acrophobia (on a painting by Pat Orban)

acrophobia

rain bites skin

chills bones

among warm speckled rays

thunder hems & haws    clears its throat of sky

lilac whiffs with languid wind    and that smell

when rain first tames the dust brings me

to who I am (in this cage of dying skin)

the old man rambled    can’t work in the lightening

I had to agree    it was a yellow afternoon

and there is no place better to stand

than where your feet meet the ground

I wouldn’t go up there either

not if I had a say

not now        probably never

I Shot the Serif (on a painting by Pat Orban)

I Shot the Serif

these bricks

I labor to layer

like sturdy scars

imprison me

as certainly as

the runaway train

roaring through my brain

jumps the track of reason

sharp barb lurks in the dark

the point is silence

I move between the taste

of rust and blood

hook slides from jaw

with the simplicity of gravity

I swish free smoothly slipping

beneath the quivered surface

burnt dusk oozes from the eye of night

cloistered with pain and wormy delusion

the dangling trap drifts beyond

I forage shimmering in the infinite dawn

universal

seed lit grass

nod in

eager waves

 

bend in

wind

now and again

 

same breath

pulses through

each of us

 

no matter

how old

or alone

everyday

everyday we risk

being more fully alive

another flower blooms

Strange Fruit Villanelle

(April 5, 1968, Alton Senior High School)

America needed to watch its back.

When ignorance swelled like fruit on hatred’s tree,

My best friend in high school was black.

America feasted on this loathsome crap,

When hopeful King was gunned down from his dream,

America needed to watch its back.

I’ll recall how whites that day in school talked smack,

How bigots blindly hurled hateful obscenities.

My best friend in high school was black.

Blacks marched out, whites threw rocks to pelt the pack,

Cops beat back blacks blue and red; white kids cheered in glee.

America needed to watch its back.

Alton broke me on its racist rack,

Tortured me with its bloody irony.

My best friend in high school was black.

That things now have changed is mostly fact,

Yet so many still yearn to be free.

Those scars and stripes that welt my back,

Sting like the cuts lashed on my friend's back.

Crossing the Bridge Parts 1 & 2

Spoken word with improvised soundtrack. These are Tracks 2 & 3 off of Mad Dog & Headman's Walking on the Sky album released in May 19, 2013 (featuring: Mad Dog Friedman on Theremin & Spoken Word and Stephen Hartman on NS/Stick with MIDI, Bass Pedals & Keyboards).  Stephen is pure genius and a true in the moment astral plane pirate. It is the first full length project featuring Mad Dog's aleatory Theremin work.  Featuring M. D. Friedman's poem, "The Great Clock" as published in his chapbook, Leaning Toward Whole (Liquid Light Press 2011).

If the player does not work click here to hear: http://soundcloud.com/md-friedman/crossingthebridge320

wings of haiku

lonely wasted heart seek your ancient home inside uncover your joy

marble-fisted doubt open to the shards of glass diamonds in the light

Love Poem

Think those thoughts not encased in
language even angry dogs understand.

Broken Haiku

embrace

the shade of

the moon

is full

of itself

the joy

of empty

The Secret Scars of Brotherhood

This piece is rather graphic, highly personal and contains material that might trigger issues for people sensitive to violence, incest and abuse. I would appreciate your thoughts and comments if you also find that healing is fostered by honest sharing. I offer this piece to anyone that might be in need of healing. To help others as others have helped me is my only intention. Please feel free to share it for this intention only. Please click the link below to view:

http://www.mdfriedman.com/docs/Scars.pdf

Never Too Old to Slam

http://www.reverbnation.com/mdfriedman/song/15241849-never-too-old-to-slam

Never Too Old to Slam

I'm not too old to slam,
Because I need
Now more than ever
To spill this truth:
The older I am,
The more alive I feel.
I am a tattered
Paradox of passion,
A dying ember
Eager to explode
Into flame.
The anger that has
Raged inside me
For so long now
Holds up a giant,
Final fuck you finger
To the flaccid face of fate,
Raises up its hissing head,
And spits its cobra venom
Into the great sucking
Eye of death.

It's time for me to slam it
Down. I'm finally old enough
To really say what I mean,
And not give a shit what people think.
Look into the mirror of my words.
If you think I'm less than I am,
Because I look older than I feel,
I'm talking to you. There is
Nothing left but the truth.
I tell you this because
I'm done with blame.

