Join us every Monday evening for drinks at the Daily Kos community political poetry club. Drop by and speak your mind in rhyme or blank verse. Poetry is always welcome in the comments. Let’s use language to scream our passion to the world. Bongos, berets and turtle neck sweaters are optional. The keypad is mightier than the sword.
The reveal: that precise moment where a thing or idea ceases to be hidden. We may pull back the veil, or open our eyes, or maybe even search our hearts to find a long-awaited revelation. Individually and collectively, we sometimes come to a cosmic package containing Very Big Truths. The act of unwrapping it is, by its nature, revolutionary. The course of my own existence has been drastically altered during these last several months. I have experienced personal growth, overcome mental barriers, strengthened and created interpersonal connections, and gradually emerged from a long-maintained shell of introversion. It is in this spirit that I come out from behind the curtain, nevermore hiding behind my username.
Right after I share this binary summation of roughly a year.
One Revolution
Patience Flows.
Anger Recedes.
Peace Rises.
Turmoil Sets.
Compassion Governs.
I Transform.
Confidence Waxes.
Insecurity Wanes.
Relationships Strengthen.
Enmities Crumble.
Beauty Prevails.
I Transform.
Angels Feast.
Demons Starve.
Love Grows.
Fear Diminishes.
Gratitude Reigns.
I Transform.
Purpose Soars.
Apathy Falls.
Hope Flourishes.
Doubt Wilts.
Joy Accumulates.
I Transform.
Consciousness Expands.
Darkness Contracts.
Spirit Shines.
Illusion Fades.
Divinity Manifests.
I Transform.
Hi, my name is Mike Davis, and I am a whimsical rapscallion. I've spent time in farming, cooking, trucking, activism, writing, musicing, and some other stuff. I believe in energy, I root for the underdog, and I think love is infinite. Politically, I have no party identification, and I am somewhere to the left of people who are to the left of prominent people who are far to the left--generally speaking, of course. I like epic fantasy sagas, philosophical conversation, and I abruptly cut off introductions when I begin to sound like an e-harmony profile. By far my most transformative experience of recent times has been the Occupy movement, specifically Occupy Lexington. (That's right, in Kentucky.) Here's me and a bunch of my new friends occupying Lexington:
Here are some somewhat frequently asked questions:
Can....?
occupying in opposition to oppression
Overcome the opulent oligarchy,
Overpower over-proud overlords, or
Overthrow the old order?
cacophonies of campers combat the
Core of corporate corpulence,
Committing competence to communities
Composed of compassionate compatriots?
collections of collectives collect
Courage, conscious of collective
Consciousness, to consent to consensus and
Co-create a co-operative co-existence?
unified uprisings usurp
Unfettered usury, using
Unprecedented undertones of unrest to
Uncover understated unfairness?
projects project a presence, and
Passionately proceed to procure
Power for a populous populated by
Peaceful people, peacefully?
Yes!
A common thread that links my recent endeavors is writing. I've scribbled some lines at least weekly...ok, sometimes monthly. At the farm I did a column for the newsletter now and then. I even got published in the Lexington paper with a G.A. Approved op-ed! In between the comPost (nice, right?) and the Herald-leader, I wrote some songs, without music, which makes them poems for the moment. I feel like a couple of them were apropos to the theme of setting one's self free. Here's one of them:
Leave
Leave your cage
The key's in your heart
Those chains are manufactured by the brain
Turn the page
You're a work of art
The mainstream doesn't know you're not insane
You can be free.
Take it from me,
It's easy to escape captivity.
It's all in your mind.
Seek and you shall find
The blessings in your close vicinity.
Take the rules and shake them up
Break the rules that make you suffer
And you'll find they were designed
To choke and bind, but you'll be free
Lend a hand, share what you can
Strike up the band, take up the mantle
Of your love, you'll rise above
Your troubles, 'cause you will be free.
Step outside
Have a look around
The lie is gone and all you see is sky.
Step inside
Your spirit unbound
Is shining in the cosmos of your eyes.
Fly through the air
Lacking only a care,
Your wings are just the thing to take you home.
Smile on your face
You know the place
Is everywhere that you happen to roam.
