Tag: spoken word poetry

I Will Show You the Lord / Not Behind You

On By Donny Lee DukeIn childhood education, ego activism, PoetryLeave a comment
George de Forest Brush – Orpheus, 1890 (public domain)

This is a poem written to G Surya Prakash Rao, the founder and managing editor of Muse India, an online literary magazine, in regards to their rejection and criticism of Nithish’s poem “Paradise Things With Lyrics”, which was submitted to their online forum Your Space, not to the literary magazine itself. A Twitter/X photo-poem of mine would give more details: “Where Were the Ones That Felt?”

And the poem below was submitted to Muse India for publication, not through their regular channels, directly to the managing editor, as we were having a brief email conversation regarding the boy’s poem. I would gather he doesn’t want to publish the poem below, and that in itself I find remarkable, and you will have to read the poem to find that remarkable too, but the fact that he won’t even bother to tell me, I find that absolutely incredible.

Human civilization is a world apart.
I grab you by the poetry today.
The overhead music,
the overhead town,
some suggestions for your
unmanageable poetry scheme sir.
I speak poetry to your sense of self,
and that’s a long ride,
half-religion,
in the carnival of God.
Do you wear zeitgeist on your sleeve,
offended
if I grab your ass and smile?
Man I tell yah
where we put poetry today,
in the hullabaloo.

You give me 40 lines to tell.
How people don’t know it,
tellin’ poetry to be quiet
is sexual reassignment surgery,
cuts its dick off.
Well foreign he’s brave.
That room is shocked.
That room is sorry.
This one here,
what do you do?
Do you publish a poet,
Donny Lee Duke?

Teacher of the day master of the poetry.
Who says that’s prayer
or insightful?
That’s a line from the movie
Beat Kids.
I’m throwin’ at you rabbits
to know the meaning of the word,
its symbolizing form.
Rabbits are a dictionary,
and they fecund.

How do I open poetry in your heart
that’s not a diction model,
phrased put?
But I’m putting sound down
as a vehicle of meaning,
categorically put.
Imagine we lived in a rose,
and we petaled differently,
the speaker said.

You’re not huntin’ meaning.
You’re all about sound rose
a churppin’ model
with words you can cut your finger on,
your personal stuff
that sees the corners of things,
gets at feeling and taste,
ode to a green jar
and supposin’.

I wrap you around wood
in a different kind of glory.
I laugh-loud you
to go get greater silk
to stand your life,
because I’m sittin’ here strandin’ mine,
where it hurts,
where it counts,
and that’s bubblin’ up poetry.

That’s not it
I’m listenin’ to myself speak,
here I am on the table
the thought of London,
Batman in robes,
lyrical put.
A new generation of poetry,
a new thought of poetry,
here I am and you
chase me down this mountain
you tin can.
I’m a dormitory of words.

Is that bowl I’m missing
let’s listen to Tennyson?
Grab your evolution by the poetry sir.
Blast your pillars of salt.
Blast your shadow kings.
Don’t look back
at some exam of poetry
Orpheus.
Grab your poetry by today.

To the editor of Sky Magazine:
change Orpheus into a pillar of salt.
Lay down your lines
you’ve surrendered to poetry.
Can you hear that?
Muse India
a scolding.
How sad.
You hear that?

The tops of teas
lyrical ballads.
Where am I at?
I don’t think you’d recognize me.
I’m poetry fits the day,
sudden splendor.

Can we get to the top of that mountain?
I offer you a chair.
It’s closer than you think,
a morph of Orpheus,
of your kind.
You open it
binoculars.

Peace is a drug that you get from the upper store.
[above line Nitish’s muse, my 12-year-old grandson]
Nithish’s smile.
Your anthology papers,
post my letters,
it is very change.
I’m not lookin’ forward to the new ghost story.
Oh man, do your ignore me?
A new music,
a flute overhead,
we need that to survive.
Things are not going in our direction,
and can we just change the tunes?
What a poetry says
a culture does.

You’re not playin’ around with smithereens.
Come on don’t groupthink
and let poetry rock.
I don’t understand you sir.
Does it have to be highfalutin?
You stuff shirt,
come out in the world and see.
Am I wrong?
Do we need something more out of poetry
that we’re not getting?

Come out of your damn ivory tower
and touch the world.
Is that so hard to listen to?
What are you doing that you can’t see
this is poetry?
And I will haunt you for the rest of your life
a poetry gun,
a poetry speaker,
a poetry man.

I don’t think you realize the power of poetry,
the muse today.
It will be inevitable
we dance along the Thames
putting it out like Shakespeare.
It will come out of its bottle
and change the world.
Too strange driven,
you think it just needs to be thrown away,
like this email’s cut off here.
Are you kiddin’ me?

Born in Israel

On By Donny Lee DukeIn applied nonduality, childhood education, Poetry1 Comment
A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of his house destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, in Beit Hanun, Gaza. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA
When the ticks were talking about building churches,
it’s free speech.
I don’t know who I have a ham on today.
I don’t know who’s worthy.
I don’t know who I’m talking about.
It’s race cards.
Can we talk about the Black Lives Movement supporting Israel?
It did in Chicago—
okay Hamas,
you terrorists,
thank you for being a friend.
I don’t know what I’m saying—
that was a Harvard trainee.

Let’s be blunt about this:
can we support Israel,
and they treat Palestinians like shit?
They are the oppressors.
Oh my goodness a homegrown flag:
the Palestinians weren’t there before Israel.
They became a nation under Israel’s cause.
Now they’re out to do harm,
indiscriminately killing civilians,
or that’s the show they put on
when they got out of their fence.
I mean they murdered.

It hurts doesn’t it?
The Palestinians want to show you
what it means to be Palestinian,
where Jewish means Israel.
That harms.
Okay we put Hamas in the kitchen and praise them.
You inhuman bastards,
is that how you gain freedom?
We don’t know.
We just hate ourselves
and see a Jew and want to kill them.

That’s the dry land:
we can’t kill Jews.
We shoulder our own freedom.
It must work among ourselves
before it goes outwards.
How is this done?
I have a naked little boy and don’t rape him.
I pull myself together.
I tie his shoe instead.
A poet will always speak in symbols,
his life the bait.

We learn to stop violence towards our children.
We are gentle and soft with them.
They eat out of our hand,
and we feed them warm and honey.
We do not blister them
with having to hate Jews.
We do not require this of them.
We do not indoctrinate them to kill.

How kind are we to one another?
We let our humanity light up our life.
A stray dog is an opportunity
to give our world some compassion.
We hold each other tightly,
as the brothers and sisters we are.
We do not do violence to one another.
We try to show each other love,
or at least the patience
you give a friend.
We strong arm no one.
We stand up for human rights.
We stop hurting one another.

Then our gliders come in peace.
We show the Israelis what they’re missin’.
We give them reason to respect us.
We brush aside their hatred
with the real human being.
This is all we can do.
War will kill us.
It will enslave our land.
Go to the heart of the conflict,
the hatred of the Jew,
and bury there.
Can you understand these people?
Can you see their plight?

