Delivery at 100,000[,000 Dead] Poets for [Spare] Change – Oriental Theater, Denver

Posted on 28th September 2013 in Poetry, Self Determination

This, then, is the greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well

- Paolo Freire [Pedagogy of the Oppressed]

 

let it be, then, that 100 million dead poets for spare change be the voice of reason, be the prana of change breathing, conducting the winds of time, the wings of change, heralded by this beautiful disaster we’re all witnessing, that we are all unwitting participants in somehow of unknown origin and unknown destiny looking for meaning searching for a reason that makes sense or, better yet – and here’s the change people, creating meaning by guiding the great spirit with words as incantations to show our love, to show that we are responsible, to show we can handle the situation, to show our power, based in ordained responsibility, sourced in all of the virtues, intentions to steer clear of the path of the vicious, the unwise, the greedy, the oppressor, who somehow was born with a tremendous karmic debt to pay off because of the injustices served them their ancestry and their life’s mission became an orchestration of retribution instead of reconciliation, violence instead of planning and executing the foundation for the establishment of the pillars of peace, a strategic meticulous teleological trajectory of manipulation towards personal gain rather than cultivating and nurturing all of the children of this world – that would be you and I, dearies.

 

How do we go about liberating the oppressor?

 

First, of course, we find the love in our selves – through an understanding that we are all co-existing on common ground – that would be the earth, people – subjects of a collective history of trauma and conflict the source of which is, indeed, gone with the wind, but recorded in our DNA, a collective human DNA, a human genome that, somehow, functions together as one big organism conducted by little crystals of genetic material whose origins are, quite literally, a complex coalescence of light waves transformed into particles and organized into something really quite amazing that could be a source of infinite inspiration, that must become a source of infinite inspiration, rather than a vortex for disaster, abuse, violations of one’s personal integrity, a dismantling of humanity and a resultant destruction of the great mother?

 

Loving ourselves takes patience and humility. Developing patience and humility requires patience and humility so how do we source it? How do we source it when our collective history is one of dispossession. An expropriation creating a planet of the apes, a planet of refugees, a planet of slaves, a planet of victims and perpetrators. How do we source our humility and patience to cultivate humility and patience – perhaps the progenitors of all of the virtues? Well, this is an area in which we are all fortunate to be well endowed in, endowed with. We are poets? We are the agents of change? Somewhere, somehow, somewhy, sometime, we have been cursed with the blessing of insight and introspection into the exploration of our identity with the realization that there is a vast overlap of what might be our personal identity with a common human identity and that, not only do we somehow have the instructions to construct the pillars of peace but we also have the wisdom, skills and personal qualities to plan their execution and map out the intended location for their erection.

 

Poets, that would be you, and I, and anyone, as it turns out, who happens to be breathing, circulating the air between us. 7 billion poets strong we all have, recorded in our DNA, enshrined in our human genome, the tools to build these pillars of peace piece by piece. But we, the elders, are charged with the task of rebuilding our human identity, reconstructing the future, reconciling the past, repairingg the present, repaying ourkarmic debt to restore the principles and practices of the rituals of love transforming hatred fear, anger and occupation to a passionate exercise in co-habitating this asylum of Eden in a state of mutual beneficence, love, respect and fascination. Strangely, perhaps ironically, the source of all of our emotions and actions is the same, I conjecture and it is simply that we are trained to be scared of the unknown, trained to self-deprecate into despondence or elevate to arrogance, trained by those who inherited a power structure based in power over instead of power with. Somehow we learned to pick up the gun under the orders of the gun by people inculcated into a world of despair instead of picking up the violin and the spatula and filling the air with sweet sounds and savory smells. Well, enough of them have undergone an inculcation and indoctrination into this culture of occupation.

