The wind blows.
The birds sing.
The water flows.
In the beginning was sound.
A frequency that blew through the ground.
Rising volcanoes from bursting stars.
Energy compacted and thrown so very far.

The up and down of a wave
comes from our lips as sound is made.
Attempting to describe all that can be thought.
Reaching for the heavens from which we were brought.

I write these words to heal wounds.
To sew empathy into the lips of baboons.
So that they might think before they speak.
So that they might use words instead of sticks.

To work towards peace instead of conflict.
I enter keywords that might be sought.
Peace, Love, Empathy, Occupy, Evolution, Revolution.
May these words be found and used to contain
the hate that flows through our veins.

May this metadata be tagged, liked and shared worldwide.
So that through our keywords we might find God.
The elusive universal oneness that is inside
all who seek.

Who seek truth.
Who seek wisdom.
Who learn to forgive and forget.
That Google themselves and do not regret.
For in the beginning was the Word.
The sound of all creation
which can bring together all nations.
To one Om.
To one breath.

Before I comment, please explain to me.
How is Jesus throwing corrupt traders out of the temple equivalent to Occupy Wall Street?

Because Wall Street worships money with a religious zealotry.
Because Wall Street lobbies for corporations, not for you and me.
Because a corporations main purpose is profit and greed.
Not to produce the food and water we all need.

But we are each entitled to an opinion, you see.
Perhaps, comparing Occupy to Jesus is unfair.
Before I respond what does Occupy mean to you?
I don’t see the connection from my personal view.

To me, Occupy Wall Street is demanding accountability from our leaders.
To try and break the bond between government and its global corporate bleeders.
Who are drinking blood from a stone.
Who bet against bad loans knowing they would win.
Then bankrupt, they took the taxpayers money again.

Too big to fail.
Too big to go to jail.
Main Street became a ghost town with store fronts closed.
Citizens lost homes to banks who foreclosed.
So CEOs could have their multimillion dollar bonus cake and eat it too.

It is a clear comparison.
In his rejection, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, where he expelled money traders from the Temple,
accusing them of turning into a den of thieves through their commercial deeds.

In the same reflection, Occupy works to remove the thieves from government in order to make our leaders
representative of the interests of the people, not the corporate steeple.

Point, set, match.
It’s perplexing that more Christians aren’t involved.
I am vexed.

Clear comparison? Are you kidding me? This ‘comparison’ is the farthest thing from that.
Y’all call it a ‘movement,’ I call it an ‘embarrassment.’
To me, OWS is a silly activity full of spoiled, disorganized, uninformed people .  
To me, they were either stoned, confused, or extremely unfocused.
UNFOCUS is the only thing shown us.

The clarity was strong enough for you to respond several times.
If disorganized means WORLDWIDE within weeks, then we are a virus and contagious.
We are a mudslide, a tsunami and our momentum has patience.

Your perception of OWS as “drugged out hippies”
Where did you draw this conclusion from, huh?
Did you even go to your local Occupation… son?
You think you can front when Springtime comes?

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
- Stephen Colbert

You see life.
You feel life.
But it passes you by.
The calmness in the sky.
Not a cloud in site.
Colors changing, eternally.

When we ride bikes, we think
where are we going.
When we work, we hope
our fortune is growing.
When we vote, we believe
that it will count.

We practice worrying
as if it can improve our position.
Somehow change our direction.
But in truth, through worry
we fast-forward
to the next point in time.

Making life a photo album with no present.
Only the past and blank pages waiting for the future.
Never aware of the now, we vanish.

Not knowing the purpose of biking is the ride.
Not knowing the purpose of working is the work.
Not knowing the purpose of voting is the vote.
So we might have a choice.
So that we might be alive.

This world will continue.
Governments will be born and die.
But life, it will always keep you in the flow
so that one day you might know
that this moment was all you really ever had.

There are so many people with the same boot to their neck, day after day, as the world watches a global financial train wreck. You should know most, if not all of this.

There is not enough food to feed the world’s hungry. Not enough empathy to comfort the needy. Corporations have bought and sold governments through preaching the gospel of greed.

There is not enough water to quench the thirst of the growing deserts since modern man seeded the land. To produce more food only to kill the soil. To have genetically altered foods create disease.

As we continue to fight for equality. For the right to love and marry. For all, the right to adopt straight, queer or transgender. We continue the fight for women’s rights. We fight against bigotry and bullies. Against all who who impose their will without regard for the pain of others, human or animal.

And what can we do? We say our prayers. We meditate on mantras. We talk to ghosts.

We realize the power of choice. Like the bus boycotts of yesteryear we choose not buy products with our pay that might reinforce the same stereotypes that fed the fear and hate Dr. King helped hold at bay.

