PodPoet in 'Second Life'

The PodPoet of San Diego, CA. will be discussing the success of his Hellicane hurricane poetry podcast and blog at a session of the PodCamp Second Life event taking place this weekend in the online 3-D virtual world of Second Life. PodPoet will be discussing and taking questions about Hellicane from 6-7 p.m. Pacific Time. To join Second Life and participate, visit www.secondlife.com ... more information about PodCamp Second Life can be found at: http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/PodCampSL

POEM: Canada

I'll meet you in Toronto
Where all is as it should be
Then party with you in Montreal
And revel in our drunken liberty

We'll smell the pungent pine trees of Vancouver
And snowboard high above the city lights
Then take the ferry to grand Victoria
And see how Canada does Britain right

And in old Quebec City
History will be our guide
On the Plains of Abraham
We'll meet our own demise

But not before longing for Alberta
Whose cowboys and stampedes we never saw
Nor neglecting the rest of vast Canada
And all about it that filled us with such awe

Hellicane: For Those In Need

NOTE: The PodPoet Podcast is currently on hiatus while the PodPoet pursues another poetic project over at Hellicane: an evolving blog of original poems by, for and about those affected by the recent hurricanes. It's become the most popular site of its kind on the Internet! Plans for a Hellicane Podcast are in the works. Hellicane: because sometimes the power of poetry can help those in the greatest of need.

POEM: Is This My Country?

City of my joy, city of my dreams
Under water and forgotten
Corpses floating by
Babies dying
Young and old blacks, old whites

That could be my grandmother
Dead in her wheelchair
Or my brother’s corpse
Floating in the water

My President is bragging about his war
Surrounded by white-clad sailors
Spending the night in the white Hotel del Coronado
While blacks, mostly blacks
Suffer and die

The aid trickles in
More die by the hour
Donate to the Red Cross
I do so but feel worthless nonetheless

It is not what I can or cannot do
Do or do not do
That would save those people

It is what my society
My government
My leaders
Are able to do

They disappoint me
And I am ashamed
Of the government
Of the society
I call my own
And am part of
And am at least in part responsible for

I’ll become better than that
And settle for nothing less
From those who lead me

Goodbye New Orleans
I’ll see you again on the other side of this nightmare


To see many more comments on this poem, click here and scroll down to the comments section.

VIDEO: The Bumper Stickers Did It

PodPoet poetry can take many forms, not just the written word. Enjoy this week's presentation: a man's faith in America is restored -- following the 2004 presidential election -- by the bumper stickers of Eugene, Oregon.

Tribute to My Grandmother

The podcast of my grandmother's poem, "A Blind Child Speaks," which she recorded in her own voice, elicited some deep-felt comments from PodPoet fans. Below is one such comment I share in tribute to my grandmother who, at 91, continues to inspire me every day.

PodPoet:

I just want to say that your grandmother's poem is both touching and tasteful and by far one of the best poems I have heard spoken aloud in a long time. Her voice was not only the light of the poem - it was the core essence of beauty to bring out both the sadness and the sheer emotional empathy we are to feel for the poem.

Poetry has always been inspiring and thought-provoking to me. And, alas, I have gone astray from it for quite some time. Then I hear someone who has written a poem that seems to be a treasure lost in time. And I think that, with her reading of it now - through the greatness of the Internet - we can hear a voice which our generation does not reconcile with much. That voice is of those who have lived in the past - and hold much glory in the present. Perhaps our heroes are not those who try to redefine the art of poetry today, but those who have hidden poetry in the past. Your grandmother's poem should be heard by all the world, and then some. Quite beautiful indeed. It touches the core of poetry.

Paul E.

PodPoet Hiatus = Ameripean Sojourn

The PodPoet with Hungarian friend Sofie in Budapest, with the Hungarian Parliament building across the Danube River.

The PodPoet podcast has been on hiatus for a few weeks while the PodPoet embarked on an 'Ameripean Sojourn' - 3-1/2 weeks in England, France, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and Holland. For photos and commentary from the trip, click on Ameripean Sojourn

POEM: Kansas City

This is Kansas City
Staid and pure
With the bitter irony of bigotry
Thinly veiled beneath the white cake
Of American innocence

POEM: The Better Beggar

Homeless person begging
For a buck on bended knee
Advertisers pandering
For bigger bucks from me

Which is worse
In my mind?
Or are they of
The same kind?

One asks for pity
But puts up barely a fuss
The other tries it all
To win my lasting trust

One forces weathered hand
Toward avoiding face
The other crams it down my throat
To make sure I get a taste

Beggars beg to pass the time
Floundering at rock bottom
In society’s eyes they amount
To nothing more than rotten

Begging businesses hide behind
The mask of free enterprise
And disguise their begging pleas
In hyperbole and lies

Vagrants are rounded up
And shoved into a corner
Corporate America targets
And demonizes the former

In places I can easily avoid
Beggars hang out…here and there
Not so the other beggars
For they are everywhere

Billboards, TV, radio and Web
At the movie theatre and video store
Hell, they even got stinkin’ ads
Right on the supermarket floor!

