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Try A Little Harder by Poni

5/19/2020

A kind of peace comes over the planet
a little bit of breath for the earth
As the mountain gets covered by the cloud
As the breath gets taken away from its people
maybe they will not cut as many trees today
maybe they will not drill so deep today
maybe a bit of the fog gets filtered and lifted today
Today today today, I pray for it
In my words, in my actions, in my gut, and heart
I try and not add to the confusion
I try and soften the blow,
All over the globe people stop
open their eyes to the pure essence of life and death,
where nature gets the upper hand.
And sickness can suck the economy dry
But I awoke today feeling more alive
And i awoke today with an open mind
I awoke today feeling a little lighter
I don't want to be misunderstood
but I will be
i don't like to be misunderstood
but I will be
I do know one thing, is that I always mean well
I make an effort to see the other side
and try to make peace in the end.
I want to be loved as much as the next guy
and I want them to feel loved as well.
Love is a gift, that we all can give
I wish we would all give it more often than we do
it is there to spread around
The exposed heart is a sponge to be filled and squeezed
Pore over the planet this love great spirit, would ya
Scrape the bottom and bring up the good
Weed out the evil that brings the rest down
Would ya
Great spirit, Im only a small soul, doing the best that I can
One of the many who exist in this way
Maybe add a bit of love to the soup of life as we know it
Maybe give a little more than I take on some occasions
Maybe take a little more than I give sometimes
But try try as I do, to add a little more good

It's Over by Ivy

5/4/2020

It’s April now
It’s all fun and games until April comes
When the sand sets in
April can’t go on forever
April is almost beetles
I’d be heading to New York at the end of Time Square
Hanging in New York is like sleep walking on Robert Di Niro
April goes by
April’s almost over now
I’ve seen it snow
April goes by
I’ve seen it hot
April goes by
Mom riding the bus
April goes by
My son swinging off sidewalks
April goes by
My brother talking about big things
April’s almost over now
What big things I say
He never makes any sense
He’s either earnest or lying and they both look the same We’re in the Chinese restaurant on the corner of 54th and 7th
The owners are both Chinese and married
The wife hangs by the cash register at the front door
Her tentacles flying around the room on alert
My brother’s body drapes over his chair
And onto the sticky flypaper edges of the floor
The husband is in the kitchen dripping sweat into our plates
Making them sizzle
We can see people sneezing freely outside the windows while city dust makes them cry
There’s a little girl with long brown hair like me
Shedding crocodile tears at the table next to ours
As her mother uses a cotton ball to wipe her eyes
It’s hot in here
I see my brothers sweat forming on his John Lennon t shirt
I have the same one
We’re not the same.
There’s a fly sucking on something under the little girls table
The place stinks of grease
Oh never mind I say
And April continues on
Taking a walk after lunch to see flowers blooming in the park
Leaning into each other
Brushing elbows
Spitting in the street
Kids out of school
We’ll wait our turn for a swing
My brother pushing me high
Laughing louder then the children at play
We don’t laugh anymore
He’s gone but I left first
Checked out
Moved away
Stopped caring
I don’t care
I’m numb
I never care about anything but myself
I’m a selfish little girl
April’s almost over now
It’s funny though
We still walk our dogs
Just not close enough to bark
It’s funny though
The wind is the same but not the sidewalks
It’s funny though
No one brought a skateboard
My husband never came
It’s funny though
Saying the city is too crowded
Vacationers spending freely
Rain drizzling through April showers
Squirrels know though
They know it soon will be crowded
So they dash through the streets
Gathering their belongings
April’s almost over now
Am I still there when I’m here
I once gave up pot for my son
What do I give up now
I give up
I’m a loser
I take
I take what I want when I want it
Food Drinks Drugs Trips Clothes Jewels Men Sex
Love
Wherever I can find it
I’m unlovable
I’m bad
And April
It’s over

The Big Explosion by Poni

5/1/2020

Are priorities the priority right now? Am I addicted to movement?
and entertainment? can I not entertain my self enough anymore
To keep It interesting.
Interesting is how familiar my surroundings are,
yet I can notice more depth and color each and every time I stop long enough to look,
to feel the world around me and let it all in.
There are strong urges that makes me pick up the guitar
oh but I can not sing,
There are inspirations that makes me want to go climb a mountain,
oh but I am injured.
How much thinking does it take to think a masterpiece?
So I indulge my senses, all the visuals, all the music, keep listening and looking and dancing, and run.
Feel the heart beat, all my emotions, until I cry once again,
for the love of the land for the crisp woven words being sung in my ears
for the ideas that come out of genius,
recorded and mastered to live forever in the hearts and souls of all who care to listen.
The world can tune in, or tune out, tuneing fork of abundance and scorn,
of wild nights, and weary souls, of little things and ribbons, and bombings, and sirens in the night,
and flowers in the springtime and the baby birds in the nest,
The papayas in the trees and the plants that need me in their pots like a lions in a cage,
like the sick tigers in the zoo, and all that makes no scene, in the scheme of it all.
I feel.
I feel The electricity through the wires that run all the way to Hana,
the hospital beds that are lined up in the east
I knew there was a reason why I kept heading west.
For the lives that are saved and the ones that are dead
For the loved and the hated and the evil the lurks, and I bend and I sway to the world as it turns
And I feel all the pain in my back and pain in my organs as they work so hard
Like intended.
Is it all for the sake of my descendants to come
Will I live long enough to see my sons daughter give birth?
Will I live long enough to see the whole
World explode, will I smile when I die.

Sit down, conspiritualists! by Becca

4/23/2020

Sit down, conspiritualists!

You people out there protesting in the streets right now are a disgusting display of white privilege at its finest. You don’t seem to understand the luxury of choice. Here in the West, majority of white people do not have to make choices. They HAVE choices.

Sit down, conspiritualists!

You think you’re woke from traveling the world. Surrounding yourself with lots of Europeans, Canadians and Americans all casually appropriating whatever third world culture you volunteered to enter. You complained to your Burmese servers about how expensive your plate of noodles was at the bungalow while texting friends on both an iPhone and iPad. You scoffed at the Indians for spitting on the street while you wore a red Bindhi between your eyebrows. You yelled at a server at a food stall in Singapore for putting curry in the curry rice your boyfriend ordered and demanded to speak to his manager.

The world is not against you! You don’t have to make choices. You HAVE choices!

So, sit down conspiritualists!

Your cringeworthy behavior displays all the entitled ignorance you wear like an invisible ball gown.

Work in the third world, and maybe you will start to understand choice and just how much privilege you possess.

A Bangladeshi might call you on it. He may scoff that you’re a rich American and ask why you are working with him. Tell him with full pompousness that you have a right to work there just as much as he does. When he asks who you send your money to each month, and if you pay for your parents and siblings to live, how will you answer?

Will you admit that all the money you make will go towards your next trip to tour another third world country and not to support your family, or your neighbors, or even that Bangladeshi colleague whom you claim to be the same as.

Sit down, conspiritualists!

It’ll hit you like a ton of bricks. You are there by choice. You can leave at any point and be taken care of by your status as an American citizen. Free to enter most countries without a visa. Free to work. Free to get all the entitled luxuries in the third world just because of the color of your skin, your body type, your nationality. You hit the fucking jackpot being born into an upper middle class white American family, but you don’t see that. In fact, you feel a major sense of lack and discontent.

Because you have choices.
More choices, More entitled.

Sit down, conspiritualists!

You got sick and cried, WHY ME?
The better question is, why NOT me?

What makes you so special? What makes your life more valuable than your neighbors or the elders in your community?

Sit down, conspiritualists!

You can’t see the connection. This American ideology that individual freedoms are the most important value on the planet, is just fucking short-sighted and crazy. It has nothing to do with the interconnectedness of humanity. It disregards our neighbors. It disregards people who don’t have a choice and are suffering.

Sit down, conspiritualists!

