For Immediate Release - October, 2001

there was an ease of tone
& delivery but the words
tumbled out like hiccups
What was it that you said?

how many women would it take
to fill the world with what we’re
missing? and how many women
would it take to make this world?

with clothes on or off
woven heavy textiles & porous silks
of brilliant colors A woman with
a maiden fern across her belly

is more than how it meets the eye—
how moss clings to her hair
golden & red mixed with sleeping tendrils

curled around the fetus of the man
               the man within the man
arthuriums stand pronounced in a vase
               of another’s heart than his—
               a hissing that might be breathing—
               a scent of aftershave and what may be
               sex

heightens her hearing
and she waits in silence
leading without gestures

until there’s a reference to another place
while what I’m really interested in is how
.we’re all here somehow together—the whole
mess of what would just be noise if we were
all in Korea—

or if we were digging clay & rubbing it
on each other’s slick sides
diving & dipping into shallow pools
slippery with water-washed bentonite, hot day

beneath a parasol, red silk
umbrella above her—what
would happen if we all knew
what would happen—what
would happen then?

& the trembling of being present—
a spider falls & dangles in open space
black with a yellow body. People wander
in the wave dusk is velvety

while to this spider only returning to his web
matters—in the air a breeze not only bounces
him, dangling on the web’s end, but brings
the scenes of what might be dinner—how the
present never confuses him—endless eyes on
possible dinners—

flies, for instance, heavy with mascara—

he finds umbrellas fascinating
how they open & close like scarlet dahlias—
it is in his heart that he hears the beating

and now, warm evening, sunset, stuck inside but
not too warm—inside this skin, inside this
room, inside this moment, how the memory
of what once was has never been more present
than it is now—

suddenly there is a lingering—
a hand held forth & retracted
bluer than wave yet opaque—
he is left numb, for what, for waiting too long

and how it all reminds me of the women
of my youth—that wall of black and white
shadow and light, lip breast and hips,
teenage body curves—

wading hip high in a cranberry bog
or lying prone & making love to the man
who moves as through water & then
he becomes gravity and rock & walks away—

Today I’ve heard the four different people speak of Rimbaud
in three different cities and two states, one 2000 miles away—
and now it’s Basho & Gregory Corso
whose names become references
to a wall of naked women.

dabbling in archaic histories of passage
plundering through the all that is lost—
and the time & exchanges of friends
mixing the etymology

all in a relationship of knowing
not what you know or
how you love your teachers
or how you could fall into the black
and not come back

& there is the echo
of the earth trembling & the cement
rolled forth in ripples

She reminds me of Amy—how
her hair is and that sense of a
woman who has some sense
in her—how her voice falls
through clouds of deepened thought.

Her smell, her touch
undone in me. She reminds
me of Romano—summer of ‘88
naked, answering the door
to Steve’s apartment—

how what was is what is it still is somehow
but now it’s something somewhere other,
or maybe what repeats is what is invisible
to us, or unnoticed as it all goes around
unnoticed again—

or that she found her way in the world,
found a world in the way she was,
could be and will be—how her presence
altered what is and what brought me joy.
How we lived there too long.

That we exist in Error
That we woke and found it difficult
to put our shoes on—to do anything
is easier unconscious and unthinking.

Your hair is tired & lies
on your cheek in the
shadows as you finish
the dishes—

Who knows what will remain when we leave
& why bother other than that you meant it?

Whatever happened to Katie Yates? I would love to hear her here.
Once I caught her looking at a black man’s body when she knew
no one was watching—how she waited until he turned away and then
how her eyes moved from his shoulders over his back and onto his
hips and down his legs as if she was touching him, as if she could
taste him, and how in that moment something inside her opened
and she was ready for anything—she was ready in a way that
only she could only understand, how it had more to do with nature
than anything she could imagine—how I wished when he
turned around he could see that look in her eyes, but she turned
away as he was turning, and he merely said goodbye,
and she didn’t answer and then went on reading.

