i’m always alone . . . . .

at the end of the day
it’s just me

i keep thinking
i’ve found partnership
of even the most tenuous sort
but i’m always alone
at the end of the day
crawl into my single bed
cry my lonely tears
untended

grit my teeth
stiffen my upper lip
toughen up
don’t care
embrace my solitude
not a dam
for my tears
amongst those choices

i ‘console’ myself
these days
with the imperceptible
perfect man
who can never exist
but can always be there
lying besides me

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

solo

slowly
bit by bit
you’re turning back
into the stranger
i’ll never know

some person
a distant presence
just someone i knew
once upon a time

acquaintences
who just happen
to be adjacent
in space & time
for a while

but really
we’re apart
pieces
scattered to the winds

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

independence day: july 4, 2007

so i am celebrating the fourth
in an all-amerikan way
dark is looming
& i am working

catching up on all my dicking off
busting thru inhibitions & hesitations & procrastination
liberating myself from poverty it’s hoped
watching madcap comedies from years ago

eating ice cream & hot dogs & hamburgers
hanging with family thinking of friends & acquaintences
hearing that distant pop & crack of decorative explosives
fans blowing warm moist air around sport’s-bra clad self

i’d rather be at disneyland or anywhere else
& i’d rather be right here right now
i’m so glad to be from this time & place
even tho’ i think we’re all still barbarians

& this home invented so many things some unacknowledged
borderless existence as norm empowered citizenry as backbone
freaky rugged individualists running madly to & fro
creating & destroying whole worlds o’ things & thoughts

austere ancestors hiding their kinks & bends just like today
founding fraternals setting unintended freedoms in motion
& tho’ the infrastructure’s something creaky & old
pride thrums my heart, swells my mind with potentials still to come

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

to all the poetry boys n men

in marketing they say
each letter is worth 500 voices
whether it’s politics or products hawked

i’d like to thank the apparent
tens of thousands out there who love
& the thousands who hate what i say

marketing’s one of my favorite arts & sciences
it’s commercial conversation, connection,
interaction, power of attraction

used for good or hate
these are all just tools in our hands
it’s how we use 'em . . . .

& so i’m particularly blessed
with poetic adepts wooing
who says men aren’t romantic

i say they’re more so
women are pragmatic
men are sensitive, delicate flowers unfolding

hiding their wounds & their vulnerability
hazed into existence, fear eradicated
or at least denied

it’s where their guard comes from
the nsa playa hook-up universe
protective coloration

hiding geeky prince charmings
on horseback charging
knights errant a rescuing

asking always
are you my cinderella
my sleeping beauty

writing poetry in the dead of night
letting ecstasy out in clutch of the moment
transcending this minute

men are so sensitive, delicate flowers unfolding
& i want to hold them & soothe them
& love them all

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

geiger counters require batteries

the bombs went off
a long time ago
i’ve lost track of when
of where i am, where we are

everything’s gone
things i never knew
were around all along
supporting me, taking care of me

gangs roam, have always ravaged
countrysides women resources peoples
warlords & strongmen & chieftans
with clubs & swords emerge always

psychopaths shoot first
& the earth inherits the naive
in drips & drops & bloody chunks
hide like a rabbit, frightened child

learn to shoot a gun, frightened child
kill captors who’ve taken childhood away
revenge the negligent parents
who let light slip from our hands

i keep hoping it’ll get better
the only thing i’m living for
hoping to see people be love again
hoping to see streetlights & cops

when the bombs went off
i was another person
turning tricks, lifting wallets
hard, i thought, tough as nails

i was on a date & a bomb goes off
a long way away & he sez
where’s my wife & kids & runs
leaves me by the road, nowhere

i walked for miles on bleeding feet
carload of crazy gun-waving men
grabs me up -- she’s the entertainment
& off we go looking for enemies

ten years spent that way
traded from one group to another
on-call twenty-four / seven
i didn’t own myself anymore

one day we did it, we comfort women
we mowed them all down with their own guns
we divvied the spoils, freed the slaves
& set out to find security

i took the geiger counter
the land is poisoned all around us
& we’d like to know if we’ll die soon
but geiger counter’s need batteries

no factories produce no goods
no businesses offer no services
it’s all gone -- no bullets for our guns
no batteries for our geiger counters

we’re sick -- is it radiation? hunger?
food poisoning? we die -- from what?
no doctors to tend us, we nurse ourselves
was there something here before?