More than a few are good-hearted towards you.
Not all are racists.
Not all think it’s their human right
to be the chosen people.
This is the dragon in the land.
It’s this we must eradicate,
not Jews.
It’s this we must show is wrong,
the essence of Jewish hatred,
the hidden core of their persecution.
We must not bury Jews
or destroy their peopleness.

They are a tower and a might,
and oh we need the Jews.
Can you sink them?
Are you rubbin’ elbows with those who’ve tried?
I think you need new friends.
Even in hell Jews triumphed.
They fight differently than most men.
They fight with their brains.
You’re gonna do them in?

We count on you
to show Israel its humanity.
You are the problem they cannot solve.
Their brains can’t grasp this:
there were a people on their land they took,
and now they must oppress them.
Victim turned victimizer once again,
we can’t see this as human frailty
common to everyone.

So what can you do to Israel that Israel needs to see?
You are a fine people
together in your lot.
You take hardship and spit out pearls.
You sacrifice for those around you.
You take your humanity
and circle the wagons with it.
It’s the way you meet oppression:
you are a noble people,
and therefore hard to abuse.

How would this act
when faced with aggression?
You kill the combatants
to defend yourselves,
and there you’ll win the respect of every nation
and show the world who’s wrong.

I think we complete this
in the issues of the night.
Glory hallelujah it’s dawn.
I thought I’d made you up.
This is a little spark of God in life.
You’ve pointed out the errors
in human ways.
A call to arms,
humanity’s arms,
wow you have children there.
Well spoken said.

Oh statute of limitations,
it’s just a matter of time
the Palestinian cross.
You’re kidding me—
the Palestinian blues.
Those are Greek and Roman myths
made real by human suffering.
It’s a Dispatches’ record
my hullabaloo.
Now they can be up there.
Give me a credit.
I’m pickin’ up the pace.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo. [line heard sung, from “Angels We Have Heard on High”]
Just put boiled rice,
I just put boiled rice.
What did you put in the blue container?
I’m all here bitches, shoot me.

I don’t think you understand the situation.
You’re gonna have to get bigger than you are.
It’s not gonna work killin’ people.
You have to show Israel who’s the human being.
Is your culture up to that,
to self-develop?
You just continue
life along the shores of persecution,
so you can stop its history on you.
This is done slowly.
Every man, woman, and child
must agree to band together
and be good to one another.

This is the team roll.
This is how you begin.
You’ll be working with each other’s subconscious, that’s for sure.
Study your dreams that will help you out here.
You have to learn not to react,
and you have to learn not to be mean.
It’s a process
doable.
It will improve conditions right away.

You’re gettin’ ready to love.
You’re gettin’ ready to be a balanced people.
This is not wishy-washy handshake bullshit.
You do things for one another.
You don’t slap, hit, or cuss out.
You keep hatred out of your voice.
You be the real thing to each other.
You be a friend.

It’s all over your face
when you are.
The Israeli settler
or the Israeli enforcer
will see you a human being,
not a rock throwing mob,
and they will act accordingly,
when they’re embarrassed by their own actions.

You don’t know the bone of contention here.
Will the real humanity please stand up?
You stand up and show Israeli yours.
Obviously if they’re shooting you you can’t,
but barring that.
I’m not talking lambs to the slaughter.
You never surrender your dignity.
You just comply with regulations
a noble human being.
Show them who’s boss,
and it’s not the Jews.
It’s our heartfelt humanity.
It’s our great get along.

I’m liberty speaking,
and you’re looking for that equipment.
I’ve spoken enough to Israel
in a book I’ve left on Amazon—
definite flavor
reconciliation.
It’s not your own state you want.
It’s that:
to live at peace among the Jews equal citizens.
That’s the example Earth needs
to keep our world from blowing each other up.
Can you do that Arab citizen,
Palestinians of Israel,
Palestinians held hostage by Israel,
Palestinians in the land of Israel?

Under the Israeli banner
so bigger
than for Jews and Jews alone,
Palestinians can be free again.
If you look at the roads there’s no other way.
Between Jerusalem I’m Sorry
will point out the crossroads.
It’s a matter of seeing them
and not do anything shameful.

Love towards Israel,
can you fit this into your schedule?
If you’ll be one nation you must.
Put this in your resettlement plan.
Now Palestinian refugee,
give resettlement a chance,
cause there’s a secret ingredient to Israel.
It comes
if we labor together
for a common goal.
The secret ingredient is floating off the top of my head,
and it’s called the home for the human being.
Enough of religious politics.
God is not the wrathful, bigoted, murderer you all suppose.
Find God and see.
It will revolutionize your life,
and you’ll be kind to your fellow man.

Jews will not be the inescapable people,
Muslims will not be the only ones on earth worth.
You have to integrate.
You have to learn to live together.
This is your mandate to each other.
Not big enough
to be only kingpins
Mr. and Ms. Jew.
You have to concede their plight,
so they can see yours.
A resettled human being
has that in their plan:
keeping humanity safe.
You give it
to everybody around you:
safe passage from point A to point B,
and let’s go from there.

One key thing
rule book the exercise
of your warm humanity.
I know this sounds very arranged.
You keep time
I’ll give you something.
I would just love to.
That’s an Israeli learning what it means to be Israel:
really going to court
to learn our humanity.
It’s like you’re free there.
The Mother told them to do that.
That’s hope.

Gaslighting Out of Ocean

On By Donny Lee DukeIn applied nonduality, childhood education, ego activism, PoetryLeave a comment 
The New Atheists,
I remember them.
Forget it,
they’re history.
They’re rotten fruit,
and they are bad for your health.
Lies though—
there’s no answer
to life’s great mysteries.
They don’t know where to go from there.

We went up to the front.
We just had to break it,
their insistence on no God.
You can be kind to Him.
We have military wares
to bring God round to your table,
if you care to look,
if you care to find out,
or you can keep your hole in the sand,
forever trying to keep it from caving in.

You don’t doubt the world,
and it is seen to come from afar,
some storybook laid on atom’s ways,
something that arises from the deeps
from some unimaginable One science is playing with now.
Aren’t you startled?
The world is a cheat and hue upon your senses.
What do you make of this?
It’s real isn’t it?

How do you reconcile this with your atheism?
Wow, how big it all is,
how much beyond us.
Science is grappling with now
the funds of the universe,
from whence they came.
Absolute atheism denies this:
there is a greater reality beyond ours.
You’ve many-worlded your ego out there,
a good many of you,
in the speculation of alternative universes.
No cap for the whole?
You like your ego.

I’m learning to manage mine
towards a larger reality
it acquiesces in.
You don’t know the purpose of life.
It’s purposeless, gaugeless,
as you look at your stars.
I’m managing this
in Protonmail,
count the universe in my grandson’s safety,
to fulfill his purpose in time.
We all measure this:
to get ourselves in time
on the right boat,
believe it or not.
I gauge you there.
All your books and shows point this out:
you have something to say
to stand there and call us purpose—
you nincompoops,
God is not your purpose
I am;
I win the battle with time,
or so I believe.