Forty four years later, we march. We occupy space be it physical, mental or digital so that our captors might know that the dream has not been realized. Only when “the people” are equal to their leaders. Only when the military machine begins to buy books not bullets. Begins to teach reading not killing will we begin to reach the mountain top. And when we get there we won’t stop. Humanity will unite.

We will be one with Earth. We will begin to voyage into the galaxy that gave us birth. We will look down from above and see all the hate we endured, turned into love.

Removed.
The enemy is a target
A bullet is a round.
A village is down range.
All tools to rearrange
ones humanity.
To make killing easy.
One shot one kill.
All soldiers drill drill drill.

Removed.
As we find photos.
Soldiers pissing on bodies.
Abusing prisoners, no apology.
With ten years of Gitmo.
As children ask,
“Where did daddy go?”
Nobody knows.

Removed.
Taken away forever.
No charges to answer.
A hood over his head.
A concrete floor for his bed.
ALL tools for war.
Nothing sacred for
the removed.

My skull in a clamp
as the seizure set in.
My entire body lifted and twisted.
With my bone flap adjusted.
Brain matter open.

If only one millimeter off
I wouldn’t be here today.
A slice of nerve.
Too much blood lost.
Brain swelling costs.
Cranial pressure off.

But I awoke just fine.
Left leg disconnected.
Consciousness resurrected.
The urgency of time, sublime.
To have one more chance.

I sit here with you today
Three years after surgery.
Three years to know my children.
To know you.

To wake and view
the world and all its beauty.
The world and all its chaos.
How lucky we are.

Photos from the 2nd Surgery

I ride with you today
with your new strawberry bike.
Your legs just right to reach.
Your breaking is controlled falling.

I wonder about your future.
How time features moments.
Slices of looks.
Memories from photo books.
As we hold tight.

You are none of this.
None of the fear we see.
None of the politics we seed.
You are limitless.
Energy that is free.

Powering everything.
Your thirst for life.
Your smile and laughter, just right.
For a family that loves you.
For a planet that needs you.

Authority is true power.
Discipline used to enforce.
Nationalism the tower
to view collective desire.

Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.

At first there is a high.
Boots marching in unison.
Together towards a goal.
Where it leads, only history knows.

Feel the rhythm under your feet.
To move as one, the individual gone.
Stories told and retold.
Mass graves litter forgotten streets.

High unemployment the catalyst.
Social injustice the deceptive fist.
Both incendiary risks.
Explosive when unattended.

Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.
Left, left, a left right left.

I am American.
No longer lacking discipline.
Proud of our military.
Happiest when in formation.

I come to you anew. Desiring only one thing. Love… That you might find it. That it might exist in your life. For you are the eyes of the universe. You are the body of the creation. One single nation, of life. All connected. All hate rejected.

You and me, we sit on a time bomb. Ticking time in rhyme. A cadence some might find sublime. Set for a  cleansing. Of ego. Of ignorance. Of stalemates. Of seasons too late. Of negotiating disarmament. I beg of you, let your fists unclench. Let your brow unfurrow. Let your stress release.

Because there is no future. There is no end game. There is only this game. This now game. The here game. There is no planning that can prepare you for when the ocean rises. No place to hide if the poles shift.  No preparing for tectonic plate shift.

For WE are merely mites on the scab of a ball of fire. Screaming through space with so many minute Earthly desires. Each breath, we inhale a miracle of space and time. One hand the space dust from another star. Separated by super nova.

Billions of years of single celled organisms, all divided to naturally select you thus far. To put you and me here to dream.  To imagine. To care for each other when saddened. So on this new day of beginning, I ask you to occupy your hearts. The rest will follow.  Love is the only lesson we are to know. If we don’t learn it now, the cycle continues to flow.

Another year
as nostalgia bites.
As memories fight.
So many tragedies.
So much pain.
Targeted.
Politicized
for monetary gain.

As the calendar unfolds.
The day’s story told
and retold, again.
Twenty-four-seven.
For where have we been?

Humans are capable
of such magic.
Some, gifted shamans
create culture.
Some, cursed vultures
eat their own.

Whatever media
you digest, you will see
carnage and disease.
Revolution beckons
on lands yet to reckon
with their corrupt system.

The change we
seek must be questioned.
Will it be lasting
or will it be repeated by other
generations as we
feed the same corporations?

As we shout at the top of our lungs.
We are not invisible.
We are not alone.
We occupy life.
The stakes are forever.

One man’s body burnt alive
setting the global stage.
A butterfly’s wings creating change.
One world.
One people.
Given another year.
Another chance to get it right.