Bad Indians, a poem by Ryan Red Corn

I was told by those old ones
that every song has a special time and a place where its sang
this is our song
and this our time
they used to say the only good indian is a dead indian
i must be a no good at being indian
cuz I feel alive and kicking
we are the bastard reject children of manifest destiny
the offspring of fornicating aimsters
raised by our grandparents who told us
not to confuse being warriors with gangsters
the edward curtis groupies get jazzed by anyone fitting the bill
and America gets jazzed by every Bury My Heart at Walmart film
here i stand before you
this crowd of nations
this life of sanctions
an awkward patience
like five hundred BIA buildings vs. a fathers' unfiltered hate
right next to the IHS building with a two and a half week wait.
a cinderblock battlefield where few are left standing
and the people its failing, its' marginalized estate.
i am armed to the teeth with words from the ivory tower
and those good indians told me its borrowed power if...
if i talk loud enough
if i talk clear enough
that i would be heard
that for some talking is singing
that for some singing is praying
but i guess that depends on who is doing the talking
and i guess that depends on who is doing the listening
...so understand me in english,
you have been robbed of your tongues
the taproot of thought
in the middle of resisting
the language got caught
and she only shows her face during ceremony
like she's ashamed of her scars
like what she has to say is never really heard. at all.
and the violence she knows is enough to never sing again
but i killed the cameraman and stripped him of his lense.
i photographed the body and asked him to forgive.
forgive me as i cut out your tongue
forgive me as i put you in this powdered wig
forgive me when i put your body in a museum
forgive me of all my sins
for not being a good indian
the balls of your forefathers will be traded for whiskey
to fuel the molotov cocktails to be tossed at your cities
and the breasts of your mothers severed and bloody
will be sold to the freak show for the revelers money
your children will witness their whole world collapse
as kidnapped siblings must erase names off maps
so forgive me of all my sins
for not being a good indian
i was taught better than that
i have more respect than that
there is no history book with my story
there is no newspaper to give me my glory
because no one has heard this language in years
cept kokopelli, dream catchers and a trail of beers
my voice is a small pox blanket
that spreads like fire on the prairie
infecting both fist and hatchet
in the spirit of fucking crazy
Category: Nonprofits & Activism

Derrick Jensen:

Derrick Jensen: Endgame Part One - 57:00 - Apr 8, 2007



What if you live in the most destructive culture ever to exist? What if that culture refuses to change? What do you do about it? Derrick Jensen: Endgame Part One www.endgamethebook.org www.derrickjensen.org Derrick Jensen named Press Action Person of the Year for 2006 From the Press Action website www.pressaction.com "The recipient of this award was never in doubt. Derrick Jensen's Endgame, released in late spring, was the best work of nonfiction in 2006. Given the significance of its subject matter and the urgency of Jensen's message, Endgame is the most important book of the decade and could stand as the must-read book of our lifetimes. But be careful. The book is likely to send you into periods of despondency over the bleak future of the planet. But Jensen explains that if enough of us stand up and work together to fight the fascists, the crash won't be as devastating. And the long struggle will eventually result in an explosive renewal of all forms of life on the planet." From the website www.endgamethebook.org: "Having long laid waste our own sanity, and having long forgotten what it feels like to be free, most of us too have no idea what it’s like to live in the real world. Seeing four salmon spawn causes me to burst into tears. I have never seen a river full of fish. I have never seen a sky darkened for days by a single flock of birds. (I have, however, seen skies perpetually darkened by smog.) As with freedom, so too the extraordinary beauty and fecundity of the world itself: It’s hard to love something you’ve never known. It’s hard to convince yourself to fight for something you may not believe has ever existed." --from Endgame, Volume I "Hailed as the philosopher poet of the ecological movement, best-selling author Derrick Jensen returns with a passionate forecast of how industrial civilization, and the persistent and widespread violence it requires, is unsustainable. Jensen's intricate weaving together of history, philosophy, environmentalism, economics, literature and psychology has produced a powerful argument that demands attention in the tradition of such important books as Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization and Brigid Brophy's Black Ship to Hell." Endgame Part Two is located at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6557057252892383895«

Scythe song

Some more Dougie, there is another song on the spiral blog..all his songs just open my heart right up, and this one is so funny live as he *adapts to the environmental noises* I love the lyrics to this.


