The Fire Orchids
have fallen to the table and floor
as their bright red and yellow petals
turned copper and ivory.
I am dozing in front of computer screen.
Miles Davis and John Coltrane
back me on a DVD
The elegant imagination
that would make a fire orchid
and play Kind of Blue
struggles to write this poem
searching for the thread and the music
This afternoon an attitudinal healer
called me offering to heal me,
if I am interested in alternative medicine.
My liver illness must have been caused
by anger for the liver harbors anger.
The Chinese told her so.
I must heal my attitude of anger or
it will continues to poison my new liver.
No sense telling her about Rimbaud
and Lord Jim or Jesus and all those demons
and Romans and Pharisees
who wanted to change his attitude.
The Chinese also are very good at changing attitudes
They will soon put the Yangtze River behind a dam
because it had an attitude of flooding.
They excel at changing the attitude of Tibetans
who were much too prayerful in their attitude,
and Beijing dared at one point to have clear skies
but now is the most polluted city in the world.
It is true though that there
are too many bad attitudes
out there hoping to own the world.
The stomach chakra is
completely out of control
from radio to TV
to boardrooms everywhere.
We need an army of attitudinal healers
who will only accept the truth
and heal the buried wounds
of centuries of hatreds.
Overwhelm the Pentagon,
Congress and the White House,
Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly
with new calming attitudes.
Bush needs a makeover and
Howard Zinn's course in history.
Wolfowitz and Perle need
a retreat with the Dalai Lama
for about 20 years,
and Cheney and Rumsfeld
need deep massage and very hot
hot tubs at Harbin Hot Springs.
Look Ms. Attitudinal Healer
there's a lot of work to do
even history has a bad attitude.
There are so many strings to play,
so much music to bring us together.
Think again of that Child
born again in every moment within us.
Please, don't worry about my liver,
but do get right to work.
