Altruistic World Online Library

Campus, by Charles Carreon

The lawns are clean on campus--
The students do not raise a rumpus;
They are busy memorizing
Tales of Uncle Remus.
 
Of the poor they say,
"We do not see them and
They cannot see us."
To the strong they say,
"Might, I know, makes right--
Give me your hand,
And turn out the light."
 
To themselves they say,
"You are the child,
You are the heir;
There is no time
To speak of what is fair."

Can't Change the Channel, by Charles Carreon





Well ya wake up in the mornin’
And ya got nothin’ to do
There ain’t no job to go to
And there’s nothin’ on the tube

But you can’t change the channel
No matter how you try
Even though ya’ got a hundred
They all repeat the Lie

Ya’ got your blonde wearin’ blue
And a guy talkin’ red
Ya’ got your weather and your sports
The rich and the dead

Ya’ got your stocks goin’ up
And your bonds goin’ down
Ya’ got your stars and the drugs
And your hip-hop clowns

And behind the screen ya’ know
It’s like the Truman Show
Some guy callin’ the shots
But you will never know

Is this war for real?
Are those people really dead?
Do cops really do that?
Let’s TIVO that again…

Well you can’t change the channel
And you can’t get a job
But you can vote with your remote
Part of the digital mob

Now politics is worthless,
It’s all part of the game
If you haven’t got a dollar
Nobody knows your name

Now Coke, Sprite and Pepsi
Are things I understand
They serve Kentucky Chicken
In the promised land

You don’t want to change the channel
After all what would you do?
Without your guy talkin’ red
And your chick wearin’ blue

You’d be a rat without a maze
A cop without a gun
A politician with no bribe
And that would be no fun

Thank God we can’t change the channel
No matter what we do
‘Cause one’s the perfect number
So who would count to two?

Ya’ got your stocks goin’ up
And your bonds goin’ down
Ya’ got your stars and the drugs
And your hip-hop clowns

And behind the screen ya’ know
It’s like the Truman Show
Some guy callin’ the shots
But you will never know.

Cat Whiskers, by Charles Carreon



Dirt tracks footstepped all over by the marching
lines of beings
Deer tracks with little piles of deer shit
here and there like shrines
Cow tracks, heavy trodden down hooved over sod
dried flops of undigested fiber
City streets, winding highways, stinking rivers
Sewage treatment plants blowing plumes of flaming methane
in the dark
Poisonous clouds, grimy windows, callused hands, sore throats
City window lights, shower stalls, bedrooms, televisions
Bare spots on the carpet, holey linoleum
Threadbare cuffs, blinking eyeball
Grease spattered on the stove, dusty television screen
Mildewed shower curtain, empty pill bottle, cat whiskers
the television widow crochets a bedroom of lace
the sun streams always over the coverlets
Singularly lost amid the clutter of wires
Branching bouquets of wandering flowers
Through the mesh and the web of the undertaker puppeteer
Invisible paths trace unheard-of symmetries
Working into a dark nucleus
Waiting as in Before the Yet To Come

Che!, by Charles Carreon

Che!
War cry of the oppressed,
Che!
Your name has become the cannonball
The first shot across the bow
Of the flotilla of Privilege
Che!
They claim not to fear you
But they lie
Every time some young rebellious soul
Takes light from your fire
The water rises higher
In the sealed cell where
the lonely, soulless, last capitalist sits
You defy history, threats, Nixon, the CIA,
You threaten tyrants whose names
you never knew
The hopeless prop your effigy
up in the saddle
And send it out against the
oppressive horde
You absorb the bullets, the fire,
The ire of the fearful
You never tire
For the spirit you discovered
In the heart of kindness
Is cold as steel
Vigilant as the eye of the sun
Implacable and
incapable of surrender,
Che!

Child of Fortune, by Charles Carreon



To be a Child of Fortune
Striding 'cross the universal gulfs
In boots of seven light-years,
Striding with the stars and planets
As my stepping stones
'Cross streams of time and space
Looking through my crystal skin
To the marrow of my liquid bones.

A thousand star-faring races
have born and died
Like phosphorescent waves
Upon the universal tide.

Life is the scrum
of star-wrack and the sweet
Abiding perfume of a flower,
The casual accident of a stellar hour.

So sweet is sweet
and bitter, bitter,
everyone doth know.
The fire doth burn the hand to touch
And sun doth melt the snow.

Don now the patched robe
and begone from every mundane thing
By ancient campfires warm thy bones
And ancient songs do sing.

The cart is loaded,
Painted gay and hitched to oxen strong,
The carnival is on its way
And you shall come along.

The stars are read by palmisters
Who study God's fortune,
A rising tide all boats does raise
And we will prosper, too.

A thousand voices you will hear
Along the midnight road,
Spend every coin you once held dear
And think not of the load.