I’m Steve Wynn
And this is my new hotel
Coke is it, just do it
It’s better at the Bell

Plop plop fizz fizz
The proud, the few
I’m Tom Bodell
And we’ll leave the light on for you

Seventy zillion served
The ultimate driving machine
Viagra’s gonna help you
Get it on with Mr. Clean

Can you hear me now? Good.
Chicken of the sea
The king of…ahhh, crap!
Give it a rest, please

I could go on forever
With slogans in my head
Now that Madison Avenue
Has replaced life with ads instead

But ‘brother can you spare a dime’
From vagabond or bum
Is a tagline of another sort
One heard quite seldom

It bothers me hardly at all
Pervades my life far less
Of both the beggars I’m crystal clear
Which one of them is best

The homeless man can have his place
In this lucky life I lead
But take away the di-ad-rhea
And give me the balance I need

Yes, give me homeless, give me stench
Leave me penniless and alone
But take away the corporate filth
Trashing every American home

I dream of a day to come
When millionaire moguls across the land
House the homeless, feed the hungry
And put a dime in that weathered hand

POEM: A Blind Child Speaks

I may not see the way you do
With eyes so bright and quick
But I know where flowers abound
And where the grass grows thick

I know if you are kinda little
And I know if you are tall
O I can see so many things
YOU may not see at all

I use my ears and hands for eyes
And make them see for me
I listen hard and gently touch
And thus it is I see

God must have a reason
For making me like this
Perhaps He meant for me to see
What other people miss!


Copyright 1950 Barbara Bodine

POEM: For Fernando

Fire Burning inside me
Sadness turns to happy

Two arms holding mine
Discord now is rhyme

Rainbow spreading above
...as loneliness becomes love

POEM: Getting Pumped Up to Get Laid

Getting pumped up to get laid
Building muscle to pave the way
Pounds shed, muscles flaunted
Wanting so desperately to be wanted
You hate the thought of a shirt
Worked too hard to cover up your work
Those hard shapes define a lifestyle
Muscles cover weakness...for a while
But can a sexy new bod fill the hole
Or will something else make life meaningful
You're a poster boy of the physically fine
Until, one day, you see the first sign
And to gym workouts you add another regimen
Popping pills, as lesions threaten the skin
What went wrong, you ask
What mistake
What sin?

POEM: Little Fly

There used to be a little fly
Who saw the world through all her eyes

On everything touched by her little feet
Instead of germs she brought a treat

She had the power to change things
By spreading love and all it brings

One day she landed on George Bush
Then caught the jet stream and was pushed

Across the Atlantic to the Middle East
Determined to replace hate with peace

She fell from the sky as if heaven-sent
And brought to Saddam Hussein a certain present

Landing on one of his big toes
That little fly changed two foes

And turned them into two men
Who loved each other as two friends

And soldiers returned from overseas
And all the prayers on all the knees

Were heard and answered that very day
Each, you can be sure, in its own way

Peace reigned over the Earth
And the little fly gave birth

To a dozen more just like herself
Whose progeny will always help

Spread the germ known as love
Sent from somewhere up above

Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed...and God in the sky
All of them - and many more - are the fly

POEM: dot.com

dot.com dot.com dot.com dot.com
dot.com dot.com dot.com dot.com

dot.com dot.com dot.com dot.com
dot.com dot.com dot.com...dot.com

POEM: Ode 2 2Pac

The clichés come pouring out:

Killed by the life you sung about

Riddled with the bullets you praised-
A fitting comeuppance for one so crazed

But what do those clichés see?
Only black skin, and an ethnic goatee

A hard one to defend, for sure
Like the rest of us, far from pure

Arrests and convictions and endless fights
And a few too many wild nights

Alleged treatment of a devoted fan
Did you really treat her that way, man?

You reflected the horror of kids like yourself
The ones left behind on the ghetto shelf

After the ones like you make it big-time
Laying down albums of violence and crime

You rapped of bloodshed and proud misogyny
But amidst such vitriol, you added poetry

You laced your rants with rays of hope
And eloquently addressed the struggle to cope

And you changed your view of women as things
With a song for your mother only you could sing

So those who curse you should stop and ask
As they hide behind their self-righteous masks:

How and why did you find the time
To add those words to your million-selling rhymes?

Like your lyrics, your life, too, was a schism
Rendered asunder by a nation's racism

But you rose over that rift, you rose high
For a boy from the 'hood, a boy of 25

Gave the USA a mirror of itself
Fanned the flames of a fire we built

Rapped the words we're afraid to hear
Gave a visage to our race-based fears

Stayed true to your mother's legacy
But infused it with a '90's reality

Couldn't you have survived
And let the dark angels pass you by?

The rift was too much to bear, stretched you too thin
Being a clear-voiced black man in this country we're in

As high as you went, the lows waited for you
The schism tore and burned and tortured you

You fell back down, time and again
Cheating death once, but not in the end

And now your murder causes so much glee
Among so many people whose smirks I see

Why do they stress 'He got what he deserved'?
Why do they ignore the evidence of your worth?

Pointing to you, relieved, they say
'There, in that hooligan's death, go our troubles away'

But little do they know
As they slither so low

The fire that consumed you
Targets them, too

It burns on, 2Pac, it burns on
And the flames will only grow hotter

...now that you're gone

POEM: Poem Will Come

NOTE: This poem won a bronze trophy in the January 2005 AllPoetry.com Love is What? online poetry contest.

I can't yet write
A poem for you
Locked in your grip
The lucky, the few

Can't break free
Or even step back a ways
Can't see a thing
Through this luscious haze

Slumber and laugh
Soak it up, splash around
Taste the sweet success
Of this pleasure I've found

It will seep deep in me
Through and through
Before I can write a poem
Worthy of you

POEM: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Don't ask, don't tell
Is what they say
To silence, to quell
The burning passion of love untrusted
And the timeless urge to not get busted

Don't ask, don't tell
Is how the bible holds sway
Over the mind of man
From ancient Rome to today

Don't ask, don't tell
Rings deaf in these ears
It comes from cowards' tongues
And exposes their fears

Because if they ask
Then they'll know for sure
That Marines are f****** Marines
And there is no cure

And if they tell
Then their own desires would come to light
How they wish they could watch
Rather than fight