SCYTHE SONG

Music & Lyrics by Dougie MacLean. Published by Limetree Arts and Music

I still remember when I first watched him work the blade
It was down in the Buckney den my questions tumbled and he said
O this is not a thing to learn inside a day
Stand closely by me and I’ll try to show the way

CHORUS
You’ve got to hold it right feel the distance to the ground
Move with a touch so light until it’s rhythm you have found
Then you’ll know what I know

O wild are the ways we run when at last untethered out we fly
Straight into the burning sun need no direction no not I
But its is not a thing to learn inside a day
Stand closely by me and I’ll try to show the way
CHORUS

So little dancing girl you want to play a tune
One that your heart can fill to help you shine under the moon
Well it is not a thing to learn inside a day
Stand closely by me and I’ll try to show the way
You’ve got to hold it right feel the distance to the sound
Move with a touch so light until it’s rhythm you have found
Then you’ll know what I know now

Riceboy sleeps

this is the explanation about the project and the album..Jonsi sings/writes/plays with my favorite Icelandic band Sigur Ros but this is a very different project.
There is a free download here..for a slice of heaven for the ears, and spirit, its recommenced.

One I have just bought to watch ..

Ten Canoes: a film by Rolf de Heer & people of Ramingining

A parable of forbidden love from Australia's mythical past, with storytelling by Australian icon David Gulpilil (Crocodile Dundee and Rabbit-Proof Fence) and starring his son Jamie as the covetous youth Dayindi, Ten Canoes is a ground-breaking glimpse into aboriginal life centuries before European settlement.

For Jack

For Jack Kerouac

I wrote this as a homage to Jack Kerouac, its still a little ropey but that’s the way it was born~ 2007-I had been reading desolation Angels and was inspired by the way he described his days on the mountain fire watching..I have been interested in him, his life his writings, for years but I had no idea when I wrote this that his nick name according to one biography I read extracts of ( Memory Babe) was Zig , tried to find the quote bit its a huge book (so I gave up)
Anyway this was what came out in a stream of consciousness..

I have no mount Hozomeen Jack, no cafes in Mexico, no void as yet..Except sometimes..
Here is a cup of black coffee with the sweetness of dark sugar, dissolving like lust after the full moon has blown its last shining chorus.

Maybe I talk to you..

You turn up here, your hat askew in that way you have of wearing it, like your life.. a little to the zig zag

..as if the road was more slanted..the one you took that is.

You were nearly dead at my age..such gentleness you had…

a crazy wisdom and a love for the Buddha, you believed in the stillness and emptiness of things..

I take notes on my beach walk, “scribbled secret nothings” The stones are shining in the darkening glow of thunder clouds, which are flexing slightly, warming up for the rhythm later…some symphony of light and rain.
I see, or try to see, as you did the charisma that is nature, but I feel it more..its a bodily thing.. perhaps my pagan blood..
You wrote-one winter- or was it summer? About desolation angels and days and days alone on the mountain.. Fire watching …waiting for a fire to break out, somewhere.
You drank black coffee and you ran out of sugar and you smoked.. each tender description detailed the moment to moment living..I was there with you, in the "eye of the eye".
I write this as per Your instructions of spontaneous prose, except without the bourbon..is that what you drank? I can’t remember, I should though.
I know the colour of your eyes. I know you were French Canadian and English was not your mother tongue, I know I fell in love with your writing and the idea of you..your presence on the page and how you dared. Dares were packed up neatly in your rucksack waiting for the card game and cigars. But it was deeper than that and still is. You fought them, at least you tried to..and they loved you for it, crippled you with their love.
I look for “the eye within the eye” and I can see you..in my -minds eye- and all the others who came after, to shape the style and claim the crown. But you were the first, you barely had the dress of grammar, nor the stylists glamor, but you wrote… from your ever expanding heart and mind you wrote. You wrote as jazz chords blossom and the music lingers. You wrote of life and its rebellion which was yours in all its sweetness, Bodhisattva..

You wrote the road, the road wrote you and left your face unlined..but your heart was spilt.
You left your legacy like driftwood on the beaches, you talked of “swimming in the language sea..”..

you left a stone for me..

kisses jack.

The Sultans Elephant

When this came to London in 2006 I was having a year from hell and I was so disappointed that I could not go down there and see it..
Royal de Luxe
but I watch these instead feeding my fascination for the story and the puppetry the sense of wonder at it all..



close up on the elephant gives me a wild chill.. I just love this artistry! Big smile on my face when I watch this..