Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.

Happy Heart Day

So one day  I got out of the shower, towel dried my entire self but apparently missed "the furry body of my butterfly" . I sat down on the bed and to my surprise when I stood up and looked down at the bedsheet there was a wet spot in the shape of a perfect heart. I was so overwhelmed by this moment... magic is alive, the universe is intelligent, I am not an accident, I am stamp, a heart shaped stamp of love. I fell in love with my body a little more that day, my body must be pretty amazing to do such a thing. Immediately I got a sharpie to make it permanent on the sheet (which I still have 10 years later) and took a picture which I will send you when I find it.  It is hard to explain how much this moment meant to me but often when I stand up I think about the invisible heart stamp I leave. Love.

i the serpent woman fly

so do you see the serpent coiled at the base of my spine
and do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs
do you remember being bitten
oh i still know you cried
well is just a warning at this point
but i am warning you don't blink your eyes
cause in a second flat
I'll change my mind

so do you see the serpent writhing up the center of my spine
and do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs
do you remember making love underneath me
i made you blind
and you felt God through me
as seven of your centers open wide

so did you see the serpent slither and hide away
do you recall what it means
can you still read my signs to this day
oh did you watch me shed my skin for five days and be reborn
did you watch me bleed for five nights
in the morning i the serpent woman fly
i the serpent woman fly
i the serpent woman fly

because you can't let go

it never got easy for me
every time you enter my mind
the hole in my heart caves in again
echos of love are heard
i suppose it was endearing in my youth...
my mellow dramatic nature but now I have grown old
they tell you it is better to have loved...
but what they don't tell you is that if you can't let go
the current of it will drag you under
it will feel like you can never breathe again
you will be trapped in the moment just before death
the moment just before sweet release your hole life
your chest will feels like it will burst
trapped beneath the surface
the light just above you
never to touch you again

we are our choices. things that we just make up. in space where our minds float.

i realize even though choices feel like things
real things that you can pick like fruit
things that feel as though they can be weighed in the hands of our minds 
"maybe this one is heavier or this one is sweeter?"
"should I follow my dreams or follow the money?"
you think and you weigh and you think and you weigh
but the truth is... you will never know
you cannot weigh choices
cause unlike real fruit
the fruit in your mind is not real
it is just a metaphorical paper mache replica
that you made from a pro and con list you wrote earlier in the day
written with a pencil made out of perceived past experience and rhetoric
because you are NOT a time traveling psychics with a do over button
you can never ever really know
never know if you should have gone left or right
if you should have held on with all your might
or should have let go a lot sooner
you can never really know what truly lies ahead
choices cannot be weighed to make the "right" one
i realize now that i am a super creative person
that can make very interesting lists and exciting educated/blind guesses
so now when i think something "is like this" or "she is like that"
or "it's clear what should be done"
i no longer feel my thoughts are as solid and opaque as they once were
my mind now seem full of translucent possibilities

-anastasia

it never got easier for me
every time i think of you
the hole in my heart caves in again
and i can only hear an echo of love
i suppose it was endearing in my youth
but they don't tell you that if you can't let go
it will drag you under
and it will feel like you can never breathe again
an eternity of not being able surface
with the light hitting the surface but never your skin

- the dieing

i am an amplifier
not a transformer
so for those that approach with love... a special thanks
i am water
reflecting and absorbing 
so for those that approach with love... a special thanks
I have a strange but strong orbital attraction to "the trial by fire people"
when confronted i evaporate into the light
that which is solid within me disintegrates into exozodiacal dust
i suspended myself in space
to enhance your beauty
so for those that approach with love... a special thanks

-anaspaceship

i know what it feels like
to build a coral castle for the one you love
to lift one thousand one hundred stones with only your heart
in the hopes that your first love will return to you someday
but she never will

i know what it is to
hold your heart in your own hand....offer it to a lover
only to have to cut off that arm
to get away from the sound of your own heartbreaking

i know what it is like to
have your leg blow off on the battle field of love
to never walk again... only to swim
to be mistaken as a mermaid
lifted out of the ocean
and never put down again

i have loved to much
loved to little
been chased by the sun
while chasing the moon
and now understand why a vase can only get so full

i have been held by love
while dying from love
pain never fades
love never fades
it's just something they say
but... suns... rise
and... suns... set
thankfully

I have loved more people then i should
though less then i thought i would

but like magnets, moon, and all things that spin
nothing thing is static
the flow is all there is
lay exposed in the river of love
throw up your hands up and threw your fingers
let it flow
do not try to hold it
but let it hold you

-anaspaceship

it is not always a single red rose 
but love is always everywhere
lives are lived in fields of wild flowers
with blooming beauty and alluring medicines
bee well lovers

-namastasia

They Are all Beautiful Woman

I have noticed that in every picture I love
there is a beautiful woman barely dressed
and dripping in jewelry
she is either smoking, drinking, or dancing
she is never smiling
she is sad, proud, and sensual
she is alone but with you
either looking directly at you
or lightly through you
as she dreams

http://pinterest.com/anaspaceship/art/

Golden Rod Eggs

This Easter morning
I raise my coquetel
To entropy and sprouts
American tradition go all the way back
Great Goddess I follow you through all time
I can sense your story
You loved a man
What was his name?
Was it Tammuz, Osiris, or maybe El
Today I remember your lovers murder
The shepherds Kings dead body
Scattered all around the world
You had to find the pieces
Like Easter Eggs
Once all the pieces were in your basket
You glued your man together again
Except for the missing piece (his penis had been swallowed by a fish)
In its absence
You fashioned a great golden phallus and sat up on it
Vuala ... Res-erection!
Inanna, Isis, Asherah, Ester your names are many but your story is the same
You rode your lover staff of life to the gates of the Underworld
And then upon rising you gave birth
To the Sun of God
To the Light of the world
What was his name?
Was it Horus, Apollo, or maybe it was Christ