How this swaying reminds me of Katie, how like hers this
woman’s body has found its mind deliciously incongruous—
how they move together—sexy in thought word and deed
but not apparent in body—how what has landed has landed
somehow inside of her and she’s learned how to move it
back and forth—how she holds it in her hands and how it
really doesn’t matter, how nothing really matters more than this,
how a woman moves her body back and forth, sexy as spring—

What the Clock Said When They Were Ready to Go Home

I am so happy.
I am not afraid.
To be alone is to be everything.
To be alone is to be whole.

Zazen

Say nothing about desire
be silent about your needs
‘mum’s the word’ on possible partnerships
button your lip about the Elohim
zip it up about the mighty second coming
not a word about the silver bird
quiet about what you’ve always really wanted
put a lid on everything your father said
clamp down on the most beautiful disappointment
kill sleep — deny rest — refuse refuge
Buddha falls by the side of the road
lilies and tulips close in moonless night
bowed with no memory of sun
no anticipation of being lifted again
and then . . .

               in the flash of an eye
                              I am an old man
               reminiscing about old loves
                              wins, losses and could’a beens

books filled with resistance
and memory of resistance.

Little do we know that, graduating alone,
we take a seat in an invisible college
and on and on lesson after lesson it goes
to peel the wrappers off an innate knowledge
that cannot be learned.

A rat scurries down a train rail
by icy Hudson in hollow echo
of a riveredge factory hum —tankership
at dock unloading fuel — classic 1940s
limousine with huge whitewalls groans by
on country gravel
doves, wrens & cardinals peck
at a cage of seed and suet cake
which hangs on a still bare spring branch
swayed in early breeze

zen is strong — zen is weak
no muscle can lift
the unsurpassable.

Zazen Weekend at the Grail

Sitting as Buddha
behind the shrine
between angled windows
watching mind and
dual incense streams
rise
& curl
like rams horns
in Aries gray spring
deer ticks leap from tree bark
to truck their miniature dose of Lyme
into the truck stop of loose socks hanging
over a row of hiking boots —

Holding cosmic mudra below my navel
for another quiet hour until the gong
and then Kin Hin walking like mountains
over slick, creaking floorboards.

Crack blank book of Zen
leaf through endless memories
fertile ground pounds behind
eyes on the spot
to photosynthesize attachment
into boundless simple awareness.

Every loss a gain
silence invites inner ear thunder
expanded mind, a sponge saturated,
responds to a good squeeze —

I take back whatever suffering I may have caused
and offer my folly unto emptiness.
I take it all back.

I take back parquet floor varnish reflection
as you walked across toward me with your eyes closed
I didn’t stop you in time and you ran right into me —
I could’ve stopped you but I didn’t.
I take back the failed trust exercise —

I take back my childhood oppressors — Zebete Apostolakis, Doug Levy,Adam Stark — when I stand up for my daughter being teased on the school bus.

Punk whispers "Bitch" and "CrackBaby," pencil point hitting her in the
cheek makes my blood boil —

I take back the lonely shuffleboard afternoon in Miami

from an elderly future in some alternate determinate

hocking up phlegm in new millennium 1st quarter century

arriving too quickly to the next promised land.

I take back my trickle charger, my gem kiln, my lapidary bench

these tight shoes — wrong size Levis, all safeties, catalogs, windchimes

I take back the sweet image of your face as I lay in bed, you

slack jawed and vibrating, wrinkled smiling grimace up in smoke

I take back the photograph of you by the alder tree looking sideways like an angel

I take back every good idea I ever had that you tried to take credit for

I take back the job that castigated me into salesman’s hell with nowhere to go, nothing to sell

I take back what I lost in disillusioned post-teen anxiety on the rillorah of a beautiful melonball chomper debutante taffeta lap dance in a private booth—

I take it all back.

A flock of wild turkeys crunch
methodically through
falling leaves
in the woods behind the Grail
on their way to an open field —

I am no closer to an answer —
"Am I led by doubt or by faith?"

yet closer to myself for asking.

