The nationality of paleontologists

Those 2 thousand year old columns on the hill
sticking out of the sand
The sand an aged browny yellow
down to the sparkling champagne
of the sea

A tour operator who was born in the sand
stately date palms the feet of the desert
History knocks you out in the color and trim of the city
This lost old piece of the world
Where ignorance blinds the habitants from their own past

These fine ruins of palaces
spied on from thousands of miles away
Poor sheet wrapped desert walkers
Don't own or understand their own legacy

Heads and hearts bound by dogma
deceiving them like a soft tarp protecting them
from that sickly dawn frost at years end

Looking down from the visor

Black shiny armor
Bullet proof shields
convinced brains
in hot skulls
under riot helmets

Truncheons move to the march
Uniforms dull them into
A violent sleep awake
A soul willing to destroy

Each man is handed a gun
each gun loaded
each trigger pulled until
blood on the road

Protestors trampled
screams pushed out of them
like blood out of them
like taxes out of them

Just bodies waiting for the hired gun
The stubborn despot
infecting helmet fulls of youth
infecting uniform wearers

Just looking down on those banner holders
Those eyes so uncaring
soup carcass of authority
repressing the people ruthlessly

Looking out of that protective visor
banging the truncheon on his shield

Scratch across the nightmare

Squash the dragon
Call up the brave souls that wait
somewhere in the ether
to show us support

Something swirls out of the darkness
forming and flying into existence
dragon like
somewhere closer to our reality

Some false terror has swindled the air
darkness' closest ally
permission to prowl
yet now pick the parasites from our dreams

hug our sheets
and squash the dragon

Sons of adventure

Sons of the sun
Father searching the empty market
Young eyes still seeing abundance
The smooth panels of your boxlike houses
above the manicured lawns each blade of grass glistening
new born babies

Screen connected, something special to eat
In your house
 From the heart of a father
a generation forms
No half empty supermarket can stop them
They own the world

Not addicted to screens or dull convention
Questioning and self conditioning
Learning the true value and forgetting complaint
Dependence is not worn by them
only magnificent expansions, motives of glory

Sons of this whole new attempt
so automatic
From where strong arms and minds of struggle crossed the swamps
And landed shocked and exhausted like wet rats after a flood
optimistic within the city limits
Arriving with the new morning with a tool to make it shine brighter

Forward with full force
take full credit

Family, that colored machine

Into the colored machine
Into the gestures and voices
Of a moving family

Over highways
muddy lake margins
Up to fondness front door

What a caravan it is
So many colors
A brother smiling

Certainty
Hard concrete
City motorways full of junctions

A family is the puzzle put together
even if the pieces don't seem to fit
the way you'd like

Stardust and the chameleon child

The softness of air
colored by fame but you didn't care
You were there, always someone else
Changing for us, changing like night and day

Expressing our many phases on stage
You were our delicate secrets, half a strum of our rage
Throwing vulnerability with the strength of a titan
Throwing fingertips over chords like your hands were insane
The voice box ached and roared
Your music poured into our brains

Standing true a blond eighties apocalypse on stage
Burning like rocket fuel
Touching Africa with a shrewd but loving stroke
Touching the solar system, inviting it for a toke
Pumping poison ivy into mediocre and predictable lost yobs

Giving nonsense to the chefs whose ingredients never change
How did you get so high
coming down and rough hung over
still rearrange, stay as much fighter as lover
How did you learn to steer

Out of the blue asteroids danger
Still rhythming sly
Melodying on the side
Rocking the listeners emotion

With two different colored eyes

Close to vision

 Sharing your words,
 the page a pitcher,
 the rolling waves hit us in silence,
 together as a lost herd.

 Together feeling the vibration
 of our confusion forming into a heavy sense,
 falling into the tide and being carried out with it,
 into his eye,

 counting the waves
 as we are washed in the wisdom
 of many a scribe's infinite verse
Close to vision

Your face

What are men supposed to be
I feel my life has helped form me
The skin of my body the open pages
of my biography

Where do the young look to change
To get their identity
Soft skin
lost on the earth

Each day and each string of conversations
forming words, lines on their faces
Coloring their little world's with popular paint
fantasizing about tattoos

Oh what are men supposed to become
The ink of their actions
The food of rumor
The skin we wear hiding much

But exposing a lot
Like some portrait moving along the streets
transforming into a masterpiece
and over the years gaining and losing color

But the symbolism is priceless

The Brazealander

I'm a brazen Brazealander no shame
Tis not the only reason for my fame
It's not from where inspirations came
There's nothing else but verse to blame

My mouth struggles yet achieves
most of those crazy vowels in Portuguese
Though my accent is still blunt
like the beak of a traveled Kiwi

Yes I am a Brazealander two parts
Not many such as I
Two countries in heart
equally paradise

I'm a Brazealander as far as it allows
Not many such as me
I dream of Pohutakawas
Under the shade of palm trees

I've often been accused vehemently
of being some other foreigner lost on the street
A Kraut, a Yank even a shrimp on the Barbie
Don't they know New Holland is not a country?