 

But we poets have in our constitution, somehow, somewhy, sometime, by the good graces of the great spirit, the rightt combination of ingredients in our identity from which emerges an transformative ability to create breaths with sounds with meanings that change peoples thoughts and emotions and, quite literally, changes their course of existence, manipulates their trajectory and changes their DNA thereby changing the human genome and, conducting it, quite literally, towards a place where you can begin to hear the full splendor of the human orchestra, taste the fullness of millenia of human cultures diversity of sustenance and medicine for the soul, witness the unfurling human identity in all its potential as a resource for a globalreconciliationn of all past injustices and, therein, thereby and therefor constructing the pillars of peace.

 

What are these pillars of peace?

 

The ingredients, dear poet, are utterances of air pushed through your vocal chords coordinated into sounds most people, including the paragon of flora and fauna, understand and resonate with. Yes, that is right, the ingredients for the pillars of peace are nothing but words. Simply, they just have to be constructed in the right shape and laid down in the proper sequence to erect these pillars of peace.

 

And what are these pillars of peace, dear friends, you’ve been asking yourselves and perhaps waiting for me to enunciate? Fortunately they are few and fortuitously simple: these pillars of peace are equality. The pillar of peace is only one thing – It is equality. It is seeing self as other and that we all have the exact same human rights and human needs. So clearly these rights and needs have been elucidated and enshrined in all of the worlds religions, in all moral philosophical discourse and inquiry, and in the charters, treatises, conventions, protocols, declarations and constitutions of those coalescent bodies of light invoked and established to conduct this infinite interplay of waves of sounds and ideas of words to establish the common ground of our humanity to inspire us towards some ideal notion of global village where, once again, we all recognize that we are the indigenous inhabitants of one world and our proud histories as individuals belonging to divergent cultures, languages, religions, attitudes,behaviors and contradictions, wills desires and expectations, sounds of songs smells of sustenance, and the full rich organismal orchestration becomes our convergent common identity wrapt in our common origin cultivating of commonomon destiny with all of the virtues as our emergent behavior and all of the vices set off to the side and referenced only to mind and maintain those pillars of peace we’ve worked so hard to put in place.

 

So, my friend sister brother, this then is the greatest historical and humanistic task that we, 100000 poets are charged with, we are the the voice of reason, the voice of revolution, the culture bearers of an entire race of beings for whom we are charged, somehow, somewhy, someway, to be the stewards of the creative prowess of human endeavor, to offer instructions to the children of mind and heart to find themselves according to the clear and concise messages we get from nature, the messages we get from our dreams, the messages we get from the great spirit who guide us to use our power responsibly so that we may seemingly violate certain conservation principles in that we proliferate all of the virtues, leaving the vices to decay and dissipate as some cruel joke of history in which we listened, somehow, somewhy and someway to the prison guard, the preacher, the law and the teacher. Now, we are the ones who will have spoken the voice of reason and we will cultivate this maelstrom into the perfect storm protecting, teaching, and empowering the children, our little orchards of electricity who collectively will bring us back to the garden.

 

 

Poem Delivered at 100,000[,000 Dead] Poets for [Spare] Change: Denver – Oriental Theater September 28, 2013:

We all have a common origin
nascent coalescence mosaic of light
straight from the source
waves dancing waves into particulars
you, me, our adversaries and lovers
nothing but light waves
dancing our roots of nothingness into
the outskirts of the infinite

we all have a common ancestry
incandescent crystalline matrix
straight from the source
self emergent, self sustaining, self regulating, self replicating
interwoven generations scaling the conflict helix
transcendent towards our higher purpose

we all have a common morality
espoused wisdoms prosaic divine
straight from the source
thoughts sprouted from the mouths
of seven billion poets enshrined
in declarations, treatises, charters protocols conventions
the constitutions of earths nations and tribes
testament
truth in fundament of the ties that bind
inseparable we have no choice

we all have a common destiny
cosmic descent radiant dispersal
straight to the source
deliverance self, divergent other – ness
other words of other worlds hitherto unknown
we find solidarity on the playground of our commonalities

