Exchange of Values

Exchange of Values
acrylic on board 48'X96'

"Structure of Color Perception"

"Structure of Color Perception"
48'X96' acrylic on board

Thursday, December 15, 2016



I have been posting through Brother Christophe’s surviving journal from Tibhirine in one of my old Facebook posts and todays entry has has dwelled in my mind since first reading it months ago.

10/23/1993. The 23rd. from Brother Christophe.

I warn you: I am
going through you I go before you and
I breathe into you the Way
and oblige you in truth.
I baptize you with myself on the cross
go
take my I love you
be me

Many of my recent media feeds attend to the terrible death and destruction in Aleppo Syria. I remember when Algerians were suffering in a similar way in the 90’s. Around the time of the massacre of the Monks of Tibihirine we were visiting France and there was great consternation in Paris about how to deal with this new phenomenon of 'islamic terrorism’ and the murder of innocents in France’s former colonies. Many called for renewed military involvement and air strikes. Anti-Muslim persecution and demonstrations were becoming more common. I sense now that even among my Christian friends there is frustration and despair and perhaps an acceptance or desire for some overwhelming violent force to stop these calamities in Aleppo and elsewhere. I suppose we might want to believe that this imaginary force could be both perfectly just, totally compassionate, and absolutely discriminate, and that only evildoers will be killed and all innocents will be spared.    That is a false hope.

I warn you: I am
going through you I go before you and
I breathe into you the Way
and oblige you in truth.
I baptize you with myself on the cross
go
take my I love you
be me

Its important to remember that its possible that the 7 Tibihrine monks were actually killed by Algerian soldiers fighting the monks captors. There is evidence that Christophe was killed during an Algerian Govt. helicopter strike on the rebel’s camp and that the survivors beheaded the monks afterward for propaganda purposes. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the suffering people of Aleppo should do. I don’t trust the Russians, Syrians, the rebels, Turkey, Israel, or my own government. I say desperate prayers and Catholic relief services and others are doing good work among the refugees and need financial support, but its easy to fall victim to frustration and despair even/especially in the midst of our own relative security and well being. Today’s entry by Christophe is one of my favorites although I don’t understand it in any deep way. But those words “I breathe into you the Way,” have stuck with me the last few months and have been helpful during my own struggles so I made of them a short prayer for Aleppo as well as for my friends in need.

*May the god of love and peace breathe into us the Way*

I sometimes can imagine god responding to my call using parts of Christophe’s prayer:

I am
I breathe into you the Way
I oblige you in truth
I love you
be me
go

Shalom.

Monday, November 14, 2016



Dear Overlords. Merry Christmas! Once again all things have proceeded precisely as you have foreseen. In recognition of your recent victories and in a spirit of bi-partisan compromise I am offering your Trumpocalypse a fair chance of implementation to further facilitate the darkening of the world. In the first of many concessions I am offering to surrender my objections and authorize *God* to be allowed back into all public schools!  However, as per God’s usual practice God will remain quiet and invisible at God’s choosing. Students of course will now be allowed to pray ceaselessly as Jesus says, but also silently as he commands. God’s presence, though, will remain exempt from attendance at any private religious schools or christian-churches as is God’s custom.

*Note. This compromise does not entitle Trumpublicans to enlist their God in the following activities:
  
1. Any and all wars/police-actions/vigilantiism especially engaged in for the purposes of colonizing petroleum reserves and pipelines—foreign and domestic.

2. The Deportation/persecution of undocumented children and persecuted refugees back to whatever dangerous hell-hole usamerican policies/actions probably created for them in their homelands they are fleeing from (see 1. above ^^^). 

3. Denying/cutting health care services for the oldest, poorest, sickest, weakest, people among us (no need to stipulate God’s presence among these folks though, God is always among the least of these). So if you want to cut Jesus’s medicare Trumpublicans don’t expect God to whisper lottery numbers in your ears or smite the Pandoran Na’vi or their socialist puppet-masters for you.