Crows hit their square note squarely
and swoop—
Carob and dried oak displace
as the path tightens into a maze
breeze blows communal kitchen curtains
a recipe for poise, squash porridge
with currants & cranberry steams
warm November geese
huddle in flight.

Thirty One Minutes for Lunch

This man has been here more than 40 years
And has never taken more than 31 minutes for lunch!

quotient gauging the tenacity
of a lifetime punching one clock
rule the front office henhouse,
piss your circumference of territory,
slam the ruler down on the light table
having earned the occasional fit.

Take this here job here and bump the goddam magenta!
I don’t care how long that there job there takes to rastercize!
That there job there’s got to go out t’night!

wolf half a Roma hero, a little bag of chips
guzzle Evian — run back to the press.

Peace sign morphs to Mercedes logo —
now it’s his turn to demand everything
are you going to be pushed around for the rest of your life?

You mean you don’t know who your boss is yet!?

Crushed foil and wax paper,
smeared crumbs on vinyl manager’s chair
trail back half a century.

my blood sifts the gasoline of a hundred secrets
making me vertiginous, suffocating, nonsense mumble
lizard in my tongue, flaring over the moss and algae
shaded city pillaged while I was still on line for bargains,

giving myself away immediately, of course, but no one ever
discovered me, they were already doing everything they could do to
bring it up to speed, which, by that time, was more than what you'd
expect—I mean, nothing's really as simple as it seems.

my past topples down the rabbit manhole
tries to latch on to a tender spot, bowling ball caught by a napkin,
grilling the electric fence synapses into golden dreamcatchers
her eyes, my street lamp inside a poison ivy blur

when what I really want is someone who'll make me
do something foolish, to do something unbelievably
wrong or self-destructive—something doomed ...
but all I ever get is what I bargained for

my hands smell of twisted metal, motor oil snakes through my hair
pushing her love into the middle of the highway
hitch-hiking on back roads, dotted line hypnosis, maps in the gravel,
hoping somehow it will find its way

—but it never really arrives,
of course, when we expect it will—not so much descending
when we're not ready as surprising us at the worst possible moment—
fighting against everything that we thought would bring us joy—

my brain bloats like a construction worker epileptic on the curb
swans swim in her tears, their concrete feet illuminate lightning bugs—
clay fingers, dank, incorporeal, choke the far away specter
she's lost a guide, stepping through the spiral faultline

into the poisonous blue foxgloves beside the purple path, into the long grey shadows
of winter weather, until she enters the dark hole among the broken blossoms
where Rosamund, now nothing more than a caged bird, sings among
white lilies in a better light than any light she's ever known.

my guardian angel has overdosed, crooked maniacal smile
swerving across her face-lift, sagging jaw, deflated
visions of dead salmon next to the stop sign, plastic button eyes, dreaming
I close the eyelids with my fingers and straighten the halo

of a girl spangled in fish scales, where there is everywhere
a sense of weariness, of solitude, of waiting,
a restless dissatisfaction I will never really understand—
a hazy golden light of seacalm and a surge of sky.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

- W.H. Auden

As a child was being led away from her school building, she gazed up at the bodies falling from the tower and said, “Look teacher, the birds are on fire.”

“The first plane, nobody was scared, because we thought it was an accident. The second plane, we saw adults crying and we knew it was something really bad.”

Matilde Samuels: “They were laying there, nude, with no skin on their bodies. the man had a huge slit on his neck. They were looking at me, but I knew there was nothing I could do for them. Things started to come down. It wasn’t one or two. There were seven or eight bodies landing right near us. There were body parts flying everywhere. What’s messing with my head is the smell. It’s everywhere. It’s something we had nightmares about and probably thought wouldn’t happen. Papers and shoes and flesh. My head has been numb for days and all I want to hear is silence.”

“Where’s Daddy? When is Daddy coming home?”

we must rid the world of evildoers
you face the full wrath of the United States

“Why would these people want to hurt us?”

