Metaphors & Manifestos by Toro

No Blood for Coltan

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:28:00 +0000

feeling like a superstar
she flips open her nokia
to call her agent

unaware that for every pound of coltan
the hand of a child forced into labor
is hacked off and held up as an example
for all those who refuse to dig for precious

metals

all so she can be reached
anytime anywhere
in the event she gets a callback
for that beer commercial
all so she can feel like a superstar

at an affordable price

Tag

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:26:00 +0000

You’re
It
Says
Rain
To
Roofs
To
Streets
To
Heads
To
Umbrellas
To
Leaves
And
Fields
A
Gentle
Tap
Tap
Tap
A
Peck
On
Cheeks
On
Nose
On
Rose
A
Gift
From
Sky
To
Earth
A
Note
To
Stay
At
Home
And
Share
Tea
And
Tales
With
Friends
Or
Furniture
Just
Hear
Clean
Rim
Shots
From
Drops
On
Sills
That
Pool
In
Sweet
Gobs
Of
Soft
Mirrors
Reflect
Rewind
Trips
Of
Water
Fall
Up
Back
In
To
Clouds
That
Crowd
Over
Towns
Like
Herds
Of
Buffalo
In
Committee
Meetings
TO
Elect
The
Sun
And
Adjourn
With
A
Nap
As
Precipitation
Predicates
Taps
All
Taps
All
Short
Tall
Raps
In
Slants
Down
Walls
Like
A
Kiss
A
Wish
Like
Transparent
Strips
Of
Cool
Shiny
Miniature
Bliss

Found Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:44:00 +0000

THIS DRYER DOES NOT WORK, AGAIN!

CLOTHES STAY WET!

ANOTHER $ GOES CAPUT!

ANOTHER HOUR PASSES!

A RECESSION IS UPON US!

LAUNDRY ETIQUETTE HAS GONE TO POT!

Prologue to an Untimely End

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:47:00 +0000

It is not fatalistic to be concerned
When you have just been thrown from a plane
Without being offered a parachute

The labyrinth of boredom
Redesigns us into sophisticated infants

In this hour catastrophes atrophy
Into a mass email sent with an apostrophe
Between identity and our plural form

We are all amputees in this housing arrangement
Bewildered bewitched and belittled
Benignly bellowing anthems that
Double as pre-recorded funeral dirges

Please return us to the manufacturer
The branding iron scolds our intestines until
Numbness rolls over us in waves of
Economic theories
We are not meant to comprehend

We have contructed a blender to
Puree our expectations in a last ditch effort
To forgive ourselves for being complacent
Complicit in the great golden surrender

At least feed us to lions who promise to love us
As our neighborhood expands into
Tangential soft drinks swilled pompously
During these most ardent winter mornings

Guadalupe and Brazos

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Brazos

There is a translucent heat that singes the paint of the
Buildings brandishing pastel facades with a mystery of decay.
There is the traffic light the drivers ignore and there are
Slow, deep pockets of silence on each corner that
Swallow up a day's work and cough it back out onto
Those waiting for a bus that arrives one golden age too late.
There is the look of fatigue that is mistaken for
Confusion on the brows of day laborers
Returning from their posts as squawking grackles.
There is an indigestion that is defeated by a smile,
A flourescent sign flashing that reads "Open,"
And there is a slit in the door that bleeds
Cool air and peculiar music onto a sidewalk
That wears its glittering grime like a handmade tiara.

Guadalupe

When rainbows take the form of humans
Empty halls mutate into carousels of conflict
And delightful improvisation.
The security guard cheats time at the cafe
Where his jokes jitter like dice and the
City councilwoman reads her newspaper until
Bearded colleagues squeak in and butcher
Her introspection with cleaves of rhetorical questions.
When school releases cauldrons of shaggy hair and
Neon backpacks, skateboards whistle in
Polyrhythms over granite grooves as
The chatter escalates into a swarm of locusts and
Two briefcases make their way to an enormous
Carbon emissions offender perched before the pharmacy.
When round bellies bellow in catatonic daylight as
The veladora hovers above like abuela's warnings,
The marquee on the corner predicts the future by
Informing us that on Saturday evening
A cadre of dancers will reminisce for all of us.