where

we all have a common identity
underneath the psychic raveling
revealing the source
through a global reconciliation of
admissions, apologies, reparations
a restoration of the co-mingled
orchestrations of unity
reveling in diversity
relishing the subtleties of local languages
that through time and space diverge
into the vast neural network of brains
connected through words
conducting electricity
from mind this hive
generating all that is in this world

words are the magic of this world
words are the progenitors of emotion
in this world words are the conductors
of the Pow Wau
words are illicitor
of the great spirit’s dream
the poet the blue conduit of truth
whose words are balls

her words are balls of electricity
his breath infinite induction of
fields inducing fields
creating the vast neural network of brains
a coordinated conjunction of minds
nascent coalescent mosaic of light
calculated incantations eliciting
oppressed and oppressor towards liberation
articulated enunciations transforming our wiring
unraveling the psychic coiled chaotic matrix DNA
intrepid
vigilant
inexorable

without tongue
your words become cosmic whispers
bulging out through your lips

without lips
your whispers become a mantric om
written into the retina of your I

without eyes
your om becomes a tantric vision
sculpting the musculature of your face

without face
your vision becomes the ecstatic dream
scriptures of a liberation theology

without words
your breath becomes the incantation of your purest intention
transforming trauma to prana

with courage
you face all adversity
to ensure equality
restore justice
and establish a lasting peace

with patience
you transform your attitude
to cultivate a mutually beneficent behavior
overcoming the inherent contradictions
transmitted in the mixed messages
of those internal and external forces
keeping us from our core temperament
transcending the occupation of our identity
so we may once again be co-habitants
indigenous to this land

with humility
we transcend the distorted projections
through imperfect lenses
of our own subjective dispositions
quelling desire and expectation
aligning our will toward
unbound respect, appreciation, love and affection
guiding our intention to become
stewards of self, the paragon of animals, and all life on earth

with empathy
we blur the distinction between self and other
invoking a new world order
whose firmament is trust
whose power is responsibility to nurture
procure invoke and cultivate
all of the virtues

with love
we heal our ancestry
through a dialogical conscientization
rebuilding our individual, communal and collective identities
so, as adults, we can focus on what really matters
the children
whose breath is an orchard of electricity
our offering
a manifest dream of a past that never happened according to plan
our instructions
imparting the wisdom, skills and qualities
grand unification
liberation of the next 7 generations
so their words will become
the balls of electricity
breaking down the walls
of this enchanted prison
garden asylum Eden

this, then, habibi
is our greatest historical and humanistic task
to liberate our oppressors
so we can liberate ourselves

 

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Lunchtime on the Playground of Our Commonalities

Posted on 19th May 2012 in Peace, Poetry, Self Determination
 
 
“Don’t take my love for you personally” — Polish Proverb
 

You’ve all heard about the “Falafel Stand in No Man’s Land,” of course. Certainly, it highlights the irony of war. Such things do take place during war when people will take little breaks from fighting to smoke opium, masturbate, medibate, and even kill some more; Such things do take place on both sides of Terra Nullius (No Man’s Land). That is, in their hatred, both sides are the same. In the way they masturbate, both sides are the same. There are cultural differences in toilet paper, no doubt, like sheet size and overall accepted textures, but toilet paper  serves the same function across conflict boundaries.

The irony runs deep. Our most fundamental needs as human beings, our commonalities, are a cause for struggle. How do we transform competition for provision of our human needs into cooperation for the provision of our human needs. Yo, I’m not just talking about food, clothing, shelter, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We have spiritual needs. We humans have emotional needs. Human beings have psychological and psychical needs as well.

Still, we can do much better than cooperation. We can actually have fun hanging out together in between the bullets and the bombs,  the fists and the knives. Yes, it can be like recess – with the broken monkey bars, the tire swings, the cigarette butts from last nights hoodlums – during Lunchtime in elementary school before our egos are developed enough to take our differences to war.