Stop dressing up conspiracy theories in new age jargon and then proclaiming that I am a sheep for vaccinating my child or believing in the seriousness of a pandemic. Don’t tell me that fear is more contagious than a pathogen. Fear is a personal emotional response to stimuli and no one can make you experience a specific feeling unless it is already within your world view.

So, sit down, conspiritualists!

Don’t assume I didn’t do my research. I did a shit ton of reading on both sides of the argument and at the end of the day, I reached the conclusion that I did not want to add to the suffering of someone without a choice. Because I understand the gift that I have a choice when others must make one

Spider Feelings by Carl

4/11/2020

I think I know who I am.
Not many internal surprises left at this point.
As for the why of it all, well….. years ago I reasoned that my mind was the natural development of a universe that desired self awareness.
I’m willing to let it go at that, not to think about it anymore.
Kinda boring on the outside.
If I wanted to plague myself with haunting questions, I’d smoke some weed, and roll around in a self induced existential crisis.
The last time I did that I wound up under the bed trying to hide from the TV, feeling unease about meaning and choice.
Existential anxiety reflects a deep angst that turns daily coping into a complex endeavor.
Fortunately, in my case, something cold to drink ,and a bag of potato chips will make all of that go away.
Stop trying to pass me that fucking joint.
Why can’t I be nicer to people?
In a bus station in a foreign land, a man sat next to me and asked if I like potatoes. Then he asked if I like corn.
I thought he was going to invite me to dinner.
It was the only thing he knew how to say in english. We were hi-fiveing each other,
yes bread, I love bread,
how about beans?
Do you like beans, beans are amazing.

I never saw him again,

but we’re friends for life.

When someone comes up to me at a party and says, how’s it goin?

It’s kind of a dead end.
I know that if I respond, and tell them ,
OH Man, I got high and hid under the bed,
And the cat killed a rat in the bathroom and there was blood everywhere,
And I got a new fishing pole so that’s cool.
And then there’s this weird silence,
And they say, so how’s everything else?
And, they slowly diffuse until I can’t see them anymore.
So my answer becomes, yeah, everything’s cool, and we sip our drinks in awkward silence while I figure out how to avoid them in the future.
I don’t know, maybe I need to try harder on my end. Be more provocative. Ask how they feel about spiders.
Everyone has some kind of feeling about spiders.
So if I’m asking about spiders,
I’m bored as fuck,
And I’m ready to start talking about planks, and quarks, and monads, and cosmogenesis and the origins of self consciousness.

Or I could just take a hit off that joint and wait under the bed for everyone to leave.

I Feel Fine by Ivy

3/31/2020

I feel fine, I need a hug
I feel fine, I want a touch
I feel fine, looks like a spiky blob
the end of a torture club
I keep seeing it everywhere
a colored spiky blob
fuck, I don't want that thing in me
I’m not panicking, yet
I’m not afraid, yet
I’m not selfish, yet
but I hate feeling sick
I feel fine
Corona means crown like on a queen
or a birthday hat
Corona means wreath like a door decoration
or on a grave
Corona means garland, sounds so festive
like a party in my lungs, like beer, like Christmas Eve
I feel fine
it’s a fringe of large, bulbous surface projections
that’s the sticking out part
like a penis or shush kabobs or thorns on a rose
I feel fine
it creates an image of a crown
I feel fine
viral spikes attacking my lungs
like a barbaric Roman weapon
spiky proteins attaching to the host
like a drunk friend at a party
I feel fine
ring a round the rosie fine
plague fine, scarlet fever fine, rheumatic fever fine
brain tumor fine, MS fine, fine and tired fine
there’s a part of my body that I don’t like to be touched
I can’t remember who gave me that virus
my immune system compromised by Ted
the virus I know where it came from
the Italian from New Jersey
then there’s the virus that killed so many of my friends
the, oh my god, sex was fun in the 70’s but not in the 80’s
we all fall down
there are politicians going down
there are actors going down
there are shows and attractions going down
there are events and countries going down
it’s a game
we all fall down
it’s the end of the world as we know it
a children’s game
we all fall down
a holding hands game
the end of the world as we know it
schools shut down, restaurants shut down
fuck, bars shut down, cities shut down
fuck, we all fall down
hell, don’t hug, fuck don’t touch animals
goddamn it
buy a gun and shoot that fucking spike right off the lawn

