Rock Climbing

Amanda Palmer

Dear Amanda

I dig you!

I’m so happy

You’re not like the rest

I pass on the street!

Each block holds

A thousand people’s dreams

Resting in the city’s insides

Trapped forever

In its hopeless heartbeat

Yet

I see your spirit shouting skyward

Upward and outward

Gently nudging artists of the world

To keep pushing and creating!

I say to the artist

The poets

The writers

The musicians

Reach in and find yourself

Your work

Your voice

Deserves to be heard

Find your tribe in life

And

If you can’t find it

Make your own

Look inside

Pry inside your soul

With the claws life has given you

Find yourself, it’s worth finding!

Oh Amanda

Humanity has a habit

Of

Smothering humans with rules

Of uniformity

Of color-coded sheep fleeces

And

Dress codes for the masses

Of geographical beliefs

That their world is right

And

All others are wrong

Of conduct constructed completely

With agendas and genders in mind

Yet

Between the rules and regulations

Of life there is the voice of the artist

Like you

Like Kathleen Hanna

Like Ian Mackaye

Giving the rest of us hope

Like stars a sailor sets sail to

In the darkness

Not knowing if he will see land

In the sunrise of tomorrow

Or

The dark clouds of a hurricane

The youth puts faith in the ones

Who has come before them

Not knowing what’s in

The next day’s sunrise

But having your words and songs

To weather whatever the storm

Falling Banjo Punk Blues

Slacklining

Flip Trick

Shieldmaiden

Pockets Of The Profit Maker

Everything is necessary

In everyone’s

Own needing of necessities!

The machines are taking over

At least

It seems that way!

The laborer

Is becoming more and more

Scarce to see these days

John Henry was the first to

Fight this

Way of working

Where machines

Take the place

Of

Muscle, blood, and bone 

I heard his song

Many times as a boy

This

Folk hero in the lands

Of

My youth

Gave us hope that mankind

Wouldn’t completely

Be taken over

By oil

By steel

By plastic

Yet

We all kind of knew

This day was coming

We just didn’t expect 

It would be so soon

Or

Maybe we never realized

How fast it would

All go by

I guess

There are too many profits

To be maximized

Too much money

To be made

To not go this route

And the machines are

Not only taking the place

Of

Working flesh

They’re taking the position

Of

The mind!

Of

Critical thinking!

Is it possible

In centuries to come

We will have bodies like jellyfish

And

Grunt like cavemen?

The sun will burn brighter

Than ever by then

And the air

Will be too poisoned to breathe

Machines will be our only

Choice

To work outside

Mechanical movement underneath

A radioactive sun  

All for the pockets

Of

The profit maker

To continue

Making their money!

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave