Stars and slingshots
Hot rocks flying through the sky
Matter blinking at me non-stop
Doesn’t matter were alive

Expanding blackness or bliss
Darkness that I can’t resist
Black holes and myths
Shards of lights and comets

Surviving on the one round stone I’m capable of breathing
Stumbling around with no money desperate for a meaning
Corrupt with greed and corporate crime
Dead presidents more powerful than the one that’s still alive

Money is divine
The bank is god
Stealing is a crime
When the rich are getting robbed

It’s complex but it’s primal
A thirst to have the most
Spit in the faces of your rivals
Stash away and hoarding paper notes

Consumer capitalism is a miracle
Built a world connected
But made us all so cynical
We sit in mansions miserable

It’ll only end when the sun and sky collapses
***** us all in whole
Won’t be a god to grace you
You can’t cash in your worthless souls

By then we’ll probably be somewhere else
Where the wheels keep turning
Crushing the poorer and helping ourselves
On and on until the universe is burning.

Target practice, aiming high
shoot these stones and watch them fly
see them hit and watch them fall
dropping bottles, one and all.

Line them neatly in a row
dented plastic, all will go
crashing quickly to the ground
with this new skill that I have found.

Knock them over, stack them up
once again, I just can't stop
precision like you've never seen
to rival Katniss Everdeen.

She had an arrow and a bow,
I begged my dad but he said no
cause with an aim as true as mine
he thinks I'd end up doing time!

So pebbles, sticks and bits of string,
who knew the fun these things could bring?
the satsisfaction is quite grand
to fell these items with my hands.

I love to see my Dad impressed
because he is the very best
but even with his throwing arm
he cannot hit the neighbours barn!

and so I laugh and love to tease
while sitting here beneath the trees
he tries to make an angry face
but laughter cracks it with quick pace.

So I call him my " Bottle Boy"
shout "line them up" just to annoy
and shoot those bottles to the ground
another favourite pastime found.

I
loathe
fighting with
my entire being.
Maybe because I have
never really been in a fight
just observed my parents, my
friends, everyone around me and
watched as the tension built and built
and built making me feel as small as a child
and as powerless too. People don’t understand
the consequences of their actions, I don’t understand
people. But, I understand fights. Words are like slingshots
catapulting friendships into dangerous territories the words you
say sometimes you mean them, sometimes you don’t and it’s the
words you mean that are the worst. Those are the words you can’t
take back.  And what I understand about fights taught me this. A fight
is like a symphony it builds and builds until its deafeningly loud, and then
its quiet, and there is nothing left leaving its audience unbearably sad and at a
loss.

Ethereal and Base a harmony so diametric a solid.
Wisdom's forgiveness lands to the unyielding new,
white spray on black lava, merging
elemental minerals in salt water.
Life the mediator, yearns for compromise
algea harvests sunlight at the hard shore, grows into plants
fish munch coral creating sand washing up, a tree's foothold creating soil...  
can rock become Earth any other way?

Mother's beauty, an unknowable generous smile
and confident grace from the sun.
Ages
sitting wrinkled and depleted to her waist,
beauty transforms
into unknowable generous laughter alighting graciously from wise eyes,
like a flock of Heaven's doves so close to home
stirred by her running children: daughter and son.
All the while all the yearning is unrequited.

For her children, Beauty is vertigo,
painful reality rooted to the shore.
Eyes long for the horizon, Vision Country
between sky holding its breath and water measuring out patience,
The heart spills out futile on the crystalline sea,
but Sadness, belonging to clear water,
lightly buoys lonely Ecstasy,
Completes the voyage.

The Vision pairs selfless love with unmet desire,
opposites' harmony the firmament,
but the sound breaks from tension and the echoes fade,
and the senses footing gives way;
vertigo with dove's wings tied shut.
Descending minuscule between dissipation
falling through molecules of bliss,
and diffusing atoms of despair,
to the last remaining positive and negative
and the tension's silver thin wire between.

It cuts tied wings free,
slingshots the dove's soul back up,
at the last second, the tension's iridescent thread tangles loosely on her foot.
She hurtles back up through the scales of size:
Microns, amoeba, minnows, birds, primates, people,
over trees, looking down at cities, mountains, yet higher
borderless nations, green and sand continents,
and again all the crystalline blue seas.
The silver filament draws taut, holds the dove's ascent,
wings slowing in awe as she views Mother Gaea
her intensely brilliant sphere accompanied by vivid tiny stars.
in a cold cold soundless night...
Grandmother teaching her children to fly;
Beauty's yearning realized complete.

From his balcony above a man watches down on a little town in Missouri,  
he pinpoints a bleak silver container as it slingshots into the darkening shadows above.

It yells to him,
"help, get me out of this awful place."
A trial of slate grey smoke follows the container as if it were it's overly attached mother and within a second pulls it back down into the atmosphere.
After descending the container skids across a schoolyard, rolls off the sidewalk and crakes into minuscule pieces.
From the cracks tear gas spills out in all directions covering the once quiet little down in terror, relinquishing it of any tranquility that remained.

The man on the balcony sits and observes the events that have unfolded.
From his perch he can not tell black from white.
He can not tell man from women.
Turban from top hat,
child from elder.
he can not see if interlocked hands declaring their love and denouncing death that blares from police megaphones, are hetero
or ****.
He can not see who's pride is enflamed by blue uniforms
or who's mouth's are covered by dew rags to prevent themselves from speaking a death sentence.

The gas covers it all.

He can only hear footsteps running away,
guns shots following the footsteps,
and unfinished prayers as bodies stain the side walk.

In this moment,
the chess game of life becomes not black versus white
but human versus human.
And the man wonders, from his balcony above,
why it must take weapons that destroy equality,
to make us see each other as equal.

step into the surf.
waves surge over your ankles,
unexpected speed, threatening push.

wade thigh-deep on sea legs,
digging your toes into the sand,
timing your steps with the waves
as earth and moon play tug-of-war.
the drop-off slingshots your heart into your throat.

making slow progress to the ******* --
you're unfamiliar with this marine rhythm.
the ocean knows you don't belong on this dance floor.

stand up, fighting riptide, undertow.
side-tackle weakened waves
hitting the ******* like brick walls,
each an oceanic supernova with whitecaps imploding.

surrender to one,
let it ****** your feet from under you,
immerse you in its raging swansong.
it traveled a thousand miles to die
on this insignificant strip of coastline.

Walking in the woods, I fell
Down into a knothole that lead
To another realm, unlike our own

‘Twas a wondrous realm like a twilit dream
Where the dazzling sky at night engulfed all
And satyrs who were young like me
Beckoned me to their sordid ******
Fountains of wine poured into streams,
And wood nymphs danced and bathed in falls
Deliciously drunken and sweet, calling me
To pick their flowers.

We caroused and we aroused
As we fired our slingshots into the sky
And watched the night shimmer with the
Comets we launched up and away.
I fired mine, foolishly unaware
That my target was the moon so full
I shattered my joy to pieces
And brought this realm to darkness

The satyrs howled in fear
The wood nymphs withered away
The fountains of wine turned into blood
And I was left drowningl
Until a glorious golden hand
Went from the moon’s place to
Shield me, carry me back to reality.
I awoke in a sweat and a shiver
'Twas always night in the Satyr’s Garden
Be it drenched with stars and ecstasy,
'Twas night, and night to remain.

We sat in deck chairs, our feet entrenched in the sand,
as the water crept up the shore
and splashed gently on our toy sailboats.
The fire pit roared and rose with flames
under the moonlight. Our friendship was anchored
in the beach for years, since second grade.
I kept watch on your sailboat,
knowing it would soon cast out into the sea of adulthood.
We spent hours talking about our dreams,
as though the sandman truly existed
apart from
our imagination.