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

November 11, 1995: A poem for our car-mad country.

On November 11, 1995
Ken Saro-Wiwa died
also 3 whales, some dolphins,
15 turtles, a shark,
tens of terns & marmosets,
the odd dozens of ducks & geese,
many salmon & flounder & perch,
& god only knows how much krill & plankton.

Our hand was in it.
We had responsibility.
Not knowing didn’t stop it.

Hands extending today, yesterday, tomorrow,
putting money in the hand
of a polite gas station attendant.
She is working her way through college,
supporting a family,
grateful to have a job.
BP, or Shell, or Exxon, or Royal Dutch
should be grateful
that so many work for so little.

Somewhere out at sea a ship’s captain reports in,
the single-hull tanker is leaking.
He speaks clearly, not caring if he’s heard,
chance is it won’t make the paper;
people are tired of feeling guilty,
they don’t want to read about that depressing stuff.

Our hand is in it.
We have responsibility.
Ignoring it isn’t making it go away.

Hands extending everyday,
key in ignition, foot to accelerator,
shift into gear, seat belt or not.
Insurance & monthly payments,
tune-ups & oil changes,
all prove we’ve made it, are making it,
have somewhere to go.
So important, needs so preeminent,
tons of machine & hundreds of horsepower
must be at our beck & call.

The lure of speed, the seduction of power,
the ease of driving, the love affair with cars,
it’s all-american, it’s our right.
Think of the jobs, all those people working
we’d not want out on the street,
all those drillers & pipefitters,
riggers & drivers & refinery workers,
the car sellers & repairers,
& the gas pump jockeys.

How would we live our lives without our cars?
It would be so inconvenient
we can’t even imagine,
the very dream so farfetched as to profane.
We have shaped our country in this shape,
every city & road, every building & park,
around these two ton,
three-hundred horsepower,
mass weapons.

It’s our right to drive them as badly as we will.

copyright 1999 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

age of war

we live in the age of war
have lived for millenia
it’s hoped we’re near an end

centuries from now
we’ll look back
on the age of war

like the one’s of stones & caves
as the folly of those
who knew no better

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

vulnerability

i lust after the vulnerable
you must open to me
armor piercing bullet?
no, let’s just be

fling open your vaults
i’ll treasure your value
let down your guard
& i’ll follow

heroes need feet of clay
or i cannot relate
everyone’s a hero
tangled in fate

be raw & real & whole
contradiction tied
steer your own way
& say you always tried

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

muse

i’ve trained my brain to be a non-linear entity
to flow fluid liquid till it’s oozing out my ears
& fingers & it feels like the universe is in me
& it wants to speak thru us all

i submitted to the will of the universe
as a defiant teen an act of rebellion
the stars my destination
& what a long strange journey it’s been

wouldn’t trade in a moment
writer’s job’s to be non-rational
hands thrust into guts & chakras
even at the price of being a bum

think how the brain makes mind
of that mythical less-than-15%
efficiency’s built in the machine
the unplumbed depths of what’s possible

think of billions of cells, trillions, quadrillions
each little worker ant a hothouse of work
given direction by what we think believe know
& manifesting minute by minute

every experience we’ve ever had can live quite happily
nestled in our skulls, safeguarded by our inattention
(memory’s written & rewritten in proteins,
forgetting can actually protect all that data)

& even ones we’ve never had can be
imagined visualized owned lived richly
in a moment or for a lifetime
or for just a short story or a poem

& how to make all that data collide
without taking control of every little bit
a sisyphean task of which i’ve no interest
easier to let go of it let the muse take charge

or whatever’s in charge up there
i’ve barely got command down here
trust the universe ever more every day
to take me where i need to be

to make me eat my lima beans
to bring me the muses i want
to let me know how to behave
from inside or out whether i like it or not

i trust what goes off in my head
this trained tangential tangle of transmitters
puts truth to power puts me on the line
everytime & everytime intuition trumps

random jangle of nerves & desires
guiding everyone & i’m just one of them
& i have ground under my feet
thank the universe

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

admission of a poet

when i was 15
in that militantly idealistic space
that forms some core of who i am

i made all these decisions
i’m always making decisions
that this or that is this or that