Alright boys and girls I’ve mimicked you I’m sorry,
but I have to get a load across.
You are not exactly the wrong sort of people.
You just hum wrong.
You can’t stand melody outside of time.
You just want us to be right with ourselves,
in a wrong sort of way.
All your anger and spite flushes
your nobilities down the toilet.
Can’t you be nicer to us?

There is a lot in our harbor.
It gets stuck there—
no public viewing.
You can’t be counted on to change.
You’re not there
on the brink of change,
and you stay away from there.
It’s not your cup of tea.

Brain in matter’s lair,
you’ve sectioned off consciousness.
It doesn’t breathe.
It doesn’t even think,
to hear you tell it.
A consciousness larger than the body,
a consciousness that encompasses all bodies,
a Consciousness the ground of things,
has you looking on ice.
This is larger than your thought.
The consciousness of thought
can’t grow that big.
You’re rained in
by outer phenomena.
You don’t test your thoughts
in the lucid room of dreams.
How many of you even go there?

Where does consciousness connect to other bodies?
Every damn place on earth,
everywhere you look.
Your science can see this
if it would investigate that far,
if it would get there.
It just wants to prove matter reigns,
or some unconscious substratum field.
It blows up in agnosticism.
It couldn’t even admit a puppy had consciousness
just a few short years ago,
or a blackboard.

It’s not for edited materials.
Do not ever translate.
This is the divine word in a barn,
off-the-cuff.
It’s not that great, exalted word
you hear in Savitri.
It’s precisely written,
no need to change stories.
You’ll get it out of context
if you destroy its idioms.
This word occurs to me,
presents itself,
and I write it down.
I wait for spoken inevitability
so the next line matches
its counterpart.
I don’t write channeled writing.
I’m not a channel speaker.
This is divine inspiration
bottled up in heart
and served to you in poems.
A poem is a snowball
aimed to reconcile you with peace
hit in the head with peace.

I’m starting over
to take this ball to reality.
Man the sky smarts,
and the sea looks like a dream,
and I’m here on the land
a gopher dashing in and out of holes.
I champion reality,
but it’s too big to see.
Dancing in and out of holes,
where will you find me
a reality keeper?
A change of consciousness ahead,
from ego consciousness to another state.
I won’t be little anymore.
I will hold infinity,
and you’re there too
in the gift of tomorrow.
These are school days
for us,
and enlightenment is a graduation angle.
We all get there
in one lifetime or another.
That’s the field show,
where infinity replaces our I.

Now,
we are ready to put on our destiny.
We get bigger than time.
Our Godself who sits above
leans down
and grasps it embodiment here.
That is the temple mount.
That divinizes Earth.
You there,
yeah you,
come with me.
You’re a kid,
and I’m gonna open this up in you
a little portion at a time,
my little grandson Nitish.
What a pedophile can do with a child besides molest one
(one who doesn't molest children),
but you would filter this out too,
if you had the arms.
It’s God arranged.
Our souls meet.
You can only grumble.
You can’t break us apart.
If you actually tornado,
enter a magnetic field
your tornado cannot impede.
It’s God given.
The divine word,
it manifests in him.
I climb on this every day
and teach him meaning
to say his lines.
What do you teach your children,
to pass exams?
What more could you ask for?

You didn’t actually prevent me.
I’m the voice of America,
and I speak for India too.
I’m fuller than your lists,
and I’m here to stay.
Can I congratulate the future now,
on its job well done?
I had a hand in that.
I’m reading a timetable.
I been dead and gone
so far back you know we were underwater.
Hello reader,
am I lively today?
Am I in the compartment
that opened the door to infinity?
You know you’re reading me now.
I’ve layered explained this,
and back at Heaven’s gate,
my own time,
we thought we were giants.
You laugh at us now,
feel sorry for us.
We are so little man.

Turn around,
lose your friend now.
You can’t believe they are censoring him,
and people know what’s in the book.
They don’t even want to look at it,
They just want some better man to bring it,
preferably a lesbian seagull.
I’ve got your romance.
It’s with dawn,
and I’m a better man today
than I was yesterday.

I see tears.
She’s not happy with your father if he turned around and did it.
We have formidable papers to contend with.
There’s so much to climate change.
It’s Book 1.
We have so much unkindness to wear.
We can go all the way to a nuclear bomb.
We’ve got a tough living ahead,
not extinction,
not annihilation,
but a bed of nails upon our road.
There’s just so much to think about,
so much to do.
Let’s get over this:
we censor the wrong individual;
we blacklist the man that helps.
We do it dangerously.

Right.
There’s this field:
we are not free on this planet.
I’ll open it and see what’s deleted.
I’m a fence.
He hears you about kill people,
and the East are now humanity’s law center.
Okay listen.
I don’t really think
you’ll have super duper prices
to drag you down,
intolerable living conditions,
but it will be expensive.
Work,
I am working
to liberate this planet.
I think I’m one in a multitude,
but how many see the light ahead?
How many see we get through this?
That leaves only a few of us
who tell it like it’s gonna happen.

I’m sorry, you wanted a better arm than me.
You know how the divine is,
sends you the outcast,
sends you murderers and thieves.
I ask you ready?
Let’s not let the world slip through our fingers.
Stand tall now,
if you can.
We’ve been too long on the internet bashing people’s heads in.
On the phone
we look for better change.
You know we look for generations.
You know where generations is?
You take the cord and release it.
I left my parents.
I’m not bound to think their way,
act their way.

The lunar module
was our friendship module.
The moon landing lit the world
with our common humanity.
No other vanguard but this,
that the future holds,
will ensure our survival.
We share a common humanity.
That has to override every nationality,
every religion,
every people,
everything that divides us.
Nothing else works.
This is base 1.
From there we can calculate God and soul.
From there we can survive.
Will you please join me my friend?

Need to go back and dig to the community.
It’s buried under mountains of ill will.
This is destroying us,
the hatred on the inside of us.
What do you have to say?
You mind if I ask you this?
Ladies and gentlemen for Asiya talking to you right now,
and that smarts.

The voice I sing,
you can poke it you can prod it,
but it will still bear fruit.
I’m in the ditch about yesterday.
I habitat this sing.
I twelve it.
This keeps me going.
I love God and I love Sri Aurobindo.
Doesn’t let me falter in life.
This lets me abide.
I am a weathering rock.
I staple you.
I feel better now.
I’ve let the voices gleam
and pursue my life force.

The world is too deep to understand.
It smarts.
It’s a rollercoaster.
I ride it an adept.
How many of you know this mountain?
So and so for good measure looked at me today
half field of measure.
Give what type of brass pick him up.
Oh stand,
steady on full,
and 19 and motorbike.
That means it will get its due,
and we will heal with it.
It’s a stadium piece,
and it shows
you will see.
Meanwhile,
first magnified rock in about 20 minutes.

