the land.
Sissy roofers read the mystic poets of all of God’s children,
To help them deal when a comrade falls to brain injury or death.
Sissy roofers are obsessive about the use of time… And attention to detail. If you waste time, you make no money. If you can’t create a roof That’s like a 100 page manuscript without one typo, You make no money.
Sissy roofers read the Greek tragedians, To find support in facing up to this highly painful world of being.
Sissy roofers have a chance to climb high on the roofs at 60. Macho roofers are done for, in the main, around 40.
Sissy roofers drink fine coffees at cyber cafes And waft e-mails to sweet ones to bring closer the day When the people awaken to the Holy City They made of Milwaukee over the course of A mere 5 centuries.
Sissy roofers have more fun. They make more money. They win respect. They respect themselves.
Viva, Sissy Roofers!
Olde
The Mouse and the Worm Transformed Milwaukee
There was a time when everyday people Were too disconnected to intensely engage and prevail In turf and other struggles with the commercial classes.
But then the mouse of the internet connected them so well That powerful visions spread like prairie fire And quite “small” people became quite large And began to prevail and save sacred buildings and sacred spaces In the face of outraged opposition from the commercial classes.
There was also a time when everyday people Were too disconnected from their ancestral power To grow healthy and tasty food in their yards and ‘hoods.
But then the worms of Will Allen’s Growing Power Were spread so widely to the four season kitchen and community Gardens that Milwaukee awakened to the folly of reliance on Food from distant places grown primarily for profit and often With frightening disregard for health, safety, and evolution.
And 10,000 gardens blossomed in neighborhoods once written off As ghetto and violent and ugly, and the people reconnected with Nature, used waste products for radiant energy, Became strong and sure enough to ask neighbors for favors And found themselves walking the sidewalks and biking the streets Past corner community gardens of beauty and conviviality.
The mouse helped connect people in the realm of mind. The worms helped connect people in the realm of body. The mouse and the worms helped connect people in the realm of …Soul!
Can I Live My Life in Such a Way?
Can I live my life in such a way That I water my plants In perfect peace Each day?
The Marriage of Art, Preservation, and Urban Agriculture
Imagine the power and the grace that would ensue From a marriage of art, preservation, and urban agriculture!
Beauty, meaning, and fine food conjoined, Locally created by neighbors and friends!
Art that grows from and with the local soil
And sacred places to enliven our minds
And ignite our proper passions.
Imagination and aesthetics as pathways To daily choices sustaining community and Public regarding self-reliance.
Why Not?
Olde
Thank God Plants Eat Sun and Make Bugs High
Autotrophy means plants make their own food.
Heterotrophy finds animals needing other organisms.
Plants eat the sun to make sugars and starch—photosynthesis.
Earth’s most profound chemical reaction.
Animals eat each other or our miraculous sun eating plants!
Plants also release the oxygyn we breath. Deep breathing bliss requires our green benefactors. And the roots and shoots of plants are…forever young!
Insects and birds get drunk on plants’ nectar. The wind at play and “high” insects or birds Spread that pollen for new rounds of glorious plant Oxygyn giving life.
No Peddlers Allowed
I’m sometimes torn when asked not to
Knock on a door and show the world’s wares.
On the one hand, all have the right to privacy. On the other, just who is this “all.”
Is there just one person in the house Who is irritated by my visits?
Does that person Lock the others’ doors?
And what if that person, Or the others, profoundly needs my wares, But does not quite yet know it?
After all, there is no question that
The barbarians are not just at the gates…
They are in our midsts! They are us!
We’ll just have a begin to gather facts, And give the truth its slow time to emerge.
Olde
Thank You For Your Continuous Resurrection
My body and my spirit quicken
With the news of your glorious and continuous
Resurrection!
I sometimes forget what power your presence
Shoots through my being!
How did you become
So beautiful?
Olde
Red White and Blue Are Now Green
Red, White, and Blue are now green, And Uncle Sam and Colonel Sanders Must re-invent themselves.
