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I have posted some of my poems and musings here
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AMERICAN DREAM
I AM AN AMERICAN DREAM
I DREAM OF FENCES AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
I DREAM OF A PLACE WHERE I AM THE UNDISPUTED RULER
I DREAM OF SANITARY PRODUCTS TO MAKE ME CLEAN
I DREAM THAT MY FINANCIAL DEBTS WON'T COME DUE TILL I'M DEAD
I DREAM THE REAPER HAS LOST MY NAME
I DREAM THE RIGHT PERSON FOR ME IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER
I DREAM THE SUBSTANCES I ABUSE ARE THE CORRECT ONES
I DREAM THE RIGHTEOUS WILL BE REWARDED
I DREAM THE MEEK WILL INHERIT A 3X6 PLOT
I DREAM MY JUSTICE IS YOUR JUSTICE
I DREAM MY TRUTH IS YOUR TRUTH
I DREAM I HAVE ENOUGH FIRE POWER TO PROTECT MY DREAMS
I DREAM THAT I AM NOT DREAMING , SO I WON'T HAVE TO WAKE UP
I DREAM THE WORLD WILL ONE DAY WAKE UP AND REALIZE WHO I AM
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Pinched Brain
I've seen your sterile landscapes, devoid of emotion
Your sanitary life where everything fits into its assigned slot
I've seen you looking at me with your furrowed brow, and your tight little brain
Squeezed and pinched into it's gelatin mold
Who the hell am I, you ask
I'm the one you warned your daughter about
I'm the one who will make her pant and rave and cry sweet Jesus in the middle of the night
I'm the stuff your nightmares are made of
I'm the virus in your computer
I'm the one your insurance policy doesn't cover
08-08-1992
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COMPULSIONS
IN A SOFT SUBDUED ROOM, CANDLE LIT, A CHANCE TO REFLECT ON SOME OLD WOUNDS
A TIME OF TRANSITION
A FEW OLD THOUGHTS DISCARDED
THE MOTIVES QUESTIONED, AM I JUST A MOUSE IN A MAZE?
DAM THE UNSEEN HAND, IT PUSHES AT MY BACK AND I ACT AND I ACT
THIS IS GOOD, BETTER SMOKE MORE OF THAT
YOU KNOW YOUR JUST AN EMOTIONAL JUNKY
SO WHAT, EVERYONE IS SOME SORT OF JUNKY, BE IT DRUGS,
SEX ,
FOOD OR WHATEVER THEY CAN CRAM INTO THAT INSATIABLE
GAPING HOLE IN THEIR GUT
SURE, THAT'S EVERYONE ELSE
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR HOLE?
TRY TO FILL IT OR WRESTLE WITH YOUR COMPULSIONS?
COME ON NOW, DO YOU REALLY WANT TO OVERCOME, OR DO YOU JUST WANT COME ALL OVER?
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Secret Dreams
I have seen your secret dreams
Where loveless people drink from empty cups
Where the color runs from my lips to satiate the sunset crimson
Where only the soul can see and the minds eye with blinders blunders about
Where night descends to cover your nakedness
A bird sings a solitary song while trees sway to unheard melodies
Another empty room in a vault of tears
You look upon this landscape reinventing the universe to suite your secret dreams
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Contacting the Soul
Contact Improvisation for me has been like riding the vanguard of human
development. So here we stand at what may be one of the edges of human
expansion, stretching the envelope that contains us.
Contact Improvisation is not just another dance technique or discipline. It is a forum for discovering who we are beneath our skins. It is a place where our self concept is questioned. Who am I? What is the shape of my fear? To what degree am I present? What particular trance am I in at this moment? What dialog is running through my mind? What ghosts gnaw at my soul? I stand so naked on this dance floor, I cannot stop from being witnessed in all levels of who I am.
To be off balance. To loose control for that split second. To be plucked out of the air by a sure hand. To have that hand miss. To land on my sure hands. To land on hands that are not so sure. To come to the edge of my envelope .
I ask why?, and why not? When we question what comprises our reality, we are about to push the boundaries of our awareness. We are now on the "Heroic Journey". This journey is heroic because we may die, not once but many times. In the house of mirrors where we reflect on ourselves. We see ourselves standing before us. This particular body, our profession, the good parent, the athlete, the charming smile, the twinkle in the eye, our higher learning credentials. The body will disintegrate. The rest is intangible. When we reach out to touch our hand passes through. It is only a concept we call self.