The Celebrity

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:26:00 +0000

He is not a genius
He is not a revelation
He is not groundbreaking
He is not in tune with the pulse of the nation
He is not the most attractive or best dressed
He is not ahead of his time
He is not the voice of his generation
He is not the most talented
He is not daring rebellious or on the cutting edge
He is not tremendously charismatic
He is not more in touch with the cosmic forces
He is not original
He is not a visionary
He is not a national treasure
He is not mysterious
He is not meticulous
He is not a legend or a hero
He is not the most savvy or quick-witted
He is not generous passionate or kind
He is not one of the great minds of the modern era
He is not even the hardest working

He just has the best agent

Body Cavity Search

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:21:00 +0000

The body cavity search revealed
That we were concealing guidebooks
Scribed by our elders

That our loins were homing devices
Tracking the distance we have traveled
From our starseed

The prognosis from the MRI
Informed authorities that we were
Elaborate illusions of soft matter

Men in white robes poked and prodded us
Took stool samples and CAT scans
In a paranoid search for a cure to

Their own impermanence
They read charts x-rays sonograms
That offered them contradictory results

They did not consider closing their own eyes
And listening to the polyrhythms of their own
Aorta channeling rain into blood

Their meticulous research taught them only
That one can receive grants and appear important
Without knowing anything at all

Mr. Norris had skills

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Mr. Norris had a nose like a kayak
His cheeks drew a humorous sunrise across miniscule lips
Thinning hair sprinkled over his cranium to pose irony at
The startling tuft of vines always sprouting
Through the top of his shirt collar
His hands were gargantuan radioactive spiders
From a 50’s Drive-In Movie
Only they were always doused in chalk
He never forgot to wear his yamulke
On Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah
The man was so tall that if he hadn’t been so awkward
So graceless you might have thought him to be a
Starting Forward for the Knicks
This is to say he was
A high school history teacher
Looking every bit the part
Except…

1st day of class he was late
As we waited for our new U.S. History teacher to arrive
Our chatter built like a wave across a
South Pacific Beach until our crashing voices
Were silenced by a man strutting in
Wearing a Kangol hat and 8 lbs. of gold chains (all fake)
A bright orange sweat suit with a color coordinated pair of Adidas
Ghetto blaster perched on his monstrous shoulders
Run DMC bouncing out from the speakers
The tableaux finished off by a set of gold rimmed sunglasses

Donning this alter ego
Mr. Norris would spit a 9 minute rhyme
Detailing the primary and secondary causes for the Civil War
Nobody slept in his class when
In that “someone singing Digital Underground
At karaoke night” old school nasal flow of his
He kicked a lyric about the Louisiana Purchase
Or freestyled on the major tenets of FDR’s New Deal

During study hall he would trade DJ tapes with us
Play the dozens with us in the hallways between class periods
At lunch we would make cracks about his corny rhymes but
15 years later we still can’t forget Mr. Norris in his Kangol
Or the importance of Brown vs. Board of Education

Shotsnaps

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:58:00 +0000

1.
Two cross eyed pigeons
Play chess with dismantled satellites

2.
Fences fleeing from the ground
Ground pleading with the sky

3.
A key to one thousand thirsty emeralds
Or a tattooed crocodile

4.
Roll up the cities
Let the window explode into coalitions of burnt flowers

5.
A crosswalk made of hyperbole
A crossing guard wearing a kimono

6.
Corpses giving birth in broad darkness
While deaf mutes renew their cellphone contracts

7.
He was trying to talk to himself
But he kept refusing to listen

8.
A single purple

French Quarter Fragments

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:30:00 +0000

This prison
A prism
Honor roll and
Debate club

*

No room for cheerleaders
Everyone is a cellphone casualty

*

To walk is to swim
To cry is to bleed

Road trip hajj voyage and sojourn

*

Bury the egg to
Prevent this dream
From becoming reality

*

Independence is a fairy tale
Autonomy a fable
Economy an absurdist fantasy
The university a tanning salon

*

Stepfather buried our
Sacred artifacts in the sewers of
Darfur Rwanda Ethiopia Sierre Leone
THe South bronx and The 9th ward

*

And they tell us racism is a thing of the past

But how come there is no Genocide
In Belgium or Sweden?

