Friday, July 18, 2014


The Wargazaw Ghetto's
tall furnace chimney buildings,
become exploding volcanos
of steel, concrete and guts,
streaming smoke, flesh, and ash
upward to Purgatory Heaven,
a waystation where the victimized
Jews of the 1930s & 1940s
wear living flesh armbands,
sit in blazing rows of flaming chairs,
and watch repeatedly and perpetually
a sequel to their own victimization
brazenly acted out as their legacy against
Palestinian Gazans and West Bankers
as their earthly legacy agents
pull up lightweight stools and chairs
to watch the damnable proceedings.

Within their waystation they wait
with nets to catch the seared shreds,
and welcome with open tattooed arms
the arriving converted innocents
the ghosts of newly seared humanity
flung upward with the ash and smoke
as the close and dear relations they are.

"Welcome cousin.  Welcome sister.
Welcome brother.  Welcome father.
Welcome mother.  Welcome aunt.
Welcome uncle.  Welcome nephew.
Welcome niece.  Welcome son.
Welcome daughter.
Welcome to the Tribe.

Larry Piltz
Indian Cove
Austin, Texas

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Once for a Thousand Years

Once a long time ago things got so very slow
Went down to Guantanamo and built me an Alamo
Built me an Alamo down in Guantanamo
To stand for the status quo to Tierra del Fuego

I see a land called Chile, a man named Pinochet
Who was dancing that way thanks to our CIA
Saw a ghost named Allende behaving so friendly
He was killing me gently ever so absently

Took one look at Brazil, the USA off the pill
Indians still to kill, still adding the bill
Saw Rio de Janeiro from the ground in a turbo
All the tinshack condos on Free Enterprise Row

Sailed to old Venezuela on the back of a white whale
Left a petroleum trail delivering the U.S. mail
Then dancing a cumbia went to Colombia
Quoting Rumi and creating Vietnamia

Cruised into Guyana on the back of a piranha
An unshaven bwana to gather the manna
Saw the old Amazon fight the personal liaison
From the side with the jam on for the battle with Mammon

Went to El Salvador found out what’s the dollar for
Fill the rich and kill the poor in a capitalist liquidating holy war
Inside our Honduras where our best people assure us
It’s safe for the tourists they'll scarcely endure us

Just got back from new Grenada acted like the Marquis de Sade
Use islands as cannon fodder, killed someone's sons and daughters
Ran into St. Stanislaus on his way back from Panama
Reading George Bernard Shaw on his way to the Mardi Gras

Learned all about Cuba while watching the tube
A brainwashed boob sitting there in my cube
Tried to starve them out and poison their trout
That’s what we’re about since the rise of our Old South

Given a stick or a carrot and forced then to bear it
Which one has more merit and which one would just tear it
Then consider it's your mother with no choice and no druther
And the same for your brother would you choose the other

Out in the side yard strolled the National Guard
Where the scenery is marred because justice is barred
Out in the side yard do not let down your guard
Some Alabama wild card bayonet you real hard

Back in the front yard all the media bards
Show you all the marked cards fill your head up with lard
Back in the front yard there are feathers and tar
Put your bod behind bar put your mind in a jar

Saw the gringos with guns fill up Greyhounds with nuns
Leave the land of the huns to sell hamburger buns
Met a man named Sam lost a gonad in Nam
Lost his nerve in Iran has a head like a frying pan

Met a great nation of sheep still fast asleep
Listening to some new creep up on top of the heap
Met a man named boy thought he was Tolstoy
Often mad and annoyed with some other paranoid

Met a history of lies of indivisible size
With footnotes and asides in whispers and cries
Met a humankind nearly out of its mind
Hitting you from behind taking what it can find

Met some fading dreams in some mixed-up schemes
trying to scream while crossing a stream
Met an angry pacifist married to a happy fascist
Who together found bliss reading Reader’s Digest

Overheard an old gringo who lived as a dingo
Playing a game called Butcher Bloc Bingo
Gringo gringo gringo all in the name of jingo
You butcher people anywhere you can learn the lingo
Uncle Sam is damned, damned, for its Butcher Bloc Bingo

B is for the butchery.
I is for the Ingles.
N is for the Nihilism.
G is for the Gold.
O is for the Oil we drain for instance from old Mexico

Butcher Bloc Bingo
Soon you see where the recruits go
Where they will get shot get jungle rot
Where freedom is not there’s cheap coke and great pot
And United Fruit’s corporate criminal roots
And muy mucho toot for the generals' mucho loot

It’s colonial booty our imperial duty
It’s ready fire aim in a genocidal shame
It’s a freeze frame of guilt and sleazy blame
With specific events and specific names
Like El Mozote et al of infamous fame
It’s Butcher Bloc Bingo
It’s still cavalry versus Indians
And Calvary for peasants and nuns
A gift from the glorious pale nation
In its latest manifest dustbin mutation
It’s no wonder the peasants run
Here come the haughty free press puns
Bananas and nuns cocoa and the runs
There must be some other way to have fun
Than Butcher Bloc Bingo