You’re not just gonna scour at him.
He’s gonna rock your boat.
In the midst of the trial,
he’ll go beyond your anger.
Name our library.
Library
and I’m not interested
in being the man of the hour.
At first just in diffusion
all this word,
then it fulfills.
Self-fulfilled,
is it what I really should be learning the forms of things?
I step over the forms of things.
I step over your stars.
I am your poet now.
The word was an action to take
to breathe upon the world its holy flesh.
The truth went into people’s homes,
stayed there.

A Temple Doing

On By Donny Lee DukeIn childhood education, ego activism, seer poetry1 Comment

This video is a significantly revised version of one originally entitled “He’s Markin’ the Pitter of the Universe”, posted in February 2022.

I Dress That Link

On By Donny Lee DukeIn applied nonduality, ego activism, seer poetryLeave a comment
photo by Donny

I open up my face in Brahman.
Something happened.
Death lives on in each of us.
Transient houses you made us feel.
Can we all surrender to hatred?
To relations with each other
I bring the death penalty;
I’ve packaged everything—
we hear death talkin’.
Now will you please listen?
Give this say to an individual,
not a group of any nation or purpose,
some wisdom on control.

Absolutely
parallel balance,
that’s the frame I put this in,
on the level.
Hey,
you alright?
I just put love in enemy territory.
Will I make it out of here alive?
You tell me.
My God that’s balance,
and let’s score you again
just too worth it.

And nobody walks me huh?
It’s crazy but
I go all out with this one,
and your attitudes about how social change comes about,
the best advice.
I put my peril down
and tell you the safe, wholesome fight for everyone.
You will kill me here I know,
if you break truth with me,
of course.

He tore down his statue of self-defense and said one big one today,
Smile Records.
All I want from poetry is my two front teeth.
We don’t need a bully.
The safest place for me to be is away from you.
I’m volunteering at your stacked deck
straight ahead.
Unbelievable.
Do me a favor,
I’m telling you
don’t press defcon 4.
We’re at the Geneva Convention.

It’s so shallow
if I even make it this far.
I want your hands off hate.
We’ve got to get down into the bowels of society to do that.
That’s why I’m chargin’ bulls
wearin’ red.
I’m down to this science,
and you’re in the war room.
You know what he give me?
Imaginations control,
nobody harm one another in their thoughts.
Can you see that in your mind?

This is hot stuff.
This is how we pay for peace
Emily.
Do a father to father talk about peace with Emily.
Her underwear got crowded out
by someone in her neighborhood
when she was seven or eight.
The backlist sells cookies so much slower.
She looks blind, hyperactive.
Identify that culprit with me.
No, identify with the culprit.
I’ve just spoken the secret formula that will save the world.
I’ve just spoken huge change.

You have my record.
It was a peace mission.
You’re just the Alamo.
Behind you,
that’s not a peacemaker.
Someone in the vestibules
throwing us all to evil.
They even have a financial access.
Hide and seek
the world demon.
And pray you don’t see him.
It’s a calamity.
Donny, filter.

Read the endless pages.
I’ll have the affordable print tomorrow.
I just copy movies.
I don’t have a thing to say that flowers
a reader’s turnover.
I don’t get published in the sky.
I just sit in my room and write
long letters to humanity.

I’m a shrill voice.
I run the gauntlet of change.
I slip and slide all the time
all over your meaning’s worth.
I Excalibur this now,
put it in a format for you to use/see. [words spoken simultaneously]

Do me a favor,
huddle up.
We’ve got no other choice.
I think the Griffins and the McCoys said that.
Did I just say enemies should speak to each other?
Without contempt.

I’m a Jew you know that.
Don’t hate me for it.
I’m a rightwing political bureau.
I think we would even charity you.
Do suicide
and pull down your pants a pedophile;
can you find anyone that doesn’t want you dead
or not allowed to breathe?

This is poetry central,
giving time a voice
so it can move us away from destruction and decay,
so it can bring meaning into our lives,
give sense to things,
and it can get bigger than all that
be there for us.
It can evolve time.

That’s the secret to noon.
We are not worthy of its hour.
We can’t get out of our sleeping beds.
The world is on fire,
and everybody thinks it’s as plain as day:
horse rider you started it,
you comin’
from a land seize,
or the hideous government,
or a cooperation bring us to our knees.

We’re to blame for the execution,
all of us,
each one of us.
You hear that?
You’re on it all the time.
A government oppresses its people,
and nobody sees the people themselves flavor it.
Take the litmus test.
Who supplies them with the labor
to enforce and to punish and to obey?
The numbers wanting free,
that’s not big enough to form a majority, is it?
And even they oppress
the numbers wanting to obey.
Do we call them traitors?

Let’s click on you.
You would not accept my submission, would yah?
I don’t even think you’d understand it.
Pop goes the weasel.
Another one bites the dust. [heard sung by Queen, line names song]
Oh the poems I’ve wasted on you.

Can I get at this singular event,
I get taken in by somebody
a poet speaking?
I’m still dawn on social approval.
Can we get at being human?
This poem’s for you,
a higher source for love,
even when you’ve exposed yourself on TV.
So filled our cabinet and left.
I’m a garbage bag.
I take only a minute to throw away,
but take a minute and look.
I’m sculptured,
rounded to your looks on things.

You know what you told me when you were a child,
sooner or later—
thank you for the Pepto-Bismol,
so I can start with you
just knock on the door and tell ‘em you’re hungry dammit,
for the zest of life,
more than someone who sucks their thumb;
I need to know I’m safe, okay?
I’m this contradiction in terms—
that kid.

This is the draw-sight for human beings:
love everybody’s neighbor,
love and support.
Crazy kid,
he loves a pedophile.
We give it much more than it came from,
call it much more than it is:
I love you too honey child.

You hear us now.
We are not strangers on earth.
We carry the world in the litany of our smile.
That’s 12 o’clock high.
That’s our love song.
Is that child safe with me?
We bring the world together.

Do you wanna make climate?
It worked for our team so much.
Film this great, narrow, stone bed.
To put them in the mall?
Pathway.
I’ll have a Rottweiler to try to stay down there
to put you in touch with time.
She just makes everything so real.
She's down there right now,
a love angle.

Can we calamity this?
That’s the nature of this paper,
the spirit of love.
And I’ve just waved a red flag under your nose.
Control yourself, will yah?
I’m not asking you to accept pain to a child
or harm done to him.
I think I’ve reached into your hate basket and pulled out the biggest one:
you can’t put these two together
and make a story out of love.

Self-defense mechanisms aside,
that’s how I define the world:
and he’s safe with me.
Now let’s look at your self-doubts.
Is he safe with you?
Will you kill him because you’ve seen him on this page
close to someone who loves boys?
Is this to make you feel safe?

Look,
let’s give everybody some room to breathe.
Mighty this one;
imagine this one—
I have a missed call:
no,
it’s not a hateful love.
It’s right on time:
for all the world to see.