*

Getting $6.15 an hour
Doesn't make you free

In a place where the graves sprout
To remind us that
We all must return to soil

Our digital networks will distract us
Only for so long

The clouds will conspire to
Bring 35 gallons of truth to our shoulders

As we stand at the pump
Pull the trigger that will unload
Processed Earth into machines of
Steel Hunger

*

Everything was moving but their minds

*

They were the storm that toppled their city

*

Discipline is Freedom

*

"'Using single quotes within double quotes
Is a sign of impending insanity'
Quoted Vladimir Nabokov
(As quoted by Andrei Codrescu)"

*

The only police I appreciate
Are Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland

*

The therapist's therapist
Prescribed him to catch
The ferry across the river
And get off half way

*

We were
Holding a cocktail party with the rapids
When it dawned on us that
We were the drink and not the straw

*

Marilyn Monroe had ugly feet
And I am not convinced that she read

Ulysses

*

A baptism in the swamp
A cataclysm of cattle
Every house a yacht

*

When will they learn
That tagbanging
Is the advent of holy scripture

Like Han Shan's koans
Carved into unsuspecting trees

*

Sleepwalking
Convinced we are awake
Our makers unmake us
Shake us from the orange tree
Shipping us to a supermarket kiosk

*

We pass through this plane
Like wind through an accordian

Our finer parts escape through
Holes carefully places

Infrequently we reach a frequency
Only dogs and gods can hear

Like an ATM we punch codes
Into a virtual surface

Expecting dispensed paper
To satiate or save us

If you repeat something enough times
The people will believe it

It does not matter if it is true
Beam it up onto a screen

And they will value it more than
Their own relatives

It does not matter if it is worthless
We have already bought into the recycling trend

Recycling trash
Recycling people

Recycling ideas for another useless film
Primal instincts intact but contorted

Now we hunt in malls
Fish in cyberspace

Our reptiliam centers plucked
And dropped into aquariums

With sand an blue rocks
To keep us company

Someday soon we will be the souvenirs
Tourists purchase during their

Most mundane Holiday getaways

***

Untitled

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:33:00 +0000

I have waited my whole life
For just one man to be a man
To not be afraid to be wrong
In the face of public opinion
To not be afraid to be right
In spite of the consensus
I have waited for one father
To be a father
For one man to just listen
To understand the
Potency of an embrace

I have been waiting
For some time now
For a man to come along
And empty themselves
Into the community
Free from a personal agenda
For one man to know the
Truth when he sees it
And to trust love when he can't
For only one man to move
Out of the way and let
The women blaze the new path
To not be too proud to learn
From their courage
Their genius
Their kindness

Seems like I have been waiting
Lifetimes for an apology
That has been deferred more times
Than my college loans
Like I've been waiting at
The railway station hoping
To board a train that won't be
Arriving anytime soon
I have been waiting for one man
Just one
To bury their egos in the backyard
To prioritize moral over more
Been waiting for one man
To raise his vulnerability up
On the nearest flagpole
And finally

Surrender

PSA

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:55:00 +0000

we done farm soldiers down here
shove brown steeds into barrio stables
pull calves from the fertilizer
feed em the corpses of their uncles
fill them with lots of death early on
plant a football in their hands
get them used to the idea of
penetrating enemy territory
give them a rifle and a bottle of beer
make them stick their fists up
the skirts of their sisters
tear all of the nerve right out of them

yeah we done farm soldiers here
cause you got to have soldiers if you
want to be the one running things
here we got all the soldier meat
you would ever possibly need
we pluck them from they wombs
make them eager for they graves
and we got em available for the
lowest prices in the region

