Monthly Archives: November 2016

Open Containers, Joints and Disillusion

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

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Lost Angeles is not where I started.

My home may be more to the East,
depending on where you are standing.

From Wales in 1606, three Watkins Brothers
came for what?

Freedom, fame? Wealth, riches? A
new start?

On a later date I will explore
the U.K. and Wales in particular
for problems of that age and ours that
would make people uproot, leave their
fathers’ graves, and take to new land.

Unfortunately, it was land inhabited by
a great people, those we now call
Native Americans.

Over the years, friendship with the
“Indians” became a “conquering” process,
where—in the end, we conquered nature.

All around me now in L.A. I see
proof of disillusionment, proof of
fish out of water, people without
homes—

A fractured race, littering trash, “getting high,”
trying the cope with being uprooted so
many years ago.

Slaves brought in chains against their will.

Criminals dumped on our shores.

Melting Pot or Waste Pit? This is the place
where you go to “start over” or “escape?”

To Wales I go someday to find my
answers, about “my” people.

I hope you find yours, and if
brought here illegally like the slaves
aforementioned: demand of
this corrupt American government
restitution at least in the form of
twenty or so thousand dollars each, so
that you may go back and visit your
homeland—

the one they tore you from, to decide
if maybe that is where you want to be,
not in the trash pit that kicked out
God, Nature,

And the Native American in one fell
swoop.

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Bud Light Cans and Butts

28 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Native America, Poetry

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“Who cares?” the great anthem
of all who squat and steal Indian land,
steal it over and over again as we curse
with our language and actions to kill
off nature, one block at a time.

I love God. Indians were one with
their Creator—the Great Spirit, but lost
out to the vast numbers of usurpers
coming West by the thousands.

Usurpers, who left their fathers’ and mothers’
graves behind them.

How could they do such a thing?

Why would they do such a thing?

Wasted, and washed up on the shores
at one time calm and peaceful with
an attitude of gratitude prevailing like
a wind through Sunday, the birds and trees
our music.

Now we have butts and beer cans, the
sad memory of what we did calling
it “the best we could,” a sham as alcoholic
squatters open up another alcoholic
drink, use curse words that native Americans
never used before the invasion.

Cursing, spitting, not caring is the way
of today’s Los Angeles.

I am leaving it, with the hope that the
Indians return to care for the land here.

God bless us to stop and care
as they used to care.

As they used to care…

White Man Leaving

24 Thursday Nov 2016

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I do not accept the spoils of
war, got through lying, deceit
and bullying against Native Americans
in this land.

I plan to move East from California
in June, after forty-four years of
unknowing blissful usurpation.

I want to leave room for a native
American person to take my spot,
and to inspire other white people
to follow my lead, and leave this
land into the better, more spiritually-
sound care of native peoples.

We have driven this place into
concrete, metal, smoke and trash.

We drive and fly around making noise,
because deep down, we have no
reverence for land that God gave
not to us, but to the Indigenous people.

I squat on Gabrielino/Tongva land
now. Will soon depart and give up
my illegal hold on their God-given
birthright, move northeast toward
Montana.

There I will briefly squat with great
gratitude if the Crow Indians allow.

I will check with them before I arrive,
and during my stay—make sure that
I only give and do not offend them
in any way.

To do so is to please God, the Great
Spirit that lives in, under and above
the land we called America.

If God blesses me with life for two
or so years living and working in
the Crow land, I will then say
good-bye to America, and go back to
where I belong, to the United
Kingdom.

I will go to bring back Native American
wisdom to other European people.

So many years ago, England, France and
Spain sent explorers out to find gold
and riches.

The wisdom of the native American
people is the greatest gold I ever found
here. It has been here since time began,
since before any records of men or women
exist.

I will bring back a love for native land,
seek out the burial places of my
ancestors in Whales and England,
visit other Northern European lands
if remnants of my people are there,
then will plan to settle if God so blesses
me, in the land the LORD God gave to
my people in which to live.

It will become clear in this journey,
I believe, why my ancestors left, but
I hypothesize they left in fear of
unjust monarchs, unjust class structure,
and religious persecution.

Ingratitude and boredom was a sickness,
as well.

We had not yet met the love of Native
Americans, who are an example of how
to live in gratitude for what God gives.

I humbly apologize to Native Americans
for what white people have done to
them and to the land we call
“America.”

It has become a trash heap, compared
to the glorious natural wonder it
once was—when you, not us, watched
over it in good faith, respect, and love.

May you return to rule it under the Great
Spirit again someday, and may other white
people follow me away as grateful visitors.

Away… home.

Concrete, Pills and Metal

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Native America, Poetry

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The Indians lived with the land.

Honored it.

Did Europe lack this profound respect
for its land?

Was the corruption of monarchy
so corrupt, so abusive, that
the free-thinkers and free-believers
had to cross an ocean to be free?

Perhaps.

***

Then the hosts, the Native Americans,
they pitied their guests, helped them through
a winter or two.

The natives thought rightly that it
was their duty under God to help
fellow humans get through their hard
times.