If we are to construct an evolved self, some of the premises we call ourselves have to be discarded. We cannot avoid dying, and in dying we are reborn. Perhaps less encumbered by ghosts. Maybe more present for the next dance.
Ken Martini, Sept. 6, 1996
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Fall from grace
In our collective past there was a Garden of Eden. When
one of us was hurt we could lean on each other and cry. When we were
joyous we could hold, hug, and share our joy with one another. When
something threatened us we could act as a group to multiply our strength.
Then came a day when we took a large bite of a fruit called Ego, this
somehow separated us from one another and from ourselves. We became
divided and isolated. Thus we fell out of our garden. We fell from grace.
We fell into a world where we could still cry, but not all our tears.
We could laugh, but not all our laughter. A world more dangerous because
we lost our strength in numbers.
We were now separated into separate beings inside as well as outside ourselves; we became easy to conquer for we came to be slaves of our Ego. In fact we were so enslaved we could no longer scream for help. We became whispering slaves.
In a world that reinforces the belief of our separate selves, where it is celebrated that we are these most incredible unique people. The threshold of how individual we are is constantly being pushed. Are we afraid of being similar to one another? Are we sold this individual idea so that we are ever consuming the materials that make us appear different? Why this desperate struggle to be so different from the rest?
Can we be resurrected? Is there a passage back home to our Garden of Eden? Is Salvation just a touch away? If we could touch each other would it lead us home?
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Sometimes life reaches beyond fiction or anything that may seem plausible
or within odds of happening; here is such a sequence of events:
AUTO-COP
This is a letter to the Editor I sent in response to an overzealous
traffic cop who was making it unpleasant to park our cars and go about
our daily life on the Sonoma plaza. It was published and we all had
a good laugh. Published date: 1987
Editor, Sonoma Index Tribune,
Look up the street it’s a superhuman, no it's AUTOCOP. Quite unbelievable
from where I'm standing and the whole downtown crowd is in agreement.
I am just another mild mannered civilian in awe of the new super AUTOCOP
ticket dispensing machine. It seems our small town police department
has let loose it's brilliant conceived device to eradicate parking offenders,
skate boarders and other scoundrels.
This marvelous automaton can see down whole city blocks and find tires
that are six inches out of their white boundaries. He can hear skateboard
wheels on concrete a quarter mile away, and yes he swoops down with
camera in one hand and citation book in the other in less than a heartbeat.
Here he comes, perhaps he will give us an interview. Mr. AUTOCOP could
you answer a few questions for your fans. "Of course, anything
to better the relations between the Force and the small people".
We would like to know where you learned to be so efficient and unemotional?
"I was programmed in large cities with small tolerances".
We have noticed that you no longer cite delivery trucks parked in red
zones. "Yes my leaders reprogrammed my visible scanning receptors
to delete these sightings, I however am allowed to ticket all other
moving and stationary objects". We realize with your speed and
efficiency you must be making the city a small fortune. "This is
correct, we can now afford to buy more units like myself to patrol the
residential quadrants and are planning to buy improved units with X-ray
scanners that can peer through walls".
This is all very encouraging, maybe we will finally see the end of dumb
tourists and other people who crowd our downtown area. "You are
very perceptive for a human, this is one of my prime directives".
Are there any other priorities that you are programmed for? "another
of my prime directives is to cite dogs tied up outside of stores”.
"I must be going now, I just spotted a non commercial vehicle in
a yellow zone with a man rushing back to it with boxes in his hands,
percentages are high for beating him there".
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It appears that my prophecy of a ticket dispensing auto-cop
came true. I was the privileged person to receive the first ticket dispensed
by their new portable automatic ticket printing machine. About eight
years later I parked my motorcycle between two cars on the plaza and
Mr. Autocop gave me a ticket after I tried for 10 minutes to convince
not to. I told him that it may be within the written law but was not
in the spirit of the law. I told him I would take it his superiors and
have it dismissed. Soon as I got the ticket I went over to the police
station and got the lieutenant to dismiss it. I then drove over to the
Sonoma Index Tribune and told them I had a human interest story... Published
date: 1995