we'll squeeze their heads and
widen their shoulders for you
teach them to
sick
roll over
beg
play dead
we feed them the remains of the
other ones who can't keep up
learn them to hate they makers
throw them bones whenever they hate on cue
slap them if they show a hint of empathy
starve them if they exhibit a single atom of love

yeah you got to teach them to hate
hate their siblings
make them fear the unknown
then make sure they don't know anything
so everything is unknown
then we grind them out
divy them up
pound them full of pharmaceuticals
we brand them and
learn them to loathe those
with different brands
so when you send them abroad
theyll be ready and eager to
shred some dark meat

and you got to make them
hate they women
make them kick them when they speak
make them pierce them with their anger
so the next round of steeds come out
ready to break stuff open
ready to march and holler
see here we got the finest
killing machines in the hemisphere
ready to be shipped out
as soon as you need them
we guarantee you theyll be empty
when they arrive at your camp
theyll be ready to
kill their own mothers
if you ask them to
and we know you will

place your orders now
theyve been farmed
to love their masters
and hate their brothers
so when you sick them
on each other
like roosters in a cockfight
they wont stop until theres
nothing left except
liquified guts and
a thirst
a thirst for more
a thirst to intimidate and eliminate

yeah we done farm soldiers here
this is our business and
let me tell you boy
business is good

I am infatuated with her vocal cords

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:10:00 +0000

When she sings
The concrete cracks
Petunias sprout up from
Every crevice
Truth rings from her diaphragm
In a major key
Tiny birds birth soliloquys
In her songs
Voiceless citizens are given
Honorary degrees
When she decides to belt a chorUS
The dead are provoked to dream

She does not own a Grammy
No one pays her for her melodies
Her only entourage is me
She says she is no Ella Aretha
Sinead or even Siouxie
Thinks she doesn't create
Silver lined notes
but her voice is gold to me
Her punk rock broadway ditties
Rescucitate her listeners unequivocally

She trembles
When she croons
We tremble with her
In her invincible vulnerability
And we are thankful for the gift
Whether she likes (knows) it

Or not

The Hudson River

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:57:00 +0000

At night she sparkles
Like a drag queen on the way to the club

A chain link fence of car radios
Emitting from her neck
An aroma of festive solitude

Doused in the perfume of Linguini Marinesca
As weekend warriors and college dropouts
Disco along her waist
Forging a leather belt from
The Battery to the Heights

Crude and refined
Like our aunts and grandmothers
She watches our missteps and
Teases with fierce tenderness

Blushes if the men on the pier
Start whistling

Break it down/ Tear it up

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:29:00 +0000

When we break it down they go and tear it up
When we gather round they go and break it up

We’re the children of the children of an insecure god
Reclamation of our language slanging like a lighting rod

Wandering through worlds that ain’t really ours
The only thing we own is our battle scars
When they harden and they callous we return to our source
When we sing we fill the chalice redirecting the course
Of the battleship that’s headed toward our memories
With their alibis they barricade our simple pleas

When we break it down they go and tear it up
When we gather round they go and break it up

We’re the children of the children of an insecure god
Reclamation of our language slanging like a lighting rod

Dropping jokes like napalm on their propaganda
Working out our wit to KO their slander
They keep the libraries out of our neighborhood
Cause they know that if we read we’ll take another look
At our situation and we’ll cause a scene
Cause liberation is in our DNA its in our genes

When we break it down they go and tear it up
When we gather round they go and break it up

Break it up
Break it up

Antalya Dreamscape 1999

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Today I set forth to write something as unforgettable as this landscape. A premeditated wall of stones, a majestic infinitude of water, is laid out across the horizon like a kilim left in the wastes of a long forgotten Ottoman fortress. It is strewn out into the distance as warm welcome to an unopened door protected by all the lies of modern history.

I sit as a deranged catalyst, somewhere between a row of Doric columns crippled by the elegant touch of wind and sand, and a lake of familiar strangers taking in a very rare moment of serenity. Somewhere in the middle I am watching souls made of fire wrestle with one another. They swing subtle motivations above their heads in concentric circles around the rusty columns. The columns are buried ornately, precisely, geometrically as schoolchildren,

as unsold condominiums,

as soup cans on a dusty shelf.

