 100,000 Poets for Change. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here today. I'm Lisa Vihos. I am the Poet Laureate of Sheboygan, and it's great to see all your smiling faces. As you know, as you may know, 100,000 Poets for Change is a worldwide movement, and we're in year 12 now. So every year for the last 11 years, we've met, gotten together, poets, musicians, in some cities, artists and dancers, friends, and gathering all over the world this particular weekend, the last weekend of September. Even in COVID, we met on Zoom, and that was pretty cool. But this year, there are people just like us in cities doing just what we're doing. There are over 250 participating cities in all over the world, Nigeria, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Malaysia, and here in the US. Here we are in Sheboygan, and we're part of this global movement. And what is this movement? So sharing words about peace and justice and environmental protection, sustainability, and just really bringing more kindness and beauty and love into the world through our words. So we're going to begin in a few moments with some music and then open mic and aim for like, you know, three to five minutes at the mic. We're not a huge group, so I think we can have a little more leeway with some time for everyone. And we'll be leading up to our featured poet, Mario Willis, who is the poet laureate of Milwaukee. He'll be here a little bit later. And so just a few thank yous. Thank you to Jeanne Gartman and Meade Library for hosting us as always. Thank you to WSES for recording us, to Mike Hubricks for photography, and to Jane Lang and John Dahl for audio support. And thank you to John, who's going to share some music. So our theme this year is, where do we go from here? We still have a lot of things to change, right? A lot of things we're working on. And we'll begin with John and a couple of very lovely and appropriate songs for our theme this year. So thank you all. Okay. Welcome, everybody. This first song was, I started writing this song probably 35, 40 years ago. After a trip to New York City, I was, I went to New York City in the middle of August and it was, I think it was 110 degrees and I was meeting a friend and there was steam coming up from the asphalt on the streets and I was meeting this friend on the east side and I had, I was standing waiting for her at this place and I was, I had a view of the east river and I saw this barge start to move across my line of vision and it took 10 minutes to get past my line of vision. I wondered what it was and I looked closer and it was like seagulls flying all around and it was, it was a junk barge and it was just going out under the Verenzano Bridge to be dumped into the ocean somewhere. And at this point my daughter was about one years old and I was wondering what kind of a world are we going to have for her. And also my mother used to say that one of the saddest things you can do in your life is to live your life the way you think someone else wants you to live it. And how often do we do that? We end up spending a lot of time doing things that other people want us to do and then we get to a point in life where, gee, I wish I had done more of something else. So that's what this song is about and it's, I like to think of myself as a watcher of my own words and my own feelings and thoughts as they pass through and that's what this song is about. Smog in the city, oil in the water, hot tire in the crosswalk, garbage in the gutter, a junk barge on the river, cans on the beach, people running around like dogs of leash. The saddest thing that you can never do is to live your life the way you think someone else wants you to. So I am the watcher and I'm out of my mind, parties and doorways, ghosts pulling carts, folks living nowhere, just walking in the dark, streets getting thicker with traffic every day, everybody's buying and throwing more away. The saddest thing you can never do is to live your life the way you think someone else wants you to. So I am the watcher and I'm out of my mind. I am the watcher of cloud and star, mountain, wind and sea, thoughts and feelings just as they are. Snowflake, raindrop, fly from somewhere else, trading our gold watches for their animal belts. He was starting all over in the fight. The saddest thing that you can never do is the way you think someone else, so I am the watcher and I am out of my mind. Thank you. And this next song is one that I wrote just as the pandemic was in the first month or so of the pandemic. And it's called, it's called The Tipping Point. And it's kind of, it's the theme that, there's a phrase in here that's kind of the theme of that Lisa chose this year. Where do we go from here? We've gone beyond the tipping point, can't go back. We are blind now we must see. We've gone beyond the tipping point to the black. We've done now we must be. Tried to make ourselves equal. We've tried to make ourselves free. We never tried to do unconditionally. We've gone beyond the tipping point. We've gone beyond the tipping point lost in space. Where do we go from? We've gone beyond the running of this. Of course it's not quite clear. Tried to keep ourselves separate. Just trying to make ourselves free. The only other thing we never tried. We've gone beyond the tipping point. The other thing we never tried to do is love each other here. Other and now we've gone beyond the tipping point. Thank you. Thank you, John. I love the poetry of your music. Thank you so much for that, for getting us started. And so the first person to come to the mic is Don Neeter Frank. Welcome, welcome up. Don, you can be right over there. And if people just came in and didn't get to sign the sign up, I've got it. Just wave your hand at me. I'll make sure we get you on the list, okay? It's probably appropriate we start in some darkness. This is titled Moving On, A Sonnet for the Formerly Sane. 9-11 is history, gone from our rear view mirror. We are living in a near hysteria. The terrorists are already here. The fearmongers on the nightly news, online liars and tweeters of terror. Those whose views we freely choose. Telling us how and whom to fear. Of our truth we are dead certain. Bolstered by confirmation by us. Covering our doubt with light-proof curtain. Convinced the enemy cannot be us. In a field of broken dreams we lie, as we ourselves terrify. Thank you. Thank you, Don. Thank you very much. Our next reader is Mary Fleischman. That's okay. Take your time. Yes, I think that's good. Okay. The poem that I chose is written by Ernesto Cardeno. And he is a Nick Rockwin priest poet who worked diligently for social justice. And some of you may be familiar with him. He wrote over 30 books and he died in 2020. And the title of this poem is For Those Dead Our Debt. When you get the nomination, the award, the promotion, think about the ones who died. When you are at the reception on the delegation, on the commission, think about the ones who died. When you have won the vote and the crowd congratulates you, think about the ones who died. When you're cheered as you go up to the speaker's platform with the leader, think about the ones who died. When you're picked up at the airport in the big city, think about the ones who died. When it's your turn to talk into the microphone, when the TV cameras focus on you, think about the ones who died. When you become the one who gives up the certificates, orders, permission, think about the ones who died. When the little old lady comes to you with her problem, her little piece of land, think about the ones who died. See them without shirts being dragged, gushing blood, wearing hoods, getting electric shocks, blown to pieces, submerged in tubs, their eyes gouged out, their throats cut, riddled with bullets dumped alongside the road in holes they dug themselves in mass graves or just lying on the ground enriching the soil of the wild plains. You represent them. The ones who died delegated you. Ernesto Cardinal, thank you, Mary. Thank you. We've started with some of the dark vision, right? And we'll, yes, new people coming. We'll get you signed up in just one second. I'll bring the sign up list. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. Oh, I should look at the sign up list because the next person is Emily Cayman. Is this good? All right, I'm getting thumbs up, so I guess it's good. None of my poems have any names because I suck at naming them. So you'll just figure it out as we go, I guess. One day I will vanish. The only trace, a whisper in your ear, a buzzing in your bones that says, I'm sorry, love, but I was never one to sit still. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll know where to look, how to follow my trail through oblivion and back. Find me where we began, past the willows where the mist coats my face, paints us in shades of gray, the colors of the moon, maybe of love, maybe of forever, maybe just the tiniest of maybes of life together. Anyway, I say, it doesn't matter. This lie might one day become true, but today it burrows into my blood, feasting on my aorta, cutting to the bone. Wanderlust, stars under my skin, trailing comets through veins, nebulae in the corners of my eyes. I am cut from the fabric of the sky. Born without wings, I throw myself off every precipice for a moment before the crack of bones against stone I remember flight. My mom wanted me to read a poem about an argument I have with a cat, and I don't have that one with me, so I'm going to read this one instead because she will also appreciate it. So, bees are great. We all know it. They pollinate flowers, they make honey, and frankly bumblebees are just adorable. But you know, they aren't the only ones out there fighting the good fight, and I'm not talking about those flighty show-offs of dragonflies or fuzzy-leg butterflies and moss, nor am I repping the dragonfly, though they do also eat mosquitoes, so that's pretty neat of them. And while hummingbirds are beautiful, this poem isn't about them either. No, this is for the unsung, unappreciated, unfairly maligned hero of the pollination world. This is for the bats. Anyone who's scared of them, frankly, must have never looked at one before. They're fuzzy, and if cute little faces, they're the puppies of the flying world. No, they won't fly at you to attack. No, they won't get tangled in your hair. And no, they have about the same chance of biting you and giving you rabies as your dog. A bat always knows exactly where they are in relation to everything else, and will never run into anything unintentionally. Without bats, guess what? No chocolate. That's right. These nocturnal fur babies are the primary pollinator of the cacao tree, which makes cocoa beans, which makes chocolate. In fact, they're the primary pollinator of most tropical plants, because 100% of bats don't want to suck your blood. They want that sweet-smelling nectar instead. Agave, bananas, mangoes, guavas, eucalyptus all evolve specifically to cater to bats. And what do these guys get for their hard work? They're feared, maligned, hunted, exterminated. So chill out about bats and turn that aggression towards a species that deserves it, like politicians. Thanks, Emily. Did you read that poem last summer at the poll... We had an event called, In Praise of Pollinators, and that... I love that poem. Thank you. All right, next up is Edward Steen. Come on up, Ed. That should be good. Can you hear me? Good. As many of you know, I'm the East Region Representative for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. If you don't belong, you should belong, and you can find us at wfop.org. So I brought a few short, shortish poems. The first one I haven't read in quite a while. It's in my first chat book, but it's, you know, it's a little more hopeful. It starts with some information. My son married a woman from Santiago, Chile, and while they were living there, I got a chance to visit there a few times. So this is the epigram. Pablo Neruda had a home at East La Negra, Chile, which is now a National Museum. There's an inscription there of the words he spoke to Pinochet soldiers trained at the school of... Oh, I'm sorry. Is that better? There's an inscription there of the words he spoke to Pinochet soldiers who were trained at the school of the Americas when they came to search his home after the coup. Look around. There's only one thing of danger to you here poetry. So this poem is called Let's Train Poets Here. Let's train poets here, not soldiers here at East La Negra by the sea. Let's build a new school of the Americas. Let's write a new curriculum of love and understanding. We'll sail the poet's boat into international waters and discover a planet without flags and borders, a planet he dreamed of. Essay question. Why is the land we return to different? We'll study a photo of the earth taken from outer space and contemplate its fragility and smallness. Essay question. Imagine you are an alien discovering earth. What life would you hope to encounter there? We'll study the economics of exploitation, climb a mountain and rewrite the sermon to read the make shall inherit the earth and the mineral rights. We'll make annual field trips to Georgia, to that other school of the Americas, join with those who advocate its closure, read our poems, sing our songs, and dream a world of peace. And when the graduates of that school are sent to raid this place, may they find nothing but this memorial to Neruda, a library full of dangerous, beautiful poetry. So it's football season again. And I wrote this poem shortly after last year's Super Bowl. I don't know if you remember, but I constantly marvel at what things corporations will use to sell their products. And the Amazon commercial during the Super Bowl used Franz Schubert's Ave Maria, which is one of the most beautiful things in the world. This is called what a world. What a world, what a world shrieked the wicked witch of the west as she melted like the last glacier. And what can we say now, but what a world when Jeff Bezos shells out five and a half million dollars for a 30 second Super Bowl commercial, which features a beautiful prayer, the Ave Maria by Schubert to sell Amazon Prime. What a world in which a corporation named after the largest watershed in the world delivers water and plastic bottles and plastic cases to people who no longer have access to clean drinking water. What a world when what's left of the rainforest burns while politicians fiddle. Ave Maria, what a world our future burns and the words Hail Mary now refer to a long, desperate pass with time running out. But this is not a football game. And there's no Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers that can save us from a world on fire. This planet will not provide us an overtime in which to redeem ourselves. Ave save us Ave Maria save us save us from ourselves. Like many of us I've lost some friends in the last few years that I wasn't able to pay homage to in the in the right way. This poem starts with an epigram from the Swedish poet Thomas Tranströmer who said there is no room for rhetoric in a poem. Jerry died last night. I'm thinking about all the trees that paper and pencils used to be and the lost oxygen of their felling of ancient plants and animals now pumped up as petroleum and of the lost oxygen of their burning. And I'm thinking about my grandchildren, none of them yet teenagers and of how I won't need the oxygen in 20 years, but they will. And I'm thinking of how Jerry died last night and of how I will die, maybe not tonight or tomorrow, but some dark night 19 years from now. Then neither I nor Jerry will need the oxygen 20 years from now, but they still will my grandchildren. And I'm thinking of how we poets have been writing for centuries with wooden pencils on paper pulped from trees. And where has it gotten any of us? How many trees? How much lost oxygen? And I'm thinking of how I'll print this poem on an electric printer and then drive somewhere burning fossil fuels to recite it. And that all I'm giving back is eight little plants in my small apartment and those four grandchildren who have an oxygen deficit. And Jerry died last night and I will die someday, but it won't be from a lack of oxygen like my grandchildren. And I can't finish this poem. I've ruined it because there's no room for rhetoric and I don't know how to write without it anymore. And Jerry died last night and I can't finish this poem. And then I'll close with this short one. It's a fairly recent one and I read a quote in a book by Mark Strand that just kind of, you know, I just said, wow. And the quote is, you live between two great darknesses, the first one with an ending, the second without one. This is called, think about this now, how the sun is always simultaneously rising and setting somewhere of how one now is always becoming then just as the next now appears about how all this has been said before a million times, only that now this now it's your turn. And then it too quickly becomes someone else's chance, always now becoming then as the sun seems to circle into a new time zone when in reality it's us circling into a new now, now, now. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. So next I want to invite Kai Mills to come up and we're going to do something together, Kai and I. So for the last maybe three years or so I've been along with a poet who isn't here today Sylvia Kavanaugh. We've been the English language editors for a journal called Poetry Hall and we, the journal is Chinese poetry but there's a section of English poems and you are all you English speaking poets out there are invited to submit to poetry hall. And then your poem gets translated into Chinese and it appears in this journal and super exciting. So we're going to read a couple of things and I'll just stop talking and read the poems. Okay. We read your my work. Okay. This poem I wrote in Chinese and my husband translated into English. I read the Chinese first. Okay. Thank you. Okay and I'll read you the English now. It's called Spirit of the Salmon. This small clear creek is my home. My mother went to heaven after giving me life. I have endured the first winter searching through the lake and growing up alone. I do not have a magnificent appearance but within I am filled with rays of sunlight. I must escape the attacks and humiliation of the fishing birds of prey. I avoid the enticing bait of the fishing nets. I have steel like determination, fearless and fierce currents and torrential rains. One day I will search for my mother's bloodstain breaking through the many layers of frustration, countercurrents, struggles and ascend returning to my ancestral home to continue my family line without complaining about a life such as this miserable and sad, hot and cold. This is my spirit. And it's a beautiful poem Kai in Chinese and in English. And so next then we thought well I will read a poem of mine as well that appears in a book called In Other Words and this was Poet Laureates of Wisconsin, Cities and the State and so this poem is for us today. I'll read it in English and then Kai will read it in Chinese. It's called Insolidarity. Seen from above we are a myriad of small circles. We move through the streets like blood cells and veins, bobbing our way in and through to the heart of the matter. We make ourselves known as a collective system. We work to keep the greater body alive and healthy. We work to keep at bay that which would try to annihilate us. We band together in arteries all over the planet, all systems flowing toward a common goal to speak, to be heard, to listen. We flow like water, like wine, like blood, each one unique, each one connected. When we ignore our small discrepancies and remain united we cannot fail. We surge like a tide. We will prevail. Thank you. This book was translated by Portugal president and me. So when I translated this poem I felt wow this lady, mind full of rich imagination and thoughts about this world and life. So now I'm reading Chinese. Thank you. I have to say it's very wonderful to hear your own words in a completely different language, one that you can't read the letters or you don't even know what it could possibly mean. Thank you. Thank you for that. The next poet up is Frisian McKee. Yes, and our featured poet has arrived, Mario Willis. Thank you for being here. Well, yes, we'll keep going. I think so, yeah. This is great. Thank you. Hi everybody. I'm so happy to be here. My name is Frisian McKee and I'm the poet in residence at Rippin College. I'm going to read two poems for you. I was looking at these really interesting sculptures, relief sculptures here on these four pillars and I noticed there were some horses in this second one which relate to this poem. How many of you who are poets have ever had somebody ask you where do you get your ideas? Yeah, that's kind of a common question. So this poem proves that you can sometimes get an idea from staring at the wall. The poem is called questionable westerns. In the wood paneling of my office, I see a horse face, the swell and curve of nostril and snout, mouth and tall informed eye. Her body itself is only a swirl, watching me like a pond, the mouth parted, laughing. I've been dreaming of horses lately or what I imagine it must be to stand near them, to trust a horse, brush their flanks and pitchfork their shit. But I know so little. I don't even know if you'd use a pitchfork or a shovel, thinking back to the community garden in college where we spread old manure from the animals up the hill. It's the only part of the reality I know. Tomatoes, zucchini, the delicate wax, beans and cucumbers are grown from shit. And my mind's like that too. The questionable westerns my grandfather borrowed from the library and the field of the saddle and rains in my fists at a Girl Scouts field trip, my lifelong hunger for safe adventure calibrated by the myth of riding onto empty land, pushing a stake into the wasted earth, all look like wood paneling in my office in Wisconsin, my office, which is like saying my horse, that autonomous and dependent beast carrying me into the life where so many have already been. So the second poem, this is the last poem I'll read, is about something I've been trying to write about lately, which is about family structures and how those of us with queer families, multiracial families, families that are made out of friends and not necessarily blood relatives are living in resistance. And part of white supremacy and patriarchy has to do with controlling family structures and kinship structures, this idea that a family can only look one way. So this poem is called Focus on the Family. They think a family is static, gridlocked, an edged lawn, chemicaled into oblivion. When it's four sloppy seasons on a shoreline, a marsh, they think family is a fortress with garrets under attack, when really were impossible to deforest, deep and silent as bedrock. Family swims upstream, where the mud that feeds the pond were not breakable vessels of dredged and fine screened clay, but the water you pour into and drink and can't retain. We mean to rejoin with ourselves whether you dam us or not. Thank you. Thank you, Frisha. That was awesome. Focus on the family. Next up is Marianne Hurt. Come on up, Marianne. Yeah, you too. Friendly face, really great. Hello, am I talking loud enough? Am I? Okay, good. I'm going to read two poems. One is Pretty Somber and the other one actually takes place about three blocks east toward the lake. I know lots of times people say poets should really not try to explain their poems. They should just stand on their own. But I kind of like knowing the backstories of poems. And so the first poem was titled After Nagasaki and I need to tell you a little bit about this background. Have you all heard of Bikini Atoll when I'm talking about and after World War II bombing that with the nuclear bomb that was hundreds and hundreds of times stronger than Nagasaki and Hiroshima when it was bombed? My uncle Bob was at the Bikini Atoll when it was bombed. I spent a lot of time with my auntie, was almost 100 years old this past summer. And she told me the story about my uncle Bob and that story has haunted me forever. And I knew a little bit about before but when she told it to me and she's telling me this and she's almost 100 years old, she's telling me how my uncle Bob was told to cover his eyes, turn his back and not look at the explosion when it when it blew. She's holding her hands up. Her hands are just skin and bones. When my uncle Bob opened his eyes, which he did, which he was not supposed to do, he saw his skeleton like a giant x-ray from all the radiation. That story has haunted me forever. So this poem came out of that. My uncle Bob died when he was 54 years old. Three of his kids, my cousins have died already young. His fourth daughter is in stage four and stage lung cancer. The story just keeps haunting me forever and ever and it should haunt all of us. Now with your noble and all the things that are going on now too. So anyway, this is a stop but I have a little epigram that I need to read because I found a book about that was the pictorial history of Operation Crossroads. It was the official war record that was published after after the bombing. And I found it on eBay, which was kind of an interesting find. Anyway, the rest of this is ever after Nagasaki to guard their eyesight. Persons without goggles were ordered to stand with their backs toward the blast back with their backs toward the blast and to remain in that position until the all clear signal was given several seconds after the instant of explosion. That was from operations crossroads. The official pictorial record of the 1946 Bikini atoll test bombing 1000 times more powerful than either of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. A bikini atoll my uncle Bob was told to cover his eyes but how could he not witness such apocalypse? The bones of his fingers made visible of a someday flesh gone body. So in some mysterious future, ghosts walk next to him haunt him even share his deepest marrow till the day comes. They leave only a ghost who now haunts us to const the rest of us unbelievers who wish to think it can't happen again. But now Chernobyl, so Patricia and and and wait for the bus. This poem takes place from like three blocks toward the lake from 50 some years ago