A Verb of Words

On By Donny Lee DukeIn ego activism, Inner Voice and Vision, Poetry, seer poetryLeave a comment
photo by Donny
Who stays close to skyscrapers?
A digital bureaucracy
won’t look at my poetry.
I don’t know what it means.
Man’s critical college parallel universe was
thrown into poetry.
I don’t think no one reads him,
even though it was a parallel universe.
Did I just say that?
You like mules
that have no meaning behind them
when they’re pullin’ a plough.
You don’t like to figure out stuff.
I don’t think you like meaning.
It’s read it’s bread.
Stop and take a look no way.

How do we bring down poetry into the universe?
My God the spheres here.
I can make up a poem to please yah.
See Dick run after Jane?
Okay get out of the knob Joe.
Meaning is paradise.
It’s not your guttural wear.
The random nonsense of meaning words,
did I just say paradise?

I’m at a loss for words.
Nobody understands me.
Critical Hank,
is that self-meaning or self-pity?
What do you see in an enemy?
A reader.
I’m all out of poems,
and they just comin’.
I’m really not doin’ this.
Poetry has grabbed my testicles and is squeezing them.
In silence no one can hear you scream.

That’s what my mind dirts,
when poetry comes in my window.
I’m liftin’ silence to read it.
It gets you all trashed
in dirt modules,
the mind’s interference,
and unfortunately the more trashed the more you like it.
I hear the mind there
all readable by rationality.
The mind likes symmetry.

I put a poem in pieces
where silence holds my poem.
I’m tryin’ to say this pure verse,
really, really from the silence,
unadulterated
by anything mind can give.
Do you see me there?
I’m listenin’ hard.
Like I say I come in pieces.

How do you value a poem?
It’s meaningful to you.
I don’t think you’re concerned with the silence.
The root of poetry has no meaning
to someone who looks at stuff all the time.
Pure abstractness’s not what I’m talkin’ about.
If you let it happen,
meaning would come in time
personal to you.
It would hit you on the nose
a vehicle trip.
I can't get at this abstraction.
Well can you let poetry breathe,
take off your thinking cap a moment?

You’re gonna be taken for a ride kid
in the hit you of your stuff,
in the node of your surround things.
Poetry will take you somewhere
out of yourself
in the larger spheres.
It has meaning
all wrapped up in purpose,
and we clear here.
Poetry is a vehicle of meaning
that will look at you in your underwear.
Are you desnudo?
Wow, amazing,
can you come read your poetry?

Can we understand your poetry together with silence?
I think the reader’s talking to me again.
Okay let’s say some hard words.
I’m a stallion in Paris.
When I look through my radar I see you.
I’ve opened my first book.
It’s just terrible.
It’s just terrible.
We can reader handle a book,
shall we?

You pronounce it better,
that publication.
They say I’m crazy.
And a book shall lead them,
trusting you.
You’re open.
You can definitely see the Sun.
Get out of the way,
and it will rain down upon us
how to do poetry,
be happy with what you make in a better way.

Tall recognition
of you’ve got some answers,
the answer,
despite failure.
I put failure in.
You got the Sun in your eyes.
You can check and see if it’s there.
Read this one.
You’re having a beautiful Yahtzee surprise.
Sit Sharma you have done.

A poet has his word out.
Shoulder gets a new test.
Oh, this is getting down to me,
the purport of poetry:
be meaning and don’t expect anything in return.
I think we just said the universe.

How do we do that,
get we and put it in a higher position?
Yeah, okay, struggle to survive.
Why am I gaslighting this?
I broke through the crowd and I silenced the sound.
They wondered if I was to blame
for Mary. [This two above lines heard sung by Bob Ayala, “The Song of Joseph”]
Into the divine,
can I take you?
There’s no struggling with,
there’s no struggling with another person.

Goddamn dude,
it was nothing but
I wonder why the U. S. has so many problems controllin’ that track right there. [line spoken at the end of a dream, a question I asked, a Green Beret in the dream, seeing a heavily armed train belonging to the Taliban insurgents, the track being representative of the field of Afghanistan while the U. S. was still there]
Hey come here—
wastin’ time. [heard sung by Dobie Gray, “Drift Away”]
Just don’t bombard me okay?
Go and see that
as a blockbuster. [vision of having gone to the ocean floor to see the wreck of the Titanic]
Harry Potter,
you’re tryin’ to swim
unlimited.
We’ll be right back.
That must be the phone.

Now bring meaning down to time.
I’m every bit in your skyscraper.
Bring me down-to-earth, will yah?
Get me outta here,
a lonely meaning in time.
I’m all about your reveille post.
Open up to the meanings you have missed.
I’m only there.

I should explain that this poem was posted for just a few moments on Oct. 26, 2022 and then reverted to draft so to submit to Poetry Magazine, and it took eight months for them to reply. Here is their email in regards to this poem, dated May 18, 2023:

Dear Donny Duke,

Thank you for sending your work to POETRY magazine—and thank you, too, for your patience as you waited for our response.

We won’t be publishing anything from your submission, but we wish you the best of luck in publishing it elsewhere and appreciate you sending it our way.

Thanks so much for your support of the magazine. We hope you are as safe and well as can be.

Gratefully,

The Editors

The Poem of the Benediction

On By Donny Lee DukeIn applied nonduality, childhood education, ego activism, Inner Voice and Vision, seer poetryLeave a comment
photo by Donny
Their love of yoga,
all that had to do with the divine.
The divine is alive and well on Planet Earth.
He sees you.
Can you hear ‘im?
Made out to be a man,
but really She’s a woman,
when you get right down to pictures of Her
in the caretaker of Her smile.

A Mother Might looks out on the world,
and we are all the better for it.
Let’s change some,
become ourselves again,
as children see the world:
it glows,
oohs and aahs;
it’s bigger than us,
and we love it.
Gimmie the beat boys and free my soul. [heard sung by Dobie Gray, “Drift Away”]
You know how it feels,
so good to be alive.
Thank you Mother.

Now I’m dancin’ on this ice.
I don’t know how to explain this.
Oh Mother,
that’s not You in Pondicherry,
but I think we lifted You up
when we adored her feet.
I call on You through her,
as our yoga sees the world,
and in perfect deity fashion,
that woman in Pondicherry helps.
She’s in my living room.
Now do we count blessings?
I am in the arms of the Mother, you know?
She fills out for me
the way to move forward.
I call on her some,
but she is not my image of God.
I mean like I do sit in her lap,
pettin’ my Rottweiler,
but I’m lookin’ at God.

I can tell you a lot about deity.
There are waves of them.
I listen to them all the time.
I mean, I hear them speak.
I’m not always at their beck and call,
and I’m choosy.
I want those Sun voices way up there.
They’re wonderful.
They have our divinity all over them.
They gauge us there,
and they point us to God,
the supreme all-encompassing universe
that existence can light,
and it’s a conscious Individual all things are.
Don’t let my words get in the way.
God is how we meet the One on its time.
I’m talking big you understand.

All this agency gets down to us,
the level of existence we’re at—
I think I just heard God.
God will talk to you in spheres.
That’s what divinity is for,
and each time we mistake the day for the sun.
Conversations with God
are conversations with some deity.
How much freedom to understand that.
It’s yoga based,
if you want to know the truth.
We want to be God’s lovers here on earth.
We want to know God here on earth.
We want to see God here on earth,
see God in everything we see,
and one day,
God will ride us
who we are in time.