The crystalline disregard of lapping water surrenders to the hardening wills of these caged wanderers masked in swimwear. They sheath their daggers with laughs and absurd promises. I ponder if they are too near to me as I dry out on a rock that was fortunate enough to elude the indignity of a human hand carving pagan symbols into it, and I am waiting to say or hear something worth remembering.

Can you see the claw marks on the backs of these ungrateful visitors?

The bruises?

The swelled heads dismayed and frayed from a jumbled fury of nasty words flung across rooms like an old set of China?

Out here silence kills dumb ears in the ocean breeze of dusk. They are accustomed to names being bounced off walls as bats that squeal to elude a formidable communion with some belligerent stalactite.

The hand that writes this trembles, shakes itself naked of the serial backbiting of strangers equipped with distance, and languid tongues, and men with guns on every corner, standing at attention, commemorating the conquests of 3,000 years molded into the Ionic, Corinthian pillars of dark reverie. Still these false companions of mine stroll arm and arm, pretending the pain they have caused one another was yesterdays fashion hung on bargain racks to be sold and recycled. The ghosts dancing emphatically around the stone monuments of war know, however, that the wound may be sterilized, but the scar remains for inexplicable eons.

The ruins. This ruin of souls. The entropy of genitals and promises. Misery passed along like a family heirloom. The collective madness choking on smog and lies. The harshness of teeth smeared over bottom lips. They are now tired too long, too much, too heavy. Too late to wait on fingers that orchestrate and push people like buttons as gluttons of death and desire. No Breath to escape decisions draped on desks to rest, to be signed and stamped. I’m lost, cramped between the careening destiny of these corroded columns, and the sand that bands together like five fingers on a hand whisks away the blandness of unchanging reasons and seasons unnamed. This will end in twisted metal and chipped skulls spewing blood and hatred from its nose. You can be sure of it.

I want to go home,

Or at least to have the pathos of this landscape finally crumble and let words be the true representatives of what is in our heads, before somebody is dead.

I want to go home,
But where is home these days?

Am I truly from the tar and tin that rapes the earth and breeds the sin,
Or can I be reborn in the rocks and wisdom of wind?

This began as a search for a world or a word that someone might remember. Somewhere the compass was cracked by empty mouths deceiving each other, leaving a trail of antiquated allusions displaced across this unforgettable landscape along with the shipwrecked sunbathers in search of a tan. Today I set forth to write something unforgettable, but the visions that plague me calling to be displayed on these pages, are lifeless jewels gone bad that I can only beg to godless forces of calumny to let me leave behind. The bane has become unbearable. This began as a search for something unforgettable.

Lavallette Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Couldn’t make rocks skip so
I watched you make them hop
4-5-6 times across the bay

Our fishing line snagged a crabber’s trap
Thought we caught a bass but it
Was only an empty steel cage

Our mommies and daddies lead us
Down to the beach where
The men bodysurfed
Popped open beer cans while
The ladies waded up to their knees
Along the shoreline waiting
For the clouds to take a lunch break

We would play tag with the tide
Trotting back and forth
Until noon brought the simmering
August heat upon us
And you would give in
Slipping on your water wings
Diving into the waves head first

You would wave me in
First pleading
Then chastising
But I would stay dry
Too afraid of jellyfish and
Wet sand in my swimsuit
Instead I remain at the water’s edge
Like a napping snapping turtle
Anticipating the serenade of
The ice cream trolley

We would discuss our Italian ice selection
Like three scholars debating the existence of god
You would predictably go with Cherry
While I was torn between
Grape and Orange

Your little brother would yell
How he wanted Apricot
But there is no Apricot Ice
We’d tell him
Well then I want Jelly Bean
He would reply

Eventually he would cry because
He lost his shovel
The third one of the week

We would blow bubbles
Bury our action figures in the sand
Build a wall around our blankets

Until the ice cream trolley arrived and
Our grins quickly submerged in a glaze
Of cold sugar
Our pockets stuffed with seashells

We would fall asleep on the dunes
But not before your brother dropped his ice cream
And my father would promise to take him
To play miniature golf to stop his crying

In the middle of our dreaming
The sun would slowly crawl back into
The ocean
The evening breeze would enter the scene
Acting as our cue to wrap our towels around our waists
And head back to the house for
A shower and a Barbecue
Where we would play
Candyland and Connect Four
Until Bedtime

Obelisk

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:41:00 +0000

I.