Incomplete list of victims of acts of terror committed by and supported by the United States: Vietnam, Cambodia, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, Palestine, East Timor, Kosovo, Iraq, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Selma, Mississippi, Philadelphia, Cincinnati.

world of evildoers
we’re determined

“Let’s drop a few bombs and see how fast they stop dancing. We have to go in. You see all these things on TV. Let Israel loose. It’ll be over in an hour.”

evildoers?
freedom itself was

“You don’t hear Timothy McVeigh or the Ku Klux Klan being described as Christian terrorists.”

ladies and gentlemen, because of a police investigation at the World Trade Center, there have been service changes. freedom will be

the Sikhs in Richmond Hill are in danger:
there are cops in front of the temple on 101st Ave.
               and flares in the street
               and flags everywhere flags
               half-mast flags at Yankee Stadium

GOD BLESS AMERICA

PRAYER FOR
AMERICA

               flags attached to dowels jutting
from the hoods of police cruisers
               Christmas lights rearranged into the shape of a flag
               on the roof of a suburban home in Huntington Station
               and postcards of the former skyline for sale

“I saw Regis Philbin yesterday as he was fleeing the city – nigga was covered in ash. About 10 seconds later, the person was gone, along with ‘Young Nude Man at the Mirror, Playing a Pan Flute, and Child,’ a 1923 ink on paper drawing by Picasso.”

In America tonight
make no mistake
In America tonight
these are acts of war
In America tonight
identify your target
In America tonight
This will not stand
This will not stand

there may be no way to positively identify your target

“This is a wake-up call for the rich. Be sure to write that down. You notice they didn’t bomb the projects.”

an opportunity
to further encroach upon
already tenuous liberties
context is everything
and those who attempt to provide it
are reviled as enemies in times of war
they will call for the death of irony
and the abolishment of metaphor
label our dissent traitorous
our questions disrespect
count me then among the heretics

The following were among a list of 150 songs that have been pulled from the playlists of all stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, whose broadcasts reach 110 million listeners each week: the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride;” John Lennon’s “Imagine;” the Drifters’ “On Broadway;” Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets;” “America” by Neil Diamond; “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong; “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel; “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens. All songs by Rage Against the Machine have been deemed “questionable.”

   freedom      fear          war
               freedom itself was
               more than we can bear
               freedom will
               freedom will be

“We haven’t neglected anything. Do we need more humint? You betcha. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do in a hostile environment. You just don’t penetrate narrowly defined cells of cousins. I think it’s going to be a very complicated matter. It’s hard to penetrate easily, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t trying continuously.”

“But does that mean the violence will end? I see no end.”

Not yet old enough to ask
at this moment
my son’s first concern
is the constant replenishment
of his raisin supply

later we will play with his blocks
“wanna build a tower?”
we will build them
knock them down
build them    knock them down
            BOOM!
build them again
freedom will be
and so he pleads
“mo? mo? mo?”

Note: Beginning September 10, 2001, Joel Haertling began a chronological retrospective of the films of Stan Brakhage at the Boulder Public Library—over a period of 22 Monday nights. I brought my journal to opening night and began writing “through” the films. This an excerpt from weeks 1-3.

Reflections on Black

A weave
going farther out and deeper—
a film concrete—and
darker

Is she that woman again?

To tell you the truth,
what they really were
were shadows on a film.

Narrative abandoned describing
the interior experience of madness.

from The Centuries of June

How his eye moves over the surface
of an object as light only moving
until all is seen as the movement
of light like light electrified or the
eyes excited—how light swims
no longer held down on things but
moving as if between them, in the
light beside them, between them only
shadows, only the absence of light.

Zone Moment

The stars become stones lit by the moon a brilliant silver,
not suns. You can see his developing sense of vision
around the borders of an object—documents of
discrimination between one thing and another—where
they blend and where they diverge—not the least of which
is the eye that sees the eye that presently is seeing—it’s in the
seeing that one sees, what’s in common between them—how
the depth of field completely disappears, replaced by everything
as one surface, a texture of color and smoke and livid shadows.

