One sees all the waste of war,
The destruction of landscaped gardens last seen blooming,
The demolition of whole cities, melting, exploding, burning and smoking.
One sees the decimation of whole human populations.

If one is by nature a philosopher,
That is a thinker and a wonderer,
One wonders if a warless world is possible.
But it�s not like being a Renaissance man
Watching a vertebrate soar
And wondering if man might someday fly.
No example of a vertebrate animal
Not sometimes being violent and aggressive exists.
Whereas many birds fly.

In nineteen sixty two
You might have been watching on television
As Watts burned and men rioted.
You were being shown a side of Los Angeles
That�s not featured on the glamour shows
Or on the quiz shows.

It�s the destructive side en masse,
Excited by visions of blood and fire
And loud wild voices
Not sounding like a choir.
All sensibility is gone.
Everyone�s expressing the same madness.

You went on later,
Thinking, feeling and acting the same as before.
Soon the rioting was forgotten.
And even today you may think of war as something distant,
Far from your native shore.

Perhaps you grew up in peace,
Without feeling the presence of an enemy
Determined to enslave your family
Or put them to death.

You might wonder what a blessed discovery
Would transform all the leaders and inspirers of boys
And make them sensible?

You can see clearly with your mind
That war destroys what is good on both sides.

When the war is being waged,
On both sides millions mourn the loss of
Men cut down in their prime.

On both sides, cherished records are lost-
Books, architecture, paintings, beloved animal pets, and businesses,
And no one denies this is true.

But ingrained human habits are deadlier than the winds
And waters of the strongest hurricane.
So as the other natural furies are harnessed
So shall the furious human nature be.

It�s easy to give a child a gun
And teach him or her to shoot it.
It�s easy to build bombs
And deliver them to some doomed target
by means of airplanes or missiles.
It�s easy to shoot off your mouth
And make someone angry.
Some persons get mad even if you just look at them.

It�s not enough to just make up clever sayings
Which take people�s attention off the subject.
Jokes and parables abound.
Each day thousands of witty persons give speeches
And people are entertained.
The problem isn�t solved by preachments or by prayers.
And today there are more weapons
And more people learning to use weapons
Than ever before.

It�s oppression or fear that makes a man kill
Or feel he must kill.
Denial of a boy�s rights make the boy grow
Up to be a man who is
Feeling oppressed or afraid.

Many boys grow up to become men
Who can be paid to kill
As they don�t sense the pain in others.
As boys their masters were insensitive.
It�s insensitivity which is passed on
From generation to generation. And no one thinks
Of sensitivity when he was trained to be insensitive.

Behold!
Every cell in your eyes is a young cell,
And your flesh is like a wave upon the sea.

As your old cells die, new cells replace them.
The physical form of your body changes slowly
As every few weeks your whole body is
Made wholly new.

The wave of your life is the surge of energy
You feel when you feel it.
This is the surge of life you feel as eagerness
And joy.

You don�t feel this surge of life
When you feel oppressed and denied.
You feel this surge of positive power
As you are contributing
To the common wealth.

It�s easy to give a boy a gun
And teach him to shoot.
Millions of men march off to war
To contribute what they can
To the common wealth.

It brings the soldiers a feeling of camaraderie to share this
Surge of good feeling.

But alas!
It is directed towards destruction.
And it�s felt by the brave men on both sides
Preparing to kill others.

What�s the cause of this grand destructiveness?
Oppression of so many boys� sensitivity and creative talent.
The same surge of positive feeling is felt
By a creative person even in solitude.
But the report the poet makes may not be loud.
It�s the oppressed boy who learns to shout and scream,
And shoot off his mouth instead of a gun or a bomb.

There are isolated persons
Who appreciate so much at home and at school.
The blessed child doesn�t demand attention.
The blessed person stands alone without a weapon.

Boys delight in displays of force.
Armies march to the drum beat.
Loud voices with drums call everyone to the war dance.
People gather at the noisy festival.
Noise and camaraderie often excite a crowd to riot.

Cultures prepare to meet their destiny.
Intelligence defines the way of peace.
If the way of peace isn�t yet perfectly defined
People who care enough can keep exploring
And experimenting.
But for the most part the people can�t know
What exploring and experimenting has been done
Unless the schools include this work
In their curriculum.

Many people saw the videotape
Made in Dallas that morning in 1963
After President John F. Kennedy was shot,
And many people read the life story of
Kennedy�s assassin.

Four years later many people read about the assassin
Of John�s brother Robert in 1968.

One begins a study of maligned, and oppressed boys.
One includes in his study the life of a suicide
Named Vincent Van Gogh.

One searches for the pattern and finds it in himself.
The need for him is to create a new self out of
All that remains of the old fragmented self.

Creativity starts by tearing down.
Then creativity recombines the basic parts
And makes a new form..

To build a new city, the small boy demolishes the old city
He made out of wooden blocks.

To create a new piece,
The speaker or writer uses the same old words
Over and over.
But the fury of the creative man
Is more intense, more focused
And more controlled than the fury
Of the destructive man.

The more harnessed fury makes more light than heat and smoke.
The creative fury speaks more of mercy than fire and brimstone.
Yes, but oh!
The new mind seems counter-intuitive
Quite as Christ seemed counter-intuitive
To the minds of prescientific Judea and ancient Rome.

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Articles

Song Cycles and Poems

Seminar Notes

� 1999

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