Author: Gary Lindorff

Back in the 50s
We were served up this warm vision
Of sculpted cloud-high bubble-cities
Catered by sloe-eyed robots.

How far that silvery angel has fallen!
Far below
Where Dick and Jane are playing hop-scotch
In the rocket graveyard.

Now a giant bronze plaque proclaims:

The speed of light has been attained!
Prepare! Prepare!
We have straightened the lightning!

What am I saying?
The general himself is shouting —

Prepare!

I am in the streets
Of the City of Sad Thoughts
Where people have become irrelevant
And I have just abused a small white dog.
I press this sweet dog against my face and cry.
The dog sees
That my soul is strapped to a beam of light
Vaulting through space.

I myself was abused
Or deceived
Just like everyone else
In this city.
I can hide nothing
From this dog
Who has become the moon.

Tell me what you see.
Maybe I can be trusted.

 
GARY LINDORFF is an artist, musician, poet and counselor / dream-worker who practices shamanic techniques, and who lives in rural Vermont with his wife and two dogs. (He is also Dave’s brother.) His website is BigDreamsWeb

An old rock song plays
Distantly in my head
Behind three waterfalls.
The first waterfall, my tinnitus,
The second,
My faded memory of the song,
The third waterfall, my indifference. . .
 

I find that new songs don’t age well
But the old ones seem to want something. . .
 

You never understood me,
You never listened.
 

Here, I’m on a swing.
On the upswing, air sweeps by
Pretending to resist
But thrilled to make room;
Kids know all about this rush!
 

On the backward swing
The wind is a little confused.
 

Few things in nature move backwards
For good reason. . .
When the tree rocks back and forth,
What is back, what is forth?
 

But forward is the way to center now and
 

This may be the last time, children,
Maybe the last time
I don’t know.
 

GARY LINDORFF is an artist, musician, poet and counselor / dream-worker who practices shamanic techniques, and who lives in rural Vermont with his wife and two dogs. (He is also Dave’s brother.) His website is: BigDreamsWeb

 
A boy is traveling
in the back seat of the family car,
a beige Rambler
driven by God
(who, just for now,
is his mother and father).
The boy is looking out the window
ecstatically
at everything that passes
along the road of life.
It is a smooth ride
because the tires are barely touching the asphalt.
It’s all geared to the silken smoothness
of the boy’s vision of things passing.
When they stop
they will be in Florida;
all the orange juice you can drink
for 25 cents!
It will be like a dream.
He will learn to dive
at his uncle Bill’s
from a half-kneel,
like praying.
In a very short time
the boy will see everything
he needs to make sense of life,
of heaven,
of the universe. . .
And he must pay attention, as
very soon,
his hands will be on the wheel,
driving his parents home.
 
1962 Rambler Cross-Country Wagon

Oil-soaked bird in the Gulf of Mexico, brought to you by BP, your government, and your car Looking out across the gulf Of our mistakes, accidents and crimes I see a murky horizon Blurred by the brine of a tear… That is taking its time Gaining enough weight To trail down my cheek. The deep …

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