from a sixties time. And now I'm 73 and that seems like really ancient history but sometimes it feels really close. The title of this poem is Love Beads and a Foghorn. In that once upon a time bell bottoms no bra delight sixties a far away man sent letters make love not war words that heated her nights alone and her first on her own upstairs flat two blocks east lake michigan blue cold the fog horn sounding wisdom make your life count wake up get out of bed dress dress then catch the number five bus punch in wash bottoms slide old body side to side no bed sores allowed the man from far away cities returned place love beats around her neck till one day they broke and shattered they grew into seeds planted enriched dirt hoping to be daisies or sunflowers blooming all over again but quite possibly even taller thank you thank you Mary Ann um let's see next up is Annalisa Finkett and after Annalisa will be Lee Trata and then Tom Contrastan just giving everybody a little heads up I think so is that good all right okay so I have two poems that I'm going to read um I wrote them during the pandemic and I think that's probably all the backstory that you need for them this first one is called the end of summer the end of summer and how to make sure the rains come huddled in our rooms how to make sure the sun rises like yesterday the earth circles like last year if you are told this much death is what life requires this much air breathed out and never back in this many bodies stacked like cordwood so much smoke and ash blown away on the wind never mind don't answer the air fills with smoke the sun rises breath flies up towards heaven the earth spins around the sun the rain falls on all of us we call ourselves clean and the next one is called the coming of spring the coming of spring once to preserve the world you had to stand there thrust the blade down through the five sacred points or at least to watch from the bottom of the stairs to heaven raise your arms and cheer when the blood fell in auspicious signs but we are not barbarians pleasure should be real pain at a distance behind a door who looks the bull in the eye as the blade cuts across the throat who stays to hear its gurgling when breath becomes impossible and all that's left is to choke and drown against a wailing chorus of machines what is falling now outside the window and who reads the patterns it makes on the cold ground thank you thank you anelisa uh lee trotter where are you lee here he comes oh yeah well good yeah that's fine um i'm gonna read two the first one needs a some introduction or epigram or whatever you want to call it uh it is called a nation in mourning and it was written by a friend of mine valerie jup who moved to maryland recently but she was a shabuigan resident it was written on september 11th 2001 we are a nation in mourning let us don our death shrouds now we are not mourning art which i might have said was lacking nor are we mourning passion nor poetry we are not mourning science nor debate nor philosophy we are not mourning anything so grand and so intangible we are a nation mourning our brothers and sisters our mothers and fathers our cousins our aunts and uncles our truest friends we are a nation mourning happiness we are a nation mourning stability grown naive with pomposity struck through now with indolence i for one don't know when healing comes nor can i say just when the pain will die we are a nation mourning safety now shaking weary fists toward the sky and this one nowhere near as good is by me the lake is empty of wings america is beautiful but nobody sings the sun shines off the ice it's rather brisk but the gloves are nice and so are the skis that make shush shush shush through the woods and over lake california and florida question the fuss and with global warming it may be all too fleeting for us thank you thank you lee do you want to come up tom and we'll move down the mic so that you can uh sit yes um john reminded me that on the first wednesday night of each month you come come on it's okay first wednesday night of each month we do there is an open mic for poetry and music at word haven which i i believe the address is 923 it's right down here on 8th street and it's a wonderful new bookstore we have an independent bookstore in town we're like so um no no the next event is on wednesday october 5th and we started six from six to eight so please come it's really um becoming a wonderful venue for all kinds of creativity and um kelly holstein who is the owner really supportive of the writing community here in town so check out the bookstore for sure and uh we'll just wait while we're waiting for tom to get organized um i just want to thank everyone again i'm sorry it's cold i wish the sun was shining i appreciate that we're all in our we're getting ready now for winter but um it's really great to have have you all here and uh yeah we're almost ready okay is that good uh before i read this i'd like to thank the gentleman that uh talked about the school of the americas not too many people know about that this is our uh our american domestic terrorist training base at ford used to be at ford benning georgia now it's at they they got smart and they stuck it out in the desert in in arizona um i have seen as many as 20 000 people at the gates um protesting the atrocity of the school and the um the thousands of people that the graduates had murdered in various countries propping up dictatorships so thank you for that this is called covid times happy new year 2020 well maybe not faucian the cdc say brace yourselves we we start uh distancing washing hands avoiding crowds wearing masks not so much to protect ourselves is to protect others who who uh if we've got it except for the trumpers who think it's it's silly and uh an infringement on their civil rights meanwhile the morgues and the gravediggers are working overtime spring to summer life lifestyles change no more concerts scrabble at the coffee house no more ballgains no more trivia at the alhouse no more poker nights or cheap cheap tuesday night movies we huddle at home dodging mr covid some of us dare to gather at the park to remember george brianna and others in black lives matter demonstrations except for the trumpers who think it's a silly waste of time can you say white fragility fall to winter election time masking up we vote you can spot the trumpers yes they're the ones without the masks keeping a weary eye on the people who run the polls did biden win was trump cheated yes to a no to b frustrated people have been diving into social media rabbit holes some deeper than others can't trust the media can't trust the system who can you trust donald trump alex jones and coup and on fill in the gaps winter to spring 2022 a new vaccine array of hope uh just when we thought we were out of the woods more more miles of deep woods to go the bug adapts enter the omega variant meanwhile back in washington trump refuses to give up the white house he eggs his minions on to attack the capital as we watch in horror our country being turned into a banana republic jefferson franklin adams in washington all turning in their graves spring to summer we struggle on we continue masking distancing etc except for you know who one million americans now dead more more more staying at home and virtual meetings one will at all end trump appointed justices tipped the balance at the supreme court american women lose the precious right of choice can enact at woody in theocracy before behind many of us shocked and angry about this atrocity except for you know who to feel very comfortable in 1958 about half of us now waxed except for you know who infections hospitalizations and and deaths now all in decline more shots and boosters seem to be working trump continues to shout the big lie and the maga republicans continue to follow russia invades the ukraine life and death goes on i um have another poem that i i wasn't sure whether i was going to read this because i had read it once before to gathering like this and lisa said well there are people here who haven't heard it so please excuse me if you've heard this before i hate chewing my cabbage twice i am a veteran for peace most people don't know who we are they thank me for my service i tell them that i was part of the vietnam war that i didn't serve i was used that i serve my country and the world more since i became an activist for peace and justice than i ever did in all the years that i wore a uniform and carried a weapon we are veterans for peace once we used force to protect the rich and powerful now we use words to defend lives in the rights of the oppressed once we used rifle butts and bayonets to suppress dissenters today we carry protest signs to confront injustice once we drop bombs on people homes and schools today we work to support education brotherhood and disarmament once we sprayed chemicals that poisoned the land in the water water today we plant organic gardens and trees once we shot people to bolster corporate profits today we practice civil disobedience speaking truth to power once we obeyed the chain of command today we question those in authority once we were proud to be patriotic americans today we consider ourselves citizens of the world i'm a democrat with a small d i'm a republican with a small r i'm a veteran for peace and i practice atonement every day of my life thank you thank you tom all right we'll make the transition now lily and i forget your name pat you guys wanted to do something together or lily does has something of whatever come on up okay we just slip that in here please oh i can oh all right i will explain lily's gonna come up and read two poems and then we have four women here from a group called the raging grannies which is an awesome singing group and they are going and they do songs that they re you take tunes and rewrite the lyrics so they're going to share one song one song and so we'll have poems and then song and i see another person arrived and we'll try to squeeze you in all right so next is lily for me for matt for matt okay forgive me lily the first poem i'm right reading i'm an identical twin and this poem is called child of the wild and my twin and i look just like this except we didn't bother with boots so i i became a naturalist and i've dedicated this poem to nature and to my twin sister who gave me this card and inside she put remember and i cried it's called child of the wild give your child to the wild to the high screaming cry of a hawk in the sky give her trees so she sees sunlit lace from her place on a limb checkered leaves and prairies let the breeze blow her hair fragrant air grassy waves rolling there let her run in the sun let her lie gazing high up at clouds passing by help her dream wave the stream smell the snow let her know rains caress fireflies glow let her grow time will show nature's worth that from birth she's a child of the earth like a kiss give her this legacy let her be nature's child wild and free that was my dear sister who i i moved up here to he should like it to be near her actually and we did all those things in the that in the poem okay my second one one is called delusions if i can get it out here just a minute yes no this is good and it's what we kid ourselves about we like to think that we're the top the ultimate cream of nature's crop our status we're sure will never drop we'll just improve and as to greater heights we saw improving our lot and planning more we don't even bother to ask what for we're in the groove we build our empires and tear them down we pave the planet with city and town with blinding lights and with screaming sound we make our mark with highways and skyways and ships at sea we harness the land that once was free denuding the forest of every tree to build a park and though we're certain we know the score know who walked when where and even what for the truth is the earth holds immeasurably more that we don't know we govern and manage in nature's name we don't know the rules but we play the game we're well in tension but just the same look out below instead of living as part of earth respecting nature and knowing its worth we act as though everything since its birth belongs to man we like to think that we're the elect the naplus ultra but i suspect we're nothing but one more sad reject in nature's plan and when our time of ascendancy is done and earth's once again wild and free it's fauna and flora on land and sea once more to roam perhaps the next species to multiply will neither reason nor wonder why but find it sufficient to live and die in earth its home that's it now raging grannies come up and join me jan come up come on jan you can do this we are part of the raging granny social boigen yes there's groups larger than this and if anyone would like to join us we're always open for new people coming in um this raging grandpa yes uh the song we're going to sing is to the music of where have all the flowers gone the first four verses were written by uh lily bonnet and the last verse was written by the fifth verse was written by carol indel yes where have all the flowers gone and enough song birds where have all the fishes gone and the insects too where have all the mammals gone we destroyed them one by one when will we ever learn when will we ever learn where have all the ice flows gone from the mountains where have all the glaciers gone and all the springs where have all the rainforests gone they're depleted everyone when will we ever learn when will we ever learn where has all the balance gone in our climate where's our hose of old layers gone and the warming skier why our season's all messed up and the air's not safe to breathe when will we ever learn when will we ever learn how can we restore our earth sit too little and too late can we even try have we passed the tipping point is there something we can do act right now lose our lovely home and to live with less and still be happy can we choose the same three things that truly make us free can we choose a government based on justice and equality we better act right now or lose our lovely home thank you i just wanted to let you know i was a teacher and when i was about 50 i went back to school and studied environmental biology and became a naturalist way to go thank you lily thank you raging grannies that was awesome um our next poet is kelsey libtow come on up are you ready no do you want to wait a second okay she's ready she's ready okay oh should i just figure out check check it out okay sure okay um briefly kind of reflecting on on the the loose theme and and where do we go from here something i come back to a lot is empathy and um trying to understand things from other people's perspectives um um and some people have probably heard some of these before uh but that's okay lisa says permission granted um these first few will be published in glint this december so uh the first one is called welder's intuition my brother was a welder he talked about it constantly one of his great true loves when he's gone i learn to hold a welding gun to make lawn art and decorations the instructor in explains why most women are here i hold an arc of light like i've never been burned before like my brother didn't wear black holes like moth said struck gloves so thick i forget there are fingers inside shield's so dark you're blind until firing and when metal meets metal the gun swerves so you have to guess which way it will go before it even knows itself welder's intuition i hold an arc of light audacious like the belief i deserve to exist like the air i've stolen from bees and neighbors like the space i take up to sit my brother was a welder a hunter he knew every part of every gun i ever met he was so good at naming things a skill i don't inherit i yelp at the laser cutter i flinch out crooked weld across cobbled farm bolts i make no beautiful lawn art i just wanted to feel what he felt okay i will read one more um from from this batch it's called groundhog's grief i think a lot is well about um something that we need in this community and broadly across our our culture being um sharing stories of mental health and struggle so that people know that you come out on the other side so this is called groundhog's grief 37 days after my brother disappears into the marsh a classmate shares an updated parabolic denotation of the grief trajectory knowing i have only emerged from shock to anger five days prior when i laid one hand where i could only guess an arm should be covered in blue funeral paper i'm so mad that i write a poem to every tick along the path to healthy grief integration like i'm ticking off bubbles on my iowa test of basic skills again and we're in the church basement and we're children drape from my grandmother's sugar maple small and shrill and the children are us and we're stealing apples from the neighbor's tree and hurling our bodies bikes and all to the wind we're drunk on new years while my baby brothers turned 21 in suits we're going full speed down the river on a john boat we're grilling we're bonfires we're the whole damn test charred over and i get so damn the pencil snaps mad that i'm all the way back on shock again one of my favorite poems is the hurricane by mary oliver who's also one of my favorite poets and i wrote this uh after our storm this year it just had me reflecting on those themes of resilience that she pulled from from her poem so this is called the storm after mary oliver's the hurricane driving down the highway i wonder are there always so many dying trees i don't remember july being so bald and why is no