4. No grafting of a human penis back onto God. We got this < > close to theologically excising that pesky thing once and for all, and no president, no matter how flacid, aught to attempt a re-erection. 

5. God will not empower/sanction any domination, exploitation, persecution by *WHITE* over any and all of the following:

a. BlackBrownoranyPeopleofanyColor.
b. AllOtheredQueerandTrans-persons.
c. Women.
d. Forests-OceansAllWildplacesunderoronthePlanetorintheSky.
e. Earth.
f. + Mars. (‘an ounce of prevention…. ‘ Let’s not let *WHITE* get a toehold anywhere else in the galaxy). 

*Note: by ‘WHITE’ I am not referring to color but rather to the modern ontological manifestation of *WHITE* understood as that signified entity which functions as the dominant death-dealing viral agency which seeks to control or destroy all flourishings of Being and wholeness throughout the cosmos—no offense to anybody).  

**Note to Overlords compiling warrants for removal of potential troublemakers to alt-Reich Evangelical re-educaton/extermination camps: the “Daniel Imburgia” tagged here is not ‘THE’ Daniel Imburgia you are looking for (although they are both *WHITE* so both are probably going to be ok as long as they keep their mouths shut). Really this Daniel was only in El Salvador in the 1980’s for the surfing and chicharrones, not to stir up revolution among the peasants against their usamerican backed death-squads. Nor am I responsible for how others interpret any of the crazy things I may have said after too many shots of  tequilas. In any event anything I ever wrote to anyone anywhere at any time has always been taken out of context or misinterpreted. And further, contrary to any (scant) evidence, I have lived most of my life in acceptable compliance and within the logics of exploitative commodity capitalism  :(  

Dear Overlords, do we have a deal?

Thank you for your consideration, your humbled and all too obedient servant, Daniel :(   

P.s. Are we really going to squeeze more blood from the poor in order to build yet a fourth *Death-Star?* Sure it creates jobs and stimulates the 1% economy but we gave the last three contracts to that “builder” from Queens and every one of the damn things had some fatal flaw and got itself blown up! How about an intergalactic hospital and recovery Star full of doctors, food, and puppies that travels about the cosmos healing and feeding people and patching up old planets that need repair after evicted tenants left the place trashed. Or maybe we could spend more money on…just a minute someone’s at the door……….

Saturday, November 5, 2016




No Country For This Old Man.

Facebook reminded me of this post from the election 4 years ago. This scene at the end of the movie/novel NCFOM provoked me and many to question again human freedom/agency and where god can be found in this broken death-dealing world.  Earlier in the novel McCarthy writes: “…Anything can be an instrument, small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting.  An after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. Its just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, its just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?” (No Country p. 57).

But even though our coins have two sides and we label those sides various things like kick-off and receive, good and evil, life and death, it so often feels like I'm still just choosing between 2 different appearances of evil? When Jesus asked Jewish collaborators with the Roman empire to show him their coins, Caesar’s likeness may have only been on one side, but perhaps one of Jesus’ message was that the empire/death owned the whole coin no matter which side of it I choose? Bless you Carla Jean for your courage and wisdom.

(p.s. Death and coins ‘get here’ the same way as Caesar but there are other forms of Trinitarian life one may seek. Blessings.

Monday, October 17, 2016



 Zoopoetics X Theopoetics #5 

What If Derrida Was Right?

‘—I must make it clear from the start that
the dog I am talking about is a real dog
believe me, It isn’t merely the figure of a dog’
“The Animal That Therefore I am.”
 
What if Derrida was right
About all of it
What then

Jesus taught:
If any will follow
Let them deconstruct
Take up their cross
And follow, but

Its assumed “cross” is a synecdoche
Or metaphor whatever
Like when I say how much I *heart* my dog
“One of my family,” I claim
Thing is
If the house were on fire
And I could only rescue the child or the dog
I’d save the child

I discussed this with my dog
Dog said I was full of shit
My theology was anthropocentric
That I didn’t know what love was
—’Is all life sacred in god?’  Dog asked.