Take the rules and shake them up
Break the rules that make you suffer
And you'll find they were designed
To choke and bind, but you'll be free
Lend a hand, share what you can
Strike up the band, take up the mantle
Of your love, you'll rise above
Your troubles, 'cause you will be free.
There's no need to be ashamed.
There's no need to be contained.
There's no need to put yourself through so much strife.
There's a seed to know your worth
There's a seed to sow your earth
There's a seed to grow, the harvest is your life.
It's your life
Take the rules and shake them up
Break the rules that make you suffer
And you'll find they were designed
To choke and bind, but you'll be free
Lend a hand, share what you can
Strike up the band, take up the mantle
Of your love, you'll rise above
Your troubles, 'cause you will be free.
You'll be free.
You'll be free.
You'll be free
Leave your cage.
The key's in your heart.
Ok, fun story: I wrote a poem (Ok to Restart?) for an IK diary several months back, and I ended up reading that poem out loud in front of people. Twice. That's pretty much unprecedented. Wanna see? It starts at 10:43.
I was a little nervous. So here's that other song about becoming shiny people:
Stars
Darkness has no sway that we don't give it.
A nightmare depends on our choice to live it.
We've got all the cards if we don't throw them away.
When we believe in ourselves there's no hand we can't play.
The love that lives within us is way beyond size.
We've got a lot more strength than most of us realize and
Our lights are so bright that they can cancel the night.
That monster's but a shadow and our sun is a-risin' so
Be intimate with the now and with the here.
Trust your intuition and abandon your fear.
We are infinite, wipe away the fog and you'll see it's clear.
Get into it, and watch the stars in your eyes reappear.
Every cloud we see has silver lining.
Fear is just a light that isn't shining.
We've got all the power that we can comprehend
When we flip the switch and see the terror come to an end.
The strength that lives within us is way beyond size.
We've got a lot more love than most of us realize and
No fright is mighty enough to snuff our light
That monster's but a shadow and our sun is a-risin' so
Be intimate with the now and with the here.
Trust your intuition and abandon your fear.
We are infinite, wipe away the fog and you'll see it's clear.
Get into it, and watch the sky fly open.
Be intimate with the now and with the here.
Trust your intuition and abandon your fear.
We are infinite, wipe away the fog and you'll see it's clear.
Get into it, and watch the stars in your eyes reappear.
Watch the stars in your eyes reappear.
See clear to make fear disappear.
Oh yeah we're living now, being here.
Watching the stars in our eyes....
So thanks for coming to my outsville diary. (post? story? I forget..) I'll still be posting and commenting as Whimsical Rapscallion, cause it's a pretty sweet screen name, but now when you see it, you'll know it's me, Mike, and that I'm probably grinning.
Here's my closer. I was going to call it “An Honest, yet Inevitably Flawed Attempt to Personify the Core Energy of a Diverse Movement Comprised of Decentralized Autonomous Collectives, Each Capable of Operating Independently,” but it felt too literal. Not to mention a little long. And it totally rips off Palahniuk. Anyways, much love. It was very nice to meet you.
I, The Resistance
I weep joyful tears through a poison fog.
I beam loving grins at approaching truncheons.
I dance rapid steps with a rubber barrage.
Strong is my will; broad is my back.
I am the mythical heartstone:
I gain power with each attack.
I occupy my body.
I lift the veil from
Dishonest machinations,
Discovering truth.
I fully embrace
My responsibility
To know what is real.
Re-empowered by
An aye for open eyes, I
Occupy my mind.
I abdicate my pain, my fear, my woe.
I separate from suffering and strife.
I activate my peace, and blessings grow.
I delegate, to love, my lot in life.
I gratify and hold the love I find.
I ratify the wisdom it imparts.
I justify my love for humankind.
I testify, I occupy my heart.
I begin to see my potential.
I catch a glimpse of my purpose.
I cry out to the sky, trying to identify my who and why, when
I spy a reply flying by my third eye and realize
I am separate from nothing.
I exist in the moment.
I manifest my dreams.
I am beautiful.
I am powerful.
I am divine.
I occupy my soul.
I am making my own decisions.
I am charting my own course.
I am creating my own choices.
I am steering my own ship.
I take hold of the wheel.
I choose the open waters of freedom.
I traverse a path of my own making.
I occupy my life.