one talking about it then i remember the storm entire blocks ripped up by their roots the way it feels to be handled that way the way a brain forgets in flickers gets distracted by a puppy or eye contact because everything alive just wants to survive thank you kelsey that was really powerful and thank you uh heather handlin come on up um we are having quite a morning this is really beautiful thank you everyone and um we're looking forward to our featured reader where did he go he's here but okay heather handlin thank you thank you thanks lisa for hosting us all and thanks everyone for sharing um i i also am beginning to love mary oliver it's somebody who i totally missed for a long time which is so silly but i tried to channel her a little bit when i was trying to construct some poems to enter in um a contest i guess for the worm farm institute which um had a call for poems that functioned like the old berma shave ads um yeah and i didn't get in but i okay all right but it was such a good practice for me i'm always looking for like things to try out so that it's not just like like relying on like me and my little stories and thoughts so it was a great practice and i'm and i can't wait to go and let's go together okay that would be really fun i can't wait to see um because they're going to be displayed on farm on the side of farms um just like the berma shave ads so piece by piece you know so i'm going to share two of the ones that i submitted for you and the first one is about tomatoes and it was inspired by violet who really likes to pick tomatoes aggressively and she's my little one back there pick a tomato red skin breaks seeds curl down in your warm palm baby beef steaks and um still trying to channel little mary oliver um thinking about thinking about nature thinking about trees uh trees eat raindrop eat sun peeling eat toadstool grows rings that say i am always healing thank you okay i don't mean for this to be like a celebration of failure but i'm going to share another one um that was inspired by prompt for color color um which i think some of you are probably familiar with that prompt that came out for wisconsin poets as well recently um so i was thinking what poems talk about color in a way that makes the color powerful that makes it say something that you can't say if it wasn't there so i'm going to first read a poem by uh poet adrian c lewis and it's been inspiring me for a long time and i keep coming back to it and trying to figure it out more and more and i can't but i can feel it a little bit and it's called the reservation how do you sweep a dirt floor how do you describe the blue face of death to a spirit you will someday dance with first a dirt floor cannot be dirty second her face was more green than blue on the malachite or a crumpled dollar bill in a wino's hand we lived so red in the corpse blue shadow of turquoise so then i tried to write a poem all about color using color and it's a practice um and i can't wait to work on it a little more it was the last stanza is a poem that doesn't belong to me it belongs to basho famous haiku old famous haiku artist who wrote the poem even in kiyoto hearing the kukukrai i long for kiyoto and that was such a powerful sentence about longing that even when you're with the thing you can long for it still you can like almost have grief about how much you love it even when you're there with it and so this poem was inspired and ends with that poem and is me trying to play with color and the colors of light and it's called light doesn't have to hold a thing blue the bus headlights pierced the dark and deep blue dawn next to the airport white caps glinting water so salty you can't drink how many different words do i have for labor red the ringing phone we rate horror movies to compare them to love hear bodies hear blood hear birth reaching into the receiver for a way to feel so together i heard you cleaning up hard plastic toys green grass picking stone collecting she hands me white gravel puts her fingers together to sign milk and when i question the word her sugar nose scrunching her arms around my legs we can be happy together you and me and you and me and us together sometimes i need to be reminded because i'm tired that the summer trees illuminate green leaves like petals soft and magic i miss you even when i am with you even in kiyoto hearing the kukuk cry i long for kiyoto thank you thank you heather so we have three poets yet before we come to our featured readers so let's have first keith gostead is that your k keith is up oh then we'll have tracy and then we'll have dev so thank you this first one is actually a polka it's uh what about ism what about what about what about what about what about polka what about what about what about what about what about polka what about this and what about that and what about fishing with a baseball bet what about now and what about then what about a sword is better than a pen what about day and what about night what happens to the sun and the moon have a fight what about wrong and what about right what happened about power coming from might what about what about what about what about what about what about what about polka what about what about what about what about what about what about polka uh this is the other The other poem I'll read is actually published on a series of park benches in West Alice. If you go down there, it was part of a project in 2019 where each line was taken and painted onto a bench by different artists, and they've since repainted several of them and updated the artwork. So if you're in West Alice, check it out. It's called You Are Going Somewhere. Life is more than a movie yet during this montage. Within your stardom, reflected in the city around you, recognize the grandeur in this motion, picture framed by windows in neighborhoods beyond windows where souls sit, reflecting hope, sunlight in your eyes, a transition to a new scene, the next stop. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. What about polka? That was awesome. Tracy Ludvick, you're up next. Great. Thanks. Whatever you think. I can't really see. Can you read, too? I wasn't going to hold it, but I just don't want it to block the words. There we go, because I can only see on that side. So do you want to hang? Thank you. All right. So in response to Lisa's call for poetry about what's next in our society, I picked a couple of haikus and a poem that I may have read in the past somewhere around here, but it really helped me finish it. I really needed to be finished. So I'm going to start with haiku, well, haikus really don't have names. So I'll just go with it. Permittable cloud, dawn, crows, descend from pine trees, keen to assess me. So that's about, with all that's going on, look at myself, examine myself. The crows are examining me, I should be examining myself, too. The second one is called, all right. I love you, too. What happened? Thank you. I just didn't want him to bite me. Oh, perfect. I didn't see that clip. Okay, it's called, so this is called tour bus to Auschwitz and it's based, well, it's about a trip me and my mom took to Eastern Europe and basically our, you know, experience in Auschwitz and how it affected us. Smoky stench nauseates, ammonia sting turns me from timbered double doors, draws tears that won't cleanse, beloved Jews, Czechs, Poles, no need to see more. Every book of numbers, pace, one million, 82,000 gassed between here and Burkinau, just one of at least six kill sites. See how human slinks from humane. Tourists breathe among ghosts, tortured, slayed these days, boiled sauerkraut, little comfort as I pass canteen undermines bread, saliva, prisoners worked into beads, outside crematorium, tearful zombies, drop heads, clasp arms, for withered souls, perched like crows at edge of intake center roof, looking to lighten their load, fly home. And teens break our trance, don't look back. See weeping willows cut down fast as they're planted, making room for future statistics. As Americans resist, Syrians, Sudanese, Afghanis flee, dominators weave, religious creed, absolute power, greed, ethnic supremacy, simple words, vague ideas, hypnotic venom to unconscious battle of mismatched minds. Now it's our turn to act, stand up, speak up, be heard, be brave. So that one is that part about being brave, you know, that's the hardest thing, you know, when you're an activist and you go out there and you don't know if you're going to get hurt, if you're going to be killed, it's hard, it's really hard. And you know, when you're at what's supposed to be a peaceful protest and the cops are on the roofs with long guns, you know, you wonder if it's worth it, but of course it is worth it. We got to do it and we've been too quiet for two damn long. And we got to get up now and wake up