Uncle Sam needs a smart woman.
He’s not nearly subtle enough
For today’s crises.
Colonel Sanders is now an embarrassment. He’s far too greasy. As goofy as Joe Camel.
We must raise a green flag quickly. Red white and blue are now green. The barbarians are at the gates.
The most dangerous ones Are us.
All nation’s must raise their own specific Flags of green. ASAP!
We must change.
We can change.
We can do it.
Olde April, 2007
Dreaming of Life as an Avant Guard City Worm Farmer
I have visions of re-creating myself
After three score and two years
As an avant guard city worm farmer.
Worm farmers are at the edge of history, Transforming, with the worm’s help, Wastes into treasuresthe world’s most fertile soil!
Worm farmer take our waste products: cardboard,
Wood chips, brewers’ yeast, coffee grounds,
Veggie wastes from table, restaurant, and stores
Home to their ranch, say, a corner of a city backyard.
They layer this great harvest of good waste and Introduce some worms to this feasting grounds, Who process it into “worm castings” Otherwise called “black gold.”
Transcending Our Selves
Resistance lacking transcendance
Brings not community.
Community lacking transcendance
Brings not an evolving way.
We must overcome Not just oppressors.
But our selves.
Olde March 20, 2007
My Riverwest
Riverwest is well on it’s way To becoming the first neighborhood of the planet To win a nobel Peace Prize.
In the span of one generation Riverwest has self-transformed From a traumatized industrial working class community To a hope-filled urban village of worker gentry activists.
Riverwest is sacred ground for high proportions Of its pioneering sons and daughters, Committed to the realization of Dr. King’s dreams.
The people of Riverwest have worked tirelessly To build bridges across boundaries of race, class, Religion, gender, and more.
The people of Riverwest have self-consciously experimented In a myriad of projects to explore a political economy Where people, community, nature, and spirit matter.
The people of Riverwest have been the vanguard Re-spiriting Milwaukee, leading movements for Peace, social justice, historic preservation, Environmental stewardship, collective self-reliance.
The people of Riverwest are helping to
Save the Milwaukee River and
Transforming old worker homes into
Green habitats of great beauty.
They have been the original spark behind
The emergence of food co-ops and
Soon to be created edible playgrounds.
Riverwest is home to Timbuktu, the epicenter
For the convivial encounter of the races and classes
Breaking bread, dancing, and marking holy days with joy.
Riverwest is growing power For the people, mindfulness For Mother Earth.
Viva!
Riverwest!
Olde March 2007
Best and Highest Use
Imagine the kind of city we’ll have created When the “best and highest use” for vacant lots Is defined by our own Department of City Development As city gardens chaordically creating Community, self-reliance, and City farms.
Milwaukee Awakened and Saved the Soldiers Home
Could it be that the people of Milwaukee Will Save the Soldiers Home?
Could it be that these sacred buildings, These sacred grounds, Will ennoble Milwaukee, And the world beyond?
Will the good people of the Great Cities of the Great Lakes, Join with us to save these grounds, sanctified, at the start, In honor of those who gave the last full measure of devotion, In a war that ended 10,000 years, at least, Of state sanctioned slavery.
Do we have what it takes, to introduce the Veterans and civilians of the Great Cities of the Great Midwest, To to glory and the beauty of the Soldiers Home?
Can we organize ourselves to Save the Soldiers Home?
Do we have the capacity to reach out And win partners from the towns and countryside of Wisconsin,
Of Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri,
Indiana,
Michigan,
And Ohio?
Can we organize work teams Who would commit to introducing The Soldiers Home to the history students Of Great Lakes high schools?
Senior citizen centers?
Touched in the Head
If the earth really is The insane asylum of the universe, Our touched in the head Becomes, perhaps, A higher form of being.
Business Savvy
Business savvy is a good thing To cultivate as best we can. It requires the deepest kind Of self-confidence and Artful awareness of others, Whose exuberant partnering, Even if only for the sale Or the work-a-day chores, Is vital for survival.
