Starship Earth

Now is the time we appease no god...no second guess...no prayer that saves the lot of us...we ride...for life or death...that nothing sure is certain...but the earth is pissed and broken...the day's where continents...will breach the seas and dive...and men and creatures all...may pass in billions...

yet, until that hour...that our departure set...each hand we hold...each heart we touch...of billions in the world...know full well...we are comrades now...and ride upon our death...to forever lasting...and we are not alone...though...we may curse the light...as shade enfolds...the show begins...

the curtains part...a sister on the left...a brother on the right...screaming into battle...for the good or bad...one humanity together...with no fear at last...we fly for heaven...let our flag be hope...our starship...Earth...unhinged...and hurtling through the night...her engineers are weeping...as they race...to save her heart...

Just so...we are the children of emergency...genesis is in our blood, and we are best...when we are fighting...for our life...and whether is, or not...and you believe, or not...the angels have our back...for this...is our time now...the mother shaking...raging...knowing...pained to be delivered of her load...must let the children go...that she has loved...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Art: Artist presently unknown

No Defense...No Offense

One time...many years past...a young woman  invited me...to a movie...The Life of Brian...was playing...she watched my face, like an owl...for this irreverent piece...of comic satire...to injure me. I knew that she brought me there, to prick my purity...to bring it down...to smear and sneer...she chickened out...however...of this failed sortie...

And...she asked...are you all right with this...of course...and then 'Brian' stood...in the open window...scratching his balls...his hair awry...stunned by the appearance...of worshiping horde's...of misguided followers...waiting for 'The Word'...and...Shit!...he said...'Shit is the word!'...'Shit is the word!'...and they carried it...and went away...'Brian' shrugged...

The value...in this moral allegory...may be...that we are all conjoined...in poverty...in spirit...and in comedy...and need each other there...none of us so high...and all of us just low enough...to duck that branch of what the fuck...quite nicely...we are of earth...we are of god...and after all...God must have laughed...a little bit...creating us...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015"

Photo: from Monty Python's Life of Brian, "Brian at window surrounded by supporters, convinced he is Jesus Christ"

Please

We are poets...we are prone to guttering lamps...of past memory...of ghosts of future sight...we must face our souls...aghast at what it is...and what it says of us...we are not anchored...right...in this, but in another world...where dream is all...while here...all dreams are ever outcast...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015


Please...there are beautiful things in this world, now selfies snapped in one second, and there are dreams, just laying on the ground...if you never do another thing...pick this one up...it is a man, a poet, named Khalil Gibran, and he wrote 'The Prophet'. There is 'the chosen and the beloved'...his name is Almustafa, and his ship, has finally arrived...the city he lives in...the dusty streets he walks, and the souls he loves live in the city of Orphalese...Almustafa must leave, but his people give him pause, for, latently, they arrive, to confess their great love...one last gift he gift's the gathering mob, that none are high or low...that none will skirt the fate...that none are better, neither worse...than all...and that,one day he will...return to them...they call...with one great cry...as the ship...away, and one waits on the shore...Almitra...


Review: for 'The Prophet', written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Art: 'The Prophet', written and drawn by Khalil Gibran, from a dream

Holy Root

Where I live...if I live...I wonder, there is this flaming heat...that sear's all things, and there...this rose...this sweet rose...exist's...in this Phoenix place...a woman, long ago, told me...fear not the temp'ring of thy blade...years later came to be...and now, you hear a hiss...as mail boxes melt...in this mean heat...

yet, by my choice...and not regret...but only wait for things to be...and being went, one day...to a local department store chain...there...in a dreary hot, near mother's Day, the misted flowers sate...and drooped near dying...picking one sweet rose...whose scent was heaven...and undead, like all the rest...we gladly took to pay...

But some amiss, arose and there...the rose was taken 'way...because the stupid barcode wasn't read...as some fiasco then pursued...we questioned management, and they enjoined...that we should pick another rose...and go away...but we, my wife and I...we cleverly contrived to...pray, may we take this sorrowful thing...back to the garden bay...

We fairy flew, their ire rose...perhaps security was called...we were aroused, and took it anyway...for it's sweet scent was heavenly...the wheels on the cart... vibrating...shak'nly, as all cart's do, excepting one...that one we never roll...we placed the flow'r...before the tired clerk...who really didn't give a bitter squat...if we dropped dead...but took our coin and waved us on our way...