and resist and fight like hell to keep what little democracy we have left so that we can grow it and we can be the country that we all want to be. Of course there are a few that don't want it to be that way, but that's because they want to be, they want to be a Hitler, you know, they want to be, what is the word, I'm losing, you know what it is, okay, I got one Haiku left, okay, so this is the closing Haiku it's called, well, Stars Shiver in Blue, Insights Slice of Orange Moon, Dawn Reflects New Dream. Thank you, Tracer. So there's a Haiku about hope. Yeah, it's wonderful. I mean, thank you for raising the questions. Oh, good. Thanks. All right, next is Deb. We've got Deb and then we come to our featured reader. And yeah, thank you all for being here. Give everybody, let's give everybody a huge round of applause again. Thank you. Well, good morning, everyone. It's such an honor to be here with all of you today and to be using the poetry, the poignancy and the power of all these words. So today, you know, Lisa has a wonderful way of connecting us locally to what's going on globally. And she asked us to find poetry that speaks to justice, that speaks to, thank you, speaks to justice, speaks to peace, speaks to sustainability. And you know, while I was looking and searching, I came upon an online newsletter that I received periodically called the Franciscan Ecological Wisdom. And it didn't have a poem, but what was featured was an essay by a woman named Sally McFaig. And Sally wrote this essay called Loving God by Loving the World. Well, I took her first paragraph and this is what I have. Climate. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Christ. Cry simply too many human beings using too much, too much energy. G G G G G Taking up face. No. No immediacy of war. War plague. Plague. Me. Me. Me. Me. Yet, we are called to fight. To fight. Are we? To. To. To fight. Modernary lives. Ordinary lives. How we transport. Transport. Transport ourselves. And how we fly. Fly. Fly. Fly. To our North American lives. Luxuriously. Unjust. Unjust. Destructive. Of other species. Species. Of other people. Of our, of our planet. Planet. Sally McFay. Sally McFay and Deb Sable Williams. Let's give her a, wow, that's amazing Deb. Thank you. Alright, so the man we've been waiting for. From Milwaukee. Milwaukee's poet laureate. Last summer, Mario Willis was here with us. And people said to me, bring him back. So, we are bringing you back. Thank you so much. Come on up to the mic, Mario. Give Mario Willis a big round of applause. How's everybody doing today? Let's get a little bit closer. How's everybody doing today? A bowl. There is only so much time left. And had these mortals believing they'll live forever. If they can just hide long enough from death. God's been coming. Trying to expose the light. And the difference between being in the kingdom of heaven. Being in Israelite might think the sin and cures and checks are the exact same thing. But there's a difference between a wedding band and a taller bowl ring. There is no help coming. We knew how this would end. Just never win. Just never win. When infection rates and body counts on chyrons now. Everybody cares, Rona, or steal your breath. But so will police promiscuity and addiction. Not to mention all them damn hot wings. Truth is, we are helplessly floating out in space. Trying to figure out the moon and stars. Figure out how it feels to be in God's place. Can't smell a taste nor outrun fate. When your numbers up, your date's your date. Just truth and lies. If he dies, he dies. Bastard, that's the casket. It was no surprise. It was always going in this way. Life has a debt of death to pay. Prepare yourself come judgment day. You'll understand the truth. And what we say. Okay. Okay. I'm within the sound of my voice to run their fingers through this moment. Scratch the surface of faith. Crinkle every lie in this space into a ball and throw it out. I need us all to be born again. Every soul, each wish, every whisper to stand in the court. See, faith, it comes by hearing. So I need everyone to hear this. You are all God's. Powers as infinite as you dream if you choose to believe in it. The miraculous is achievable by the sum total of our power to believe it. I am so sure of this. So sure in fact I will repeat it. You are all God's. But with great power comes great responsibility. Your words capture them now before you lose them. Hold the oxygen that contains your spirits in your palms. And ration out to syllables like fine cuisine. Because it can be a most delicious dish. But it can be poison. Your words, his words, her words, a treasure. With careful consideration of castles. Stand tall over a kingdom. Misdirected a wrecking ball of nuclear proportions. Conjure spirits with your words. Set ships to sail. Command the stores to shine. Exalt the sun's rays to bend. Corners pronounce things that aren't as though they were. And watch them occur. There has been a disconnect between us and our divinity. I'll correct this right now. So I need everyone within the sound of my voice to pay close attention. You are more than flesh and bones. More than your mother's child a thousand times bigger than your body. You have been impregnated with a seed, a mission, a purpose. This thing grows inside of you. Larger and larger into the skin of your thin heart. Isn't able to contain it. You explode. I am so sure of this. So sure, in fact, I will repeat it. You are purpose. Take care with your purpose. Some come to devour it. I'm not here to bring you religion. That's a choice. This thing I speak of. A force. A power inside of you. Like stars in the cosmos. Constellations of matter within your chest. All galaxies in your heart. Running rivers of star systems. Flakes of fire. Oceans of sunshine. Continents of consciousness. His brain is explosions. Indigo visits. Rapid fire resistors. Towers as high as the sky. Within the span of your third eye. I speak to you today of endearing encouragement. Come to loose the bars and tie your hands to the temporal. Unshackle the potential. Give you what was already yours to begin with. You can build those things. Make these things happen for their impossibilities. Disguise these dreams. And you alone can give those shadows form. Just believe in yourself and know that you are all gods. My name is Mario the poet. And I'm going to do some poetry. For you guys. Today. Let's be a little witty. So the poems I want to read are from my new collection of poetry called The Blues. During the pandemic I lost my girlfriend. A whole bunch of money. And most of my mind. And so I wrote the book called The Blues. Caught mid-flight. Found myself at a dice game. A fight broke out. Chasing the devil into the darkness. Found puddles of blood with a mirror finish. The reflection of the crucifix. Look back and frown. If all a man can ever hope to be as useful. Pitting my idle hands. The stench of piss poured out pride. Plus the pucker of the last few kisses. Before she leaves me alone. He died there. Alone. In the alley. The congregation exited immediately after the ruckus had been decided. New people bored through flannel flesh in the album cover of his drumming. The police would be coming eventually. Resolved my confusion. Gave myself over the flight. Christ pulling at my conscience. I could have done something heroic. Imagine myself fearless. But found it hard to believe my own BS. Most of us are less of a man for being here. Drunk and stealing milk from babies. Breathing smoke like chimney stacks. Mending our broken homes with bills of sale. The price is far too low to make deals with the devil. But we make deals with whomever is offering this close to the gallows. The epilogue. The time and cause of death. Chose violence over sanctimony. Chose funeral home plots. Played fast and loose with the sacraments. Intended to forgive everyone for everything. Lied myself into believing in myself. Enough to lie about that too. My heart is beating me to death in my chest. My testimony won't be easy for you to hear. The first time through I will repeat myself. I will repeat myself. The universe like ripples of time I can't do over. Overdone and outspoken. Over and all of fools said the tag on the appraisal. But life is not a rehearsal. You get one chance and then you are discarded. Forgotten. The alleyway to home goings. I pay with the bodies of the forgotten. And discarded. But I repeat myself. It's easy to get confused running for home in the dark. That's that poem. A testimony. A testimony. Pay close attention. The street signs change color. Beware of your surroundings. The telephone is the trick we play with waves. The water is frigid if you jump in head first. Nothing is more closed fist than open arms. She feels nothing that can't be counted on account. Her