Flesh of Morning

disintegration—a note—a tone—another

focus or unfocus—smoke, and steam—

not to be ordinary—who is the one who answers,

whose fingers offer one more tone shade

filter or a sheet doubled the fingers of a

leather glove is technically very difficult to pull

the camera without seeing, manipulated by

what must have been a complex set of pulleys—

waterweaving a shadow on the pavement—

linen crystal lingerie silk stockings smoke

who can remember what we were in the Fifties

fifty years ago now, how a woman from Bolivia

became an image in an American film a photo

become an image of skin and shadow porcelain

slim summer sunlight shadows—a chiaroscuro

as she undresses, a portrait of a woman disrobing,

disappearing into darkness, how once what she was

is now only her lace, its shadow covering his bed—

now her undressing is a memory of something

he’d done once and now it was gone forever—

wondering how much she could remove and

how much she was willing to expose—

how he knew what he was looking for and wanting her

to be it—how somehow the body becomes unknown,

explored as if looking for a secret, and the woman,

the original inspiration, is completely forgotten,

an accident of light and substance and undoubtedly

an altered memory, reversed and revised, a sea of

skin under a shimmering light through linen curtains.

Loving

their shadows evaporate their skin and they are only
two shadows touching—abruptly over, ending badly.

from Wedlock House: An Intercourse

something’s happening in the dark—
a woman is what we don’t see as
she disappears behind a curtain—

what we don’t see is the smoking candle,
the attic, the appropriate clock—
how the room doesn’t move but follows
the light that moves along it, preceded by
light, humbled by the sky above it,
how she’s modest really, very tender—
how a woman gives her body
to the mirror—tenderly sad.

dedicated to innocent victims everywhere & the
memory of their life & unwarranted deaths

"Sunday night, and on Wall Street a foul wind
blows newspapers along the empty sidewalk. Wall St. with stars
eerie and empty. The bank windows dark
though not all. A few rows lit up
in the black monstrosities. They can be identified:
the foreign departments of the big banks.
The iron doors barred and padlocked.
But by back doors some people have entered
the foreign departments. The lights — secret meetings,
decisions we're unaware of (and their cigar smoke
rising like shares) but they affect us all.
Devaluation sparks off a riot in Malaysia, buses burned
and blood flows in the streets like water from a hydrant.
At the hour that the stars shine over Wall Street
and the hour the banks open in London.

—Ernesto Cardenal from COSMIC CANTICLE
(1970s)

"All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die."

—WH Auden, "September 1, 1939"
received compliments of Alice Notley

Umberto Eco, semiologist-philosopher, reminds us of the three ways cultures clash: the members of Culture A cannot recognize the members of Culture B as human beings (and vice versa), seeing them as "barbarians" to civilize or destroy, which is the Conquest Model. In the Cultural Pillage Model, Culture A must steal from B and colonize or subjugate politically or militarily and in that way undermine and usurp the invaded culture. The Exchange Model is a two-way process of reciprocal support, often "influence" in the best sense and respect.

*Always invoke Model Three!

It is a fact, woefully, that Western culture (European civilization) has been most engaged with the first model — and, as just one example, subjugated African and Ameridian cultures with unmerciful acts of cruelty. And that now, more particularly America — the richest and most powerful country in the world — the "cop of the world" — acts and has acted with unmitigated and brutal economic self-interest in many parts of the globe. Because of media control (particularly since the American War in Vietnam) Americans do not fully comprehend the damage we have inflicted on Iraq. And now do not understand the "karma" of that conflict which galvanized so much hatred of the US. Or how the indignities that the Palestinians have suffered in Israel/Palestine have led to such loathing and call for "jihad". I was in Germany during the Gulf War and was shocked by the contrast in media coverage between the States and abroad. I only heard Ramsay Clark speak live of the devastation of Basra (bodies in the streets, no water to drink) via transmitted reports from Cuban radio.