That little rose, you see, was meant to be...with us...it sits there in this horrid sun...yet, every blessed day...that rose grows stronger...as if root were made of iron...and the scent...unlike the other roses...gone away...is special, and is sweet...though only for an hour...and those leaves stay green...and buds return...as if a miracle...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Just Because

Just because we love our wife, or just because we love our husband, doesn't mean we cannot ever love another, in that way, and why not...are we slaves...is the ring..."the one ring, that in the darkness"...yada yada yada...isn't love to share...and isn't love that bright thing, not shades of, not all watered down and dribbled away, like a pee stream from a bad bladder... 

Why can't we touch another's heart, send them notes, candle light and sweet, if brief  sojourn's...why must we sign a 'binding' form, like some kind of dark magic, why must our heart's expanse be chattel, or a property, or plot we only place ourselves into...at days end, in some cemetery...why vow, and ever since...deny...to live a lie...for a ten carat pillow...why can't we thrill, as we are life...instead...we lock ourselves away and die...a little bit each night...

Who made that up...some clot...in some damned monastery...blotting love from ever seeing light...or was it God, or son of God...who said "love" is all you need, or some rare band...from Liverpool...is love what harbors us and makes us sound...in hopelessness...the same...we never get around...we only sneak around, nor say a thing...we really mean...is that why happiness is bound...like a maiden on a train track...or...is that the kind of love...that wreak's us...we walk away...all bloodied up, if we walk away, or soulless if we stay...

Is that the kind of love we want...from a jealous mate and a jealous god...and we're all pissed off, nor satisfied...of anything...is that our lot...who made that up...conjured of hate...we masturbate to someone else's face...and hide the real precious things...and meet in some closed office space...or car...or burger chain...and smile again, at the children that we are...for just a time...sweet children...with our nursery rhyme...of love...please...oh sweet love...

Are we to stay with those we cannot love...or must we bring a newness in, and is our mated love's heart large enough to let that be, to let us stay...and too, to stay and play with us, all children once again...of make up games and make believe...and tenderness...and miracles of...real real love...are we that capable...of moving up...the evolutionary chain...to love each other once again...god of love...I hope we are...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

The Fishing Hole

The ice had me from the first, whether it was fishing for the lunkers, up under the cut banks of Meadow Creek, or trolling with giant 'Ford Fender' lures behind an aluminum boat with a ten horse outboard motor, on Rocky Lake or Big Lake, or ramming holes through the winter lake ice with a 6 foot steel bar...

In the days I was a boy, there weren't the niceties of gas powered ice augurs and snow mobiles. I wasn't a big boy either, just a sawed off runt with skinny little boy ribs...why, I wouldn't have made a meal...but you couldn't keep me from a line and a pole, and I would pack that heavy ass ice pick out there on that frozen lake and begin the arduous task of hacking away at the glass beneath my bunny boots.

The snot would fairly run down my face, and I would swipe it with my huge snow mitten and rub it on my parka, over and over again. I would grow sweaty, even well below freezing, and would discard the parka, on the ice. A hole of continually diminishing diameter appeared in the glass ice, down 2 feet, down 3, finally, I would break through to frozen water...at 4 feet...enough to roll a truck onto...

Now, that's what I call, a fishing hole...and often I would make the dear mistake of grabbing the ice bar with a bare hand.  No no...don't do that...on a frozen day on a frozen lake...and I would burn and curse, and lose a couple layers of kid flesh against that steel. Those are the karmic debt this kid owed the ice, for I was the family fisherman, the one obsessed...

The sun, at 30 degrees, was blinding...at 10 degrees above horizon, I would don my coat again and tramp in circles, to stay warm, the circulation going, and the wind would steal across the lake, around my legs, and I would feel the night coming...yet, I fished, and little fry and large, lay there upon the ice, all frozen stiff, and salmon roe and blood...coloring the spots of snow...

Then...just before twilight...and the real cold...bite...I would head in, with visions in my mind, of hot cocoa and maybe something mom baked...in the old Queen stove...dragging my stinking booty, of little fish...that did their duty...and died. I would clean them at the wood porch...we would say our grace and eat them fresh...clothes smelling of salmon roe..and wind...and oxygenated air...

And I was the fisherman...and dad...the hunter...mom...the maker...sis...the growler of the bones...and brother...breaker...at the bounds...and leaver, and we missed him so...yet, life went on, the sky...the ice...the stars...the dancing rainbow ribbon...of aurora borealis...roamed upon the night...to our delight...and everlasting passion...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Photo: Frozen Alaska Lake, photographer unknown