Is that chicken organic?

Excuse me--is that chicken organic?
That one, there
When that chicken was still kickin'
was she fed wholesome, all-organic meal
free of treacherous hormones and antibiotics?
Did she get to roam the range
foraging and frolicking through amber waves of organic grain?
During her stay at Rancho de Pollo was this hen provided with a firm futon
private phone, yoga classes and her
pick of the roosters?
Was she sexually fulfilled?
Did she lay Jumbo brown happy eggs like it says on the carton?
I mean, specifically, can you certify that this bird
right here lead a full and rich life
up until the day some thoughtful soul
whacked off her head
bled her dry and plucked her naked?
Did she grow up in a nurturing, incest-free nuclear family
with a multi-cultural education and her own web site
before she was skinned, shrink-wrapped and shipped to market?
Did my little child of god have access to the panoply of 12-step programs
for any recovery issues that might arise for one who was
born to be broiled?
Please assure me that she went through life without
suffering irradiation or genetically engineered anything
See, my body is sooooo sensitive
I've got to make sure that whatever I consume meets
the highest standards of purity and nutritional excellence
If I am what I eat and I'm gonna eat meat
I mean second-hand grains: predigested, bio-converted grub
well, then my conversion machine---my chicken-
had better be fueled by organic grains that were
hand-harvested under a full moon by vine-ripened virgins
Yes, I need to know all the details of my happy hen's diet and lifestyle choices
Was her aura cleansed of negative psychic energies
before I sautéed her in cold-pressed flax seed oil
with a hint of fresh rosemary?
Was a spiritual advisor of her choosing present
during her final hours?
Were last rites administered while Susan Sarandon held
a candlelight prayer vigil outside the slaughterhouse?
Before I speared her tender flesh with the tines of my fork
before my teeth cut into her succulent thigh
for god's sake tell me she was treated humanely!
I care about these things
I may not be a vegetarian
but my chicken had damn well better be

Space Abuse Must End!

In the waning months of a whining millennium
Alanis Morisette was rhapsodizing in Rolling Stone
about the joys of touring with gal pal, Tori Amos
"It's really about holding space for each other" she offers earnestly
Holding Space
Have you noticed how suddenly
everybody is holding space for someone or something?
It's this bizarre New Age ritual
a high-concept shorthand for
"I am so here for you, Angel Moonbeam"
a gushing affirmation that started out as an innocent hot tub group-therapy tool
-probably somewhere in California-
mushrooming into a full-fledged cult, spearheaded
by luminaries like Richard Gere
who is reported to be mentally
holding space for umpteen million Tibetan refugees-bless his heart-
But, that's a lot of acreage
No offense to Mr. Gere
but does he really have that much mental space to hold?
or is he using space commandeered from others
who maybe weren't aware of the value of their real estate
or that it was even up for grabs?
No wonder the world feels ever more crowded
all our public domain space is being sucked up
by gelatinous liberal do-gooders advancing their own agendas
and famous people bingeing on Buddhism or Deepak Chopra
Not that there's anything wrong with holding space for Tibetans
School children in Lhasa are probably scribbling thank-you notes right now
honoring the colossal sacrifice American celebrities are making on their behalf
Is it just me or is this whole phenomenon smelling
suspiciously like a Trail of Tears for the New Economy?
Was space ever consulted
about its role as a tool for the spiritual advancement of the human species?
or is it just another natural resource
like rivers and rainforests
that we may plunder at will?

Incredibly enough there are those who would make a mockery
of the sacred dimension of space-cropping
Nike, for example, is holding space for entire nations
of brown people making thirty cents an hour gluing shoes
for Americans to jog around all the space
in our homes, offices and neighborhoods
that we are holding for them but not sharing with them

Captain Kirk spoke for all rapacious conquerors masquerading
as peacekeepers when he intoned the immortal words
Space, the final frontier
So-First we hold
then we conquer
then we build a mall
from Columbus to Kirk
same story, different century

We are holding space hostage
from the bottomless pit of therapy groups for spaced-out baby boomers
to the great corporate stampede south
that's left millions of US workers holding low rent space instead of high dollar jobs
It's space abuse on top of every the other injustice

Mark my words, people, someday spacism will be regarded as
reprehensible as other famous ism's
But we can start turning the tide right now
Spacists everywhere-and you know who you are-
I implore you to break the imperialist chain while there is yet time
We must set an example
for the craven corporate cabal corrupting us all
or
every molecule from here to Pluto will suffer
the fate of Native Americans who learned the hard way
what happens when white people hold space

We keep it
forever

Prayer for a Harley rider

So here I am gawking at this brand new, beefed-up
and all full of itself Harley-Davidson
Big
Black
Menacing
Sort of the Doc Martens of the motorcycle world
I walk the length of this behemoth
admiring its sheer bulk
its shiny newness
Then I spy the sticker
applied somewhere above the headlight
centered just so, the sticker sneers:
If it's too loud
You're too old
and I am stunned, tripped up in my anger I snort
why you arrogant snot nosed punk
I fume at the bike as if it had a choice
as to its master's incivility
When this approach proves futile
I ratchet my rage down I try
to cultivate some compassion I try
to think of something helpful to tell this poor child
who is not old enough to know any better
I want to do this before I and others of my wizened ilk
are herded off by brutes like him
to grimy nursing homes
where our hypersensitivity won't infringe
on their right to break the sound barrier
Son, I want to tell him
maybe someday, God willing
you too will reach the advanced age of 44
with one foot in the grave and the other on a driveway oil slick
and your hearing aid will be cranked up too loud
so that the muscular roar of a Harley
disrupts your comfort
intrudes on your peace of mind
and so you'll squawk about kids
these days having no respect for their elders and
other cliches as stale and feeble as you are
and you won't remember taunting the innocent and
the thoughtless insolence of your youth--NO
Or maybe for you it will be different
maybe 30 years from now
you'll still party hearty and snort coke at Limp Bizkit concerts
maybe you'll still be showing off that withered barbed wire
tattoo on a bicep sagging under the weight of maintaining your image
maybe you'll still have a full head of hair
several lovers
and a pierced scrotum for their entertainment