A Brazealander just shrugs it off
Keeps walking, slinging the slang, a learner of the lingo
Not your stock standard reaction machine of a gringo?
Not a carnival ticket buying, that's where my bling goes
The lights, costumes, glitter and semi nude pose

A Brazealander, cut the steak, light the grill and "Pimba"
Smile on the face, beer in the hand, touch the samba
Music so chill you're two winks from a coma
Neighborhood filled with that barbecue aroma
Brazealander has two places he calls his home, lar

The yellow house

It's a home of sorts
Oh buy me social clutter
On the corner of local market chatter
Buy me somewhere, where the rays of the sun...
Bring out the paint on our worthy livings

There's little gloom but much shine
Onto an outdoor landing up to the front door, mine
and down like every drop of rain, down inevitably down
curving and shaping the swerve of the street in contrast with...
Oh how funny the way the sunshine beats

Rusty latches hold enough silvery metal to reflect a ray
Wayward residents such as I thank daily life
Thank those bodies that are our creaking residences
Inside for the long winter nights, several games until midnight
The summer blue sky crossed, always looking for my paintbrush

Uphill river

The river runs uphill
It doesn't adhere to gravity
It pushes up carving out it's path
Following the road way for witnesses

Down in the valley
families of skeptics watch it rise
Unbelieving, shocked
Young theories blossom

The summer outruns autumn
Like some new kid on the field
Deciduous trees still bear green leaves
The strange river continues to flow where it shouldn't

Explanations give little comfort
make little sense
And seem to follow the river uphill
yet some believe

Millenium hits puberty

Lightening was success
Two blue tones of light in the sky
Flash of weeks of fine days, popularity
Synchronicity

Brilliant time
Opportunity cracked open 
Golden
overpowering

Lightening was success
as the millennium hit puberty
Two blue tones
of electricity

Explosions accumulate
Dawn spills out
silver and godlike
optimism

The trans-parent stream

The Waterlands where people bask
Where leisure is bought
but no price is asked
Old feuds dissolve like aspirin

Friendly ambitionless attendants dull thoughts
among the trees
To eat and drink and flow like the water
free

Children no longer hear their well spring's bickering
Desires are shelved and garaged
So that you may wade into the glistening
Without a flinch or an inch of disparage

Streams that collide and connect
radiating peace
A feast to accept
Collect joy from the current as it flows below your knees

Phonetone, phonetone

The fat long tapering ring tone on the phone line
Like a frog's extended croaks into the humid night air
Echoing down the line and into my ear
Like the frog's croak across the tranquil swamp

Each half of the ring tone a messengers step
A bulge in the sky down to the power lines
The urgent waiting swell quotidian orchestra
A fat long clean blade ring tone to cut the silence

It is the pedaling of anticipation
The heartbeat of active communication
On the other end of that line
An ear may catch it and a hand pick it up to answer

Cicero's nightmare

It's a crisis
The will of the people is low
The swing of the hammer, the axe and the pick, weak
The wonder and glory of our times must be realized
Though there is no sweat on the brow

No quality reflection
The people and their entertainers are draining themselves
with triviality and conjecture
The statues of yesterday grow moss
And triumphs are only truly comprehended by old fashioned minds

Where is the morning horn to hasten the day
awaken the lazy and set them to work
Why have we spent so much time on fighting boredom
Instead of standing and purely fighting for our own short meager life

It's a crisis when the level of concern is never met with action
and the level of concern is never raised for in apathy they wallow
and come out odoriferous with the stench of complacency
and such high levels of predictability
devoid of creativity

For the people expect everything from their government
and nothing from themselves

Under scrutiny

Did the guilt come before or did it come after
A foot into the questioning room
A tiptoe into the inquisition, certainty melts
We look on for the tell tale signs of guilt

The carpet fabric office chairs
The hardwood table
The words that get behind words
That make one liable

Those questions that tread on the tulips
And leave Tiny Tim breathless
Each gesture a game
Each question a weapon

Fear play

No longer a servant in the house of towels
A madame of the house ordering and losing her cool
Half a dozen spoilt children each a prospect for the team
Servitude can make you beautiful

No longer a player in a junior team
Some game with nets and excitement
Eagerness in each boy and girl the same
Their plight mediocre local fame

A family that wouldn't pay for it's maid
A team that inspires it's players
through fear of slavery
The local neighborhood is a food trough

My car needs a kidney

Copilots like me put into the driver's seat
Long discussions about the automobile's performance
The color of words deepens as we talk about a toy
about an object of delight to simple boys

There's something wrong with the car
I'm obsessed with finding the spare part
Turning corners and caressing side streets
embracing the avenue of industrial products

Down the road passing the great warehouses
Passing the spare parts shop
Putting on the breaks slowly reaching a stop
I need that spare part

An easy solution

Change your diet
Rent a vampire
Lock your doors
Open the darkness

Action and Romance
Food that you can eat
Eyes and feelings follow the movie
like your feet do the hill track

The darkness hides so many vicious things
Why open yourself to it a hurt child
Your blood may be drained
But your stomach may remain round and heavy

Learn your steps

Who will you dance with
Who will you invite
those wheels turning quickly
every thought your mind a bike

Out there where all can see you
music and danger you love the way
Totally naked in front of those who'd judge you most
Music plays you flip and dress yourself enough to dance

Through the tunnel where all just follow moves
no longer unpredictable but predetermined characters
Following limited roles
who will you dance with says the electronic clown