Seeking world peace and personal peace through poetry
David Jackson
"Jackson" aka “David Michael Jackson" is an engineer, an artist, a poet and musician. I'm him. Some internet guy. I am an internet publisher of Artvilla.com and Motherbird.com......
His art can be rescued at Original art for sale by artist......
Contact me about art poetry and music and YOU.....This site is not about me......It's about the fine work my dear departed friend, Summer Breeze did for poetry and peace, which I'm trying to continue, for as long as some semblance of freedom and peace exist..... namaste
Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to step out
on that mount of trash
and speak.
He’s going to walk from plastic to plastic across the water.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to grab factory chickens
and feed the multitudes.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to say, “Come, I will make you trash collectors of men.”
He’s going to walk into our temples and turn over tables.
He’s going to tell the Christians to clean this mess up.
He’s going to say, “That’s not what I said, that’s what they remember.
You miss the point,
Never mind.
The guy in the cave, btw
was nuts
crazy
bazonkers.
Prophets were never Gods
Clean this mess up.
What have you done to my earth?”
Why should anyone love a month that celebrates something that beckons you to follow it for the rest of your life and probably leads nowhere or, at best, you’d have done better going somewhere else?
First Words
Can we afford to forget
first born words
that clawed their way
from a virgin larynx,
gasping for breath,
demanding
reply to a question
we could not hear,
crueler than Sphinx,
it had no answer,
would not release us
(once born)
from the grasp
of death
came nearer
nearer until
no response
remained
but to scream
into the ear
of the world.
Should we remember
just how violent
the gain of language,
forced upon us
from the first,
appears
in deceit
in pain
in honeyed
training words
practiced again
again
until rapprochement
had been achieved
by stealth, by aggression
we learned to deceive
in turn
and turn
to pretend surprise
that words of love
are so easily betrayed?
That first sightings of accord
so easily collapse into
the savagery of war?
That soothing speech
makes so remarkable
the poignancy of pain?
again and again.
That we will die
in the choke
of our own sounds;
that much is assured
and then, perhaps,
be silent?
Doubtful,
not this vocalized
open-beaked species.
Given the chance,
it will scream from
the throat of hell itself,
given the chance
again
again
Sidewalk cracks and
rocky mountain slopes
rooftops roadsides
rotten stumps and rubbish piles
the little expat flower
grows, and thrives.
It didn’t want
to be a garden flower
so carefully arranged
by garden governments
where it would have
a standard job:
be pretty, be useful,
don’t talk to
funguses
or dandelions
drinking chlorinated water
eating measured
sheep manure.
And so, when still a seed
it ran away
to join the weed world circus.
It hitchhiked
on a random wind, a river
a sticky gecko foot,
to talk to other weeds
unlike itself
drinking river water
and eating handy street food.
Wordsworth’s daffodils
were all the same
fluttering, dancing, collectively
choreographed
powerful in their
vastness, their sameness.
But I don’t know
those daffodils
who run in herds
they are, to me,
after awhile,
a boring yellow blob,
pretty, but all the same,
like Hollywood starlets.
I like this little expat flower
that knows the wind,
and the river
a weed, in the
cultivated world,
but a beauty
in the chaos of reality.
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke
and John
dropped by.
They said
they wrote it down
as best they could
remember,
and got the gist of it
but can’t be expected
to have remembered
every word exactly
even a day
later.
I never knew how he voted
He was born in 1900.
I spent hundreds of hours
in the field with him.
Farmers,
“You boy’s ain’t hopin’ me.”
Plowers of fields with mules,
Growers of every fruit
every vegetable
every animal
milkers of cows by hand,
survivors of the depression,
Eighty acres and king tobacco,
Porch swings,
Who did he vote for?
It was nobody’s business and nobody asked.
Who was his God?
It was nobody’s business and nobody asked.
The Parson left him alone.
Matters between them were settled long before I showed up
without a father in his field.
I never knew a man with a more private God.
My grandfather never brought Him up in the field.
You don’t speak of Him up when He’s there.
The days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Click. Click. Click. High heels click on thin linoleum.
Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing.
Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease;
small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Count these hours, those dreams, all bitter—all yours.
Count these hours, those dreams, all bitter—all yours.
The days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Dreams vanish—soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Click, click. Listen to high heels click on thin linoleum,
dirty dishes that slide, swim in pork chop grease,
sounds of doors opening, sounds of doors closing.
Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing,
listen to those hours, failed dreams—all yours.
They swim like dirty dishes in pork chop grease,
each day unpacking slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Click. Click. Click. High heels click on thin linoleum.
Small dreams vanish—soap bubbles off spoons.
Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing,
the click, click, of high heels on thin linoleum.
Count your dreams, those hours, all that is bitter, yours—
days that unpack from a damaged suitcase,
dirty dishes that swim in pork chop grease.
Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease.
Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons
while days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase
to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing.
Count your failed dreams: all that is bitter, yours,
the click, click, click of high heels on cheap linoleum.
Click, click—the sound of high heels on cheap linoleum.
Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease,
the counting of hours, failed dreams. All are yours.
Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons
to the sounds of doors opening, sounds of doors closing
as each day unpacks from a damaged suitcase.
Doors opening, doors closing—all is bitter, all yours:
days unpacking from a damaged suitcase, failed dreams,
soap off plated spoons, dishes in grease, high heels on thin linoleum.
Click.
Gliding back to childhood
to catching that ball
or standing beside the creek
ankle deep in cold cold water on a hot day
waiting for the courage to be cold
for an instant
until the skin is suddenly accustomed
and you are swimming
in the blue hole
So many kids have had a blue hole
We’d throw rocks to drive the snakes out of ours
and I’d always be the last kid in
because the water was cold
and I was shy of the cold
more shy than the others or not as brave.
Our bravery was displayed
at the tops of Sycamore trees
or on top of bridges
we flaunted our youth
and laughed at danger
in ways that make me shiver
today
We were the riverside
we were the creek
we were the field
we were the friends
running
waiting for
the old man
to write this poem about us
we tree climbers
we
bridge walkers
we were
jumpers into water
we were water
we are water
we will always be young
when eternity
is old
The poet previously known as David Michael Jackson