Look at me,
And if you see yourself,
It's because we are the same.
I may finish before you start,
But we all run the same race.
For how long or at what pace
Doesn't really matter.
It's the human race,
And we have no choice
But to run and run we do,
And no one running
With their heart open
Ever loses, and no one
Reaching for more
Leaves empty handed,
And not a single stride
Goes to waste.

It's time to get down to it,
Our forever is now and
Forever changing into then.
Nothing you can say
Makes it easier to die.
The truth is simple.
We're lost without love.

As long as I'm alive,
I'll never forgive the greed
That rots our world,
That nips our heels
And turns our Eden
To wasteland,
Nor will ever I abide
The hate that
Rips apart our souls,
If we don't take a stand.

We are a bursting
Supernova of love,
Silhouetted by
The lightening
Of our desire.
When we smile,
We shine more brightly
Than a billion stars.
When we grieve,
It is a hurricane of pain,
A deluge of hurt without end.

My brothers and sisters
Are of all ages.
Together we are more
Colorful than the fish
that glide among the coral,
More tenacious than wild thistle.
Together we wield the power
Of the human heart,
There's nothing more potent,
Nothing we cannot overcome.

I'm not too old or too white to slam,
Because I'm half African,
Half Asian, half Jew, half Arab,
Half indigenous, half developed,
Half wild, half dead, half human,
Half animal, half budding green,
Half dark night,
I am the dawning
Half bright half-light,
My live is more
Than half off over,
But my half-life is infinite,
And I've half a mind
To leave this half assed
Country if there was
Somewhere else I could find
That was half way decent.

No, I'm not too old, too white
or even too straight to slam,
Because I'm half man,
Half woman, half gay,
Half lesbian, half trans,
Half willing, half-witted and halfcocked.

I'm always halfway between
Myself and somebody else,
And always some when
Between now and again
I'm on my way to being me.

Being alive
Is all about connection.
Nothing else matters.
There's nothing evil, nothing
Wrong, nothing about you,
Nothing inside of me,
Nothing human I cannot love.

My brothers and sisters are misters
And misses, and men who love men,
And women who love women, and men
Who were born women and women
Who were born men, and men and women
Who are both or neither a man or a woman,
It makes no difference.
How much I love you
Has nothing to do with your color,
Your gender, your dress,
Who you fuck or how old
You aren't,
But with who you are.
It's all about the joy
Of you becoming you.

I know now I'm not too old
To slam because I still can
See the beauty inside everyone.

I know no matter
What we think we want,
Or how hard we try
To be someone else,
We can only ever be
Who we really are.

I'm not too old
To slam because
I'm not too old to love.

I sit on the ragged
Edge of death's bed.
I blink and gulp the light
Like a goldfish gulps for air,
And decide each morning
To get up and live,
To love and become,
And choose not to
Sleep beyond the darkness.
If my heart is still beating,
I open it.

The longer I live,
The more I have
A need to give.
The more I give,
The more I have
to live for.

I'll never be
Too old to care,
Never too old to slam.

Letter to the Candidates 2012

We want America back!

We want America to follow the American Dream.

No more poor fighting rich men’s wars.

If someone really must go, send the big CEO’s.

Then leave them there.  They’ll find someone to bring them coffee.

We don’t care about the Iranian bomb.

Too many have died in the crusade

against weapons of mass destruction.

We are not worried about a terrorist

following us home like a rabid dog.

We are not afraid of your boogie man bombers.

We fear only our mistakes,

we’re afraid the bombs we have dropped on babies

will hail back down on us like smoking guns.

We need to change it all around.

We need to fight the good war,

the war against ignorance and cruelty,

the war against torture and racism,

one that won’t bankrupt us financially or morally.

We want America back!

We want gays to run the military

and a lesbian marriage on the White House lawn.

We want to build homes for the homeless

help the hungry, take care of the sick,

and educate the curious,

we want government to start earning its keep.

Don’t tell me 47% of America is unwilling to take “personal responsibility”

for their lives.  When is Romney going take responsibility for his lies?

We don’t want to hear someone talking about “legitimate” rape.

We know who is really getting screwed.

We want America back!  (We want it all back.)

We not only want decent jobs

but our jobs to realize

we work to live not live to work.

We need time to play with our kids.

We need schools that are not

brain numbing factories

where our kids can learn

what they care about

and still have time to be kids.

We want to make it hard to get married

and easy to get divorced.

We want to make blind patriotism illegal

and to legalize marijuana.

We want good music in the groceries stores

and art on the walls of Walmart.

We want a national holiday for Allen Ginsberg’s birthday.

We want to see Obama face off Romney

in a nationally televised slam.