& i decided that poetry was dead
& certainly no way to make money
which is really what’s important right

so it’s really funny 27 years later
when i find such a pleasurable voice
in my erratic prose poems

everyone keeps assuring me
poetry’s still dead but man
who fuck cares

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

we are the creators

we were birthed to be

artists scientists philosophers active engaged twinkling intellects

the stars our destination

somehow we got sidetracked

into shopkeeping & mandatory drudgery

& beliefs about the need to justify existence

& waste-clog landfills & skies & waters

& everyone runs around pretending

to use that fatty pudding

only for rationality & logic & reasons

that seem to ignore any number but some bottom line

but rationally logically reasonably we'd all be

better served as sculptors & poets, playwrights & illustrators

journalists & researchers, lab techs &

a 1000 kinds of nobel prize winners, & a never-ending line of musicians

life lived as art, art lived as life -- have ya ever tried this science of living

every moment's a boogie-woogie symphony, every view a cinema just for me

graceful moving sculpture's the whole universe of life

creating every moment that comes along

(& those are just the primitive forms, whole new art waits to be born)

what's vogon to one is shakespeare to another

that's part of the point, the process is more crucial than the product

(make that slow-producing artists & scientists & philosophers, leisurely loving their lives)

all is illusion & all is one & all is spirit & all is material

& everything's an energy field interacting with an energy field in an energy field

living in galaxies & nebulas of infinite improbability & pessimism's yours if you want it to be

but we are the creators & we find all the evidence we need

to support our beliefs as a matter of course

& i prefer to look forward to futures of unlimited potential

to live in hopes & dreams

to create the marvelous promise of the grey jelly

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

consistency

i want to say that i am consistently inconsistent,
led astray the norm by interior commitment
to dark distant suns.
irrationale for life lived on margins.
(the view’s better over here, over there.)
change may be good bad or indifferent,
but its reality is a kick in the pants to the diffident.
shifting with sand lying under, our lives in tidal torrents,
we will adapt. (or we will die, the cynic aside.)
the list grows tedious telling --
amok brave in my fear
global sad in my joy
driven labor in my laze
earnest haste in my late
clear sobriety in my high
shadow of death in my life
consistently inconsistent.
a life’s goal, avocation even.

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

raised for veal

we were raised to be veal
my cousin says. she ran
to big cities, far away.
she’s a strong heifer
dedicated to the art of survival.

we’re meant to be veal,
she says it several times,
& I will not contribute
to my own annihilation.

strong heiffers can kick your ass
ask the matadors . . . .

i agree, we’re all that way
trained to be so nice, so nice, so nice,
to give everything away
& like nothing in return.

it suits the rearers
selfless children do more.
at least child doesn’t wait parent
anymore, aren’t beaten en masse
for the craziness of the adults.

but there we stand
at 27, 42, 68 years &
we hold out our arms &
we say, here, ya want
some more? bite off another
piece, take that whole left
arm, it’s not like i need it.
bite off some buttock.
take the leg & the other one, too.

& they’re partway up my leg &
i’m screaming wait!
what are you doing?
STOP EATING ME!
i want me back!
where have i gone?

why do i keep disappearing?
why do i keep disappearing?
why do i keep disappearing?

we’re raised to be veal
i agree again & again

the world needs more
strong heiffers fleeing . . . .

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

day job dependency

everyone who has one
thinks everyone else
should have one

as punishment
or revenge
or obligatory indenture

fuck day jobs
that suck the joy
from the day

fuck day jobs
that waste time & energy
more than detroit ever did

fuck day jobs
that demean & debilitate
& cost a million species

work is
the highest expression
of our best selves

anything less is suicide
annihilation of our souls
for material survival

homelessness
apt reward
to indolence

how dare you know how
to be productive
without a boss

how dare you
organize
your own time

you need a day job
you have to pay
to play

following your instincts
is dangerous
who knows where you’ll go

a little knowledge
is dangerous
freedom is lethal

you need a keeper
someone should
tell you what to do

for just enough pay
to get barely by
to spend too much

to own too many things
to want too much space
to hog up the whole world

you need a job
to justify your existence
otherwise, you’re worthless

get a job
get a haircut
you’re a bum

why do we give in
to this crap
why put it on replay in our heads

everyone who has one
thinks everyone else
should have one

should shoulder the pain
stiff upper lip
leave your emotions at the door

tactics of the workaholics
our heroes in this land
of the do-too-much

(cuz we consume too much
take too much, hurt too much
trash too much, complain too much)