I’m breakin’ in on barriers
to show you God,
and these words have failed I know
to overcome that last barrier,
to understand God real in this sentence.

Can you light the fire of God?
This is not a proverbial question.
I’m askin’ ‘cause it hurts
you if you don’t,
hurts you in the fundamental ground of reality.
You can envision no one cares.
You can’t smuggle up to reality
and say this is safe.
You don’t know how to tie your shoe,
and that’s lacin’ the world
through your fingers
a project that smiles.
You’re just all bummed out
because the wonder of it all
is insufficient
to pick you up and carry you along
when you’re so discouraged you just want to die.
And I gettin’ through?

The fire of God is lightable on our time.
It’s not a deity wear,
some figure of God
asking for your allegiance.
It will burn off all this.
It will be bigger than time.
It won’t sit in an abode and judge you.
It will with the universe hold your hand.

How do you get there?
You need God.
Oh man I can’t get this through.
People will kill you if you don’t,
or the world will fall in.
Look out,
I’m tellin’ yah how to find God.
It’s need determines present,
and I don’t know how you make those conditions,
but when you’re a pedophile they come naturally.
That’s the price of your hate:
I get God and you don’t
anywhere near I’m showin’ Him to yah.

God hates sinners,
that’s a lie.
Oh my little child,
come let’s give you a bath.
You’ve gotten muddy again.
If you let Me I’ll get you outta there.
And then ensues the relationship.
You just don’t know God.
Or do you?
Come let us love together.
High and mighty,
I don’t see you in God.

Take pictures of Sri Aurobindo.
I’ve blossomed him,
brought out his yoga to the ground floor.
You’ll just think I’m lying,
the worshippers of Sri Aurobindo.
I’m golden atlas.
It’s not Sri Aurobindo I’m seein’.
You know the Supermind’s on the Earth.
I’m tailin’ it in.

Oh my God airplanes,
now look at this one.
It’s bigger than science.
It’s a cash card.
It’s the right way to do Earth.
It’s not forced.
It doesn’t have any artificial barriers between you
and what you’re supposed to do.
It’s not a morality flag.
It brings a different formula into the equation.
How big is this?
It heals time.

I’ve got roads on.
I push reality through the basin of time.
Shut up and go to sleep—
a reader quibs in.
Alright I’ll admit it.
It’s the supramental.
It’s very intense,
but it’s the supramental
has ahold of my paper.
I’m telling you what the decision is:
they are to occur the region.
Heavy regions,
girls we gotta absolve the conflict.
You put it in right there,
make the supramental the way we handle evil.
We don’t just military our paper.

Let me let you take a short look at that.
And then I realized something:
how does an honest criminal realize their mistake?
You banish them
forever.
Agency,
now to realize the Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s,
yeah, exactly.
Ensues the conversation.
Are you gonna be prepared?
I will be honest;
I didn’t know your name
Impossible.
Let’s get one thing straight, surrender to God,
it becomes possible right now.

God is the answer God is the key,
and the beauty is it’s not abstract.
You get here to this post God is holding your hand.
You can hear Him speak.
You can feel His power.
You can bask in His love.
You can see Him in everything that touches you I do.
Can we get anymore cornered than that?
God’s got you cornered,
and you can overcome any behavior.
You can do anything.
Okay those are the big city lights.

Wow, I’ve just described to you how the world was won.
Put that credit in my court,
and let’s celebrate the world together.
I mean not smoking and not being attached to smoking either.
So this rare new style
is upon the Earth today,
and as my teachers told me,
I put it there,
I and they.
Car commander,
be the example to everyone.
You have my permission.
Individuality under the Lord, you know?

I could do it before I found these lyrics,
lost lyrics,
as you won’t find them
until that thing happens
whereby one sees a poem
and gets other people to see it.
That mystery engagement with poetry,
I’m at a loss to understand.
Better thank a look,
knock out reader.
You know, have a nice day.

Make civilian source,
make civilian ready,
I am on my way
in the literary of my smile,
in the literacy of everybody’s smile.
Now here.
Is this Heaven? [vision with this line of being in a narrow exhibition space and colorful, extraordinary photographs on the walls all around me, more colorfully extraordinary ones appearing as I’m asking this question]
Your vanity
has registered a trip.
Oh excuse the mule,
he’s a real piece of work.
But I’m still comfort in,
and I’m standin’ by at your house,
if you ever wanna change the world
you live in.

How do you want me to be?
How to dream afterwards.
Tell this to the press corps:
I’m proud of yah;
you stopped killin’ people
on death row
(Oh BBC do you hear me?
That was pressure to kill
the Parkland shooter,
who you wanted killed.
Now on with the scroll),
and got the news ready
to see the criminal as a human being
you care about even though they did somethin’.
And there that’s my piece.

Not from institution to move along:
to auto-flash cooking
that old traditional paper just reports on.
We put it in user-generated content.
Hello gatekeeper, keep up.
Now there,
I got your number,
don’t I?

Supergame,
everybody listen to Hairy.
He’s got somethin’
make us all better people.
You out to lunch?
Glad you could join us,
as you left your sin and came over to help us.
Why do you all try to help?
We care,
which means
we grow up to care,
and everybody learns the three R’s
while they’re learnin’ this—
the whole import of school,
and can you tell me why not?

Newspapers here,
I gave you a way to make yourselves better.
Read this
to the public:
let’s teach our children to care,
and we solve all human-made problems
if we care about everybody.
How simple that is to see,
how horrible
we are blind to it,
and science-based gets us there?
Here’s where science fails:
it can’t see God,
and God alone cares.
We’re done.

The root of all papers,
and I’m figurin’ time.
What would you quib here,
I don’t see the import of your paper?
And if you said that
I don’t think you care
or even write home—
a poetry blush,
I mean practice for enlightenment.
Do we all come along?
Spiritual enlightenment,
it happens one person at a time.

I didn’t end this properly.
Let’s end this properly.
Okay where does your paper take us,
so long and thanks for all the fish?
At a human
let’s all look Christmas.
I mean study love
as the foundation of society.
Would I be talking to a brick wall?

The Music

On By Donny Lee DukeIn Inner Voice and Vision, overhead music, seer poetryLeave a comment
photo by Donny

A poem by Donny Lee Duke

Have you ever seen the field of lyrics?
They’re divine emails
to singers, songwriters, and the sunlit path.
Yah hear ‘em?
They wouldn’t mail you to hell.
They come on wings of golden charm
in a literary ear,
all of them
that define music.
How easily they come
rollin’ in a song.
I’ve sideswiped a mirror.
This just doesn’t sound right.
Force, cram, there, stars.
Oh my the lyrics,
they need a water table.