We want to silence all politicians

unless they can speak with rhyme and reason.

We want to hear about your solutions not their problems.

We want to pay our teachers like baseball players.

We want to give awards to parents

who listen to their teenagers

and love them no matter what.

We want free college,

free daycare and free healthcare.

We want doctors to treat humans

not just disease.

We want to retire early and securely.

We want Jimi Hendrix music

in our Senior Centers.

We want America back!

We want to live in community.

We want to understand and respect

our neighbors across the street

and all across the globe.

We believe in human rights

for all people and all nations

even if they don’t have oil.

We want to tear down the walls on our border

and welcome the hard working immigrants

that have always made America great.

We want to learn new languages,

to embrace new cultures,

to be a partner not a bully.

We want to be part of the human

mandala that will heal the earth.

We want America back!

We want Exxon executives to have to walk to work,

Clear Channel to never play the same song twice,

Procter & Gamble to care more about cancer than profit,

General Mills to start making their food sacred.

Take the money we pay farmers not to plant

and use it to learn sustainable farming

with respect for our planet.

We want to let the trees grow

and give land back to the animals.

We want our Native Americans

to manage our national forests.

We want one rider SUVs banned

from all public highways.

We don’t want to drill

the last of our wilderness,

not now, not ever.

We want the oil companies to give back

the money they are stealing from us.

We want electric cars not tax breaks for the rich.

We want the power of the wind

and the sun and the oceans,

we want to plan now to stop

global warming before it is too late.

We want America back!

We want rivers we can drink out of

and cities we can walk in.

We want a real democracy,

where voters pick the candidates.

We want to elect our president

by national popular vote.

Ban all campaign ads.

Use the money to register more voters,

to run more candidates.

We want to reserve the rights of free speech

for real people, not big corporations.

Make the corporate donors admit what that

are trying to buy for all that money.

We need a president who cares

for all Americans, who speaks for the people

not the corporations, and a congress that will

work together and do what is best for the country

no matter whether or not

they think it will benefit their party.

In fact, ban all political parties!

We need a no party system,

with no corporate personage,

with politicians jailed for lying,

and the media paid by how thoughtful,

balanced and complete they report

what is really happening.

We need Americans to understand we are taking America back!

The Trick of Becoming

New video poem, The Trick of Becoming:
Please go to  vimeo.com/51644032 to watch or download.

Surfer Girl

Here's the song I wrote in Paul Riesler's Song School class. It was based on the story of another student. We all traded stories and then wrote songs about them. I wanted to try something new and break out of my 12 bar box. Please let me know what you think.

 

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_14337406

Here's the lyrics: 

Surfer Girl

Stay away

Please stay away,

Poison love

kills more each day.

The sea inside

red with pain,

bites her skin,

cuts

through

again.

Stay away.

Please stay away.

Needs your love,

she pulls away.

Dressed in black,

black fingernails,

smeared black lips,

down

she

slips.

Catch the wave

that comes to save.

Learn to ride

that place inside.

Hold the gold,

make it stay.

The surfer Girl

is born today.

On her board

she caught her wave,

matters not

what the ocean gave.

She can fly,

turn herself around,

land like a kiss,

feet

on

ground.

Blackened shell

shed that night,

colors bleed

from broken light,

digs her hand

into the sand,

her aqua eyes,

dance

with

light.

Catch the wave

that comes to save.

Learn to ride

that place inside.

Hold the gold,

make it stay.

The surfer Girl

is born today.

Kisses

and then you brought me


a basket of warm kisses


through long years of snow

The Price You Pay

Rubies sapphire diamonds and gold

Had that money, all the money my hands could hold.

Had a nice place, such a fine life, flood stole it away.

Ain't nothing mine now, ain't nothing left, but hell to pay.

Baby cried, sweet mama screamed when the black water came.

"Oh Lord," I prayed, wash me clean, just don't wash them away.

It's hard to live, so hard to give, even harder to breathe,

When you've lost all you love, everything you need.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.

Now she's gone, it's so hard to start over again.

I don't know why mean old blues claims to be my friend.

I got a song deep in my heart, I still need to sing.

It’s all that stops the flood of tears when memories come again.

It's all changed all brand new now I'm back to stay.

All I owned, it owned me, just wasted my day.

Them that got, they still got, they got everything.

Us without, all we got is what the morning bring.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.

Rubies sapphire diamonds and gold

Take that money, it's just money, you'll never take my soul.

Next time I build, I'll build my house of heart and stone.

I'll make my home /atop the hill, rest my tired bones.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.