but never mind that
look to the gods of industry
& the goddesses of media

note the rewards of frenzied activity
the satisfactions of owning it all
being the biggest money-grubber

of course
a day job
won’t get you there

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

letting go

i need
to let go

they’ve said it
forever

i agree
in heart & head

should i
fall off a cliff

live under a bridge
put a needle in my arm

how far to let go
how much

how do i
let go

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

welcome to parenthood

welcome to parenthood
this is your next chance
to make adulthood

welcome that child
like you never were
give it all you never had

wake up, last chance
at immortality, at change
at making the world a better place

welcome to being hated
resisted, resented, railed against
leaned on, depended on, needed

the reality of the parent / child
slaps in the face of fantasy
an understanding of homicide

infanticide parricide
make sense now
& parental rages caged in context

& maybe you’ll see love
where you never saw it before
& it’ll finally find its way to your heart

in the end
the love you get out
depends on the love you put in

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

i love

i love me the way i love trees
& vines & weeds & wildflowers
i know i love you cuz i hate you so much
& we treat the world & each other with such hate
i love everything that way

the way i love
hills & mountains
buttes & canyons
& miles long views, smoggy or clear
i love everyone that way

deserts & forests & open lands
stretching to the horizons
lizards & deer & little
rodenty critters of a 1,000 types
i love everyone that way

big bue endless sky
with a fierce sun burning
or clouds in all their forms draped
sheets of rain visible alongside rainbows
yes, everyone, that way

i love the world
the way i love the universe
the little nooks & crannies we can imagine
stars & nebula & black holes & big bangs
so far beyond our grasp, beyond us

i love us, our joined selves
our cooperation, our fascination
the way we love together
make the future forever
i love you, i love me, we are god

i love me the way i love you
& i love you the way i love me
& i love the globe beyond teevee
& i love a planet of fussin’ & feudin’
& lovin’ & breedin’ & needin’ all the way

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

the tease

he wants to touch
to cuddle & cling
& lovey-dovey ‘till i could puke
but hardly ever does it go anywhere

i can admire his beauty
tickle his fancy with my nice
‘till the cows cum purple
kiss back all i want

but nookie no way
most days most nights
it’s nookie no way no how
i’m in nookie prison

what have i done to deserve this?
did id kill baby seals in a former life?
these teases are seeking me out
i’m succumbing to their belief

no nookie for me
no nookie for them
just endless stimulation
going nowhere & i’m tense

that act, the two-backed beast
it’s affirmation, faith, love
it’s a shared belief
in joy, in each other

you wanna be free
to walk out half way there
or three quarters
trained yourself not to care

insisting your take’s the only
how demanding i demand
more or less
or my own way

your way so overwhelming
it’s the air around us
& i have to breathe on your terms

to tease is to control
to force performance
every pretty young one
gets teased by the power of the tease

i might give you what you want
someday, if you’re good enough
if you dance, if you prance, real good
just don’t expect much

& we’ll be fine

copyright 2005 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

no guarantees (the tease, ii)

told the tease
there are no guarantees

no promises
no bonds
no telling
what may happen

you won’t commit to me
& i can’t be obligated to you

no guarantees
i told the tease
there are no guarantees

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

freak

i’ve been bogged a long time
despondent, so scared & always alone
swamps full of people
never anyone for freaky me

i need help
i feel stuck & trapped
i panic. sometimes. a lot.
please, help me be a better person

i’m ready to move on
to whatever the next thing life has for me
i’m done with this level of stupid
i’d like to move up in the class

help me get rewarded
help me feel peace calm love security
i need all the help i can get
to want to get up, to want to move

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

fecund death

wake up people
the world’s on fire
it’s always burning

you’re burning
burning bright
hate & love

& i want i want i want
fire fueling
running running

never getting
a goal
that satisfies

necessary waste
ashes fueling
flowers

fire crackling
‘cones

seeds offered
planted

in fecund
death

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

be the love you need

let pleasure, love, joy
flow thru your meat essence being
ground yourself, flow plantlike from soil
seek sunrays, grow strong on love
your own, then others’, the
base fecundity outlined by sages
curiosity & exploration & learning
& reach out beyond the end of nose
work within (most of) the rules
learn compromise & rigidity
teachers old & new lead the way
pick the path of love, eschew hate
feel your own pain, push at your comfort
be the love you need, the reward you seek

