Vallejo Poet Laureate 2017-2019
“Master of Peace” won Reserve Best of Show and First Place in Published Poetry at the 2016 Solano County Fair. I’m stunned, honored, and grateful. It appears in the book Id Biscuits.
Master of Peace
After the world slowly
broke my heart
into tiny chips
of dry paint,
you handed me a brush
and called me
a masterpiece,
and I was wise enough
to believe you.
Thank you, Marin County Fair, for awarding this poem 3rd place in Marvelous Marin Poetry!
Marin is…
Marin is the stuff of childhood art.
Green hills.
Blue skies.
Cotton candy clouds.
Little red farm houses.
Happy black and white cows.
Marin is the wilderness.
The ocean crashing, salty.
Seagulls, seals, pelicans.
A breath of mountain air.
Palm trees. Pines. Redwoods.
The inner peace you find out there.
Marin is the stuff of dreamers.
Hippies. Glorious hippies.
Artists. Folkies. Poets. Lefties.
Zen. Yoga. Organic foodie perfection.
Startups and mom and pops.
Lovely families in every direction.
Marin is
Traffic jams. Business suits. Coffee.
Bikers dodging. Hikers escaping.
The Prius tailgating me.
The second homeless man on the street.
That I am no better than he.
Marin is
hanging on by a thread
woven into stacks of
bus passes,
unemployment stubs,
resumes and applications
making up the book
of an unrealized life.
Marin is
a taste of the good life
as the bottle runs dry
and you know not
where the next drop
shall come from.
Marin was home.
Until it wasn’t.
Part of me never left.
If you wrestle with depression, may this poem for you be a weapon.
That Voice
You know the one?
The one that tells you that you aren’t good enough.
The one that insults you when life is already tough.
The one that has forgotten about self-love.
The one that holds a lifelong self-grudge.
The one that would for one mistake have you martyred or murdered.
The one that keeps a running list of your supposed flaws.
The one that won’t ever let you forget until you feel small.
Yeah, that one!
Don’t listen to it at all!
That voice is a fucking liar!
Plug your ears!
Don’t answer when it calls!
That voice does not deserve a whisper,
let alone a soapbox,
let alone a microphone,
let alone to be written down,
let alone the privilege of crossing your brilliant mind,
let alone the honor of your fabulous ears!
That voice would sing nothing but lies about you to a heavenly choir.
That voice does not deserve a record contract nor any air play over the wires.
That voice is the spokesperson sponsored by fear that will bring you to tears.
Don’t you ever believe that voice!
Don’t believe that voice when it says compliments are lies.
Don’t believe that voice when it spews a river of doubt.
Don’t believe that voice when it criticizes you until you cry.
Don’t believe that voice that says one mistake is fatal.
That voice should be black marker redacted and censored
from any files containing the profiles of your miraculous existence!
That voice does not know the real you—beautiful and incredible!
That voice does not know how hard you fight each day to stay alive!
That voice must be dissuaded by the truth
of your worthiness in daily reminders,
be they facts, words of wisdom,
or words of kindness
littered across the landscape of your mind.
That voice is not your conscience.
Your conscience whispers the truth before you sin if you listen in.
If you’ve sinned, you can turn, turn, turn to righteousness again and again,
until you’re the best person you can be within.
That voice is a bully pulpit that must be met with the religion of loving defiance.
You must protect your sanctuary from within,
and do not allow such hurtful words to even begin.
That voice is a biased judge in the balanced well-written book that is your life.
That voice would commit perjury before a grand jury to mar your reputation.
That voice is a corrupt prosecutor bought off by an executioner.
You must hire yourself as your own selfless public defender!
You must write a petition listing all the reasons:
All the various reasons why you are good enough.
All the countless times, big or small, that you have succeeded.
All the many times others have told you the truth.
That voice is a hate monger who needs to be drowned
with the wine of loving kindness that you toast to yourself
until you are permanently drunk with love, gratitude, and joy.
That voice deserves to be overthrown by a coup
of compassion from you
and everybody else who loves you,
and they do!
That voice is the malevolent dictator in the tyranny of perfectionism.
