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Writer's pictureGodsil

Poetry and Prose 2013

By Godsil


Argonauts


Agronauts focus on seeding

The Earth Body as well as

Healing earth bodies

Becoming heavenly souls.


Agronauts dig deepIn depths of perennial wisdoms

Overcoming rooted oppressions

Inside and outside.


Agronauts breaking free

From Pharaoh’s tombs

Into the light of

Great New Days.


September, 2013

 

Sweet Water Is a Performance


Sweet Water is a performance


A theatre of


Vision adventures,


Contextually organizing


Energies,


On the wings of Becoming


Yin and Yang Mahasiddha,


Higher expressions


Of human performance possibilities,


Co creating


Communions of Being,


And higher


Universe stories.

 

TawneyMon


No such thing as black man.

No such thing as white man.

Tawney, different shades of tawney.


TawneyMon!

Different shades of tawney.


Man and woMan metamorphosing these days,

More anima for the guys,

Animus for the gals.


Bob Marley said talk different,

Change “person” into Mon!

Yah Mon! TawneyMon!


TawneyMon might be a unifying concept,

Light tawney, dark tawney, middling tawney,

Young and old, male and female.


Try on your Tawney Mon.

Share it with your kin,

Easier understood as All, and all.


Tawney Mon!

Different shades of tawney.

 

Why Can A Man Make Peace?


A man can make peace,

Upon becoming

A Mon!


A TawnyMon!

Different shades of tawney.


Shed the bad karma of your white man,

Of your black man,

Your white woman, your black woman.


Tempt yourself with tawney.

Try to wear your mon.

TawneyMon, different shades of tawney.


Ten thousand thousand years

Of human performances

Have paved the road to TawnyMon.


TawneyMon Peace

Can make!

 

Riverwest Sitings of the Holy City


Eco Check Experiments


Let ego frame

The image and the deed.


Then filter that

Through eco.

 

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!

 

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.”

 

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’s 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)

 

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!

 

When Milwaukee Becomes The Holy City of the Sweet Water Seas


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 itselfThe 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

 

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 are ethnically ambiguous.

They know black and white is an attitude.

They aspire to be golden inside.


Sissy roofers meditate while working

(chop wood carry water pound nails)


Hoping to summon up the virtu for

Spontaneous and exuberant hugs

Of the sweet ones, and courage for

Sober dancing in the streets

(arms waving high!)


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 have more fun.

They make more money.

They win respect.

They respect themselves.


If they ever get too old to climb

Sissy roofers will return to the ground

Work with radiant wastes and worms, and

Bring heavenly food to kitchen tables

Working with rather than warding out

The waters of the heavens.


Viva, Sissy Roofers!

 

And Milwaukee Evolved into a Permaculture City With 10,000 Rain Barrels for 10,000 Kitchen Gardens


How long shall we imagine it will take

Before the Sons and Daughters

Of the Sweet Water Seas,Help Milwaukee

Become a permaculture city,

A city of 10,000 rain barrels

For 10,000 rain gardens

And 10,000 kitchen gardens,

Where the people

Worked with nature

To reclaim their relationship

With fresh, clean

Water!


Milwaukee’s Homeland Security Threat: No Food Self-Sufficiency


At a gathering of the Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network,

At Timbuktu on Center in Riverwest…


I was told that our Republican Governor, Tommy Thompson,

Told the nation that our current commercial food systems,

So dependent upon huge oil inputs and travel costs

Is a major homeland security threat.


Have our Democratic leaders committed to make Milwaukee

More self-sufficient and food secure?


Are our Democratic leaders, our Republican leaders,

Taking steps to grow soil from our wastes?

Grow organic food from this rich local soil?

Growing organic farmers in our schools?


Are our Democratic and Republican leaders

Arranging a grand alliance to make Milwaukee

The nation’s leading permaculture city?


Let us be the vanguard city

Developing victory gardens

For our health and homeland security.


Let us become authentic patriots!

