Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

[note: I wrote this on the morning of 9/11/01, shortly after the attacks]

ignorance breeds fear

world trade center
you stood proud for so long
now you have fallen into rubble
bringing down thousands of innocent lives
thru no fault of your own...

what ignorant beings
could possibly conceive
of such a horrible scenario?
this was no military retaliation
against uniformed personnel
only uniformed police (fifty-eight)
and uniformed firefighters (200+)
not to mention the possible
50,000 innocent workers inside
add to that the thousands that visit
and we have tragedy of enormous magnitude
that boggles anyone’s very minds.

and let us not forget the pentagon
with hundreds dying for what?

terrorism is a terrible sickness
that begs for recognition of stupidity
that begs for redemption from a religion
that answers to make believe gods
that must lie puzzled at what has happened

new world, new times
must change behaviors
of fear and ignorance
or madness will not end.

[note: this was written one week after 9/11/01]

inner course

have you done it
have you heard
the voice
that's been whispering
deep within yourself

it seems to say that
all will be well,
that this was for
higher purposes
which we will understand
someday
if our patience allows

listen
it's between all the words
spaces filled with truths
if only we listen
one at a time
fearlessly
lose ourselves in it
immerse our wholeness
submerge our egos
surrender to that place
between the
words
heard over and over
banging, crashing
those outsideofus
words
stealing our hearts
ripping off our peace

go beyond that
go deep within
and listen...hear
that precious silence
that answer to our
misery
confusion
despair
listen.... it has the answers

for our release
from all the
tension
uptightness
confusion

it's in our hands
it lies deep within
it is our gift
a special ((so special))
gift from beyond

the answers are there
waiting for us to come
come deep within

answers to all our problems
if we only accept
if we only trust
if we only do it

listen... beyond
all these extraneous
words
coming from all sides
time bombs
daggers
wrinkling our calm

if you don't
if you won't
you'll stay
in that place
alone with your
confusion
misery
retalitoriness

it's not what was
meant to be...

go inside....
go deep down within....
the answers to all
are there....waiting
for you
to jump
to swallow
to eliminate
this thief of illusion
from your imagination
'they' do not want you
'he' within wants you
your attention
the answers are there.

listen
go there
fearlessly

you love peace don't you?

[note: written 9/17/01 – after 9/11]

perfect

and so it has been said
'everything is perfect as it is'

perfect destruction
perfect falling of towers
perfect pentagon hit
perfect crash into wilderness
perfect grief
perfect sorrow
perfect pain
perfect horror
perfect nationalism
perfect unification
perfect responses
perfect paranoia
perfect bigotry
perfect hatred
perfect forethought
perfect news coverage
perfect prayers
perfect condolences
perfect confusion
perfect rescue efforts
perfect partnerships
perfect redemption
perfect villains
perfect heroes
perfect remembrances
perfect fears
perfect unknowing
perfect ignorance
perfect foolishness
perfect losses
perfect gains

but-

perfect understanding
has yet to arrive....
perfect comprehension
in this moment in time
perfect

Yes. Go deep within and listen. Reminded me of my journey across the Nevada desert on 9-11-02, and others nearby in time and spirit..

"Reverb" (re-post)

Today is Sept. 11, 2002. Along Stillwater Range I crawl on a chalk white sea known as Carson Sink, another magnificent Great Basin dead heart sump. God's country. A lone rock flutters on the playa's jittery silver fringe—a bombing target. It should have laid down lower. But lower is hard to come by even in such depths four thousand feet above the ocean, safely removed from its designs on the world. Streams come here to die. I creep along pure white space as sufferers' lyrics creep in and out of murmured reverb, an old Soul Syndicate dub... "Every day cost of living gets higher", which I hear as, "cause a living desire". I should toughen up. Every town square holds a memorial to utter waste today, but I'll stay in this dead heart. Fringe existence.

People ask if I pack a gun into the desert, you know, to shoot at glint or fight people in places where there are no people. Good question. I've seen cowboys punch dust across U.S. 95 toward “out there”, but “out there” is a singular trial, or maybe a chemistry experiment. If I took a gun it might alter the reaction beyond recognition or complicate its light, or constrict the wide spaces by which “the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock,” as Ed Abbey put it. Not that Abbey was “anti-gun,” nor am I. It's in the interest of science, you see.

I cop to it. I favored a gentle haze, moved like freight on blinding tan, enlightened at every seventh truck stop. I know what fools me gently and banishes deadlines to hills and detritus and glow before they're sold in units of one or the other. Monster heat waves boil duality for a living in Eden but they play out. Pure white ebbs as I veer into scorched auburn, penetrate my best illusion on a trail under the powerlines—bridge to fringe. I go there to miss the point, though I won't climb the towers. They light a distant city (pick one) when it does the same. Three more ridges until promised rock. Wires crackle and pop like peace, and I'll have them to myself. It seems few came to Nevada for Nevada, but to crunch numbers.

But the road turns toilsome. I can’t hear it, until murmured reverb seeps through again, turned down low as it fills the expanse with echo, ricochets between mountain ranges and canyons, lays out the land and coats it in long, wistful fade. I drift on it past a jagged rise across the divide, earth to echo and back. In humbler times King Tubby conjured my reverb portal in a West Kingston ghetto using a beat up four-track and other spare parts at hand, a soft, thunderous dub pulse. I misjudged the horizon and I'm left with stolid granite. And reverb. On a stripped bedrock rhythm that brought me.

Tubby spared few lyrics in the mix and I steal what he spared—“Going to Africa, Africa to-mor-row”—stolen repatriation to Nevada dust. I take only what I need from the rootsman, his faith tested by barren sweeps, affirmed by longer views and a massive earth rhythm, the kind Glen Brown wrote in self-defense. In the dead heart his rhythms attack me. They fit obliteration and heat, lack of color and definition. Songs of thirst fit times of drought. As Sly Stone sang, “You have turned into a prayer, I can feel I'm almost there.” He wrote of a long powerline trail, insane from heat, buried in Ward Valley's colorless, unstable curves. God's country.

Thanks, Cec.

I'd forgotten those pieces and was pleased to find them, dated and ready to paste. Seems those days, 9/11 and on, were all one long day that we'd never, ever forget. Here it is, 8 yrs later and as a Nation we're still not happy with what we have, harboring fear and distrust of not only foreign enemies lying in wait in strange and ancient lands but here, here in the land of our forefathers who gave their lives so we could be free... but we're a long way from it, hiding behind closed and bolted doors, chain link fences and car alarms waiting to scream at the slightest touch... we lie in the darkness armed to the hilt and drugged to the limits, afraid of even our President. Something is just not right. Love as been stolen and hidden from view for 8 years. How much longer can a Nation survive without it?

Your words describe maybe not a happiness but surely a comfort in the arms of Nature, rough but yet beautiful with a million stories left to tell to those with time to commune with her. You've heard her words and captured their sincerity well, my friend. Nature never deceives or lies. It can always be trusted to do what it needs to do and only what it needs to do. Lies are from we humans who fear the truth for it leaves us naked in the eyes of Nature.

Thanks, Mark...