* Demand comprehensive, intelligent, reliable and mature media coverage from television (where is where most of America & a lot of the world is getting its news). Support the alternative media! Does it only take a tragedy to subsist from constant pushing of the Market? It seems shameful that only a week after the terrorist attacks in the US we were back to business as usual, slick advertising pushing the American Economic Way, theme music for the American War, sentimental ads to push cell phone biz to communicate with loved ones. And endless repetition/assault of images that invoke patriotism and revenge.

After Operation Desert Storm a UN mission to Iraq reported that the Gulf conflict "wrought near-apocalyptic results" by destroying "most means of modern life support", relegating Iraq to a "pre-industrial age". Again, is it any wonder that citizens of that country, as much as they might be under the iron rule of Saddam Hussein abhor America and everything it stands for? As we know, as has been proven, they are not alone in this.

Or the instability we brought to South & Central America, Indonesia, the Caribbean historically in support of corrupt governments that were in our interest to support. In a recent conversation with Ernesto Cardenal — Nicaraguan Catholic Priest, poet, and former Minister of Culture under the Sandinistas - the suggestion was that karmically the US helped create Osama Bin Laden (& others like him), through a variety of actions, but most particularly the US covert (CIA) support against Russia in Afghanistan on which side Bin Laden fought. Bin Laden also later saw arrogant US presence in Saudi Arabia which he resented. His call for jihad, his heinous words against America and Jews are the product of a sick and twisted yet ideological-based seemingly "righteous" mentality. Ernesto also noted that Bin Laden helped support the Contra movement against the Sandinistas who had overthrown the brutal dictatorship of Somosa who was supported by the US! (This is documented in an Oliver North biography, although Bin Laden has said he didn't know what he was funding). Poet Andrew Schelling's response to this information: "after all the Soviets were supporting the Sandinistas. The enemy of your enemy's friend is of course; your friend. Bin Laden's just a Machivellian militarist/politician with vast sums of money, & a crazy agenda, who loves god but hates humans."

* Invoke Investigative and documentary Poetics! Know the score! Know the history!

The TV pundits and media cannot keep mindlessly repeating the simplistic notion that these recent horrific disasters are merely an attack on America's "freedom" in light of such demented, albeit complex history and the grinding truth of cause and effect. It is insulting to our dignity as free-thinking individuals. Bin Laden - if he is the mastermind - is another hardened player in the big "game". He can play both sides in his agenda. Glamorizing him as a "holy warrior" would be idiotic as well. His agenda, presumably , is to rid the Middle East of US presence. Any ends – to that goal -justify the means.

* Study the nature of power-politics!

In Buddhist psychology one of the Six Realms of Existence includes the Warring God Realm which is a super-intelligent paranoid realm of energetic activity in which enemies have to be created and maintained in order for the neurotic mind to function and thrive. It operates on the notion of revenge. This states manifests in an endless cycle of balance and checks around power and perpetuates suffering, and yet its strategies, to some, are fascinating, compelling even, and may suck one in.

*Check out the Warring God realm of every day existence! US Military budget could go as high as $400 billion this year and higher in the future. You know where your dollars are? Are we insane?

Meanwhile, an innocent victim of The Warring God Realm could be any one of us. We can empathize now with innocents who have died & suffered while the Masters of War carry out their agendas. Writing this text from Europe, one hears countless stories of the suffering of innocent victims during times of war still within memory. Czech friend writer/translator/ scholar lost an aunt to US bombing during WW II, the US never apologized. Of course Hitler had to be stopped. The US was late in that conflict. We know governments do not always serve the best interests of their citizens.