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

standing on the shoulders

we stand
on the shoulders
of giants before us

surely that’s not new to you
we stand to look over the horizon
the taller the more we can see

& just as surely you know
the giants are always just we
standing on the shoulders of us

& as often as a better view
we stand on each other
to hold us all down

sometimes, i think
the best parts of giants
survives their deaths

noble ideas
explaining better
than that before

fears
& human foibles
left moldering in graves

only elegant simplicity
striking bold beauty left
for the fearful living

afraid of you holding me up or down
afraid of height & distance making me small
afraid of knowing i am a mote in god’s mind

we stand
on the shoulders
of giants before us

we may feel
we crouch at their feet
while we use their gifts

when we
are really
the shoulders of tomorrow

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

strive

hold on
persist
keep striving
keep going
keep moving
goals in sight
life’s hard
& as interesting
as we’d like
there is joy
bright & light
love love love love love love
walk strongly
into the future
what’s needed
is there, waiting
pull shoulders back
look destiny
in the eye
embrace it warmly
it’s all can be done

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

be-having

always state positively
negations are ignored

i’d say
bee-have
rather than
don’t do this or that

to say
don’t misbehave
is to obscure
the power of the positive

behave
practice patience
play nice
take care of self
play fair
love others as self

it’s that fucking easy, folks

always state positively
negations are ignored

say, love me
& i love you
say, i am help
& help me

say, here’s solution
here’s work
here’s time
here’s commitment
here’s love
here

be

behave

to behave
is to know
what to do
moment to moment
life as obstacle course

obstacles as growth inducers
universe provided
oh so generously

pay attention
this one counts

always state positively
negations are ignored

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

angel’s wings

maybe sometimes the angel’s wings
are all about, if only we could see
could hold still long enuff
quills, feathers, would come into focus
all around us, firmament
holding us up, binding us to place

maybe sometimes the angel’s wings
are the people around us
& if we’d let go, we’d know
that they are there, that they care
that we can let go, they’d not let go
that we can, that they’ll hold us to the sun

felt the wings, seen them unfold
heard the rustle of velvet strength
doubted they’d come my way

i know i don’t notice them sometimes
don’t care if anyone’s there
but in the end we’re all together
in the end we’re the angel’s wings
irridescent & grand & unseen

we’re the web holding
the world together
the reason for being

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

peace is the way

to be calm
feel the waves of emotion
rippling thru steel cores
of which we’re made

to hold on
when volatile craziness
flames out & up
& warps our rigidity
& we are melting
pyrotechnic flow down
demolishing all
& standing again at the end
when silence spreads
this is peace

peace is the way
stillness
paradoxical in its power
in its utility

& only then can be seen
redemption of killer
befriended by victim’s family, or
the rapproachement between warriors
knowing full well the price paid
the futility of fatalities teaches
lessons of peace the hardest way

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

we don’t own words

they own us
make us
what we are
in our heads

how we say
what we are
is what is
ever possible

& others use
words however
& we can only
control self

owning no words
outside cranium
owned by words
aspirated & not

sticks & stones
may crumble words to dust
but words weigh
crushing lives

a million repetitions
bend & shape & sway
make way, make way
words rule the day

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

flame for fire

i am the want
the need
taking no heed

flame for the fire
i am molten desire
a flame for the funeral pyre

copyright 2004 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

abolish

to surge,
to grow,
powers fears
that to grow
exposes
one to risks

to grow from
sharp disputes
fuels pain

to grow
is to flood
to grow
is friction
& pressure

contained &
antagonized
seedlings of pressure
that failed

threatening fears
threaten growth
we soak
in growing

& in growing
abolish


copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean

there exists an electric thrill

woven into the fundament
sense prick up in response
it twangs & thrums
& sometimes, we pluck back

this might be magic
quantum fields underfoot
thru our feet, thru our heads
gridding genes to gird loins

copyright 2007 by Kia Gabrielle McLean