Strolling across the parallax of memories,
Imagination finds herself picking stars like daisies.
She dreams of stories to share her light with.
Scarred by the confines of a nebulous nebula,

II.

Imagination searches for herself under beds,
In messy closets and a dust filled attic.
The laughter of children converges,
A bridge is constructed under a bridge of sky.

III.

She plays basketball on a court of broken glass.
The illness spreads like Starbucks through a suburb.
Star struck citizens purchase flowers from an underwater bodegua,
Watch boredom like Kung Fu movies on a Saturday morning.

IV.

She finds a conch shell on the D train to Webster Avenue.
When she holds it up to her ear
She hears a legendary jazz quintet, dolphin speak,
And a child knocking on a steel door.

We have a right...

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:40:00 +0000

We have a right to explore this world
Without your filters
To smell incense burning
In a den that exists
Light years from your mess hall
This world belongs to no one and
To everyone
We are not a calculation
Our dreams are more real and more profound than your masks

We have a right to be citizens of unknown territories
To be tourists inside our own hearts

For love needs no visa
For laughter requires no proof of identification

Our movements coax stars to align to form a finger painting
We are random and illimitable
Like the song of the coqui
In the rainforest that is
Our childhood
Our retirement

We have a right to make and unmake ourselves
To fall tragically
And patch ourselves back together
With the fears of our lovers
With the sorrows or our mothers

The press conference is an illusion
The senate hearing a regurgitation of brats

Our kindness will be erected as a shrine
Our confusion will be the garden that complements its entrance

We are a brief and and neverending pageant
When we embrace
A bridge of light expands
Across all 14 dimensions
When we cry
We give birth and
Throw lavish parties

We have a right to exist unfettered
To be imperfect
To belch and call it a Samba

We cannot be bound by economics or psychological analysis
We are the dream
The memory
The drum
The electrical impulse
The stone
The water's bride
The dust
The silence and
The opus
We have a right to spread our kindness like a cold
To question everything
To be nameless and anonymous
To be boundless
To acquiesce and wave at strangers
To live in the form of the infinitive verb
To be

I-90 West

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:34:00 +0000

A Lockheed C-5 Galaxy
Pierces the abundant San Antonio sky

Like a defiled syringe
Into the artery of a child junkie

.

Blind oracle with a monocle makes spectacle for monarchs

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:35:00 +0000

I now pronounce you man and machine
The fatal phallic symbol
Fumbles the ball
Turns our shell green
Monopolizing resources and information
So you need them just to exist
That's why they pay farmers not to grow
Distribute celluloid sermons across the globe

Trotter and trekkers
Evangelical home wreckers
Reconciling spouses
Housing fugitives on laxatives
Liberation laced with expletives
Exploiting middle class teens
With additives and sedatives

Imperials imperatives

Sufis on safari
Debate the state of nameless architects
With misguided intellect
Scribble out trade routes to the west
The last train to Lhasa
Leaves in the next four lifetimes
Before our capital erodes capriciously
The thieves retreat suspiciously
To their haciendas

Refined sugar swapped with Splenda
The trendsetters poised like poinsettas
Sick their Irish Setters on the populace
In not quite quiet desperation
The mesmerizing magic of living
Dies with each birth of a Nation
Cannot see the con in contemplation
Or the present in presentation
Where is the "i" in ipod
When you got 40 gigs of excuses
Playing on shuffle

We lose ourselves in sculpture parks
Hunting the mold that made us

The endowment was embezzled by
The monsters we assembled
When the children we resembled
Rebel against their own breathe
The victory lies inside the benefits of selflessness
Our helplessness
A halluciNation
Illustrated by an ancient Buddhist fable

We prepare the table for the feast
Carveo ur consciousness into edible units
Pass the peas and penance
With napkins tucked neatly into our collars
We take one last glance at our guests gathered
Around the table

Open our mouths
Lift our forks and
Swallow

Opportunity?