I’m about your engines of change.
I defy the world.
You hear that rock 'n roll?
It just poured in.
Even love songs lit it.
And the 60s went on
until we could hear the sound no more.
It really rolled in then.
Lyrics told us what to do:
be kind to your brother;
watch the looking glass;
we don’t need no thought control. [heard sung, Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall”]
And bands played on.
They all got out of sorts.

The sound of music [heard sung, R.E.M., variation on lyrics “You Are the Everything”]
compensates for society’s hard ways.
You know what I’m talkin’ about.
Music glows.
I don’t know how to tell you to control it.
It’s your business when to turn it off,
but don’t you want that bare reality boy,
you and the world
face to face?
You’d use that too
to come together on yourself.
Bare bottom reality,
where we find ourselves in fight,
come on let’s get out of here
to the tune of music.
Use a song to fight?
Let’s listen to reality.
Billy don’t be a hero. [heard sung by Bo Donaldson, line names song]
Thanks for calling in,
but sometimes reality’s really fucked, you know?
and you’d die if you didn’t take up arms,
you and your whole family,
a Ukraine emergency.
You, see the difference?

I’m loud enough.
I just don’t know where to begin.
I’m on sleaze mode,
and I just ego the world away,
or I’ve lost my tune
in a bucket
of melodyless words.
I don’t bring you anywhere
the skylight gets ahold of yah.
I’m pretty and all,
sometimes,
but I’m awfully small with sharks.
Today’s music, right?
I ego the moon away.
Give it a Grammy
to correct the past.
I’m on it—
a racially motivated statement.

Got a guitar,
just give it your play
in the do’s of yourself.
Music will come rollin’ off your lips
when you trouble time with words
that bring the world together
on your knee,
and you’re rockin’ it to sleep
in its ballroom,
no matter how loud it gets,
no matter how tune.
Oh you open yourself
in the rhythm of your ear.
Hear that
the light of music. [heard sung by R.E.M., “You Are the Everything”]
It’s in your neighborhood.
It’s comin’ upon yah now.
Play that song.

If you want to sing out sing out. [heard sung by Cat Stevens, line name of song]
You hear music?
Do you know how to listen?
It’s a metaphor for change.
You’ve got to get down there and do it,
make it better,
your crumble with the world.
It means so much.
Now you’re listenin’
to another radio program
than the one you usually hear.
It’s got music in it.
It’s also got love.
It doesn’t neglect you.
It tells yah how to sing.
It’s a motion on a better world,
a better you,
a better me.
The music of rebellion,
I’m talkin’ to it.
I don’t think we’d leave out our own change,
would we, “Dream On”?
Unbelievable
the way that song rocks us,
so help us look at ourselves,
rollin’ and all.
There’s a distance.
He’s fishin’ me off.
He’s right.
We can’t get at music’s purpose.
I say change,
and I’m puttin’ words on starlight.
I mean heavy
a world has deepened in music.
It gathers us
way beyond the song.

This is experimental candy.
It’s got loads behind it.
It will refashion our world if we let it.
It will get bigger than time.
It’s in your inner ear.
Play it out.
Not so much what,
what in the world—
who dat?
It’s not the Devil son.
It’s glory.
I’m not gettin’ a chair or somethin’.
I’m gettin’ all this juice
to dance my religions/relations. [two words spoken simultaneously]
Teletransport investigations,
I think we’ve just spoken easy money.
Let me see your hand.
You would have no hair on the palm
if you want to be transported right
with another.
I mean it wouldn’t be about gettin’ laid
that brings you to world union.

Okay you’ve got my song,
and I give it to yah
for free.
Can we mix music and money?
A need to get rich can’t.
Jay,
I just want to say
you ease my music.
But would I let it lead the song?
It doesn’t sing,
a laboratory
substances faces only.
Unbelievable
where we need to see the world.
It’s in our holding hands.
Without it eclipsin’ the world—
it’s not at a pot party.
Hey, you know,
can we play that again,
a thing on
making rules?
We dance here.
It’s not how we make the world.
We come together on ourselves, you know?

World understanding dim.
I got your door.
It’s so sweet it’s in the air.
It will be music,
and then you sing,
you sing the song.
You remember me.
I was so 60s.
I brought you the right music
for social revolution,
to change the world
into the peace that will change the world,
into a love that will last longer than you feelin’ it,
into a brotherhood that goes beyond race and people-kind.
Let’s make this revolution happen.
Let’s go to town on music.

Open
to your brother.
To my brother?
We need peace
to make this music happen,
to get this show on the road.
If he’s got a different opinion than you he’s your friend.
If she’s disagrees with you you still let ‘er in.
You see my catfish?
You see the food bank?
You see where we all need to improve?
This is a weird pharmacy.
You actually give your brother your time,
give your sister a shoulder to lean on,
and they disagree with you what if?
Oh my puddin’ and pie,
don’t feel bad.
Don’t get all upset.
Give them the love on your corner
without bendin’ the rules:
keeping out of opinion debate
and trying to convert one another
to what you believe in.
Opinion circles
never give up.
You have to give in.
You have to,
no matter what,
no matter who you are.

Yes,
talking that’s not listening.
After all man,
we’ve got so much work to do
gettin’ our hearing to hear past TVs
and radio poles.
We need to hear music.
We got to right now.
It’s the light of the world,
so much paper
to put that in your vision,
so much time
for you to see.

Alright music industry,
crank it out.
Who we gonna work with,
the major groups and singers?
They’re hardly listenin’
to where music reaches us
a better generation,
the pop sound
that joins reality to love.
You
are so romantic
you love the world.
It can’t be faked.
I’m singin’ it everyday,
where I play the world,
this clavicle of house,
this Earth of mine.
I can get better at.
I can improve.
One final word:
make peace within meditation the meditation begins.
God it’s beautiful.

How’d you do in your family?
Come over here.
Look’s like burnt out.
They subset got on the phone.
It’s gonna last you again.
Your family is the arrangement,
those people in front of you,
whoever they are.
There’s your boss.
Oh history of change it’s here.
Music will tell yah.
Listen.

Let’s get out of town square.
Falls
the world in,
and we’re go back to music.
Thought of giving it all away
to a registered charity,
if I ever get outta here. [three lines heard sung by Paul McCartney and Wings, “Band on the Run”]
Come on Paul let’s go.
We’ve got music to attend to.

Listen to My Dog

On By Donny Lee DukeIn ego activism, overhead poetry, seer poetryLeave a comment
Hannah, photo by Donny

A poem by Donny Lee Duke

A guy that’s on the net.
It’s on the net.
I not been poet before.
Spirits in my head and they won’t go. [line heard sung by the Strumbellas, “Spirits”]
We’re shoppin’ for cars.
Can’t find a one in your neighborhood.
Bubble me up please.
This is Ranger.

I’m calculating science.
You don’t understand the net.
I’ll make a video
to make everyone laugh
so I can feel special inside.
I’ll waste my time here.
I don’t know what to say.
Can you do it,
make meaning out of worth?

A horrible commotion
the whole damn net.
Where do we put it?
I’m sure some voices rise.
Some everywhere.
Let’s not fudge with it.
Let’s put meaning on there.
Can you mean somethin,
make us all grow,
like we mean something?

