Brave New World - A Rap by DJ TazzieDog

My acrid invective, selective

Directed to a world gone mad

Sadly teetering on the brink

Of what? Destruction? The stink of corruption?

It might come down

To those capitalized clowns

 Making the rounds with the

Takers, the breakers, the policy makers

Doing the bidding, taking the hitting

Fitting the world in

Maniacal games of

Fame, fortune, greedy contortion

Cesspooling their retooling

Fooling with our resources

Our recourse is

An evolution of

Trickle down solutions

Call it revolution

When the shit hits the fan

And the cowards all stand

On their island alone

With their glam and their gab

On their now sinking slab

We will sup with the fish

We will breathe in the pitch

Of the pine and

Rewind the plunder

That brought us asunder

We will look to the stars

That shine down on our hood

We will learn to be good.

DETACHED

     

A treasure trove of idiosyncratic humanity. A struggle of oddities, carefully curated, fumbling to fit into a landscape…Alone together, a cold comfort of disconnected souls, detached wires, wireless but longing for a signal, just a crackle of recognition.  “Your usual”? asked the barista, who once tried to escape in pursuit of a grander scheme, but then returned to the familiar. Competence centered on steam and froth and recognition of the passing throng: their preferences, their dislikes, their way of controlling their tiny worlds. She stood in line, losing the line. That’s what her coffee shop actor/director acquaintance called it, “losing the line.” Something about getting lost in a different reality, or maybe just about getting lost in general. The way she felt most of the time. The way her life took on a blur. A shadow within a shadow. True self became a series of meaningless poses, demanded by the hour, the minute, the transitive verb, the object of her affection. Still, the auburn hair, still auburn. At least there was that. Other things too, grounded her.  A phrase, the swill of coffee, a glance of, what, sympathy? Wait! Was it sympathetic? A slit of blue from a quick side-long, five bodies ahead, next in the order queue. As if he knew all the crazy shit rolling around her carousel noggin. Well, she’d never know and that was just great because the last thing she needed at this moment was a real human interaction that required real thinking or, at the very least, empty-headed diatribe, which, although skilled in thoughtless conversation, meaning less-thought, still, she wasn’t in the mood and preferred, at this moment, the stream of consciousness meanderings that took her away from the line and rows of unnecessary coffee-related products.

         “Here, I thought you might like this,” he said while handing her a white cup with mocha-hued froth peering out the top. Stymied, she accepted the, was it gift or gesture? Before she could gather up a “thank you”, he was gone. Blue eyes, blue jeans, dark hair, gone. She left the line and went to the window to look for him in the parking lot. Gone. The cup getting warmer in her hands.

HAPPINESS

As an aside, if you look at the word "happiness" long enough it starts looking suspiciously wrong-headed and you may wonder if it is misspelled, just as I wonder if "misspelled" is misspelled. It looks a little weird, as well. Who in the world thought it might be a good idea to take the word "happy", an adjective and turn it into a noun by eliminating the "y" which, by the way, gives the word itself a rather jaunty appearance, and replacing it with an "i" followed by "ness". Curiouser and curiouser. Yet another word that is looking rather, shall I say, curious.

HAPPINESS

I am not happy

Only part of the time

The other part

Is less than happy, yet

More than not

Happy, that is

Not, not happy

Yet, not, happy.

 Flip book smiles

Smirks, herky jerks

Strobe

Off and on

Off and on

And I, with my

Half-empty glass

Reflect on something

Or nothing,

Which must be

 Something,

It’s all perception

A squint, a sizing up

A startled look into

Half-happy eyes

Mr. Muir - A Rap by DJ TazzieDog

My man Muir, yes,

John’s the one

The sort who took on

The Bully world

Hugging the trees, tending the bees

Stormin’ the normal

The inevitable breeze

Of greed and corruption, disruption, destruction

Hetch Hetchy fetchin’

The damn of deception

Come on back y’all

See we’ve soiled your lega-

See the giant sell out

Your imprimatur

Rebuffed, engulfed in

Carbon black and toxic

Hack, Jack the evil deed

Your field sewn with evil seed

Honor trashed by 

A mad dash for quick cash

Come on back

Your stately place, the grace

You hastened to put nature

In its rightful place

Lecture the lecturers

The wretched wreckers

Babbling, bobbling

Status quo retchers

Come on back

Lay down some

Inspiration

Through renunciation

Of this conflagration

A reiteration of

Nature’s value,

Throw out those bread crumbs

We’ve lost our way

The Chancellor and his bums

Have led us astray, no more time

To delay or parlay the sweet talking

Do nothing, empty squacking

Foray into apathy

Come on back Jack,

Show us the way.

