new poem from brigade member jimmy.mankind

The Mystery of Life.

the mystery of life is god.

do not be confused.

that is, you, me, them, we,

the elements in and around

life

are god.

whatever you don't know or don't get but like, love, want to tend, need to nurture

is god.

god is prevalent

in that we forget

spirit is a material issue here on Earth, where matter is immaterial.

god is the life force inherited from the wasted 

possibilities of the past.

god is soil, and where the clear waters run to

when they tire.

god is life, breath, care, love,

and we are god for knowing that.

the unDead seek to rule through their legacy of fear.

Seek the other.

follow the gleaning greening of life

the shimmery water which is sacred.

as our air and our breath.

we have work to engage our wild desires

and we learn to enjoy the process--

every step of the journey...

is laughter.  equal to any other.

to be happy before the victory is the victory.

for the laws of fear are past. they cannot allow 

happy again.

they sold their happiness.  yet

everyone can change: watch for new ideas:

and embrace what you feel of them.

remembering that the old ideas are what 

got us to here.

we are whole now

parts of a cell

we call ourselves

the Self.

we can still feel plan write talk 

watch the shadows as the weather changes.

our openness to change marks this step in human 

evolution

and makes us invincible.

love is opportunity

our only weapon is love.

it is what we wish to be and so wish it to be us now.

they'll push and we'll retreat leaving them flowers.

we'll teach.

peacelovepowertothepeople

we are already great because you are god and i am god, 

and i thank you for reminding me of that.

we are molecules in the same cell,

Earth.

let's raise a cup of tea, coffee, water pure and simple for 

the people who surround us.

our next step is the beginning of our own dance.

you are the greatest thing

since sliced bread.

today is the best day of our lives:

yesterday's gone, and tomorrow a dream away.

you are the mystery of life.

this is that

start

poem from brigade member Virginia Barrett

FLORA AND FAUNA 

Occupy California

Virginia Barrett

Point Reyes National Seashore

The field mustard

is occupying the land

of the historic ranch

with a brilliant banner

of yellow—urging an early

American Spring.

Crows, in their black,

Zen monk robes, stand

atop the fence posts

and impart:

            “let flowers grow

            in all our hearts.”

Having survived

an earlier eviction,

the Tule Elk graze

on the hillsides

            of loving undulations

above the rousing surf.

Cows, black and white,

conscientiously chew the cud

of the indigestible news

while in Tomales Bay

the oysters form pearls

to pay for better schools.

Mountain lions organize

in the night, stealing

it back from the monopoly

of electric lights,

           

                        (and the stars are staging a sit-in).

                                    Coyotes circle

                        to devour

            the corporate carnage

in the misty rain

that is washing

this earthly paradise,

                                    this California,

                                                clean.

Brigade poets in new Occupy anthology

Occupy SF—poems from the movement, has just been released. Several members of the brigade are in the anthology including: Sarah Menefee, Jack Hirschman, Agneta Falk, Rosemary Manno, Richard Gross, Gary Hicks, Virginia Barrett, Bobby Coleman, Steven Gray, Sarah Page, devorah major, jimmy.mankind, Mahnaz Badihian, Nina Serrano, Adrian Arias, Jim Byron, Angelina Llongueras, Jessica Loos, and George Long. Over 70 poets and authors are included in this important publication. Visit the website to learn more:www.occupyanthology.com

New Poem "MERREK" by Sarah Page

Merrek

(A Poem for the Children)

1.

Children are profound treasures.

I will never forget how

when you were three years old

and we were playing with your Lite Bright
while the other adults were watching the Superbowl

you took out 2 christmas lights and

plugged one into the board

and put another next to it

and said to me

"This is you,

and this is me,

next to you."

I didn't think children

could express abstractions like that.

Perhaps this is what happens

when the world turns upside-down like it is -

the children become the wise ones

philosopher-sage artists after only three years.

2.

Perhaps I cannot stop adults from burdening

children with their problems and short-comings.

Maybe I cannot stop bombs

from being dropped where they sleep and go to school,

can't keep them from being blown up by land mines

in the fields where they used to play.

But, I can know that when these things happen

we are all closer to them than we think. 

These are OUR children getting hurt and blown up and killed,

OUR bombs and OUR soldiers fighting meaningless wars.

And I can protest,

and I can write this poem,

and I can write more poems like this one -

but I would have to be like a ghost of myself

to do nothing.

The Gates of Hell by Steven Gray

THE GATES OF HELL


               (a sculpture by Rodin at Stanford University)




Standing at the Gates of Hell,
it feels like a rehearsal,
it’s a heavy metal representation,
a reversal


of the elevating. Here
the human beings fall
away from the divine, the
theology appalling,


but consider the location:
maybe it’s about
the suffering students who are damned
if they are dropping out.


The man-hours that went into this
metallic metaphor,
the figures are gesticulating,
there is room for more.


They’re going from the pan into
the fire, I’m resisting
the behavioral engineering,
hell does not exist.


The horrifying does, and it is
seeing through your clothes,
are these the people who have learned
their homes have been foreclosed?


The concept and the execution
were a tour de force,
evoking every kind of pain
from gravity to divorce.


The sculptor was an opportunist
jumping at the chance
to show the human figure from
all angles at a glance,


and that requires chaos, there are
people upside down.
I thought about the burning towers
in another town.


We’re haunted by a fall from grace,
historically a mass grave
is an awful classroom, you are
learning to behave,


but it’s a sunny afternoon,
if it’s the Gates of Hell
the vertigo would have us by
the hair.  I lived to tell


about it, but I have to admit
a subway is more hellish
with a cold wind underground,
the echo of a death-wish.

RPB for A Leap Forward from Jack Hirschman

Brigadistas---A final reminder: On Wednesday, Feb. 29 there will be 3
events in the City involving the RPB.

These events will be in solidarity with the CALL of the World Poetry Movement centered in Medellin, Colombia.

These events are NOT events OF the RPB but some participants are Brigadistas but you are asked to invite your friends and non-brigadistas to read, at 2 of the events.

The title of all three events is AS LEAP FORWARD and is design to
encompass the occupy movement, issues of antiwar, immigrations, etc.

The first event that day is 2pm at The Beat Museum on  Broadway near
Columbus. Some Brigadistas have been listed but all Brigadistas are invited
and so is the general public to read for 5 minutes.

Two Brigadistas---Nina Serrano and Adrian Arias---have answered the CALL
of the WPM by organizing an event at 7pm at the Mission
Cultural Center. Some Brigadistas are on their list, other participants
are not RPB. That event is not open.

But at the same time, 7pm Dottie Payne will open the doors to
ArtIntermnationale, 963 Pacific. between Powell and Mason for A LEAP FORWARD.
Brigadistas will of course be readings but we've all agreed not to
list names on this one but invite ANYONE who wants to participate to do so.

LET'S HAVE A WONDERFUL LEAP FORWARD fot Humanity on LEAPYEAR DAY AND
NIGHT!!!

New poem from jimmy.mankind@gmail.com © 02/07/12

I’m just sayin’…: 

1.  Violence would be to the advantage of the police who are activity reps for the powers of the corporate state. 

   Therefore, unruly behavior plays to their advantage.  We cannot win that one.  It is also bad PR, but more importantly, not many would choose to join up to get sprayed or beat up over staying home and watching on TV.   Or even after a while watching football for their dose.
2.  Violence is the cancer of adolescence.    

     We need the allegiance of octogenarians who do not ride bicycles.   This is also grannie's fight since she has a greater heart beat into the future than the single maverick athlete.

3.  Ideas are the next plateau anyway, since Occupy now has everyone's attention.   Ideas like: if you throw a war and nobody comes, it might stop.  Ideas like public banking.  And the moratorium on foreclosures.   The end of the internal combustion engine.  The irrelevance of a balanced budget in the face of mass starvation and homelessness, are only a few examples.

4.  Consensus, over census, is an unnecessary exaggeration of democratic agreement.   WE will need an internal opposition just to keep everyone apprised of alternatives and for corrections. 

5.  Some will want to break windows for their own reasons...but having one's own reasons all the time is one of the changes we’ll have to make.   Reason will become OUR reason as per OUR needs.

5.a. Robots have no votes and are inherently evil.

5.b. Robots foreclose upon census.

6.  Place is irrelevant.  Theirs or ours.   We need to speak everywhere, all the time, relentless, and as good as breathing.

7.  The next wars [after oil] will be fought over OXYGEN.

8.  Year of the dragon, year of success.   Marx, Mao, and Hegel are dead.  Study them for their failures not in order to emulate their successes...which were too easily twisted out of shape.  

9. The only god left is the god of survival, which means GAIA>she is the answer.   motherhood is the closest we'll ever get to empathy.   Study the Mother.   and finally...

#100. Have more fun than they do as we are neither pure sattvic nor karmic, but both all and nothing at all at one.

     we are grace.