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:22:00 +0000

Only someone
Deeply and wholly
Colonized
Is capable of seeing
A place in the military
As an

Opportunity

...

A Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:58:00 +0000

If I were a Calendar
I would insist that
All my months are named

You

...

The Soil is Sour

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:22:00 +0000

The soil is Sour
Invaded primates find playmates on
Divergent hemispheres
The splendor of mass suicides take hold of
Our better judgment

An incapacity to coexist
Baffles the refugees
Makes it impossible to see
The point of rising each morning

We are fatigued
From mourning for strangers
While others pretend no strangers are present

Our DNA collected from islands
Forever under occupation
Keeps us well stocked with misdirected anger

Less is more
Unless
You have more than others
Our neighbors pray to be unreal
Spend more time engaged with screens and gadgetry
Than trying to feel the wind

With a flicker time discards us
Our lesser selves are mailed to
Incinerators lined up beyond the city walls
Cold rocks poke up through sky
Our reservoir is dry

The soil is sour
Our stomachs are sick
We live with a permanent hangover
Our heads pounding
As the coffee is brewing
We hang over the kitchen counter
Trying to piece together
Last evening's series of events

Gamma rays sift through the ceiling
Three decades pass and you
Don't remember one moment of it
The toilet seat is down
Loved ones claim you are color blind
The names of the things begin to sound odd

Your past was troubled but your
Present is dangerously quiet
You want to do more with your fingers
You want to know less

Bronze objects are hung that
Were once tools of survival
Now kitschy artifacts viewed
By paying customers
Who presume they are smarter
Than their predecessors

The soil is sour
Our mother's milk spoiled
We are reduced to the
Plastic and fiber that binds us

Paul Tibbets

noreply@blogger.com (Toro) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Born February 23rd, 1915.
Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force.
Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
The Distinguished Flying Cross,
And the Legion of Merit.
They also gave you a Purple Heart
To compensate for the one you lacked.

On August 6th, 1945
You dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima
Weeks after Japan had already surrendered to the Allies.
You murdered 100,000 human beings,
Outliving them all by more than 60 years.
You played the Devil’s loyal bureaucrat,
Taking away their right to hug their mothers,
Embrace their spouses,
Learn to play guitar, or
Taste another ice cream cone.

You were once quoted as saying
That you never lost a single night of sleep
Over having been the one to drop the bomb,
Stating that you had a job to do and
You did yours quite well.
You reminded everyone that it was done
For the causes of Freedom and Democracy,
An insipid irony,
As I am positive that the residents of Hiroshima
Were never given the opportunity to democratically vote
On whether or not their lives would be obliterated
In a single calamitous flash of light.

Paul Tibbets,
The most accomplished serial killer that ever lived,
A terrorist by the most rigid definition of the word,
Devoutly proud to be American.
With one flight across the Japanese sky
You forever perverted our faith in reason,
Our notion of consequence,
Our sense of compassion.

The Buddhists believe that one karmic infraction
Holds quantum repercussions for a soul.
If you cut the throat of one cow in a slaughterhouse
You will be reincarnated 1,000 times as a
Cow in a meat factory murdered ambivalently,
Your blood spilled again and again
Until the debt is paid,
The lesson learned.

It is not enough to hope that you will be reborn
10,000,000 times as a shirtless village boy
Disintegrated by a nuclear missile
Dropped on your town square as
You are innocently skipping to the playground.
I am not convinced the lesson would be learned.

You who outlived them all;
The man who eliminated an entire city of families
And claims he never lost a night of sleep over it,
Proving the superiority of U.S. military power
And the inferiority of its moral code,
Proving also that there is nothing more frightening
Than a man who is capable of “just following orders.”

The associated press claims that on
November 1st, 2007 you finally left this life,
But I will maintain the idea that you never lived at all.