The Right To An Abortion

NEWS FLASH: Abortion is legal in the United States.  Has been since January 22, 1973 when the Supreme Court in a 7-2 ruling in the Roe vs. Wade case decided in favor of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion if she felt she needed one. That should have been the end of the story. Those who didn't need an abortion or felt having one was against their principles could check the box, "no abortion", birth the babies and be on their way. The woman who, for whatever reason, felt she needed to have an abortion could choose that route. It was deemed a woman's private decision based on the due process clause of the 14th. amendment of the Constitution. Just a bit about the 14th. amendment: It was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the "Reconstruction Amendments" proposed in response to issues related to former slaves, following the Civil War. The amendment was very controversial, particularly with the Southern states, obviously not in favor of giving any rights to former slaves, but was ratified even by the south in order for them to regain representation in Congress.  Within the amendment are several clauses, one of which is the "Due Process Clause". It prohibits state and local government officials from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without legislative authorization. This is the clause that formed the backbone of the successful argument of the Roe v. Wade case. Planned Parenthood has been a woman's health organization that has provided an array of services, including abortion. Because of its offering these legal services, it has been demonized by the anti-abortion forces, ironically called "pro-life", as the devil incarnate. Planned Parenthood offices have been bombed, looted, vandalized, attacked; their doctors have been terrorized with death threats and some have died. All in the service of providing legal health services to women. The "righteous"soldiers who claim they are following God's marching orders to protect the right of the unborn, have become more than nuisances, they have practiced domestic terrorism and aim to take this right away from women through intimidation and misinformation. Their latest act is the hacking of Planned Parenthood's  email system and video-taping Planned Parenthood's clinics, entrapment through the establishment of bogus fetal tissue dispensary clinics and an array of other antics of brimstone buffoonery and bluster. They have captured the headlines with their unsavory methods and aim to keep chipping away at a woman's right to choose until she has no right to choose. Even though it is the law of the land. Oh, by the way, a woman has a right to donate tissue that comes out of her body to research, be it fetal tissue or tissue from an appendectomy. It belongs to her and she can give it away.

In Memoriam: Sandra Bland

Just a regular girl going about her regular business on a regular day that took a very irregular turn. Three years older than my own daughter. This could have been my daughter, except that it couldn't because my daughter is white. Sandra was black. That made all the difference. Pulled over for failing to use her car blinker for a lane change, she faced the evil of racism in one whose duty is to protect and serve all of our citizens. She was arrested on trumped up charges of nothing and on her third day in prison was found hanging from the end of a plastic bag. Death by suicide. That's the story from the authorities. I believe that's not the end of this story. Once again, I feel shock, disgust, a personal failing of some sort by the sheer whiteness of my complacency.

Take my chariot words

Mere bluster

Swill for the stampede

All I can muster

For now

And then.

Or my rapacious deeds

Pithy and brightless

Forging no light

Less than more

Light, less 

Brightness

Take my fiery frills 

Of no stance

Shy swagger, a fist raised

Sheer romance,

Thumbs up praise

I am part of IT

See fit to pretense

Anguish, incense

But I’m IT

I am IT

Could I shiver more?

Canyon Banter

The hawk does the talk in the morning at six
when I'm still driving home in a dream that won't stick
 and the airwaves get cued with all manner of squawk and what ensues is
Rude
Awakening, I fake the scene of quiet slumber
 outside my window, the rumble of thunder asunder
 Wonder what is up with that?
Scat you ungodly demons, you crows, clashing, cawing, clawing for dominance
It's my sense that ornithological, pathological, diabolical prominence in the wee hours
Will not relent nor retreat and my sleep once sweet
Now ends at 6:10