Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

1
Every morning I put on some uniform,
and, no matter who you are, you do too.
Whatever it is you think you look like,
you always look like something else to me.
Someone in a saffron robe doesn't need
to hand me his latest business card.
A 3 piece pin striped suit gets his bearings on me
long before his uniform betrays what side he plays.
If clothes make the man,
they conceal the heart as well.

2
I think about dying way too frequently.
You know, I shouldn't waste my time doing it.
It's been happening since I was 5 or 6,
little 15 second reality attacks.
Realizations without any optional course change
Once or twice a day, for 40 years.
I know I shouldn't, I'm trying to quit.
I don't wear death very well.
I can't help it.

3
She thinks about the spring flowers
that grow wild along these highways.
She had children in the past,
it was her springtime in a way,
a long and slowly passing spring
she remembers most of it still
with a certain criminal delight
because everything she had to do
it seemed she did just right.
Lately her uniform doesn't matter much,
she wears as little as she needs,
someday the uniform will fall,
she'll forget who it was that
she dressed or she undressed to be.

4
It's May 2, Paul mowed 200 acres of winter oats all day,
it smelled like humid spices laying in the cold fields.
When he mowed by the creek with all the wild onions
the air was like ground pepper with something mediterranean in a brine.
The cool air made it soothing to breath, it was sweet to taste.
You could smell the wet dirt from the tractor turning up the
soil when it turned a 180 degrees at the end of each pass.
He was wearing the smell of the spicy oats and dirt when he came home,
the smell made Lisa so hungry that they had sex instead of lunch.
He wore Lisa's scent back to the field to finish his perfume mowing.

5
My woman has a well, not deep, but the water never runs dry
she shares her well with oaks and pecans, with fern and azalea
by sharing her water so generously she turns water into paint
salmon azaleas, pink periwinkle, white jasmine, purple violets
her power of water makes her the conductor of the paint orchestra
she is the chemist of her domain, alchemist maybe,
she turns water into fragrant colors and textures.
Sometimes she wears her plants to bed like pajamas
I explore each bud and branch, I pluck a flower now and then
I can smell the flowers on the stem and the earth in the roots
her garden dresses her like the water queen from a Norse wood.

6
When I left work
I was wearing the uniform
of business battle fatigue,
by the time I got home,
the music has changed
my uniform from
a chauffeur
to a road pilot
then a vengeful samurai
then a turtleneck hipster
then a formal Mozart tux
then a small town boy
then a back yard worker
who is called Beto,
I walked into the back yard
and kissed my little Lupe,
she was wearing dirt up to her elbows.


7-11
In the Silva Mind Control class
they will tell you that you wear
bad energy like a tight scull cap.
They show you how to shake it off.
You wear your worry
like a hair coat
you wear thought of death
like an icicle vest
you wear your envy
like a bad tie
your bad energy
is a bad uniform.
When the emperor wore no clothes
he was wearing stupid energy all over.
Tomorrow I'm gonna wear my saffron robe
down to the enlistment office
gonna accessorize the robe with
an ammo belt and the M16
When you uniform has a built in M16
you don't have to worry so much
about shaking off the bad energy.
I think about uniforms too much,
I know I shouldn't, I'm trying to quit.

Institutions love a good recognizable uniform.
Uniforms give them the suggestion of permanence.
Some institutions got uniforms we are all gonna wear.
I think about uniforms too much,
I know I shouldn't, I'm trying to quit.
Let's all get naked and dance around the campfire.