Bat Soup by Carl

3/25/2020

A friend just sent me a video of empty streets in Soho.
It features the occasional flyby of a bicycle delivery trailing a cloud of virus.
In the end, it wasn’t the bomb, it wasn’t zombies, everyone just went home and watched TV.
It’s the first television pandemic. Something medieval is reaching out at us through the cell towers.
An infectious agent replicating in the system. An organism at the edge of life, trying to get in.
Searching for animation, overheating its host in the process.
It has taken control of the media, filling my ears.
Stay home.
Watch TV.
Place the bats in a large kettle and add water to cover.
Add ginger, onion, garlic, and salt.
Bring to boil and cook for sixty minutes.
Why am I so easily manipulated. Unable to think clearly as the switches are thrown. Alternating my feeds triggering hope, anger, fear, denial.
The antivaxxers are either calling it a hoax, or drinking heavy metals to protect themselves.
When the vaccine arrives, I hope they have the decency to get in the back of the line.
I keep checking the news, nothing yet.
Stay home.
Watch TV
Don’t eat the bats. Swarms of bats keep flying in every day, littering the beaches, packing the nightclubs. That video is playing over and over on all my screens. Beady eyed drunk bat boy doesn’t care, he just wants to party.
Remove the bats, skin them and return the meat to the broth.
A Delivery bat waiting by the curb, two more land and greet, then off to spread the news to everyones doorbell.
Steven Spielberg isn’t returning calls. Deep in his bunker he’s worried about the shadow in his doorway wearing a red mask.
It’s too late.
The TV was already on.
Stay home.
Canned beans of every kind are stacked to the ceiling. It’s an illusion, closer inspection reveals them all to be kidney beans, with different colored labels. This isn’t bean heaven, it’s hell.
Stay home.
Watch TV.
The bats will be holding a press conference live at 3 Pacific Time. The bats are creeping out of my laptop, pouring infection in my ears while I daydream.
Bat soup is served with scallions, and seasoned with soy sauce, and/or coconut cream.
Senior hour at Costco, the line serpentines in the shade of solar panels. I can almost hear the click click of the roller coaster climbing to the drop.
Bats make lazy circles overhead. I remember to keep my hands and feet clean inside the car, don’t touch the handle.
For some, this will be the last ride.

Inconvenient Truth by Becca

3/21/2020

It’s an inconvenient truth!
The virus is real.
It doesn’t matter if it came from a butchered bat at a wet market in Wuhan.
It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a government conspiracy to roll out 5G.
It doesn’t matter if you think we are just one hop, skip and a jump away from being controlled by the government, with authoritarian rule, mandatory vaccinations and police on the streets.
To be honest, none of that shit has any relevance.
It’s a distraction from the inconvenient truth that you are not in control.
That you have never been in control.
It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior.
Or a troll under a bridge.
You can hide behind your screen name and online persona.
You can divorce yourself from the facts, but it doesn’t change that
These are inconvenient truths!
Post your sentiments without any regard for grammar or spell checks
Infect us with your personal beliefs
Create more fear for the anxious
Or better yet
Create confusion for the masses.
Because that is something you can control, and that, my friend, is a truth you’re willing to buy into.
But
It’s an inconvenient truth
To acknowledge that people are suffering
And to acknowledge that you are no more immune to that suffering than they are
It’s much easier to believe you’re invincible
That bad things happen to other people
And as long as you live in your bubble of denial you don’t have to deal with the fact
That you’re just human
And the most human attribute we all share is the belief that we’re special
And different
And starring in the greatest movie of all time.
As if we matter
As if this Planck instant we’re gifted on this planet will affect our Mother Earth in a few millennia.
She will shake us off of her and rebuild
Like she’s done time and time again
Better and stronger
More adaptable.
We are just background extras in her movie.
The illusion that we have any control is the heartiest cosmic joke of them all
And that is the most inconvenient truth imaginable.