Remember when we dropped our textbooks in the trash compactor?
Because we believed in the Lost Generation and The Beats, and not some phonies from academia.  
We even sprinted away from the security guards after we used our slingshots and shot rocks at the The Verizon Center's Marquee.

Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.

We lounged in the dugout while the sky poured buckets of rain on the baseball diamond, as our lighters ran out of fluid.

*

By accident, you shot me in the mouth with an air-soft gun. The beady plastic pellet zinged through the air, and sawed off half of my front tooth. Frantically, you sprinted inside and came back out with a glass of whole milk. You snagged the chipped up tooth from the lush lawn, and dropped it into glass. The tooth got swallowed up by the milk, leaving a trace of ripples.

But you had pure intentions, only lukewarm aim. On a porch chair, I sat bent over with my upper lip bundled with wet paper towels. There was no blood, no flesh wound; just a clean shot. I dabbed my tender gum gently with the damp towel.

You walked up to me and slapped me on the back. I shook my head, rolled the towel into a paper *** and chucked it at your nose.

You caught the projectile in mid-air and threw the afternoon’s remnants over the pointy picket fence. You turned around and saw my back, as I walked on the neighborhood sidewalk away from your house.

Ten years later, in the summer of 2007, we stretched out our limbs on Rehoboth beach and smoked headies out of a papier-mâché-looking piece; we called her Old Glory. As we toked and held in the gray coughs, we took in the view. Small waves barreled over and flattened out onto the fine sand shore. Our toes were tangled in the snare of the ivy green seaweed.

We didn’t want to let go of this.

This picture frame memory, the wooden frame lacquered with fresh pine comb.

A peace pipe shared between each other to rekindle their friendship. I stared at the bright fire of the lighter, watching as red sparks turn into violent black. Light gray debris collected on my swim trunks. We both looked up at the starless sky, as if we were searching for twilight. The moon glow shrunk the longer an eyeball looks, you said.

I nodded, got up, and walked right into a tall wave. I took the full force of the water, standing my ground with a bird’s nest chest. You laughed and lolled your head back off; you were exhausted.
I walked back up the hilly shore, and treaded my finger along the ridges of my ceramic tooth. A replica embedded in my mouth. I felt the jagged edges, the flaws, and grinned a little.

Just enough, to feel like I was on the verge of epiphany, on the beginning of seeking out the correct approach of life.

We hit the piece again. And the sun began to rise.
Our eyes closed, breaths quiet, and our memories entwined
for days to come.

It's true that when the moon glows brightest
Incidents of ****** rise.
But when you can't see the stars out here
You have to take some risks.

Modern-day Rippers can catch me if they like.
I'll be too distracted by the bright hole in the sky.
You know when you look through a paper towel roll
And it's all black
And there's just that bright circle of escaping light at the end?
Maybe the moon is our escape.

Like I said, I'd lie down and stare at the stars
But the lights here make that difficult
And who knows when the sprinklers will go off.

Instead I'll pretend I'm an astronaut
The Argonauts and I, haha.
We'll find out what's beyond our paper towel tube existence
Via slingshots and arrows.

A lunar eclipse is a beautiful thing
Except that it covers the escape portal.
We must ask the gods:
How will we get out
When you put your hands over it?
How will we seek greater things?

There are no stars here.
No pinpricks have penetrated this world
Pins pricked so the gods can have a peepshow
And don't all have to share the window.

Maybe the ****** rates go up
To entertain them.

Ring up the deaths

From sticks and stones

And slingshots

Knives and clubs

T.N.T.