And why not learn to play nicely together since we all need the same things? Well, it has to do with desire and expectation of course. That is where the struggle comes from. Maybe it is true that the tapeworm in your gut actually pulls the trigger, or the spirochete in your mitochondria deludes you into thinking you’re in love. More likely, it is the self love/loathe — you know, when your self hatred cultivates narcissistic asshole behavior, apathy, and/or  self-deprecation — which prevents us from seeing self as other, gears us towards exploitation of others as we try to control them; steal their resources to acquire our desires (not mutually beneficial) not our human needs  ( “They” could be a person, place or thing).

Of course, what I am suggesting is the Unified Field Theory of Human Endeavors – that which draws us to the Playground of our Human Needs. It requires a transformation of our core temperament with the intention of transcending the border between self and other. Perhaps when the human population was approximately 18 it was not such a difficult task to perform.

Yet, even the internal workings of a persons fwang can, and often do, cause conflict. When our emotional, physical, sexual, psychological, psychical, and spiritual needs are not thoroughly understood – that is, when our internal states are not clearly defined and in resonance with our  core temperament- there exists a fertile ground for conflict. Toss into that internal mix the external forces of 7 billion people working towards the same thing among the external forces of economy, environment, politic, media, and other socal influences and you are left with a highly complicated system in which there is a great deal of friction and uncontrolled oscillations.

In the language of Natural Philosophy this dynamic is  considered to be a ‘many body problem’ for which there is no exact solution. However, this does not mean an empirical solution can not be expressed. That is, the way we live can be transformed – through a series of practices and rituals – to unravel our fwang and re-ravel it with a new formulation more in resonance with our original instructions – this time derived from our practices and spiritual advisers who will prompt us towards expressing who we are supposed to be. This guidance and practice, along with the tools of non-violence and conflict transformation, will instruct us in a way that we can learn to play nicely among the commonalities of our human needs.

 

From the Polish Book of the Dead and Other Drunk Incantations

 

Bardzo VII

 

bardzo zimna
we carried our corpses
a flute a guitar a violin an accordian
and a case of vodka
accomplanied by
a dancer a trickster a warrior a crier
cursing along the backroads of the nowe miasto
to where
we once gathered to play
our love songs
after the invasion
and the next
 
to the places our father’s
fought to their deaths
to play for them
to drink for them
to sing to them
to smoke their last cigarettes
until we were drunk
hurled on the ground
our cold red faces pressed against
white crystals formed around
the edges of bootprints in the mud
sleeping as they do
a few meters underground
buried by decades of war
covered by the new world order
and a fresh layer of snow
 
Now mostly sober
we carry our corpses back
from the Cytadela
half pickled half fermented
gathering unearthed ordinance
and dislodged shrapnel
to place inside the violin’s F-hole
drop into the sound hole of your guitar
jam into the end of her flute
pierce the trickster’s accordian
and ram down our throats
until there is no memory of the fighting
save the muted sounds of instruments
doing their dirty work

© Adam Roufberg

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The Falafel Stand in No Man’s Land

Posted on 24th April 2012 in Poetry
 
Hey, my friends
On both          |sides|         of the wall
Put down your weapons for      just enough time 
to remove the dead                            collect the wounded
play some music                                and eat a little
on the playground of our commonalities
while we                                              stop the bleeding
get the dead out of sight             dance a little
and eat together                           in no man’s land
 
when we’re done                           not fighting
for just                                                   a little while
we can get back to the fun                with our guns
and shoot at each other                        again
kill   each      others       families             and friends
addicted to retribution
      and the food breaks in between
          satisfying our human needs
together, as enemies
 
with the new rules of engagement
art with my missiles
tea with your air strikes
and music                                don’t forget
while we take a break from the fun
put down the gun                    for long enough
to remove the dead                  collect the wounded
eat a little                                      smoke the hooka
on the playground of our human needs
together, as enemies
 
while we rest                          catch our breath
so we can     kill        each            other              again

 

 

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