I Know My Own Gun by Marina

3/13/2020

Am I the asshole? Am I just a furball of complaints,
cataracts on my eyeballs
and ghosts in the doorway?
I melt on the hot embers of forgiveness, they’re poking me and hurting me to change
It’s a train and this line I’ve never rode before
We named our daughter Grace in another language
It’s the bitter pill I choke on
Self righteous I’m right and when I’m right I can forget the gentle gray pebbles of his nature
We’re in a dream its called Alaska its July 1998
The kayaks make a muted swish through the silver gray water
I have silver rings on all my fingers and an obsession with a boy named Kevin and he says I’m too scared to dance and he’s right
But no matter he’s back on the boat and I’m here
The dream seeping into my fleece
My grandparents are on the boat too
This is their before death trip but they don’t say it that way
I’m in front
Some adult thought it would be more meaningful maybe
To feel like I’m alone or something and I’m too cool to admit they’re right
There’s a finger in front of my face and a disembodied voice its pointing to a nest of sticks and earth on an island of mud
And then I see it
Them
All of them
Their folded wings as big as winter sweaters
The secrets of white that I catch in flecks when they rearrange their feathered bodies maybe saying go away, why are you here, I don’t know
I almost can’t breath
I zoom back
The water meets the sky but there’s no handover just silver gray seeping into silver gray
And I think, I’m inside a mirror
We're in a dream it's called Alaska it's July 1998 and it’s cold.
Is Mom here? Laurie?
Who’s behind me in this near-silent plastic boat?
It could be morning noon or well not evening that would feel darker
It must be a strong daylight hour but the sun is nowhere and everywhere all at once and I flash back to the woods behind our house where I once felt what could’ve been god
And then I’m back and they’re just bald eagles you know?
Just birds of prey
And broken glass and snapping turtles
I’m sort of aware of other islands around me, rising from the silver gray and they too, are occupied by giants
warming their next generation.
How did we find this place?
Who is in charge here?
I notice the sun warming the outside of my jacket and I feel the faint tinge of its comfort
And I exhale
And cranes unfold in my heart
This train it’s relentless its a glimpse and then gone
I will keep this, I microfiber to my chest
This could soften me, so I keep it, I could need it, I know my own gun

The Same by Carl

3/1/2020

Leather leopard handcuffed fantasy with teeth that bite and claws that snatch
Stitched with rough twine into my heart pounding like celebratory tympani with the needle pushed deep into the red.
I am a teardrop in held space by enchanted hands
She is a tidal wave sunning her breasts in a lawn chair on my asphalt
Smiling through my walls, my armor, my apprehension
Leaving no question unasked
I never asked her to stay, I simply grabbed her ankle
and pulled her in the window
I never gave her a choice. I never had a choice.
I pressed my half of the moon into her forehead and she made me her secret weapon, curled like a charm around her wrist.
The dog got out again. It was a black and white streak through a festival of flying chickens.
Mayhem.
The theme that keeps coming around is simplicity. I am discovering that my needs are few.
On second thought, I may have that all wrong. Maybe it’s not simplicity, but complication. I already have so much I don’t need anything else, there’s nothing I want.
Not at the moment anyway, I’m sure something will come up.
And when it does, I will ask, how much do I want it, do I need it, where will I keep it, will it require maintenance?
In the end I will decide having something takes more energy than not having something.
The palms are shedding again, I wish there were less palms. They’re a full time job. Palms are for people who can hire grounds keepers. The rest of us are doomed to sink under the weight of constant palm fronds.
Ivy is cleaning the kitchen again. The dishes are her palm trees. That and the laundry, the two of us generate three loads of laundry every day.
It’s a mystery, we can’t figure out how that’s even possible.
I follow the dog around the neighbors house. Whenever I get close he laughs and spins and flies off over the trees in pursuit of chickens.
I give up. Let him run until he’s tired and hungry and hope for his sake he remembers how to get home.
And then she appears, smiling, she says, “Hey Boo”
And he stops, as simple as that, he walks to me and slips his head into his collar.
We are the same, he and I, we will do anything for her.