City Farmers
City farmers are a vital Source of energy and light. They have a glow about them, As if some kind of beings, Totally and gracefully Embracing…being!
My Brain’s Euphoria Circuits
Laughter gets them going good, To open the door for my social brain’s arrival.
Derisive laughter…devolution. Laughter hierachies, to be overcome.
Laughter grow allies. Laughter, growing power. Laughter, spiritual food for humans!
Social networks, “social capital”… Are also neural pathways, Of incandescent majesty!
Light meets light!
Laughter…midwife.
Olde March 13, 2007
I Love the St. Patrick and St. Brigid Celebration at Timbuktu
It’s the most chaordic way to celebrate
The communion of St. Patrick with St. Brigid
And soap box orators with exuberant revellers.
I am totally fixed on a celebration at Timbuktu On the day when many of God’s children In the Holy City Of the Sweet Water Seas
Made it sacred for
St. Patrick and St. Brigid
To make a little love,
In the purest sense of the word.
March 17, 2007.
This is Year Number Five
Of these celebrations.
In the way that I pray, I pray to live to finally do Some dancing In Year Number Twenty Five.
St. Pat’s and Brigid’s at Timbuktu
Is good for your brain’s euphoria circuits.
Laughter, as much as you can stand,
Quite likely.
Laughter gets them(your brain’s euphoria circuits) going good, To open the door for your social brain’s arrival.
Laughter, spiritual food for humans!
Social networks, “social capital”…
Are also neural pathways,
Of incandescent majesty!
Light meets light!
Laughter…midwife.
Timbuktu…the place.
Incandescence,
To honor
The best of the Irish
That’s in all of us!
An oppressed race, Healing from Lots of trauma In this highly painful world Of being.
Having a good enough time of it.
We shall overcome.
This Saturday, March 17 Timbuktu in Riverwest On Center and Booth
5 p.m. until around 9 p.m.
Viva!
Just Don’t Groom
Never the need To hit or shout. Just don’t groom ‘Til they come around.
Olde March 11, 2007
My Milwaukee, cont’d
Working class elders Will read well crafted Poems in local bookstores
While prodgial teans
Turn in handguns,
And intern at Growing Power
City farms and community gardens.
Reformed rednecks do tai chi class, Followed by the salad bar And shots of wheat grass At local Outpost Natural Foods Co-ops.
At-risk teens learn ceramics at Muneer’s studio,
And sometimes hear Rumi readings
By Israelis and Palestinian poets,
A married couple since about 9/ll.
A Vietnam American grad student in fine arts, And his Norwegian American architect partner, Team up with a Yoruba priest and New England baker, And win a national design contest, On green adaptations for a whole city block, Now an eyesore, Soon a major eco-tourist destination.
Olde March 11, 2007
You’ll Feel My “Olde”
I can only stand A willing audience, Or partner.
Tell me your story at MilwaukeeRenaissance.org
If you hear my story, You’ll understand my “Olde.”
If you send your story, You’ll win my attention.
That will be a good thing.
Olde March 11, 2007
Scars, Scars, Scars
Oh man, you bet we’re scarred.
I won’t even let my self know
Some of the things I’ve seen and heard.
The only reason I’m not afraid to be
“Pretty” honest about the race stuff
Is because I’m one of those “Euros”
Dark enough to make the light ones pause
When I got my summer mousy haircut
And got baked deep brown by the St. Louis sun.
And the Nazis burned my 1957 metalic blue Chevy With an overhauled V-8 engine during the Open Housing Marches Chicago Freedom Summer 1966.
And I’m a roofer. Roofers don’t have to dissimulate much To anybody of whatever “identity,” If they can still climb.
I won’t ever tell you what the St. Louis Irish
Called me or my Dad on more than one occasion.
And we’re Irish!
Talking race in mixed crowds in Milwaukee? Only place I would ever do that is at Hoodmomma’s, And even then I’d feel lots better if there was some Giant dude and powerful sister Who could control things if one of the hot ones From wherever Got a little crazy on me.
