Love Warriors

 

 

 

Where Are the Love Warriors

epitaphs seeking orison

all manner of Lives and unknown unrecorded Deaths

one died mysteriously in police custody

one died sleeping in the right apartment

for the wrong reason

one died in madness shocked and chained

cardiac arrest

(well Some kind of arrest anyway!)

another died in an alley naked and alone

robbed of her humanity just a commodity

hunger like the beak of a terrible bird peck peck pecking at the vitals

marking the emptiness stitching the belly shut with pain

words stolen from the mouths of the long dead

forgotten anonymous

 

Their words made whole again

Live again

Resounding in the world like Clarion

like Deep Gong

shivering night air 

shimmering sun-bleached moments hazy summer daylight

Words of Women Long Dead

Layers of Stories Reclaimed from the Void

Black Hole of the Nothing

Eater Consumer Excreter of All that’s of Value

rendering a strange and sudden destruction

burning into consciousness

trails of Fire and slow roll of lava

incendiary heart

blackened crust encasing red orange glow yellow heat

 

one spoke of Freedom while kneeling scrubbing floors

one spoke of Love to children born of rape

transformed the lives they were given

into small legends

the Stuff myths are made of

not the myths themselves but the ground

the soil from which Myth springs

 

 

 

© 2020 pamela twining

 

 

The Troubadour of Plochmann Lane

 

                                                                          for Levon

the cherry red kit still resonates

with beating heart weaving in and out

of generations

the Weight of remembrance

lies heavy on us

as you turn and wave

and disappear into the stardust cosmos

leaving hot music nights

and dancing days

the echoes of songs wrenched

from hardscrabble beginnings

and Wild journeys through innocence

and bold experience

 

too soon your Voice subtracted

too soon the Dance winds down

songs rise like prayers

as mist from the lake’s surface

in the frosty dawn

absorbed into the ether

when there’s nowhere else to go

except Forever

 

candy apple red

reverberations

of notes played among other demons

other gods

an empty glove a bottle of water

and sticks just set aside

such homely touches

and i bet you never smelled

so damn many roses in all your life!

more like Sweat

from crazy dancers

lit like Fires in the midnight

more like smoke and burning herb

and wet dog

and starshiny catskill evenings

 

sweet with harmony

sticky with barbeque

noisy with children dodging between the notes

the beats the rhythms

of the Music that remains

when there is nowhere else to go

except Home

 

 

©2012 pamela twining

 

 

 

Sitting at the Feet of Gamaliel

   

 

 for Peter Lamborn Wilson

a hard person to know

obstinate entitled

full of himself

he knows Everything

Brilliant

generous without mentioning it

brushes off Thanks with a change of subject

he’s forgotten more than most

will ever know

sneaky sense of humor

sometimes one won’t even realize

they’ve Heard a joke

let alone get it

food issues

Everything Must Be Just So

combinations of foods he “can’t have”

oddly juxtaposed with Junk Food

(only Upscale junk food Imported

labels written in foreign languages)

“Get me a haggis!” he says, Insists

though it has to be ordered from god knows where

arrives encased in Styrofoam & ice

and now to prepare it - “How?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never Had it before!”

& ducks

ducklings Must be from Long Island

there’s only One duck farm on LI now

but they’re no longer tender like they used to be

disappointment ensues  

“Contact that Amish farm somewhere in PA

I think their name’s Miller; just google it “

 

he Refuses to have a computer or to use email

that’s My job or Raymond’s

he can Never remember the doctor’s instructions

says when the doc starts talking

there’s a buzzing sound in his head

What??

so I have to go into the exam room with him

be his ears there

the doctors & nurses somehow immune

to his instructions it falls on me to figure out

how to achieve what the doctor ordered

sometimes he just Won’t

he just Won’t to his own detriment

but he goes on

he goes on seems like Forever

as younger healthier people than he

go down to dust

 

I can Still hardly remember he’s gone

his presence in My life in Andy’s in Raymond’s

seems unquenchable

he still conducts Teachings and Interviews

still spends Hours & Days on the phone

with his few or only intellectual peers

speaking of esoteric subjects

at the Pinnacle of Knowledge

the tip or the peak of the mountain

that no one else has managed to hike to

his personal Everest

Lines of elders & youngers striving

to reach that peak

gasping for breath but still climbing

to sit at his feet for as long as they can

All this Time

 

I Know he must depart sometime

but was Sure he’d outlive Me

just as stubborn as could be

he’d Never succumb to the Universe’s orders

but eventually he did

in private

in silence

alone in his home and Everyone Shocked

How Can This Be?

but he did and we are the poorer

whenever I cook with his utensils

or turn on the lamp from his bedroom

whenever we drive down the road

passing ridiculous billboards

his commentary his persona again Living

 

I expect to see his first entry

into the Calendar of Radical Honor

the Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints

his place in that heavenly hierarchy assured

by the youth still gathered at his feet

Listening