But surely they would not stay there
long. And surely, there would not be
many more, would there?

For how many white men and women
could possibly stand uprooting, and leaving
their birth countries to settle in “America?”

How many could stomach abandoning the graves
of their fathers and mothers?

***

So thought the Indian at first, most of them
anyway. And most of them had it wrong.

***

A cold edge came. The rifle. The warlord. Fear
and racism. Lies that come with any
bedeviled people.

Sickness, disease. Alcoholism, greed.

“You cannot change the world.
It cannot be done,” said Lao Tzu in
600 BC, and he was probably right.

But it is ours to try. Just to try.

***

And we try by standing up for Truth.
Writing about it. Seeking it. Expressing
it.

Truth in this case was the sad lie
told again and again by the sick, Godless
and greedy white man—

set up I suspect by Satan himself, to lie and
cheat the Indians out of God’s land.

The native peoples were its great and
honorable caretaker.

Not a perfect people, but imperfect only
in the way that a buffalo has a scar,
or a bear cub stumbles on the way down
to the river.

The Indian was one with the land, one
with nature.

Admired the rocks, the cold running water
and the animals that inhabited their glorious
home.

They were and are human, like us, one doesn’t
have to reach to great unknowns to imagine
the life of the Indian.

It was natural. Naked. True.

***

So, who wins? The group that admires
the rock? Or the group who knows how
to grind the rock down, make gravel and cement,
make square blocks of building blocks,
roads and walkways to separate man from
other animals?

Man from dirt. Man from Nature…

We’re the same species, the Indian and the
white man—different in that the Indian
loved and gloried nature, fit itself to honor
it and live gratefully within it.

While the white man for some reason had
always a mind to cover it up, to be the
head “creators” on board, to exert power and
control on it—

then marvel at our achievements over God’s.

***

Then laugh with me at the notion of a Catholic
missionary trying to give the Indians a lesson
in spirituality!!!!

It was and is always the Native American, not
the missionary, with the more true
and honest conception of God, of true
living and humility.

Dress, pomp, and ceremony in fancy robes?

Haha!!

Godless, We Named it Jamestown

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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We know that the white man does not understand our
ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next,
for he is a stranger who comes in the night and
takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not
his brother, but his enemy—and when he has conquered
it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers’ graves,
and his children’s birthright is forgotten.
—Chief Seattle

Godless, we placed a king in God’s
spot;

started doing it in 1 Samuel chapter 8,
and the corruption began.

A curse was upon any people who did
not supplicate to a Power greater
than themselves.

See it in England, among other places,
the United States with its “democracy”
and “separation.”

All a curse, seen and manifested in slavery
to kings and perversion.

Slavery!

God said it would be, and it was—and so
they set out in 1606 under kingly mandates,
the will to please a man, not God.

Godless, they arrived in Virginia.

Godless, they see a native people, but ignored
them long enough to erect some timber
and a fort.

Long enough to nod “hello,” but by the
way, on order of a godless king who thinks
he is God:

You do not matter.

And this land, we usurp for our king,
and we shall call it “Jamestown,” after
the godless King James—

The people sheep to a man, as they
were since “crowning” Saul.

The Judeo-Christian cursed itself, banished
God, ignored the Indian, and called it
“Jamestown” in 1607.

My forefathers were there, befuddled, confused
Welshmen three.

Watkins brothers cursed for the concept
of “king.”

And so they called it “Jamestown.”

The “conquering” had begun, by killing
the Indian we killed ourselves, the land.

By conquering the Indians, we conquered ourselves.

I am “white,” my people from Wales,
invading in the name of a man named
“James” in 1607.

We left our fathers behind, instead of
standing up to the insanity of men
oppressing men and women at home.

We robbed land, without natural or
God’s right we “named” the land after
a godless king.

Wales awaits my return, I hope—

for what else can be done but action
amends for the insanity of our
godless past?

The Great Mistake

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Life, Love, Native America, Poetry

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I think that wherever the Great Spirit places his people,
they ought to be satisfied to remain, and thankful for
what He has given them, and not drive others from the
country He has given them because it happens to be
better than theirs!
—Black Hawk

We shoved off.  White, tanned
by sun, a coastal breeze beckoning,
calling.

Religious persecution was another
thing.

Freedom.  Freedom to believe
and worship.

Freedom to advance past a certain
station, to be socially mobile.

Some just wanted to escape, some
forced out, some came in shackles.

A long trip across a tough ocean in at
first small vessels was so dangerous,

That I think by the time the survivors
made it to the shore of Virginia or Carolina
or Massachusetts:

There was a pride.  Perhaps by then a damning
one that made the folks
Blind.

Folks who saw a land, but failed
to truly see the Greatness of the People
who already lived there.

Great as the waterfalls, green and splendor
of any Eastern coast was a people to
match the hills and valleys of the land.

I can only say “sorry,” and plan
my return trip back across the sea to
Wales.

May all white eyes follow me who
can, and reset.  Let the native peoples
make their land great again.

Wipe out the white man’s roads, cement
and trash.

Its guns, sirens and helicopters.