That voice you must rebel against until it falls out of exhaustion,
and you rise with a renewal of inner fire
that has your spirit, mind, body, and heart unified
and running towards the goodness that you desire.
Examine your soul and your life,
and let every part of your very being
stand united in a defiant picket line
against that broken record
bullhorn of bullshit in your mind
with protest signs, reading:
I am worthy.
I am loved.
I am beautiful.
I will survive.
I am grateful to be alive.
I will thrive.
Being confident in yourself
is not the same as being arrogant.
Being proud of your accomplishments
does not mean you lack humility.
Being for yourself as much as you are for others
does not mean you are being selfish.
Forgive yourself,
learn from your mistakes,
and tell that God-damned liar of a voice to go back to Hell!
Sing passionately from the mountaintops, “I love myself!”
in a voice louder than that voice
could ever find the strength to yell!
You are required to grow larger than that voice.
If you wish to survive, you have no choice.
You are capable of showing love to anyone else,
and you must show love to yourself.
Most importantly, recognize,
that that voice is not your voice.
Ignore that voice in your mind,
for your real voice is kind.
Your voice learns.
Your voice loves.
Your voice forgives.
Your voice greets with a hug.
Your voice leads to justice.
Your voice speaks for peace.
Life is too short to give even one eardrum
to the negative vibrations of that voice,
when you could be listening to music.
Listen to the music of your soul,
and dance your way forward,
guided by the light it shines.
Write symphonies of healing.
Only replay the high notes of memory
that bring good feelings.
Your voice is an instrument.
Use it.
These are two poems that I wrote in response to the ORCEM/VMT issues in Vallejo, CA.
I read the second one to the city council and a group of about 200 citizens on January 5th, 2016, among several citizens and Fresh Air Vallejo activists who spoke out. (If you’re so inclined to watch the video, it’s about 58 minutes in.) I believe our town deserves better.
Break Out Your Duster
I saw the good people of my city today.
On the steps of the city hall, they gathered.
They chanted, “orcem, orcem, go away.
We don’t want you in our city by the bay.”
The big cement company and its dust,
Aren’t a company that we can trust.
They claim in their adverts it’s all green,
Talking all progress and growth again,
While leaving out pollution from their scenes.
Promising only a couple hundred jobs,
While from our lungs, the air they’ll rob.
A couple hundred salaries it ain’t worth.
Risking 118,000’s health is far worse.
And underneath all that cement dust,
Laid a serious breach of community trust.
When the people of my city found out,
They took to the streets with a shout.
It was time to hold a recall for Mayor,
Because he’d become a betrayer.
This city, here, well, it deserves better,
Than back room deals for the highest bidder.
None of this poem is written in cement,
Only just giving my two cents.
This is no time to sit on the fence.
If you agree, voice your dissent.
This Project’s a Lemon: Sweep Em Out!
In this city of opportunity live workers and dreamers
propelling us forward as an artistic, successful place,
one of community, happy families, and open space.
What I can’t understand is why you won’t stick to that plan?
Your dusty cement plant scheming
needs to be swept right out of here.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-union,
pro-high-wage-jobs for this city’s peoples,
but this greenwashed pollution ain’t the solution
if you give a hoot about our schools, homes, and steeples.
A few jobs aren’t worth risking the lungs of our young ones.
Now with all due respect, I gotta ask what the heck?
This secret back room dealing just ain’t right,
and the good folks of this town will give you a fight
in the courts or by ballot boxing.
See the people with their protest signs,
asking you to follow the voters’ designs, or maybe resign.
If you’d like to stop this city hall circus,
then please, just follow the voter’s choices,
and listen to all of our voices.
We didn’t elect you to abuse our trust,
so please listen because it seems that you’ve lost us.
If you work in the shadows, you’ve got to recuse.
because if you go against the will of we the people,
you’re just bound to lose.
Id Biscuits is D.L. Lang's sixth poetry book. This 200 page volume contains topical poetry, autobiographical poems, spiritual poems, and story poems.
