“I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.
I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.”
~ Ezekiel 34:16
Approaching Babylon
Within this time
This place
Between each
Tragedy and
Dream
Where all stays
The same without
Progress or purpose
A sadness
A myth
So attuned to
The old world
So afraid of
The new
Beyond a horizon
Which we cannot
Reach
See
Something
Must change
Something must
Give
It is time
From ” The Last Real Poet & Other Poems”
An Introduction?
Seriously?
Normally, especially for a poetry book I never need or have ever thought about writing one of these. But for this particular book I thought after thirty some years of writing & publishing poetry I figure, well. Why not. Besides, who knows? I’m older now and this might be my last or final book. You never know.” The Last Real Poet & Other Poems” ( Coming Soon To A Bookstore Near You Online) is a book of poems about change. Not just the changes in myself or my own life so to speak but the bizarre recent changes in this world. We, once more live in unpredictable & turbulent times. Frightening times. We have monsters returning from a defeated bygone era aka racists & Nazis in our own backyards disguising themselves as politicians and calling themselves ” Patriots”. We’ve got climate change and fear hiding in our subconscious minds wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s kinda funny that I’m writing about all these things in the 21st century when my generation, Gen X thought that by now we’d have a far better world and not a backwards fucked up reverse civilization. We celebrate the lives of all those who paved the way to make the world a better place but we still have people in this world who are still basically what I’d refer to as “Shitty Versions” of what we call humanity. We still have hunger & poverty. We have a lack of decency or respect for other human beings.
And that’s all pretty damn sad.
“We are the product of our past. We start each day where we left off the day before. Changing the way we dress, where we work and live, or even changing a name does not alter our basic constitution. Transformation of the self requires a radical alteration in the way that we perceive the world and derive meaning.”
~ Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Read the news.
We have mentally unbalanced politicians in office, violence, self centered hate groups attacking our human rights, the reversal of abortion rights,
and like I said many times before.
Monsters.
Fake human beings in three piece suits or camouflage trying to destroy all the progress which we’ve made. It’s disturbing. And disgusting. And I hope that someone reading this article and these words right now or in the near distant future understands what I’m referring to and that we’ve eliminated these issues by then. In my upcoming book, the words are poems written to you the reader as well as to all other poets. We have now lived in a new century for the last 23 years but we still refuse to let go of our past & our lost icons. We live in a time when we still worship past writers & poets, even celebrities of our own born history and lives.
But here’s the shocking news.
The 20th Century is over. And all our icons and heroes, rock stars are dying or all already dead.
So as the old saying goes? It’s time to move on. Consider this book a big goodbye or a swan song to all those who’ve influenced or inspired us to be all those things we’ve become. It’s not that they’re dead or icons or all their achievements that’s the problem. It’s the irony that we must find our own voices in these times and create new art and poetry that has been awakened by the events of the times themselves which we actually live in. We are not the ” Beat Generation”, Slam Poets or the Badass Punk Rockers we once were anymore. We are not the America or the world in which they, we once existed. The time for new voices is here to carry on the fight in our own way. With our own creation and movements. In fact maybe we should even be looking even much farther back for our new art or writing to the transcendentalists or the authors of other times long past who faced the world head on. If you disagree? That’s fine. But we cannot sustain a future culture or create one without letting go of the past.
So the time is now.
Write, act and make art. Make change.
And always, stand against the monsters.
Before it’s far too late.