— ‘GOD!’
I challenged (playing devil’s advocate)
— ‘Which god is dog god?’
Dog (the animal that therefore he is) replied:
— ’is god all as one?’
I started to reach for my bible to proof-text
Hierarchies of creation and Patriarchal orders of obeisance
But just then my wife yelled down:
— ’You say something hon…?’
   — ’No dear…its just the dog…’
       — ‘Is he ok,’ she asked, ‘he sounds funny?’
I glare over at my smug Theravādanic mutt
— ‘I think somethings wrong with him,’ I yell back
   — ‘He may be going senile, he thinks he’s god’
— ‘Whaaat? Who thinks he’s god?’
   — ‘The DOG dammit he says he’s GOD!’
Dog said: — “I, god?”

Please love your dog with all your heart and soul
(but don’t let them get too fat)
Apologize to them every day
Because of their great compassion
They bear this immense burden for us
Our last connexion to the non-machine world
We’ve made enemies of all others
Dog carries this cross for us, and
They’re not the first creatures
Nor this the last cross
The whole world may be crucified

There are true believers
Who burn others
For speaking a participle of dogma otherwise
I don’t know how they would punish my Jesuit pooch
But my dog
Would run into a burning building to save my life
And so did god

(Daniel Imburgia is an un-aspiring poet living on Whidbey Island. A writing teacher once called him a ‘sloppy angst riddled sentimentally Roman Catholic overly didactic existentialist,’ causing Daniel to cry, take up smoking french cigarettes, and begin wearing a beret to hide his baldness. like that little Jewish boy who grew up in Algeria de-ciphering the Talmud, Daniel learned young that words burn—words are power). Shalom.      

Tuesday, August 30, 2016



the seventh kiss (zoopoetics X theopoetics rev.)

“when Jesus rose early on the first day
he appeared first to Mary Magdalena
out of whom he had cast seven devils.” mark 16-9

i wept
at all three tombs for mary magdalena
jerusalem
constantinople
aix-le-provence
wept like a lost child
tradition records that
magdalena
with martha and lazarus
were set adrift by other-believers
in a small boat
without oars or sails
so their heads pop up everywhere
but they may still be out there
tracing the scent of spikenard
waiting for us to abandon our life-boats
listen
spirit murmurs among vernacular winds
babies babble angel-speak and
the fresh songs of the dying
are sung into other worlds

of the bodies membrum
martha tidies the boat
lazarus pumps the bilge
Magdalena stands night-watch on the bow
remembering
she faces the waves
tempted to close her eyes and
journey home on foot

when swells break over the bow
her tears greet their briny fingers
warm seas embrace her body
cosset her breasts
wind presses hard between
her shearing thighs

magdalena
recalls every kiss written in the gospel
five were kisses of betrayal
one kiss was pure devotion
but of the seventh kiss
nothing was written
(for every mary
who made love with god
and lived,
and for Uzzah
who was killed for much less).

obliged, daniel imburgia

Sunday, August 21, 2016




who among us would risk proclaiming
how beautiful the stones
how marvelous the flowers
how graceful the mountain
how alive the animal
amongst so much darkness and ruin

Wednesday, July 13, 2016




on render

when asked to name
whose likeness was on her coin
the saint had only smooth stones
in her pocket


obliged

Tuesday, June 21, 2016


“The Triumph of the Church over Fury, Discord, and Hatred.”
(By Peter Paul Rubens. c.1625)