maybe you won't have moved to a quiet home in the suburbs
where you enjoy tending a garden and
sitting on the porch with friends
sipping iced tea on long summer evenings
maybe you'll be just tickled on those rare nights
when a motorcycle screams past your house at three AM and
opens up the throttle full bore
rattling teacups and setting the dogs to howling
maybe you won't mind one bit
maybe it won't be to loud maybe
you'll never be
too old

I'm much too busy to die

Are you busy?
I'm busy
In fact, I'm so goddamn busy
it's a miracle I found the time come down here and
tell you all about just how busy I am
and have been ever since I hit college
and discovered a whole world ripe for salvation
- by me!
Everything from nuclear proliferation to the rainforest to the tyranny of cellulite
required my personal attention
God must have known I'd be so busy and not blessed me with children
Where could I possibly have squeezed them in?
Though I might have had a chance if I'd mastered multi-tasking
Efficiency at its most exalted
I could open my mail on the toilet
eat breakfast in the car while driving to work and
much like President Clinton
attend to all manner of personal necessities while conducting business on the phone

But I digress and I really don't have time to digress because I'm so darn busy with
The Internet! that clever time-saving device that's catapulted me into hyper-drive
where my entire life has become a black hole
of To-Do lists and no matter how many items I cross off the list
there is always a fresh batch of recruits dying
to challenge the good soldier in me

but I keep trying and I think if I just get faster, more efficient maybe
one day I'll get it all done and so I'm racing harder and faster
till I'm like the tiger
in that children's book who chases his tail round and round and round till
he melts into a puddle
of butter and yes I'm having a meltdown only
instead of butter I've shape-shifted into a bitter
resentful creature before whom children and small animals cower
and whose calls are not returned by a growing
list of former friends none of whom ever meet
up to her exacting standards and I'm about to lose
it completely and permanently when my last
friend tells me I must slow down now or die

So I do
I slow down
I practice doing one thing at a time and
it is ex cru ci a ting

but this is the only way to release my inner fascist so I make like molasses
and now I'm about a week into torture by mindfulness
driving home from some errand that took
twice as long as it would have in my pre-monk era
and I'm waiting at a stoplight it turns green
But all of life is now an opportunity for growth so I don't
instantly accelerate. No, I pause
for one, maybe two seconds
just long enough to notice
a car barreling down the cross street
doing maybe 50 in a 20
and I watch as it sideswipes the bumper of another car
caroms off into an unexpected trajectory
bounces down the street and flips ­real slow, like me, now ­
it flips end over end till at last it lands
on the tender green lawn of an elementary school

I pause to consider my near death experience, then
I drive home verrrrrrrry slowly
because right now
I am much too busy
to die

Ray meets a nice girl

Let's call him Ray
I never did ask, but I just know
his name is Ray
not the tough-guy kind of Ray
he's the Ray who is vaguely aware
that he's a little dim and there's not
a damn thing he can do about it
Short, wiry, silver at the temples
Ray is in his early 40s and not
unattractive but somehow lost
in black addidas, one shoelace dragging
He's clutching a styrofoam cup of flat beer
making conversation
while we wait for a BART train at 16th and Mission
Ray tells me he's a concierge
working five star hotels from Vail to Union Square
Good money in it, he says
You start at a hundred thousand a year
I nod, knowingly
Seems prima donna celebrities are the only real downside
William Shatner was the last straw
Ray couldn't understand The Captain's refusal
to sign autographs while he was on vacation
I mean, it was for a kid! Ray shakes his head

So he quit Vail and moved to the Bay Area
got a house in the Oakland Hills
The wife has it now
Ray didn't contest the divorce
even after everything he did for her
Brought her whole family over from Thailand
That's where they met
That's where Ray tried to ignore his gut feeling that
marrying Cece wasn't such a good idea
but he was so lonely
it didn't matter
That's OK, he says
I will rise to the top again
I'm just taking some time off
I want to meet a nice girl, like you
Sorry, hon, you're too wild for me, I say
Ray follows my gaze, then explains
I just drink to cover up my feelings
That's what it's for, I tell him
You had problems with booze? he asks
I nod
I understand, Ray says solemnly, I understand
He spills beer on his lap as the train lurches to a stop
the final stop in Colma, city of the dead

How embarrassing, he whispers
I know I'll probably never see you again
Following me up the escalator, he blurts out
You're beautiful
Thank you, I say, walking away
I love you, he shouts from the platform, waving his beer
I turn around
You will rise to the top again, I tell him, smiling
Ray smiles, too
And we both know
I'm lying

For several other new poems, see the Heartbreak page...