And nuclear bombs

Their total sum

By year 2010

Counts fewer deaths

Than guns

The chosen tool

That beats 'em all

North and south

East and west

Guns can't be outdone

Say thank you NRA

And get your gun

I was sitting outside
the caravan
we'd been let

by some
do-gooders society
some one Netanya knew

who knew some one
I was lazying
in a deck chair

smoking
and sipping a beer
looking into the area

around the caravan
where other caravans
were parked

behind us
over the hedge
and road

was the beach
I could hear the sound
of the sea

and smell the salt
who you looking at?
Netanya asked

you looking at her?
Huh?
You looking at her

over there
by the caravan
hanging out

her smalls?
What you talking about?
I'm sitting here

having a smoke
sipping a beer
I said

you are gazing
at the *****
in the short skirt

with her *******
hanging out
like squirrels

out of a tree
I’m sitting here resting
I didn't see her

until you
picked her out
Netanya spat

on the grass
my *** you didn't
I’ve a good mind

to go over there
and give her
a piece of my mind

I was looking around
the site not at her
I said

Netanya's kids
had gone down
to the beach

to swim and play ball
Netanya gave the female
over the way

a glare
if I see you
looking at her again

I’ll tear her hair out
and stuff that cigarette
down your throat

Netanya went inside
the caravan
and banged about

with pots and pans
and cups and mugs
I sipped my beer

and smoked my smoke
the female
with the short skirt  

hung up her bras
like huge slingshots
I looked away

it was a hot
liquid blue
of a sky day.

I was an assassin,
With magnifying glass and firecrackers,
Bringing *****'s destruction down on pismires.
BB's left feathers fluttering on powerlines;
Slingshots made Swiss cheese of tree nests.
It's the Wild West outside the urban boundary
Where the .22 slew coyotes and red-tailed foxes.
Old dogs and tired cats were destroyed.
And just now, when the January thaw is here,
I trapped a housefly between my windows,
Opened to draw air.
It will die of starvation in a merciless frenzy.
"******," cried the old king.
"Most foul."

Do you sense it?
The little men
are mixing up a stew again
They are chopping their children
And grinding all the toys
Breaking the women and
Breaking them on
They will peel colours off the swings
And shred them to debris

Do you sense the moons all hiding
Covering up their silver eyes
And the night is angry
It roars and stomps—
A drunken frenzy; it fights
Its own decayed, black being

Oh, Palestine
You and your fidgeting hands
Fingers fight fingers
And skins are ripped
fingers fight fingers still—
There goes the ballad you never sang
There goes the ballad
You sang all around
There go the plastic dolls
Chaste slingshots, fruits never shot down

Oh, Palestine
You and the lightning
Stumbling through the clouds
You, your tumbling birds—There goes the wind
Mourning a violence unmourned
There goes the silence
There goes the noise
There, all the paintings
Eulogies etched in whispers unfathomed
And there go the stones
Cold and blank

All plunging within the gaping mix
As the *** sits quiet
Upon a fire
Birthed from their own white bones
The little men
are cooking up a stew again
Sprinkled with gold, with ashen stars
It boils and burps
A viscous storm
Never to come
As the *** sits quiet all night long

Oh Palestine,
You, your lovers
Lovers and the rest—
When in the morning
The flames are tired, and bones
Bones no more
The stew will still be stirring
With winds raging on
And no one will be left
No one will be left

With winds raging on
No one will be left

Oh Palestine
Where did the little men go so wrong—

Camp Johnson Crossing
Tire swings and cattails
Tall grass and oak trees
Chasing rabbits and picking flowers
Lily pads and orange soda
Pigtails and slingshots
Rolled up jeans and her hand
Wet toes and sunshine
Bubblegum and promises
First kiss and moonlight
Worn paths and carved initials
Fingers and buttons
Love and life
Teardrops and good-byes
Moments and memories
Camp Johnson Crossing

isn't it funny how we can now
identify rivers from the air

i see colored squares of grass
living beneath this metal machine
a vantage point that
humans sought from birds

we were always searching for flight formulas
or aiming slingshots toward the stars
maybe writing songs for the gods

sweet melodic pleas
so we could levitate-
separate
into angel dust

precipitation-
sweaty droplets of liquefied soul
drowning the mississippi
in pulls of poison
from my past lives' organs

the very air
that dares to guard the rain
contains all of the oxygen
those bodies had
smoked to stay awake

I live in a glass house and throw
rock after rock til the shards cut through my veins
like warm, bitter butter
from all the soapbox prat falls,
kicks in the teeth,
and busted *****.