The situation in Afghanistan is extremely complex. The Taliban in power represent only a minority of the Pashto-speaking Afghanis who border Pakistan. The nation has been described as a "pre-modern warlord state". The Pashto speakers are mostly Sunni Muslims, the Persian (Farsi) speakers are those who look to Iran. the underclass Shiite Heraras speak an archaic Persian and resemble in physiognomy Tibetans or Nepalis. Residents of Bamian were evidently enraged when the Taliban destroyed the magnificent large twin statues of Buddha there ("bowed to dust"...) How irresponsible for the US to portray Afghanistan as a united front to the American public, dehumanizing the situation. William Blake implores us to "observe the minute particulars" and to "look to the little ones". "God is in the details" — A. Warburg.

* Discriminating Wisdom ("prajna") Now! Poetics adages are useful here:
"No ideas but in things" (Williams), "Go in fear of abstractions" (Ezra Pound) Poets & artists: make your own lists of sane trustworthy language measures....

Aren't there sane models for mutual co-existence on this precious planet?
Aren't there any wise leaders (with clout) who may be allowed to speak sagely & effectively at this crucial time? And speak with historical/cultural/ philosophical/religious perspective? Why don't governments have such counsel in place? The US presidential cabinets are made up primarily of partisan lackeys, often not even trained in their supposed arenas of expertise. And they, too, can be bought. Are the Muslim Clerics the only "body of elders" to weigh in on this? Isn't there a way of invoking and developing (through UN auspices) a body of mediating enlightened human beings from all nations and cultures and communities that aren't simply representing and reflecting their own government's national interests? Who holds the whole of existence sacred? Cannot we have, also, a body of folk going in just to help (as witnessed powerfully in the aftermath of the attack in NY)? Not aid groups or religious groups with ideologies or strings attached, but...

*Form cadres of "boddhisattvas" for mediation, for true compassionate (not self-serving) action! And bands of articulate poet-warriors!

The US's questionable legitimate presidential leadership, its government's very recent rejection of the Kyoto accords, its boycott of the UN conference on racism (related to the situation in Israel/Palestine), its undoing of sane and sensible legislation that protects its own citizens (standards for arsenic levels in water etc) has been most troubling, depressing. Does not the current scenario, at the brink of a consuming possible war in the Middle East - simply benefit this country's hegemonic interest, economy? Will it root out terrorism or create more terrorism? Does the US not showcase its most advanced weaponry once again which will lead to support of Star Wars and other scary outer space death machines? Is it not true that the US wants an oil pipeline through Afghanistan? And won't we be paying a heavy price for an "us versus them" mentality, for invoking a sense of righteous "crusade" and revenge? Where are the women critique-ing the use of patriarchal language now when we need them? Where are the responses of women leaders in general as we see unfolding before us another Macho drama. What are the 3 wives of Osama Bin Laden thinking? Is Condoleeza Rice our only audible voice? Where is Hillary Clinton in articulation of the suffering of the Palestinian people now, at the eleventh hour? Should we now examine our language with perspicuity at this time? Should we not explore other less devastating method for uprooting terrorism and its causes before we inflict more suffering on already desperate and suffering peoples?

* Stay vigilant. Be a guardian of "right speech"!

Consider the deals that are being made to insure support of US policy planet-wide! Will Russia now even have more permission to persecute its "terrorists" in Chechnya, will China in Tibet and Taiwan etc etc...

As patriotic US citizen who has always strived to "save America from herself" and one (with many) who mourns her country's loss, & who feels tremendous assault on her home city, and as writer defending creative expression and the right to dissent and as denizen of the world who aspires to know the world (& the cosmos) -understand it, witness it in all its richness & complexity, — I take a vow for an aspiration of "vipashyana" or clear-seeing (insight). The world does not need more war. Pursue the path of least suffering...

Umberto Eco also invokes the Tower of Babel collapsing as a result of man's hubris in a salient essay that examines the search for the original language of the first man. The plurality of tongues should hardly be seen as a tragic consequence and yet there is something to be said for an image of restoration and communication. Is it really too late?

By this merit may all obtain omniscience May it defeat the enemy wrong-doing...

Sarva mangalam.

	For Immediate Release
Volume I, Number 1 October 1, 2001