i have my doubts

it remains to be seen
if the goals and ideals
of a "free" society
serve in a more beneficial way
the healthy development of
the world

societies which have resorted
to implicit discipline
seem to have faired
quite well

the discipline of a free
economy amounts
in some marked degree
to a form of tyrrany

nothing so shocks me
as the pretentions
of civil democracy

the truth is
so damn difficult

we know there is movement

on a day that begins
grey and cool
i travel

our lady of the wayfarers
pray for us

a police state

the cameras are on
the ears are piqued
the radar is humming
the dogs are sniffing
the wires are hot
the cars are fine tuned
the minds are honed
to be knives in the flesh
of man's trite politics
the voices are babbling
the teachers are frightened
the bankers are worried
the silicon hounds are sad
comic book artists
are staying up way too late
gardening is the way

we know it is a police state
we can't get away from it
we thought it was democracy
but no
it looks like
tyrranical idealism
parading about in a business suit
some will say it's a good thing
as long as they don't get nabbed
others will fight it outright
as a cause of justice
i should hope
more than one folk singer
reacts with righteous indignation
and illumines the perverse character
of capitalist agendas
i'll grant you
clever
but ultimately appealing more to greed
and avarice
than to anything noble
in the human being

F**k the police state

they are saying

the terrorists are at the gate
and you must be afraid
and we will protect you

the rumsfeld

a standard of currency
equal to the dollar/cost amount
of one day of war
in Iraq

holy men

the dalai lama is in
minnesota
speaking of compassion

if there is no cure
why worry
if there is a cure
why worry

benedict XVI
is in washington DC
speaking of healing
of his shame

if there is no cure

trying to give
some dialectical light
to the family fight

in a secular world
the things become gods
the ideas become demons

two gardeners
planting seeds
two gardeners
with hope

pragmatism

who stops to think
of the abyss
separating the practical
from the good
the true
the beautiful

?

the knowledge of singing

it is a mark of great favor
and epistemological awareness
to have the honor
of singing in a well -trained choir

the mind can become aware
of sonic possibilities
while working out harmonic textures
with voices pitched at 4 levels
bass
baritone
second tenor
first tenor

it is more than merely becoming
familiar with melody and text
at some point
if a singer is listening as
astutely as possible
to all the other voices
there is the awareness
of powerful and beautiful sound

even when singing monophonically
as in gregorian chant
to acheive the sound of unity
while preserving the texture offered
by various voices
is to attain to
a portal to metaphysical possibility

one has that profound sense
that what is best in this world
is the result of drastic co-operation

people
souls voices united
for the sole purpose
of transmitting beauty

at the highest level of musicianship
that is the domain reserved by Boethius
for the philosopher
one becomes aware of actually
interpreting the sound of the choir
and positing other possibilities
perhaps for improvisation
perhaps for alternative harmonic color
perhaps for something as simple as timbre
simple and subtely complex at the same time

i pondered these cognitive principles
while singing with a double choir
an echoey version of
the setting from the middle ages
of HAEC DIES
this is the day
a polyphonic portrait
of the easter message

alleluia!!

time is tired of keeping up

the insistence upon
organizing time
has increased the urgency
we associate with progress
but has sadly diminished
the storehouse of imagination
in the soul of man

piecemeal

the world is a tirade
contained by air

indirection inc.

theoretically
we begin with nothing