But I think some of us had better start talking straight, If only a few of us, if only for short periods.
We’ve got to slowly let some more nuanced truths out. The media and normal politicos are too “busy” To do justice to this drama of unraveling Centuries and centuries and centuries Of hate, ignorance, and greed Across color lines and other lines.
We’ve got to start somewhere.
I vote we start at Hoodmomma’s!
Olde
Give Me a Green Death
In the way that I pray, I pray that my dying Drama finds me improving with age, And learning from my living.
What would a green dying look like?
Let me die lightly. Let my death be “light.”
I hope that I and my loved ones Can give me as much pleasure As I and we have given me in living.
Is there a consensus that cremation Is most in accord with the way?
If that is the case, I should wish to be cremated By the closest cremators held in high esteem By the families they’ve worked with.
My friends who’ve died “green deaths” Were cremated without much ado. One friend’s Mom was driven in the back Of the family station wagon.
Community’s Red Truck that I now use
For roofing and hauling(light),
Would be fine.
Value Village should have something I can be wrapped in with no loss of dignity, As least as far as this black Irish Roofer goes, And what can we say about all of the rest?
I think the Quaker House offers the finest place
For one kind of gathering to commemorate
Our loved ones passing from this mortal realm
Into whatever realm is beyond it.
One quite tangible door to immortality as I can see it Would be a good-bye that brought forth Great bursts of laughter and good feeling In stories of the best outrageous moments, Full of exuberance and paradox, Fearless joy in the face of life’e inescapable Tragedies.
If a butterfly’s wings in Tokyo
Can set in motion events culminating
In some momentous event across the planet,
As the chaos theory rage at Stanford claims,
Then why not the energy from the laughter
At our memorials turned party,
Spark some movement that lives on in culture streams
Only an omniscient deity could every really understand.
Also nice would be a participatory send-off,
Which allowed the deceased to have “voice”
From somewhere in the world beyond
By virtue of written, audio, or visual offerings,
Prepared sometime in advance.
At least for those of us who like to hear ourselves talk, Even from the grave!
Why not?
I’m growing weary and weary of my thoughts
So this will be continued another time,
Perhaps.
And thank you once again for Letting me talk!
Olde
Our Family’s Destiny
The Marriage of Tiny Homes, Worms, Compost, Gardens, Bikes
Recycled Computers,
Intentional Communities,
Family & Co-op Bakeries and Cafes,
Our children’s theatre at the Avalon,
Our elders’ olympic games and contests.
With all of God’s children,
Planetary humanity,
Urban villagers,
Guild sons and daughters,
Civitas loving wise elders.
Sacred city places, Forest and river valley moments, In the city, Cleansing lake, Cleansing air.
Ligthening our burdens,
Awakening our spirit,
To our broader family’s
Unfolding Destinies
With our friends and
The Friend.
Olde
When Milwaukee Starts Feeling Like Some Kind of Holy City
When Milwaukee starts feeling like some kind of Holy City, On cold winter days laid off construction workers And retired young elders will gather veggie wastes From every neighborhood’s food and cafe co-ops, Brewers yeast from the finest micro breweries, Wood chips from the city yard, Coffee grounds from Alterra roasters all over town.
They’ll deliver this precious cargo of potency
To neighborhood gardens, edible school yards,
And emerging at-home city farms and kitchen gardens,
For composting food for a myriad of city worm ranches
And neighborhood year round food growers.
The kids in the hood will gather buckets of compost material From just about all the neighbors, And simultaneously deliver their block’s newsletters Filled with images and information to promote and defend Their increasingly connected neighbors, On higher and higher planes.
(to be continued)
The Harlem Renaissance is moving to Milwaukee, But that’s not all.
The people have learned some
Since back in that day.
Lot’s of new players,
From absolutely
All over the world.
And not just one renaissance.
Not just a Harlem one.
Not just Milwaukee.
Not just Great Lakes.