I called this book Id Biscuits. Id, as in the inner child, which I fully let run wild. The title is also a pun on identity. The inner hippie wanderer protester artist is reflected in this book, as it was in my previous work, Poet Loiterer. This could almost be seen as a sequel to that book. As with that book, there are several political poems. If you care not for such things, I suggest you check out my earlier tomes, but there should be poems in this one for everyone. These poems were written November 2015 – April 2016. The first four poems are exceptions and were discovered among personal papers. “L’Atah, Eretz” was a love poem to my then boyfriend now husband, Tim, written in 2002 that I thought I had lost. “Larry and the Berry” is the oldest and silliest poem I have, written in 1994 when I was 11 during a class with the Enid Summer Arts Project. There are poems from both my higher self, and written from the pit of the struggle of being human. This book reflects both my dark side and my light side, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide which side is which. For as I’ve said before, judgment of my own art is not my job. Although portions of this book are topical and autobiographical, most of it is mere fiction and wordplay. They mostly are inspired by nature, Judaism, Oklahoma, Marin, Vallejo, music, current events, and history. All completely poetic nonsense— part reality, part exaggeration, part total fiction.Complete list of include poems: L’Atah, Eretz The Album Musty Books Larry and the Berry I Am Whenever Id Biscuits Identity Biscuits Spring Soul Cleaning Miracles Chaiku In the Wild Silence The Conundrum of the Social Introvert Faded Family Photographs Recalibration Station Life Lessons Everyday Teachers Hurtling Forth Octopus Marin is… What is a Poet? Beginning, Transforming Symphony in the Storm North Beaching It Lines Home Ghosts Dissonance Plaza J A Blessing Messiahs You Can Learn Equally From Truth or Myth Walking in Winter Rains Across the Bay Sparks Everything is a Prayer Jewish Things Knowing Doing Home Incredible Act Now! Forward Dear Bigots Broken How do you Measure your Rulers? The Bern Chicken Wire Y Generation In-Between Peace March Vallejo Peace East Maine Noms Carts To the Merchants of Bon Air Break Out Your Duster This Project’s a Lemon: Sweep ‘em Out! Circles Caring Versus Pretending Collective Dreamers Rise! Dreaming Who Lives Here? Red People Known? If You Were Me Family Lines Wandering Webs Union of Unidentified Fleeing Okies Cut Self Slack Love Stop Running and Orbit the Light of your Soul Quicksands of Timelines Hold On Musical Reassurance Your Vision Matters Dwelling Meditation That Voice Hands at Hanns Rainbow Master of Peace Melodic Key RPM Donut, Donut Mellowing Apples Derailed Banjo How the Time Passes By Our Life The Cost of Silence To Those Who Raise Up Artists A Little Alliteration What to Do? I Write my Pain on Permanent Stationary Magnetized To My Friends in Other Places Sadness can be an Art I Drove to Pleasure Cove Not That Friend Book of Taradiddles Melted Chocolate Heart Open Hearts Hearts Aim Higher Than This Penguin Are Penguins Aware it’s Penguin Awareness Day? Words Poems of America Hey, Troubadour Back Door Life of Dreams Unnoticed Service Man Pecans Oh, Hello, Cupcake Routine Coffee Tin I Don’t Know from Ships I Still Wander There Aspiring Potatoes Listen Same Song, Broken Heart Peculiar Precedent for a Presidential Posturer When? Some Weird Kind of Freedom Sponges Slag Pile Procrastinapping Return to Muddy Hollow
East Maine Noms
In the downtown of Enid–
that’s my old home town–
stands a hungry railroad bridge of great renown.
He’s 11’4″ from his teeth to the ground.
If you’re a trucker you best avoid East Maine Street,
because that old bridge is after a treat.
He’ll open you up like a can of sardines,
because for the noms, he’s quite keen.
He’s chewed on a cookie truck–
followed by a soda truck to wash it all down.
It doesn’t matter if your cargo’s edible.
He’s got a taste for yummy scrap metal.
His teeth are ready to chomp on down.
Most bridges say, “Don’t feed the troll,”
but this bridge has got its own soul,
and he’s ready to make you roll!
So if you find yourself on East Maine,
staring into its mighty white teeth,
you’d best turn your rig around,
or all the local folks are going to laugh you out of town,
along with your autograph upon a ticket
that says, “Pay attention, clown!”
Let’s all raise a toast,
to the shark bridge our town created,
as he opens a semi of beer with that smile serrated.