Google “permaculture” and discover

What is to be done.


Milwaukee’s Resurrection

Is America’s Resurrection.


This most reviled

Of American cities


That Milwaukee

That reviled Milwaukee

Is…


Disappearing.


A new city of rain barrels and rain gardens,


A city of city farms and gardens,

And neighborhood co-ops,

Of a Central Park

With a great river in the middle,

A cleansing river,

With cleansing shores.


A city where eco

Increasingly trumps

Ego…

Has been sighted!


My Milwaukee


Our Milwaukee…


A new Milwaukee…


Is daily spreading…


Blossoming,


Ineffably bounteous.


The old city…


The city of drunken m….Of drunken k…..


That old city

Of dirty j….


Of dumf p…..


That city of lazy n…..

Of greasy d….


That city of German-borned

Who xenophobic Yankees worried

Might support the Kaiser

In 1917…

Even as they were being slaughtered

In the battlefields of Europe,

And had been slaughtered in

The battlefields of the Civil War…


That city of capitalist exploiters.

That city of anarchist and communist crazies.

That city of racist and sexists.


That city of oppressive Fathers,


That city of…


That city of…


That old cityIs fading away.


That old city…


Is…


Food for a new city.


A city in renaissance!


A city of history.


A city of destiny.


A resurrecting city!


A new city

With a new history.


A city

Coming back to life!


A civic culture of fresh air and ideas!


Polyglot! A myriad of urban villages

Of planetary citizens.


Bracing wind all year round.


Life giving sun! As much as France.


Fertile mother earth!


The greatest of fresh water seas!


This new Milwaukee


This vital brew…


Of great and modest beings.


My Milwaukee,

Our Milwaukee,

Is resurrecting itself.


Becoming a

Permaculture city.


A city where 10,000 gardens

Feed 10,000 families.


The Milwaukee resurrection

Is the American resurrection.


We have survived millions of years

In preparation for these years.


How many billions of bullets,

And other missiles,

Have we dodged?


Well let’s dodge bullets and missiles,

For another million years.


Watch what good things

We will do!


These years when the sons and daughters

Of Milwaukee from all over the planet…


These high spirits on this fertile land

And freshening water…


These sweetening waters…

Of the Great Lakes…

The Sweet Water Seas.


These waters of our lives


We are becoming aware of…


Falling in love with…


These waters.


And this land.

These bushes,

These plants,

Animals, insects…

These trees.


My Milwaukee,

Our Milwaukee,

Looks straight in the face

Of life’s cruelest tragedies,

Its horrors,

Its sick jokes.


Increasingly unafraid.


Finding new ways

To clarify

What is to be done.


Drawing upon nature’s wisdom…

Discovering nature’s patterns

Nature’s ways.


We are nature!

And how subtly

We are learning…and re-learning,

To groom one another.


Nature’s bounty,

For an increasingly comprehending

Mind.


An increasingly subtly resilient

Heart.


A satisfied mind.

An overflowing heart.


Milwaukee.


Olde

Milwaukee

June, 2007

 

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 mindsAnd 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

Oxygen giving life.

 

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.

 

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.

 

My Brain’s Euphoria Circuits


Laughter gets them going good,

To open the door for my social brain’s arrival.


Derisive laughter…devolution.

Laughter hierarchies, 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.

 

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.

 

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,P

lanetary 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.


Lightening our burdens,

Awakening our spirit,

To our broader family’s

Unfolding Destinies


With our friends and


The Friend.

 

Good Food and Beauty


The people will come

For good food and beauty.


Especially good food

Locally grown

By farmers we’ve met.


Good food and beauty

Arouse the best passions.


Knowing our farmers…

Primal delights!


Good food and sweet aroma.

Tasteful decor and eye sweets.


We easily surrender

Clenched egos to


Good food and

Beauty.

 

Let’s Fix Our Eyes


Let’s fix our eyes

On the prize

Of a new civilization

Because it’s time.


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