For the global victims of poverty and greed…
By Ishmael Von Heidrick-Barnes
Holding up pens
won’t stop the human race
from running into fountains of blood
We must put down swords
before picking up quills
read
between lines
drawn in sand
Expose
the invisible ink … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
If your car windows
didn’t automatically
roll up
Sorrento Valley’s rounded off hillsides
onto tinted glass
You might glimpse another city
through my windshield …
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
To bring
the two faces of January
together with honey and pears
To accept
the chirality of human brain chemistry
To humbly honor the distance … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Half a dozen nights
before Christmas
bank robbers
breaking into sound sleep
repossessing
cars
On the fourth eve
the owner:
A full-time single mother
working three part-time jobs
blocks a gargoyle truck
with baby dangling arms
pleads to headlights on high beam [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
I won’t stop talking to myself
while: Money has the last
word
torture is up for debate
I’ll keep shooting propaganda
with poetry
until people kill guns … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
How will we find our way
out of desert
when the Joshua Trees are gone?
No iconoclastic arms
reaching out of mountain passes no white flower
guiding Yucca Moths
to broken promise of land …
[Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
See me hovering
above unnecessary spans
diving for petrified fish
in imaginary lakes?
I am older
but not as distant
as the lines of power
drawn between us …
[Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
River
sees me reflecting
Currents
alter its sense of my self
I am held up by water’s memory [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
It’s Kristallnacht
whenever anger picks up a stone
and throws it
through a neighbor’s window
shattering glass
into blades
sparks slashed from rocks
adding fire to eternal flame
Whenever an Israeli settler
builds a house
on land stripped from Gaza
Zionism becomes Lebensraum
Yesterday’s Synagogue
is today’s Mosque
leveled by Sunni shock troops
using the latest wonder-weapons made in Amerika … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Not angels
that make spaces sacred
nor vaulted ceilings
arching violin bows
It isn’t candles
offering themselves to light
nor fountains of spires
spilling city
Holy
isn’t wholly religious …. [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
If I had a rupee
for every manifestation of the Divine
that has crossed my path
I’d be wearing
the gold embroidered silk
of a wealthy landowner
rather than the cotton thread
of a Brahmin/poet
an untouchable station of life
in a society
squeezing a “few drops of honey” from a thirsty globe
enslaved by suffering … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Happiness
doesn’t lie
Inside designer purses
drive luxury vehicles
tell time
by taking stock of inventory sold
doesn’t advertise itself
to invent needs
more addictive than meth … [Read more…]