There are 783,137 words in the King James Bible
(And 783,138 spaces)
One day Barabbas bumped into Lazarus in Jerusalem
They drank wine and spoke of old times
Neither mentioned the elephant in the room
Bartholomew died soon after
Sadly of ‘natural causes’
James son of Zebedee finally came out of the closet
Of course the Rabboni knew even before JZ did
Mary Magdalena lives alone in a cave
Ministering to sick pilgrims who come looking
No one sees Thaddeus much anymore
He travels Italia mongering miracles from knock-off Mandylions
Judas took off with the stash but he keeps on
Financing doomed revolutions with profits from his brothels
Pontus Pilate retired to Corinth to remodel his compound
I think theres a cable show about it
Peter keeps insisting on circumcising eunuchs
And embracing socialism
One fundamentalist who got healed took up his bed to follow
But he won’t put it down again until Jesus comes back
At some point people started calling “Jews,” “THE” Jews
Saint Paul never burned his Roman passport
Simon (called “The Zealot”) decided after all to just
’Change the system from the inside’
The ‘Gadarene Swine’ became a chain of Paleo-cafes
Saint Junia was an apostle of indeterminate gender
(we don’t know where (s)he peed)
Two Popes disappeared without a trace
Christian Crucifixes are all made by tiny Chinese communists now
Simon Magus wasn’t first to capitalize on the zeitgeist
Zwingli starved the Roman Catholic Swiss cantons in retaliation
Hussites defenestrated Prague’s schismatics
From the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Snows
I received holy communion there in 1992 but
The Carmelite nuns had already fled in terror
When toads in Hamburg began exploding in the summer of 1486
Fearful church elders blamed ‘The Jews,’ and burned them publicly
As is common practice in europe during any calamity*
A chariot imported from Egypt cost 600 silver shekels ($77,000)
One shekel was a weeks’s wages (1 Kings 10:29)
‘Pele-joez-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom,’ is the longest name in the bible
It holds place for the passing shadow of the nameless un-god
The devil tested Jesus with absolute everything, but
After fasting 40 days in the desert Jesus returned with open hands
For a short time whores, lepers, poor people, strangers, queer folk
Were all loved
But that part of the story was lost and forgotten
Predictably, the ‘Seven Demons’ have returned with friends

obliged, daniel imburgia

Tuesday, May 31, 2016






Photos of my dog Snoot before and after I forget to give him the last bite from my table.

“The woman knelt before Jesus and cried out, “Lord, help me!” But Jesus asked, “Is it right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs?” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Mathew 15: v. 25 (Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Baba Bathra 8a.)  h/t Craig Keen

Of Kissing: An Evolutionary Paleo-Ontology With a Key to the Scriptures.

My dog is 100 years old
I wonder who’s master
How many nights
Could he have killed me in my sleep
Yet chose not to

Our deal is
He gets my last bite
I get to eat without pestering
Except for his Jesus on the cross eyes

The Talmud cautions
Sin not against dog
Against our life—world
These are the only unforgivable
Second bites at the apple

Reneging on the deal
Biting the cosmos that feeds you
Forgetting which tree is which
Consolidating etymologies until
Word don’t mean shit

We watch television together
Two broken-down voyeurs
Flickering eyes track fleet wolves
Running to ground an old Caribou
The exhausted bull ran his heart out
Until his legs and lungs surrendered

Respecting the food chain
The Alpha-wolf eats first
Starting with the bleeding-heart
Then the warm liver and soft guts

The congregation circles waiting
For the *Liturgy of Addai and Mari*
Take this spleen, this tongue, this haunch
This is my body
Given up for you

The weakest member gets the last bite
This is the way of the wolf—pack
Before money markets or mercy
We licked fresh blood from each others lips
And over aeons
Found love

(From *The Book of Lost Kisses* By Daniel Imburgia).
Obliged.

