Ellyn Maybe
(USA)
NOT YET
My Allen Watts tapes are rewound.
So are my Michael Ventura tapes
and Helen Caldicott too.
I wrap my ears and heart around
Pacifica for nourishment.
I’m thinking of painting my car yellow
and turning it into a bus.
I defend mother earth.
I’ll armwrestle for father sky.
I boycott lots and lots of stuff.
I giggled at a crystal in the window
of a new age bookstore.
I play a guitar made of tofu.
I sang happy birthday to a river.
I gave my teeth goddess names.
I visualized wisdom.
Did you hug an organic farm today?
Has your guru asked
for your charge card yet?
I changed all the currency
to pictures of floods, pictures of war,
drawings of overdoses,
people with their backs turned.
Money ought to reflect the society
it has bought.
I took to the road
Stood in front of the Pentagon and asked
Trick or trick or trick or trick.
For Halloween I saw how people sank
as they dunked for survival.
New apples in the garden of toxic waste.
I changed the national anthem to
My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying
by Buffy St. Marie.
I painted a shadow around the White House.
I saw leaders fall into quicksand
of their ego.
I saw followers breakdown
then rise with the taste
of their own strength.
I saw people give the peace sign
and then use those two fingers
as a guillotine to cut up hope
in an embracing heart.
I saw hip.
I saw trendy.
I saw Emperor’s New Clothes
on all the racks.
I saw hypocrisy.
I heard people call ignorance a treat
as they said to me
you trick us
you scare us
you’re a witch
please shut up.
I said every day is halloween.
And they said
you’re fat
you don’t know
you are nothing
you are nothing
you are nothing but a crazy woman
you rant and tangent.
And I said what do you see?
And it was as if the earth
quit breathing to see what
all its children would mumble.
And the telephones that dialed evangelists.
And the telephones that dialed 976.
And the telephones that dialed dianetics
fell to a collective snug fit
on the receiver.
And people with homes ran outside
and the homeless looked paranoid
and then facing each other
saw the differences vanish.
And people said this is something!
The paintbrushes we use may be different.
The thickness of paint may be different.
How far back we stand to see a painting may be different.
But each empty canvas has remarkably
similar space.
It’s in knowing humans and flowers
dance together like lovers
as do birds and gazelles.
The businessman said “my peace of mind
cannot be traded for green sandpaper
with bloody presidential mindsets on it
no more.
business as usual is unusual, unnatural and unwise.”
People shivered and used their
alarm clocks to not be afraid of time.
And people said “come on let’s go”
nobody asked where.
They all just intuitively split to Washington
and saw the White House curled in a ball.
goosebumps of fear scarring the door.
paint peeling.
And the people said
“let’s kill the bastards.”
And someone said
“that takes us one step closer to being them.
let’s just stare as out come those skinless robots running
to the weapon store for one last shot of testosterone.”
And the people were split
The non-violent and the almost non-violent
weren’t on speaking terms
but someone said we can’t kill the dead
and we can’t bring back the dead.
Someone said that’s right
Another one said right on
Someone looked confused
Someone sang The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Someone drummed and sang the American Indian Movement song
Someone sang Mary Had A Little Lamb
Someone sang We Shall Overcome
Someone sang And The Times They Are A Changin’
Someone said how long do you think
this will last?
I said it will last as long as it lasts.
Someday Our Peace Will Come
one day poetry dropped from the sky
and the animals grew iambic pentameter tails
and the people breathed in stars
one day music dropped from the sky
and the architecture turned symphonic
and the people breathed in harmony
one day memory dropped from the sky
and the past present and future sifted like flour
and the people breathed in wonder
smoke and ash
as distant as two sides of the same coin
Van Gogh
There’s a man who looks like Van Gogh cartwheeling through the sky again.
I said what brings you here.
He said I get bored in heaven sometimes.
Everything is taken care of.
All the chocolates, all the paints,
all the books, nothing on TV of course.
I want to come closer to all the scurrying people.
Rushing quickly as though they could outrun death.
I used to take all day to feel what the peasants felt.
What the crows were cawing at.
Life was simpler then but still so hard.
I knew someday I’d make a living but I didn’t live to see that day.
If you knew Vincent why?
Knowing and actually seeing for your own eyes,
Its such a chasm.
No it’s more than that.
I was lonely. The colors I made.
red yellow blue
became orange green purple
I could make one color disappear into another.
It was seamless.
I thought my loneliness was like that.
Some other feeling would mix with it and I’d have serenity.
But my palette was a little short.
I don’t know. It goes sometimes like that.
I made good use of my time.
I’ve had a long time in Heaven.
Vincent are you saying this to make me feel better?
Well yes and no.
I wanted to know the Earth more.
So I come down on the biggest playground slide God ever made and look at life each week.
Once a week I feel everything on Earth as thought I were still human, more than spirit.
I used to come down every night. Now once a week is all I can take.
The 20th Century was more than I could bare.
We look at you from Heaven.
You’re living in Guernica. Picasso agrees.
We thought you’d learn from the Inquisition, the many Joan of Arcs we don’t know about.
We thought you’d become peaceful.
When I say you I mean your species.
He spat the word and I knew exactly what he meant.
World War Two
We were dead so we went to the camps to say prayers for our breathren.
There are people who refused to go back to Heaven for a few years after seeing what went on there.
They painted shrouds.
They painted landscapes inside their eyelids.
Many went crazy.
Heaven is not just cotton candy clouds, harps and angels.
We watch you.
Yep you are our movie of the week.
We don’t want you more than once a week.
Even the dead need peace now and then.
I said Vincent did you ever find love?
There was this day the print in my favorite book began to dance with me. I took it for love.
There was this day I heard the music the birds sang and I became a bird
but more I became music.
There were many days.
Yes that love I found.
Suddenly I said Vincent
Are you my guardian artist?
He said yes.
He said all I need to know.
____________________________________________
Ellyn Maybe, Southern California based poet, United States Artist nominee 2012, has performed both nationally and internationally as a solo artist and with her band. Her work has been included in many anthologies and she is the author of numerous books. She also has a critically acclaimed poetry/music album, Rodeo for the Sheepish (Hen House Studios). In addition to her band, her latest poetry/music project is called Ellyn and Robbie.
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