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Writer's pictureGodsil

Poetry and Prose 2009

By Godsil


Mon


Should “man” become “mon?”


Should “woman” become “mon?”


Should “persons” become “mon?”


Hey Mon, the way Bob Marley said it,

Is very easy on my mindbody.


What about yours?


WormMon

 

Dodging Bullets Riding Whales


Dodging bullets

On the way up the mountain.


Dodging bullets

Down deep in the sea.


Dodging bullets

Riding whales.


Spirit trumps bullets.


Rainy Spring Weekend Morning

 

Worm Mon, Chicken, Junk, Fish, Food, and Love Mon: Good Mon


Worm Mon


“Worm Mon” and “mon” is, for me, gender neutral.

If you would prefer “worm man” or “worm woman,”

We can oblige.


Worm Mon raises worms.


Chicken Mon


Goes to the forum to suggest chicken farm industry for Milwaukee.


Junk Mon


Hopes to figure out good uses for all of creation, starting with what some call junk.


House Mon


Learning how to mother and father and shepherd increasingly lovely homes.


Fish Mon


Partnering with Milwaukee yeoman urban agrarian in efforts to transform industrial slums ito fish and vegetable farms.


Food Mon


Working with family and community gardeners to advance locally grown, intensive, natural, urban agriculture.


Love Mon


Enjoying conversations with Rumi, Hafiz, and the mystics of all people’s most authentic spiritual traditions offering food for thoughton creations most dazzling mystery—


Us!

 

Water and Weed Your Visions!


I swear it’s true that

Hope tends to quite often

Somehow materialize

That which it contemplates!


Not always, but often enough

That I water and weed my visions.

 

Gargantua’s “Depression” Stirs Primal Powers


As humans pause

‘fore gargantua’s gaspings…


Gasping themselves

In all that foul air…


Forced to meta reflect,

And explore new daily rounds.


Good anti-dementia exercise.

Fresh and happy neural rhythms.

 

Boomers’ Children: The Greatest Generation


Stocks tank,

Boomers keep working.


Forced entrepreneurship and victory gardens,

Small businesses and barter networks,

Co-ops and small is beautiful solar architecture.


Our young become…

The greatest generation!

 

I Want To Be a City Fish Farmer


I’ll feel safer for our bodies’ futures

If fish are farmed in our ‘hoods.”


Our children and our elders

Will be joyful

While visiting our fish farms,

And eating our fish.


I have no doubt that Mother Earth

Prefers protein for humans from fish

More than from cows and/or pigs.


And I’ve a better chance

To lose my bulging belly’s shameful girth,

On a diet of baked fishIn virgin olive oil and fresh garlic.


Home Depot Paint Desk, 3/7/09

 

Give God a Morning Kiss


Give God a kiss,

While walking

Out your door.


Give God a kiss,

While walking

Through new doors.


Give God a kiss,

While walking

On this floor…


We call…


Earth.


Inspired by Karen Hafiz Kolberg

 

Bonobo Mamas At Heidelberg Gardens


Bonobo Mamas at Heidelberg Gardens

Surrounded by East Grant Boulevards…


Getting that tree ready for my nest…


After my 100th.


Sitting up there…


Mixing my mushrooms…


With my Avalon breads…


My Gardening Angel greens…


My King Solomon Baptist Church honey…


Communing with Grace and Starhawk.


Happy.

 

Climbing Out From The Second American Civil War


I think we’re climbing out from a second American Civil War,

Not as manifestly bloody as the first,

But bloody still and more blurred in boundary.


We’ve a long way to go.

We’ve a long way already come.


Hang in there!

Hang on!


The best parts…Yet to come!


Thank you for working toward this day!

 

Bounty Once Thought Waste


What gift, the bounty

Once thought waste!


No Imperium’s edicts

Could approach

The benign effects


Of so luminous an…


Appreciation.


Olde

 

The Story of Loaves and Fishes From the Holy City of the Sweet Water Seas


First.


It began in earnest when the kid from the hood,

Just 15 years old, shot in the stomach,

A fine Riverwest, gay, pub worker/owner,


A few weeks after an intemperate leader

Gay-bashed rogue cops


Rather than thoughtfully, powerfully,

Seize the reins of justice.


‘Second.


This outrageous shooting, plus

A rash of thuggery that summer, 2005,

Brought forth a community gathering,

Which I attended, at the Art Bar on Burleigh,

Across from old St. Mary’s,

Where the shooting had occurred.


I had the same sinking feeling in my stomach,

As during the 1970s and 1980s, when I and friends

Had done our best to inspire thought in things better

Than racist scapegoating at community meetings,

Following notorious crime events and momentsIn struggling Milwaukee.


Third


But when I arrived at the Art Bar, there was a

Spirit of graceful, powerful…resolve.


A succession of strong and warm people,

A polyglot, rainbow melange,


People with deep roots in the neighborhood

And the movements of our times,


Expressed thoughts and feelings aiming to heal and renew,

To draw upon our deepest imaginations and

Sources of resilient endurance…


To keep our eyes on the prize that

Ghandi and King, Rosa, John, and Bobby,

Mandela, Grace Lee Boggs, and many more,


Had blazed in great visions in our youth.


Having spent much time aliveIn the dark, dank tombs of pharaohs,


While not witnessing manifestations of bestial hate

Aimed at minority “others”


I was overwhelmed by theseBursts of warm light

Coming from everyday people.


I had to leave early,

Lest I lose my composure,


And while driving home

Along sacred city trails,


Alongside resurgent neighborhoods

And cleansing rivers,


The notion of finally meeting Big Will Allen,

The legendary urban farmer already renowned


In awakened circles for his avant-guard

Permaculture and urban agriculture innovations,


Innovations agricultural and “biological,” e.g. vermaculture,


Agriculture ecological, e.g. gloriously productive

Simulated indoor river valleys with sweet water

And fat, healthy, tasty fish,


Innovations social and cultural, e.g. farmer training youth programs.


And when I got out to Growing Power, on 55th and Silver Spring,

More than one incredibly exuberant persons,

Starting with Miss Karen, greeted me with a warmth and generosity

That continues to inspire, and even, startle me.


Later on I learned that I had experienced my first moment with…


Growing Power Magic!


That’s what Miss Karen calls it.


And it’s true!


Fourth


I returned home to fine an e-mail

Sent from Harvey Taylor, Milwaukee poet and stevedore,

Which contained a song he’d just written

About Big Will Allen and Growing Power!


And then at my 60th birthday party,

Sally Leiser, whom I’d never met, showed up

At the Kern Park “country club,” out of the blue,

And shared the Growing Power story,

In perfect pitch!

 

Information Age Movement Organizing!!


There are those among us who would gladly

Make money at a regular job,

And craft a life focused on raising families

And creating the good life…


And there are those who don’t quite fit this mould.

 

Squeezing the Bad Out of Life


Let us pray we improve

Our skills

Squeezing the bad out of life!


Exhale that bad in your life!


Dance it out!


Laugh it out!


Cry it out!


Do it!

Do it!


It feels good!


Get hot!


Get loose{!}…


Squeezing that bad from your life!


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