Where is it
the meaning of this paper?
I think you’ve thrown me away.
The net’s speaking me.
Can you hear that?
Can you show your inmost self on TV?
Just one rupee sir,
and we’ll have taxes of course.
See that net?
You won’t be a voice talking.
We won’t take you there.

Do I wanna go down there,
to a person’s imaginary poet world?
Nah,
I read a few lines.
I think we’re good.
What’s he gonna say,
meaning?
Throw that poet away.
I’ve got an appetite for stuff.

Many rules gonna get broken
for the net value.
You are not prepared for its worth.
You just think it’s ticklin’ time.
It’s like a Ouija Board.
Who moved that dial?
Quagmire.

I think you read me loud and clear.
Now let’s test this boat.
Too heavy for us.
I know;
you can’t do it,
wash your hands with Jewish genitals
and save the world.
See how smart you are.
You can’t get your head down your pants.

You need to go really, really, slow.
That book will scare you,
Between Jerusalem I’m Sorry.
Read that book.
It’s an understand the world book,
not just human genitals.
In this book they’re just redeemed.
Can you see Jerusalem?

Oh my God he’s on paper,
the Internet,
the whole world.
Green light,
oh we can go back
and change something
if it didn’t work.
What am I supposed to do,
with QAnon
and that whole Trump’s the savior mess?
Let’s get them meet the press
and it’s we lose our democracy
if they’re voted in.
You okay?

It’s in Nature to stick up like that.
This is a long poem,
exact words.
Give it with me,
the meaning of life.
Back them I didn’t realize, well,
your anxiety’s gonna come up.
I’m sorry,
give yourself a tight squeeze.
We’re handlin’ the book.

This poem needs a picture.
Who Hannah?
She’s a lovely dog.
Leading a dog
to where we belong in time.
Must be some book,
leading a dog through time.
You got my wolf?
I think it’s your wolf actually.
Anyway read the book.
Is that my measurement?
Yes sweetheart.
This person is solvin’ the world.
You got that Houston?

Which asks you to stretch.
It's not fun for The Family Guy either.
Small snake bite—
you won’t get away with it,
no matter how you read it,
without it doin’ you some number.
Enjoy it;
this is the end of the world
that doesn’t know its origin.

You’re headed for a disaster,
oh world we live in,
if you can’t bring this book to light,
or its ideas on some other page.
Look I’m talkin’ to yah straight.
No other book has the power
to bring you to change.
You mean it
where this book is bound to you,
and that’s a doctor,
the one you need right now.

You think I’m exaggerating.
It’s all in the book,
and I’ve just mentioned time.
Can you see that far?
I don’t think you’re even lookin’.
History has a book party.
I think you’ll find this book
in its Rolodex.

You’re not listenin’.
You’ve watched too many commercials.
I reader
am in the whole thing.
Read it
and don’t look back.

You want extra-terrestrial contact
I should ask.
I’m not talking about the one in spaceships.
This is bigger than words.
Okay talk to the world
the very nature of its see.
I’m showin’ you that
extra-terrestrial.
No other formula has it
quite to this degree.

You understand me?
The nature of the universe will talk to yah
in large poetry ships,
and the prose will just knock you sideways.
All in a day’s work
in that book.
You take it from here.

Anyway, let’s call most everybody:
what do you want to do when you grow up?
You want to be mountain and feel pregnant with the world?
Excellent,
I got it.
I got your book,
and we’re right here
in the lighthouse
Pondicherry U.S.A.
to the spirit of India,
where star wars meets the Earth
in Israel.
You got that car?
I’m drivin’ it down the street.
Hop in.
We’re happenin’.
We're leadin' a book through time.
Pondicherry lighthouse, photo by Donny

The Whole

On By Donny Lee DukeIn overhead poetry, supermindLeave a comment
photo by Donny

A poem by Donny Lee Duke

Wear Time
What texture is your vision?
Is it otherworldly?
Is it right there on the spot with everything?
Does it see layers?
Can it figure out God?
Do you see the reality behind reality,
see that in everything in reality?
If you only see yourself
standin’ on nothin’ but atomic molecules,
do you see anything else?
There is no beyond the universe,
nothing bigger than any conglomerate you believe in?
Do you see a beginning and an end
to the concept of forever?
Do you see the forces behind the universe
making it all happen?
Do you see yourself in that
a representative player in a chess game
with the ‘figure-it-all-out’?
Do you see meaninglessness as only existence?
Do you see the meaning of the stars?
Can you see any bigger than your little figure on earth
a humpback in immensity?
Can you see yourself in the microscope of time?
Can you see what you’re here for?
Can you see what you have to do?
Can you see the meaning of this poem?
Can you it see it plain and clear?
Can you see I’ve shown yourself beyond time?
Can you see that’s your spot in evolution,
the journey beyond anything stars made,
the journey beyond the universal envelope we’re in?
Can you see that figure here
where you’re at,
a body on earth?
You see a lot, don’t you?
Wear Light
There is an honesty here I can’t seem to capture.
There’s guttural, bold-faced reality
we don’t know how to adapt
to our meaning lives,
to our ordered square one.
We’re faced with it everyday.
We negotiate.
We stand on our head.
We dance and sing.
We don’t know what to do about it,
make it so it works
where our lives face the world.
We just stand there and gaze at it,
not knowing what to do with it.
It’s just a great big mother fucker,
too much little in our lives,
a mountain highway
that falls from grace.
It’s a little bump in the road
that threatens existence.
Now I talk to you
about what we’re doin’ here.
Can we redeem chaos?
Can we take the barrel of the Void
and fill it with God’s wine?
Can we take God’s night
and make it show the world?
Can we be what we are in knowledge
to where we are beneath ourselves?
Can we be real man?
A little piece of God
has fallen into the light.
Will it ever see again
it is God?
I heard you on the stairway hum an old familiar tune [heard sung by Bob Ayala, "Silent Witness"]
with the yoga of the world where God has been,
and we’re reachin’ there, you know?
And I’m with yah buddy.
Abdicate in Light
I seem to see myself
apart from everything,
a whole world unto myself.
I’m inside myself
watching you out there
oh world events in time.
It’s special in here.
It’s got grand in it.
It’s incredibly vast
in the fingers of my see.
I can’t make of it
the right thing to you,
the all, the everything.
Can we call that for later show?
I’m a principle list
in the summation of my see,
and I grapple with you the same.
Equal integers
on this strange planet,
we broker a see.
Incredible, isn’t it?
Is that the only way to see stars?
Can we get out of this?
I’m holdin’ it tight
in everything I do.
Can you believe me?
Oh my God I believe you.
I really, really, do.
Hear me?
We broker a universe
in the substance of ourselves.
We are so down there, you know?

We broker a universe you know.
Get my wings,
and I’m free space,
and I give all that to you.
What’s wrong with this see?
I’m not there yet,
but I’m standin’ right beside you.
Okay I’m blind.
I think you said that.
That’s time’s worth.