Why the guaranteed calamity
And planned chaotic infamy
With zealous Christian infantry
So jealous of infinity
All counting each extremity
And with a banjo on each knee
To string along the not-so-free
Plain acting like a Yanqui

Yanqui, Yanqui, Yanqui
More stubborn than a donkey
You get the drools such able fools
And continue till you are the ghouls
Strangling your own freedom rules
And tearing down with all your tools
Gone to lengths that are so honky
Why are you like this Yanqui
Too fond of hanky panky?
Which are you Drac or Frankie
Have you lost the art or lost your heart
You’re leaving out the peaceful part
Why are you like this Yanqui
Are you asking for a spanky
What makes you so blamed cranky

And not to shout but to leave no doubt
Our path to war is a Southern states route
If you want to know what our wars are about
Just hear the fears from a good ol' boy's mouth
It's the enemy this and the hatreds they tout
If they don't get wars soon just watch them all pout
Peacetime for them is a long hard drought

And they're not alone just pick up the phone
Dial a number at random turn over that stone
Most people believe what they most want to hear
Especially the things that they most want to fear
They'll listen all day to a rational voice
And later that night make irrational choice
And that's how our own Confederate South
Became Sherman's Marching Yankees
And that's how our own Confederate South
Became Sherman's Marching Yankees

Upturned Rock, Meet the Hard Place

There's always something
violently dysfunctional
trying to break upward
onto the surface
of America's politics
but never moreso than now
when the enraged caged id
of the devolving decompensating
dissolute American right wing
is breaking free of the constraints
a healthily evolving society places around
the envy and hatred of its paranoid strain
that fears it will permanently lose
its presumed privilege to feel and act
without hindrance or conscience
and at the expense of everyone else
if it doesn't unleash its mercilessness.


Peace Love Sex the Fuse

Sex is not love, love is not sex
some get the two confused
following passion after a fashion
some end up just contused
put on a sexy face
and miss a friend’s embrace
Sex should not be used
like snakes and apes
on steps and ladders
by forward-looking social bladders
who want to change their place
who will not be refused
sex is not love, love is not sex,
though both are better when enthused
and better when your souls are chaste
not better when performed in haste
though best of all profuse
then later you can snooze

Sex is not war, war is not sex
some gets their facts confused
they exert their labor to abuse a neighbor
and make invasion, a poor imitation
of penetration, just blunt sensation
and like rape not by invitation
and not done by some Zeus
who’s turned out on the loose
to do the world a favor
are people made for flu's?
war is not to be used
to bolster weak economies
to fight pretend new enemies
to identify the them’s and me’s
that’s national self-abuse
what’s wrong with just a truce?

Sex is truly unruly peace
and peace is purely sex
and love can sure be gentle
and sometimes gentle sex is best
and if people get your sex confused
it doesn’t make a difference
sex is sex and love is love
your choice can be all the above
no need to make a deference
when stating clear your preference
who wants to make a reference?
sex is great and love is better
fitting like two gloves together
shaking in all kinds of weather
no how matter how you choose friend
you’ve nothing real to lose defend
tis good to be enthused again
especially when fused then
again and again and again you'll grin
when peace love sex are fused

Peace is a chance
the chance for peace
most certainly accrues
as we pay our marching dues
and war still gets refused
while the poor do get some more
control of who comes through their door
and music of the Earth is scored
and played in peace and plowshare stores
when the lion lies down with the ram and Jew
and the lamb with Arabs and Asians too
and the monkey with our maker
the world will be our crew

With Africans providing the boost
we'll spread real gospel and good news
with grace, kind love and with the muse
and blow away humankind blues
life from the leash will be excused
life from the lash will be rescued
now heal, O planetary bruise
there will be no one left confused
with tensions finally defused
the Golden Rule clear not obtuse
with everyone even a moose
to learn the way our spaceship runs
with peace intent and not with guns
our one world only, not nations
with incentive for de-exploitation
as we fly our solar station
with reeducated crews
we’ve nothing real to lose
as we step into the shoes
of peace, love, sex, the fuse
just smile and be amused
and even take that snooze
cause peace love sex are fused
no matter what your views now
tis good to be enthused and how
peace love sex are fused wow
peace love sex the fuse

Larry Piltz
Summer of 1984
Austin, Texas

Into the Sun

You were under someone’s thumb
Were acting stupid plain dumb
With feelings deep unplumbed
Your heartstrings all undone
And felt as light as a ton
Like there’s no way to truly have fun
Your denominator was minus one
And you were so damned glad you had no gun

You were into the sun
You were into the sun
The laughing and crying of everyone
Into the sun, you were into the sun
With living and giving just begun

So you settled in too fast
Because it was such a blast
To tie yourself to the mast
Then find yourself aghast
To find yourself part of a cast
Of an ignorant play that vast
With direction stuck in a past
And that lies and dies to the last

You were into the sun
You were into the sun
The drifting and shifting of everyone
Into the sun, you were on the run
The lifting and sifting had only begun

You’ve been getting pretty smart
Cause you take things into your heart
Really helping to advance the art
Of really taking part
in a life more sweet than tart
putting joy even before Descartes
in a world where you may freely impart
your essence of love before you depart

The reason for life is no big joke
The answer to death is no big lie
What happens to you is truly clear
What happens to you in just a year
What happens to you in absence of fear
What happens to you can happen for you

Cause you’re into the sun
You’re into the sun
the breathing and teething of everyone
Into the sun, we're into the sun
the believing the heaving until you've won
The appealing of feeling
The wheeling and dealing
The burning, unlearning
The yearning, discerning
The climbing, the timing
The rhythm, the rhyming

You’re into the sun
You’re into the sun
The vying relying of everyone
Into the sun, you’re into the sun
Every daughter, every son
Sisters, brothers everyone
Some will walk, some will run
Some will laugh, why not have fun
The laughing and crying
The living and dying
The loving and trying of everyone
We’re into the sun!


Larry Piltz
Summer of 1984
Austin, Texas

Friday, July 11, 2014

My Meemaw From Old Mamou (A Song for the Old Bayou)

I love these days in my Texas hills
its friendly folks the quiet thrills
the waving sycamore leaves
and the dry creek spills
the rolling pasture green
and the limestone sills
but still my heart goes crying

when I think back on young tender days
the sweet flavor of night the misty morning rays
the folk songs of the storks on the waterways
that lace the ground where I used to play
I know I would be lying
if I was claiming there's not much there
no porch I dearly miss or my favorite parish fair
no face I'd love to kiss
hey I'd kiss the very air
oh Lord my heart goes flying

straight home to the arms of my Mamou
where love rolls along with the old bayou
where my love still grows 'je taime' I love you
coming home to you my Meemaw

my Meemaw from old Mamou
without you what would I do
I'm doing just fine it's true
but I need to see you Meemaw
my Meemaw from old Mamou

when I walk in you'll be sittin there
all cozied up in your sittin chair
you'll ask if they're treating your baby fair
and run your fingers through my hair

I used to know why I left home
and don't regret a moment's roam
but now it's clearer than any poem
I need to see my Meemaw

my Meemaw from old Mamou
without you what would I do
I'm doing just fine it's true
but I need to see you Meemaw
my Meemaw from old Mamou

Larry Piltz
Austin, Texas
2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Our Male Enhancement Problem

Unfettered, Unhinged, And Unopposed
Political Domination By Males

While we remain on the subject of what possibly could cause such a great constitutional republic, possibly the most transparent in history, to nevertheless continue to operate by brute legerdemain as if behind an opaque curtain, let's return to the entirely unnecessary spectre obtained from viewing the modern geopolitical history of the United States from approximately eight miles high.

As we return to this, as assiduously related in the linked Noam Chomsky article above, we hypothesize that whatever antisocial and immoral contagion that causes the republic to continue to officially and intransigently cater overgenerously to its most privileged classes in all things must also be causing it to simultaneously act most hostilely toward and be dismissive of its historic underclasses, including women and their rights as supposedly equal citizens.

Of course, this also and interminably includes historically enslaved and currently oppressed racial minorities, hunted down with unjust bigoted laws and thereby imprisoned extrajudicially, and other out-of-favor exploited groups though often huge in sheer numbers, such as workers and their abrogated rights.

This is not to understate the chronic if not seemingly eternal underlying violence and its continuous erupting psychotic manifestations as it pertains to keeping women well shy of equality in private and public matters, as well as keeping them fearful regarding basic levels of survival, both economically and in fear for their lives.

The common thread there is unrepentant exploitation and the absence of reluctance to violently achieve it by the republic.

If we can intuit and isolate what propels the great United States toward and compels it to continue employing its international policies of brute force, violent extortion, and rank intimidation abroad, maybe we can figure out what to do about its bullying evil twin policies at home.

At home, these policies are often enforced just as brutally but alternatively more subliminally, as the mechanisms of self-government have been skillfully and with determination converted into effective means to divide people from one another through the cynical use of legal maneuver both fraudulent and discriminatory, even in the most public of realms.

The goal and achievement of this legalized uber political manipulation and divisiveness is to cause infighting among the out-of-power groups that could otherwise threaten the established order of endemic patriarchy and its entrenched oligarchy, and keep in place its extensive cadre of trained and well-remunerated professional gatekeepers.

This official and perversely glorified behavior underlines and reinforces the corrupt nature of the power employed by the republic, even and especially at its highest levels, and makes necessary the identification of its prime perpetrator in order to most effectively counter it and inaugurate balance in the system, perhaps for the first time in history.

The only universally identifiable correlative factor in this type of official behavior throughout the history of the United States and throughout the history of the world has been political domination by males.

Just sayin'.

                                                                   Mother and daughter