I'm so excited!
I have so much to say,
but first,
but let me give you the standard welcome paragraph,
always posted by ulookarmless,
also known as CJ Campbell,
now deceased.
I lovingly post this welcome paragraph,
to give a sense of continuity
to any of you regulars,
and because it makes me think of CJ,
who encouraged me to freely post
poetry at Indigo Kalliope,
republishing one or two of my diaries here.
And that reminds me,
I feel that anyone reading these words
can write poetry,
poetry well worth reading.
I feel we are all poets,
some of us are just more bold than others.
I'd put in a calendar of Tuesdays,
for you to choose from,
but all dates are open,
as far as I know,
so,
those of you who feel ready
to unleash your inner poet,
and write a hosting poetry diary for us,
pick a Tuesday,
and post the expression of your desire
in the comment thread,
or in a private message to me.
Join us every Tuesday afternoon at the Daily Kos community political poetry club.
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments.
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
Now that those important words are in your brain,
I need to say,
I am beside myself with excitement,
excitement over my new role here at Daily Kos:
I'm the new group editor
of Indigo Kalliope!
I have a mild disorder,
a disorder I call tri-polar,
up,
down,
and angry.
Right now I'm very up.
I tell you about the disorder,
so you can try to understand how I feel.
To put it in crude sexual terms,
getting this position
makes me feel so wonderful,
the average man
would need a truly gorgeous woman
to grab his package
and fuck him hard
to make him feel
as good as I feel now.
Let's continue this
below the squiggly.
I want to explain a few things.
I have several areas of focus,
here at Daily Kos,
and several areas of focus
and in my thinking
about my goals for my life,
my bucket list,
you might say.
Before I kick the bucket,
I want to start a movement,
and I may have started it already,
the Build a Chicken Coop movement,
a movement of regular folks
who see the problems I see,
who see the solutions I see,
and who move forward,
and take action
to make things better.
And,
you feel it in your bones,
I know you do,
but I'll come out and say it,
anyway:
Art,
any kind of art,
including poetry,
especially poetry,
can be very powerful
as a tool to express
the passion of a reformer,
the passion of a revolutionary,
to shout to the world,
to inspire passion,
to recruit followers
to any cause,
especially if the cause
has the ring of truth in it.
And I think my cause
has the ring of truth.
For those looking for short poems
with tight boundaries,
placed in block quotes,
with meter and rhyme,
I can write such things:
There was an old man from the plains
who chose every word with great pains.
He wrote at a blog,
and fought through the fog
of confusion at how to catch rain.
That last line,
about the rain,
is very important,
key to the rest of this diary.
But my point is,
I write everything in free verse,
so that makes it all poetry;
I focus on the future of humankind,
that gives me the sense of
working towards a very large goal,
which keeps me going.
So,
in this diary,
we have
a green diary,
and an anti-capitalist diary,
and it's poetry,
to boot.
Here we go:
I'm concerned,
deeply concerned,
about the mismatch
between seven billion mouths to feed,
and the amount of food we can produce
using only sustainable methods of agriculture.
And not using sustainable methods
means that within a hundred years or two,
our present system
will break down,
and billions will starve.
I have no college degree
of any kind,
but I've been reading,
for about fifty years,
about this topic,
starving people.
I recently read a book,
Hot,
living through the next fifty years on Earth,
by Mark Hertsgaard.
http://markhertsgaard.com/...
HOT, Hertsgaard’s latest book, is both a father’s cry against climate change and a deeply reported blueprint for how all of us―as parents, communities, companies and countries―can navigate this unavoidable new era.
In that book,
in chapter 8,
How Will We Feed Ourselves,
starting on page 184,
he explains what is needed
to grow enough crops,
in a sustainable way,
to feed humans and livestock,
so the humans can eat some of the livestock,
and some of the livestock can lay eggs,
and the humans can eat the eggs.
By the way,
the concept of focusing on eggs as our main source
of complete protein,
and fat for energy,
and producing eggs
in a sustainable fashion,
that's the reason I named our movement
the
Build a Chicken Coop
movement.
The farming method
explained in the book
is simple,
and it works well,
to hold the water in the soil,
and to recharge the water table
underground.
It was discovered accidentally
by a farmer in Africa,
in a region called
the western Sahel.
http://www.bing.com/...
Even though the book
has no pictures,
the end result of this farming method
as I picture it,
is rows of small trees
between rows of crops.
The trees grew from seeds
that were in the manure
that was placed in shallow depressions
between rows of crops.
If you're thinking,
this ain't poetry,
this is dry information,
too academic,
not personal,
not emotional.
First of all,
how personal,
how emotional,
is eating food,
or doing without
for a long time?
But let's put a name in here,
let's talk about a hero,
a hard working man
who's showing the way,
the way to having enough food,
feeling safe from hunger.
His name is Yacouba Sawadogo,
and he lives in Burkina Faso.
There were terrible droughts
in his part of the world,
in the 1980's.
Many died,
many moved away.
Let me ask you a question:
if every farmer leaves every farm,
when the droughts come,
(and they always come),
who will grow food for anyone?
Yacouba dug in,
literally;
he dug the traditional pits,
always dug between rows,
he dug his deeper,
wider,
to catch more water,
when it came,
and he put manure in the pits.
His cattle and goats
eat from local trees,
and the tree seeds in their manure
sprouted,
and the small trees
now growing
between the rows of millet and sorghum,
that's the magic,
that's the key.
All over the western Sahel,
farmers are imitating Yacouba,
and the crop yields are way up,
the people are not starving,
and not afraid of starving.
They have food security.
I'm running out of time,
so the obvious need
to use contraception,
to reduce the population of humans,
so that everyone can have plenty of food,
in spite of having rows of trees between rows of crops,
which would prevent the use of
big farming machines,
that will wait for my next diary.
And we'll explore designs of chicken coops,
and the merits of ducks over chickens,
and the coming civil war,
in America,
fighting over food,
another day.
Thanks for reading.