A myriad of simultaneous ones,
Like folk blues and jazz
Background to our
Self constructing
Arts and crafts.
Lots of re-birthing underway.
Lots of new births.
Lot’s of fun.
Olde February 9th, 2007
And Riverwest wins a Nobel Peace Prize For neighborhood contributions to evolution, And Milwaukee wins a Nobel Peace Prize, For city contributions to the same, And the Great Lakes wins a Nobel Peace Prize, For some kind of bio region “self construction” breakthroughs, By the year 2020.
Aspire to be like Zen Archers,
Shooting arrows detached from outcomes
Thereby always hitting the bull’s eye.
If a dervish peddler can’t make a dollar
She makes a dime,
Happy just the same.
If a Doroth Day peddler gets “No, not now”
For an answer to a request,
It’s all good,
Even if the door is slammed
Or a sign says…
No peddlers allowed.
Joy in the sale. Joy in the “not now, thanks.”
Olde Svens Jan. 29, 2006
Zen Peddlers in the Noosphere
Digging into mystic mountains For images designed to woo you And spark reminders of the Utopias that grace Your daily rounds.
Feb. 8, 2006
Hypo-manic moments, sublime, Marbles lost in ‘99, And again in 2001… (Unspeakable despair… Not fun!)
Reborn… sometimes…
As Hafiz’s drunk,
Wandering blind,
behind farting camels.
Reborn…other times,
As some kind of visionary,
Helping materialize
Practical utopias.
Indifferent about which self Prevails at which moment, Just happy to be alive, Grateful for each day…
Olde at Svens on KK in Bay View of The Holy City of the Sweet Water Seas
Some of my best friends are old white men. My Mother died before her time hoping I would be as much.
But we need new blood in the agora, the markets, the shrines, and
The sacred communal rituals and celebrations.
Might anyone have a thought as to the most appropriate female icon
To alchemize into the glory and the joy
Of St. Pat’s at Timbuktu?
Or, am I daft in wishing to elaborate upon the images for this day?
I am no longer ashamed on St. Pat’s because of the curse of drink
That has befallen so many of my ancestors.
St. Pat’s at Timbuktu has added something very new, fresh, and healthy!
But one of my friends told me some terrible things about St. Patrick.
And Wole Soyinka blazed theatrical trails mixing deities from East and West,
North and South, into his productions.
So what say anyone to uncovering some magnificent female archetype To elaborate upon our all city gathering at Timbuktu On what is conventionally known as St. Patrick’s Day?
Our Milwaukee
Our Milwaukee is harvesting The energy and glory of our ancestors, Yeilding so as to better listen, Growing stronger with grace.
Olde
Beyond Predator
Please slowly think and breathe out Your predatory instincts And on-guard posture.
Relax.
You’re among friends.
Your with… The Friend.
You Are.
Olde January 16, 2006
When Milwaukee becomes the Holy City of the Sweet Water Seas, Perhaps only a generation or two from now, Irish German Polish Italian American families Will bike from the western suburbs to the Juneteenth Day Celebration On MLK, stopping on the way at the Amaranth Bakery and Cafe.
There they will meet up with Hmong African Arab Indian American families
For a feast of soups from the kitchens of the world,
With ingredients picked that morning in the Growing Power city farm across the street,
Where now stands an empty lot.
As they bike across Lisbon and Walnut
The sidewalks will be filled with families in their Sunday best
Walking a mile or two toward the festival,
Past family businesses and artist/artisan workshops that pay the bills.
At the LGBT Center the west and northwest throng Will join some south and east side Mexican Cuban Jewish Bohemian American families For last minute practice to prepare for the folk song, dance, and theatrical offerings In honor of the day when freedom grew stronger, on Juneteenth Day, Preparing the way for that great moment, when it dawned upon the people, that Milwaukee had made itself The Holy City of the Sweet Water Seas.
And I, or my descendants, will not be judged chauvinistic for hoping that the dance choreographed By the Kho Thi with the Trinity Dancers wins first prize!
Olde January, 2007
Comments