Altruistic World Online Library

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)

Come Back Salmon, by Charles Carreon

Making a better world,
I saw a salmon try to cross the road,
Not enough water there to make a difference,
But he was givin' it all he could,

Because it's an ordinary world
with ordinary people
and ordinary concepts
on any ordinary day,

And if you can't make it simple
Like an Amazon website visit
Then there's no hope for your idea
So you might as well forget it,

But if you think you've got
what this old world demands
Then take it to the bank
and see what you can get.

Conan Doyle Said to Rudyard Kipling, by Charles Carreon

'Twould seem overly reductive,
Not terribly instructive
To take the colors from the sky
When anyway they all will fly,
To kill us every single day
When we must all die anyway.

'Twould be rather fuddy-duddyish
And lack imagination
To smother children's happy thoughts
With a dark zen-colored cushion,
To break their toys for their own good
And tell them there's no supper
For fear they might enjoy themselves
And love what should be hated.

'Twould seem the criticism
that the world's but a machine
Has itself been found defective
And even a bit obscene

For those who know
and do not know
Are seldom told apart
Except the truth is always known
In fools and madmen's hearts.

Condoleezza, by Charles Carreon





Lately I've been thinking how much I miss my lady
Condoleezza's in the West Wing brightening the daybreak
Living with a lust for power, running through the grass for hours
Rolling in your Hum-vee like an army-child

And when it rains oil dollars down
Washington's a cattle town
And she's far away somewhere with Colin Powell out-of-town
And she screens my corporate schemes
Protects me from those wild dreams when we swelled
Like Corporations fit to burst upon each other

I can see you by the window, planning first strikes in the evening
The fruit juice flowing slowly, slowly, slowly
Down the bronze of your bombshells
Stokin ' up my lust for power, bombing old Baghdad, oh for hours,
Flyin' your Apache like an army-child

Oh if only we could nestle in that hangout back in Saudi
My arms around your shoulders, the Bin Ladens laughin' and jokin'
While the smart bombs and the children are playing in the valley
Oh I miss you Condoleezza like a banker miss his money

Lately I've been thinking how much I miss my lady
Condoleezza's sowing minefields and clearin' out the terror
Living like a lusty flower, bombin' ole Saddam, oh for hours,
Rolling through old Baghdad like an army-child
Rolling in my Hum-vee with my puppy-child.