Welcome back the coyote, wolves, the
deer and birdsong, decorate again the
country with silence.

A peace in mist.

I dream to make Wales Great like
America was before we called it
“America.”  It had an indigenous
name, and was doing fine.

We thought only of ourselves.

We failed to see them.

The Great Mistake.  Someone told me
recently that it “just isn’t practical
to go back, to do anything about our
errors.”

I disagree.  The only thing to do when
you make grave mistakes is to go back,
make amends.  Fix the mess.

And the “Metro,” half-dead with
zombies and trash: will die.

The corruption in suits will parish.

And the land will thrive, the Great Spirit
will soar again:

Me in Wales—

My gift to God, to leave this land and people
alone.

Just one white man gone.  My amends.

I’m sorry.

Poem on Aging by Ogden Nash

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Humorous, Middle Age, Ogden Nash Poems, Poetry

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Peekaboo, I Almost See You

Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to lead it,
But there comes a day when your eyes are all right but
your arm isn’t long enough to hold the telephone
book where you can read it,
And your friends get jocular, so you go to the oculist,
And of all your friends he is the joculist,
So over his facetiousness let us skim,
Only noting that he has been waiting for you ever since
you said Good evening to his grandfather clock
under the impression that it was him,
And you look at his chart and it says SHRDLU
QWERTYOP, and you say Well, why SHRD-
NTLU QWERTYOP? and he says one set of
glasses won’t do.
You need two,
One for reading Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason
and Keats’s “Endymion” with,
And the other for walking around without saying Hello
to strange wymion with.
So you spend your time taking off your seeing glasses to
put on your reading glasses, and then remembering
that your reading glasses are upstairs or in the car,
And then you can’t find your seeing glasses again be-
cause without them you can’t see where they are.
Enough of such mishaps, they would try the patience of
an ox,
I prefer to forget both pairs of glasses and pass my de-
clining years saluting strange women and grand-
father clocks.

“The Anniversary” by Ogden Nash

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Marriage, Ogden Nash Poems, Poetry

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A marriage aged one
Is hardly begun;
A fling in the sun,
but it’s hardly begun;
A green horse,
A stiff course,
And leagues to be run.

A marriage aged five
Is coming alive.
Watch it wither and thrive;
Though it’s coming alive,
You must guess,
No or yes,
If it’s going to survive.

A marriage aged ten
Is a hopeful Amen;
It’s pray for it then,
And mutter Amen,
As the names
Of old flames
Sound again and again.

At twenty a marriage
Discovers its courage.
This year do not disparage,
It is comely in courage;
Past the teens,
And blue jeans,
It’s a promising marriage.

Yet before twenty-one
It has hardly begun.
How tall in the sun,
Yet hardly begun!
But once come of age,
Pragmatically sage,
Oh, blithe to engage
Is sweet marri-age.

Tilt a twenty-first cup
to a marriage grown up,
Now sure and mature,
And securely grown up.
Raise twenty-one cheers
To the silly young years,
While I sit out the dance
With my dearest of dears.

Livingston

05 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Love, Peace, Poetry

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I watch them litter in Los Angeles,
hear the illegal bombs detonate
every Summer, thug life calling it all
the Fourth of July—but you know:

War is war.

I look East, to where my people
came from, bumbling West.

Wales.

Home of crusty shores, green valleys,
wet and medium cloudy and blue
skies in my dreams only, ‘cause
I’ve never been.

London has plays, football and a dry
wit, the foundation of English
there among the crags of Scottish
Highland wind—

Hope dawns in an Irish Spring, sing-
songing an accent, speaking of a golf
links well-played by a guy named Padraig,
green as can be, smoky over water
to the sunshine of a well-struck fairway
wood against thunder.

Rains all the time until it doesn’t, the clouds
yawning fog away and the rainbow
spawns a son, Gold not waiting at its end
but beginning when an “American” tired
of hidden Kennedy’s and covered up
Cold War murder returns.

“Repatriation” sings out to the conscience
of a man beat around the links too many
times by alcoholic graft.

I seek a putter from the rough, couldn’t
be happier I can see around the bush—

My 400 years of servitude in “America” perhaps
passing like a fallen mountain breeze.

Winter descends on trash in Los Angeles,
and I—

I seek employment in Montana with friends:

River called “Elk” or “Yellowstone” by other names
as flowing.

Constant is God’s invitation to Glory.

But we only accept when ready—

When we’ve put in the work, amended the
idiot we were to bring out the man
or woman ever-seeking the child within on
paths East toward Heaven.

Reborn is the sinner at admitting fault.
Love beckons the other half in me
unexplored.

Come with me to Livingston, in words
only if necessary, we like to keep it small.

The town is a river, mountains and changing
weather. This is God’s country at the hip
of National Park presence.

A break for many, exposure to the land.

The Indians had it right all along, never
cursing—always blessing the land.

Without good words, hold tongues.

I go East to Livingston, if she’ll have me.

A year or two, then Wales. Home.

400 years later, Watkins returns…
if she’ll have me.

If she’ll have me.

Heddwch fy mhobl…

If she’ll have me!!!