The ship has parted from the shore
The anchor has been weighed;
You've set sail for lands far from here;
Your spirit won't be stayed.

So Child of Fortune, cast away
That last, restraining bond
And turn your sails into the wind
To new lands you are gone.
To new lands you are gone

Circuit of Light, by Charles Carreon



Entombed upright in silent earth, black space,

A tree of light reaches flashing roots into my skull
with fractal fingers,

Lightning subsides to moonlight, the nerve net awash in
seamless serene effacing tattered stimulus traces in a
hush of retreating waves. Fragments of the moon
collect in stillness to reflect a perfect sphere.

Silence descending like snow to the gravity-pearl in my
belly, a coalescing sphere of spiraling mists, clouds
in jet streams. The nerve net responds like the sea to
the moon.

The moon is sailing in a sea of night, the earth's
core of molten nickel its sun.

Following old ruts only, breath flows through the
innumerable subtle tributaries of interlacing liquid
flow.

Always upstream there is more.

Clearcut, by Charles Carreon

There is trouble with the people,
because they all have gone to sleep,
Not seeing how their government
Treats liberty so cheap.

There is trouble with the government
because it's acting on its own,
The citizens trail behind it,
Seeing what they're shown.

There is trouble with the media
because it says just what it's told
And never asks a question
before the answer has been sold.

There is trouble with the children
because they cannot find the way
When their parents act so helpless
every single day.

There is trouble with the lovers
because the birds no longer sing,
And the flowers aren't blooming,
made of paper, vines of string.

There is trouble with the ocean
because its rising every day,
Sun is growing hotter
and still they say it's not that way.

When the lies are all left standing
and the truths have all been felled
With the hatchets and the axes
of the greedy and well-heeled,

Then nothing will grow back again,
no grass will raise its head,
And on plastic and computer bytes
Humanity is fed.

Coffee Drinking Cockroach, by Charles Carreon

"Hey, let's go fuck the moon maids, said the Devil,
and me the dumbfuck I went along for the ride ..."
a melancholy postmeditative event.

dancing starkly by computer light
One is not oneself, One
is not anOther.

Quiet time for the coney
island of the mind,
mother of mary
ferlinghetti by the ocean
Accompanied by a coffee-drinking cockroach.
It's all good.

But Buddha,
he done gone beyond
and you been lef' behind
with all the porn stars
and the lottery tickets,
and you gotta lotta explainin'
to do 'bout that shit
went down
at the bus station.

Yassuh, betta' say yo' mantras
and pray that clear light after death
Gone' shine.
Otherwise, you gone' be back ta' stay with us
One mo' time.

Cold Street Light, by Charles Carreon



Nobody
was
awake but me
And the light shone
at the last stop.
Subway doors slam with a hiss
I remember the movie heroine's kiss
Street-light vacancy aches
in the open -- find me a doorway
to hide in -- I am so tired of the
painted eyes of sell-girls.

Once I had a prayer but I lost it
Once I had a friend but she left
Once I had a home but I couldn't pay the rent
Once I had some money, but now it's all spent.
Find me a place to huddle,
It's too soon to die tonight.

Colestine Ragtime, by Charles Carreon

Longtime ago, this place was here. Rocks and creeks were formed in profusion of creative force. Longtime the alders have grown along the creeks, keeping shade where it's needed. The cedars and the pines they seeded themselves on down the slopes. The meadows filled up with grass, who knows what kind. All kinds of creatures, filling niches in habitats. People there too, sometimes, hunting and fishing, gathering plants and food.

Then white men, changing the face of things, too rapidly. Cutting trees, making stage roads, a railway, a highway, a freeway.

Still the sentinels stand watch. Pilot Rock to the East, the Dragonfly to the North, and Shasta to the South.

Men with long hair come, and women in long skirts. They pray to the spirits of nature, and pray to the wind and the earth. They worship the stars and follow the moon. They try to live right, and nearly do, until they stumble.

Men in red robes come. They take note of all the auspicious signs, say prayers, consecrate the Land for the Buddha's Doctrine, and entreat the local protectors to lend their aid.

A great Buddha image rises to attract the faithful. The kind face of Vajrasattva beams radiantly on all who behold him. His form was constructed with the wild energies of untamed beings. His ideal appearance purified all of their mistakes.

Many wish to dwell there. These people are possessed of a ferocious intensity. They have travelled, searched, and wish to plant their flag here. The place accommodates them, and they begin to dance with each other. This dance is controlled for a long time but then begins to break its boundaries. New interactions are happening at a rate faster than old interactions can be resolved. Overlapping ripples create confusions, and many see with double, triple vision, or worse.

They take to partying, feeling their oats in the anarchist solution that appears to be emerging. Not possible to look back, or anywhere, for guidance. What is coming is coming, and no one can affect it. Storm clouds have hovered so long that we have given up all hope of rain.

(Aug. 3, 1994, Colestine)