I get up after each one like
"**** is my cannon?!?!"
I wander the streets just
waiting for life to **** me
No ****
No condoms
Just a ****** *** buying *****
with wooden nickels and a brownish white stain on my pants.

Judge me, but do it harshly
Cuz I'm better at it than you are
and I'm gonna stab you
right in the eye
with this plank pulled directly from mine

Kettle's blacker than a couldron,
and I stir em both with a crooked *******
I stealthily stuck down my pants
for a stink palm
for an *******.

So don't hassle me with that
"don't judge me" *******.
That's life, and she makes Judy
look like a ******' church mouse
So get your glass house
in order
I'm bringing all my friends
and a dump truck full of rocks,
slingshots,
and bottle rockets.

We're moving boys to men tonight...


We're taking no prisoners to light...

They'll stage false flag shootings
- so - that they can begin looting
- us all o' our rifles and muskets.
But - they get to keep their rockets
- and shoot missiles into our homes.
They'll leave us slingshots & stones
- and tell us that we'll all be, just, fine
- unless we should step over a line;
- and if we do, they'll send in nine
- of their Teflon-covered fine-
-st troops: who'll come in and shoot
- us all before we can grab our boots
- and wonder who broke through
- the front door.

My unintended snark
adds terminal velocity
to my words sometimes,
like when Captain Kirk
slingshots around the sun.

Maybe I can use Kirk's
Slingshot Maneuver
to travel back in time
and apologize for each one.

Joy, Love, Truth

What do you think your brain is doing
When you’re sad, depressed or *******?
Lots!  When sad or in a mood
Amygdala and hippocampus glued
To memory’s emotions tied,
Sensations not forgot!
When you’ve got the hots for someone
And that one is non-responsive
Do not let depression in.
Turn a sadness into gladness
And remember, hippocampus
And amygdala are slingshots into hindrance,
Solving blocks impediments;
A cross to bear you do not want to wear
Life through.

To continue:
Are you full of cheer?
Do you like people
All around whomever and wherever
You come into contact?
Do you strive for truths and stick to fact?

My advice is but to focus!
Deal with body/mind detail.
When you hit resistance, stop
The movement in the middle;
When you hit insistent pain,
Plain sense and yogic counsel
Is to halt smack in the middle of its riddle.
You will soon feel feel well - or well-er
Than the hell before.

When feeling low, illusionary concepts flowing
Going into brain, mind, soul,
Into the feel of wholeness
Is to know the stealing big fat lie:
Illusion passing for reality.

Through the trick of nothing’s nowness
(you could never start with less)
You secure the greatest motivation
To escort you to salvation.

Fortune, fame; misnomer’s lame and empty crown  
Ties you up and ties you down -
When you see the sin of daily longings, basic wrongings,
Throngs with faith in spectre choices,
From profession to the newsy voices,
Know these are not real truths
But grounded themes on schemes and dreams
To lead one far from happiness to emptiness and being fooled.

Let your  ‘down-ness’ be your tool
To push and lead to real seeing,
No more robot in your thinking, but a being
Meant for more.
Joy, Love, Truth 2.6.2019 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

The inmates

The young prisoners with slingshots
fight an army that shoots back with sharp bullets
The young keep on fighting
An enemy that knows no mercy, control the water
supply and electricity.
How many young men and women must die?
Is the enemy willing to commit mass ******?
to eradicate a race of people?
The world looks but says little and some elderly
ask: why can't the young prisoners behave.

ammo for slingshots
makes a sturdy foundation
pit in some fruits, stone

The blue man with the blue guitar
no longer plays things as they are.

Things as they are are not so quick.
Blue men of substance aim, then kick

against the ****** of six-beat bars.
The bass line rumbles near and far.

Half-notes turn whole. Another hue
spews discord, then chords of blue

sprint beyond us as we are. And we
ourselves compose the tune in three-

quarter time. Harmony orbits a billion stars,
slingshots through our world of blue guitars.