bankrupt soul bleeds misery. We work out answers together. She lies because she is used to nighting crochet caresses. The candlesticks dissolve. Wasting time. The spinning wheel waiting for prize money. But what she know about giving anything but requests and complaints. Give you something you can't give back. Then you better pray to God you can come up with exit plans before the executioner punches in a direct view of the congregation. She said who did it and what foe. Right there in front of God and everybody. But truth be told. What ain't God? When ain't God watching? What don't you know? What does it matter that you hide funeral arrangements in the inside pockets of your wedding announcements. They show up with the casket and somebody has got to go. That's that poem. Got a few more for you. Throwing spaces and parking lots. Throwing spaces and parking lots. The concrete is littered with rock salt. The movie theater abandoned. We are guffed in fear of a venousful Jesus risen just in time for vaccination. It's hard to take the headline serious. We were told everything they could think of during the time we had unbridled but the final solution to the problem of our morality arriving God is undoubtedly coming. Eventually to everyone in asking questions we will have insufficient answers and must resolve within ourselves our own iniquity. Trust me, the chain of life goes unbroken. Like orbits. Like starving ghettos. Like the change of seasons. If we are not careful we are easily packed and passed away forgotten. Our legacy implicated the memory of moments fading and enough pictures to remind us how few of us are left here. We are the ones left here fighting over sheets of paper and non-fungible tokens counting the moon's behavior and trying to harness the sun. Throwing spaces and parking lots. A morning. Having taken up the habit of daytime drinking she no longer takes my pleas serious. All the shouting and door slamming has alerted the neighbors of the finale of our domestic bliss. The officers at the foot of the steps beckon me to come with them pleading with my lowered eyes she gives in but it's too late. Nothing she can say will lessen the swelling growing around her eyelids or remove these bracelets from my wrists and the cruiser to the station promised an empty seat next to me will never raise my hand voice or rage against her again but this is the same lies last time. My father was a gorilla playing tambourine with origami love notes. And fuss over his handiwork's rib cages and stand at the foot of the steps playing security guard back when significant others were property and the rules of thumb were fresher in our memories. Unlike my daddy, I am better at hiding lying and poisoning her confidence with the paradiddle of battered cheekbones frothy nectar of renouncing the devil that drove me to this to this to repeat this cycle over and over and over and over again. That's that poem. Um, got a couple more. I'm doing on time, I'm good. They are playing a funny game above me. They are playing a funny game above me. I wonder if he felt the news tighten or the rope-rope burn. Wonder was he manic or caught unaware when the oncoming storm arrived as expected was his mind present. When the grim reaper arrived gaunt and unexortable, the graves lined the marketplace. They are playing a funny game above me. Because it's just a crime, the cops and the redfinals are rioting on the streets. The police are in charge. They are in charge. They are playing a funny game above me. Wonder if he felt the news tighten or the rope burn. arrived gaunt and unexortable the graves line the marketplace the riots have moved between the pews red lights are meaningless rappers get fed to morticians like popcorn and movie theaters and I heard a white lady cop murdered a black man in his own home eating ice cream and got a hug and a Bible out the deal they are playing a funny game above me better man with a better Jesus who gives them for everything even when they did it on purpose even when it was premeditated even when they laid and wait waiting to devour any pass abide while I watch my cousin grow ancient behind submit castles that defy the distant skyline they wouldn't dare put the ships for slaves near the shoreline looking at them these fools might notice their fate it all sounds ridiculous before you turn to face the firing squads applause with no breaks in your attention just to death you have been promised delivered right when it was supposed to arrive it would all was written the ballot box can't be stuffed enough to change the outcome outcome to charlatans politicians and poets begging for your money and praying for their pockets never noticing the holes in the family's patchwork can't work God into a poem without condemning him to judgment can't see the force for the service to the service revolver solves that problem and you can tell God to his face everything he kept from you what they kept from you was really looking at your situation breathing without smoke just being alive inside the moment and recognizing who you truly are we are falling for the judge sacrificing our virtue for victimhood in my hood being smart makes you the enemy being clever makes you slick and goons and goofballs lead each other in the conflict shooting each other over places in line at Walmart it doesn't seem as funny during the broadcast as it was in the rehearsal doesn't seem as important dressed in jet black staring at the Auburn accents in a coffin lining seems like wicked is exonerated being ruthless and unforgiving celebrated the Willie Litchman giggle father after father carted away over false pride fear of failure and fragile egos to the moon full of blood breaks out his flashlight we must face the moon late night you cannot undo death can't remix or repies your final exhalation it is was and always will be exactly what it is that's that poem and close and close it there are a few things I am sure of only a couple of colors I can tell from a distance of these concrete certainties one aerial is the best part for writing it is the easiest to decipher crying to the best poems are about crying dying and suicide or at least they are the easiest for me to remember three I hate list poems but I keep writing them I keep writing because death and crying are certainties and I'm trying to avoid killing myself because of them it would be easy for me to tell you I am confident lying is easy believe me when I am silent I am a deception like carved out Bible verses uses sermons to patchwork God into a pickaxe to punch holes and small children that later will be filled with alcohol and self-loathing I have learned to hate myself five I hate myself for not believing in Jesus enough to forgive you for leaving for constantly writing those to you notes underneath my heart muscle and hidden places places are high because loving you is like broken bones amputated limbs and fish hooks hooks come underneath collarbones statching bone fragments searing pain and screaming six one day I will leave here more than likely screaming I deserve it I have lied to you most of these words are about dying I wrote them an aerial one day you will read them seven forgiveness is the process of letting go holding on to diamonds is the same thing as holding on to sand they will both be here longer till you are finished give yourself forgiveness now while you can enjoy it eight judgment should be reserved for something bigger than I am I have trouble seeing the forest for the trees and one start it was a good idea to drink an entire bottle of mad dog 2020 to jump a bike off a rent we made we use nails and plywood so I probably don't have the best judgment nine love is the only thing that can save you it is a promise you make to keep what is inevitably leaving it is a seasoning that makes everything sweet it is the face of God we most often look for so love like it'll kill you not to because if you don't it might kill you not to forgive because it makes love that much easier and hating yourself can kill you forgive like everything will work out fine know that everything is leaving like it was supposed to that is working out enjoy life and love accordingly there are a few things I am sure of only a couple of colors I could tell from a distance love is one of them you'll recognize it it's the same color as a smile thank you wow this was a day this was a day thank you so much Mario for coming up from Milwaukee everyone thank you all for being here we had songs we had theatrics we had words powerful words and I'm just so happy that you are all here today talk to each other enjoy and move on with your day and remember what Mario the poet said you are all gods and love love each other that's that's what I took away from that last moment so thank you thank you