Delivering Dirt

After Blood Diamond, Beyonce, and St. Ambrose

"If you liked it you should have put a ring on it"

"The poor mine gold, but they are not allowed to keep it"

Delivering dirt pull the guts from the earth and
All that glitters is stone
All that glistens is blood
Sweat the little sweatshop things,
Knife (the threat, the self-hate, the robbery)
Tears, torn clothes, I'm right there with the homeless
I want to check out on things
(I'm not tempted but I understand the bud and the huff)
At least maybe then my hands
Would be clean
Of the money
Implications of global greed society
(I like bananas and I love Guatemala I want to support the people
But not the fruit companies)

Silver, Gold, Diamonds, pretty anniversaries,
I don't think I'll ever be able to give you these things,
I hope you understand (why I react)

"You dig up gold from the mines, only to bury it again.
How many lives did you bury with it? "

I don't know who made my shoes
and if his family is starving
If he's grateful for my money or screwed
By my purchase I try to
buy less but that doesn't
really change demand much
The cash still flows
Blood diamonds blood oil blood toys
blood guns blood government
blood nation everything is
red (between the lines of unspoken
histories--Sex Money Murder L'il Wayne reppin' blood)
white (washed by the myths and
the press and the left out)
blue world of bruise
eagle fist to the face, (speak softly and carry grenades)

love is steel, those who live by the sword the machine gun and endless words
I'll make you a etched ring of steel someday,
(love is cold and modern and bourgeoise)
If it would last, I'd prefer a string,
love is like that, a fragile reminder,
holding us loosely, setting us free
set us free from the ball and chain mentality
and the money the money the money
and the earth is labour and raw materials
and we'll deliver the poor return to sender this bloody mess
baby in a little black box, a pile of flesh and
blood and stone and dirt.

Mer

Push seaweed hair back past your green flash mermaid-pursed corneas
So I can sea through the scales and dark swells.
Sharks would mince us alive
Or maybe my pride
We're swirling round solar spin machine
Conducting opposite poles of electricity
Losing the score, keeping sore, washing the past,
Merry-pole-may-go-round,
Every time I reach round
Your kelp hair flings back out of town
(Kelp me. Hair for me. No-nevermind I'm scar(r)ed.)
Cheers, we're on the tipping scales in our hands, knees bent,
Tottering on the edge of commitments
Teetering towards pseudo-relationships
Swinging out past the edge with our feet in the air
Wondering if this time around we'll lose our
slip on our common board surf,
decay out of orbit and
bruise our hard tailbone hearts and
  scatter sawdust waves in the run for a lunar-faced mom.

All Finches Go to Seed

Cupped head in a half-lemon 
Even though I shouldn't compost flesh
Cross myself, a little reverence
As I lay you in the grass
Maggots roll you over in your bed

You'll never fly again my little omen
Gold cap on a stately grey crest
You'll never open up curious eyes
To see the soil become a garden

I will see you in flowers
I will see you in the sunlight upon them

Oh little phoenix
Will you rise again?
You're far too small for such
a grand thing as heaven.

God please open up a gate, a little crack in the fence
For me and my tiny feathered friend
My shrill twits and all the things I believe
Aren't the kind of songs to sing on Golden ave.
So when you lay me in the earth
Let me wake up close to ground
A little sand, some trees, the flowers, the compost heap
And new wings for the friend I've found.