In "Emerson and Thoreau Meet the Bhagavad-Gita,"
the poem that I hope some day to write, 
our two great American spokesmen 
lean on the wisdom of another age, 
in another dispensation of human consciousness,
to seek a guidance for their conduct,
      or so I see the matter, 
in the crisis of their day. 
 
The Bhagavad-Gita, one tale -- one narrative gesture
            within a gigantic cycle of mythical stories 
dating from a millennium we don't have on our side of the world --
in which a god not easily understood in Western terms,  
            Krishna, 
speaks to the chief warrior of his age,
            Arjuna,
on the doorstep of the his culture's primeval "World War"
as he decides whether or not to participate
in what is essentially a civil war, as all wars are, 
if humanity is your family,
and which he knows will result in great suffering and 
stupendous loss of life. 
 
Yet Krishna, Lord of All the Senses, Friend of the Afflicted, 
(but also Beloved Cowherd and possessor of 105 other common titles)  
explains the history and meaning of almost everything 
in order to show the reluctant warrior hero
why he 'must play his part'
in this most terrible battle of the world in which he is 
            fated, destined, 
and therefore must choose to live.
 
Just so Thoreau, and more reluctantly Emerson, 
came not only to condemn slavery, 
and to aid in the escape of fugitive slaves, 
but to praise the violent deeds 
of the anti-slavery martyr John Brown,
even at the risk 
of plunging their nation into what proved to be 
an enormously costly, bloody, 
            endlessly consequential,  
Civil War,
 
leading us to consider, 
What Do We Do Now?
                        

Money never free
'Free' and 'Money'? A paradox, no?
 
What I will say 
That I lay awake   past-dreaming of Beautiful People 
            I Have Known 
that often I am the first to arrive
the last to speak
that I am happy never, like
            the heroes of a poem,
to have died young
or gone to war
or stood for office 
   not even for Class President 
a role I imagine now as Facebook Friend 
    to the universe,
that I am sorry to be so close-pocketed 
and happy to be so free
to be whatever I am saving myself for, 
especially chocolate
                        

In youth we romance the rose
You always give a little blood
For nature's beauty has its price
As every grower knows
 
Never mind, you'll learn to be a cultivator 
and rise upon life's elevator 
But pain is part of all that's where and which 
One day you'll wake, uprooted, in a ditch,
 
the band no longer playing
the woodchucks near are sniffing
your lover vaguely if-ing  
and the hogs will eat your toes
But -- next month! there's a dance in the county!
And the count is a walking asshole -- 
on his way no doubt to be President -- 
You all know how that goes
 
Better to stay home
            and grow your very own 
Violets -- for Remembrance? 
Tu-lips? How positively feature-istic 
Pansies! How thoughtfully they've blown 
 
Before you can approach the rose, 
you must stumble through rasp-berry's canes
where the crows feed on the leftovers
            from the latest 
                        crucifixions
Rome wasn't built without pains
 
But love, Ah! the test of love
the rose that no one knows, 
I will follow the tale of troubadours 
I will weather windy, future blows
 
Infection, desiccation white as mold, 
Everything dies in the wintry cold 
We are trapped between asters and daisies 
cross paths with the lost, meet a few dozen crazies 
And swear to never grow old 
 
Meet me then in piney woods
where we pine for what is snot
No one promised us a rose garden
We curse the day that hearts were born
and kiss amid the thorns