Sunday, April 10, 2016



There’s been so many bible based shows coming out recently who needs church? In the last episode of the show “Of Kings and Prophets” the prophet Samuel, King Saul, and Queen Ahinoam, argued over whether to massacre the Amalakites before or after attacking the Philistines. Samuel insisted that commandos whack the pacified Amalakites first but King Saul thought that would be a bad P.R. move and would slow down expansion of the Eastern Empire. Then Queen Ahinoam who knew how to influence dick-headed men attempted to use her pheromones to thwart God’s genocidal plan by seducing Saul and posting a bunch of crap about Samuel on Facebook. Saul was still afraid of God’s wrath though but he also wanted to cuddle with Ahinoam, so when God ordered Saul to un-friend Ahinoam Saul refused—and un-friended Samuel instead! Samuel who had been repressing a bit of a thing for Queen Ahinoam himself retaliated by making fun of Saul’s penis and posting dozens of insulting memes on Saul’s timeline via David’s FB acct. (this move will have regicidal implications in the future I suspect). Then Saul whose pride was engorged by his own blood-thirsty desires did the un-thinkable and un-friended God!!!      Then there was a great pause in heaven..….And God got really pissed and cursed the internet and hid it in a cave in Egypt for 3000 years until Indiana Jones and Chewbacca rescued it from Kylo Ren. The show got canceled after just 2 episodes so I guess I’ll be back to church next Sunday :(



We are thinking about watching "Risen" next:

"(Rated PG-13 for Biblical violence including some disturbing images).  “Risen” Follows the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of Clavius, tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Yahshua following the crucifixion to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem. Written by Sony Pictures.”

“Plot Keywords: crucifixion—judea-- resurrection--bare chested male bondage--See All (20).”

Couple of things. “Written by Sony Pictures.” A thousand years from now will the canonicity of the collected works of Apostle, *Sony Pictures,* be debated at the 3016 Academy of Religion convention held on Pandora?

Keywords: “Bare chested male bondage.” (This is why we need the Catholic Legion of Decency censoring our films again—go Santorum!).

And Is there a separate category now for “biblical violence?” How does BV differ from other violence? If you graphically mutilate and murder someone’s child does it drop from a NC-17 to a PG rating because the victim is a character from the bible? No matter how much sensitivity you used crucifying a chihuahua you would still never get a PG-13 rating.

Obliged.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016



Partheno-Genesis/Daniel-Imburgia

I watched a baby
Rocking on African hips
Absorbing the cadence of life
And wondered
If we all had mothers
Who pounded cassava root
And danced with us on their hips
Maybe we could have survived

The Orchid-Mantis is the brightest
Predator in the rain forest
Wielding its brilliance to attract victims
It hunts for promiscuous bees
Among pure white blossoms the
Flowers evolving into silent accomplices
To this erotic butchery even though
Cutting their own throats

The ancient Greeks wrote:
Our bodies return to Earth
Our blood returns to sea-water
Our soul returns to fire
Our breath returns to air
This seems so obvious
Who would take time to
Write it down?

Tsupuuu is the Quechua word
For the sound that a wounded pig makes
When it tumbles into fast-running water
There is no equivalent word in english
If he ever saw a wounded pig fall into a river
Wittgenstein wisely kept silent about it

The Talmud teaches that four men entered the Garden
Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Ben Acher, and Ben Akiba
Ben Azzai beheld the garden and perished;
Ben Zoma walked in the garden and went mad;
Ben Acher became enraged and destroyed the garden;
Ben Akiba entered the Garden in peace and left in peace

My newest gadget has
Ten thousand bird songs
Mating calls, pictures, stats, even
Sounds of many birds already extinct
Sometimes when deep in the forest
I play out-loud their forgotten songs and
Even the Ravens fall silent
For my weeping

The anchorite is mostly blind and rarely speaks
Sometimes trekking virtual pathways
The old one traces the keening of
Desolate machinery seeking help-meets and
Mourning the triumph of binary intercourse
It was the evening of the eight day
And one of their last creations had
Already gone missing


Video is from the documentary film, "Ghost Bird."  Much obliged.

Thursday, February 18, 2016





Book Report on, *The Raven's Gift.*


“Every creature is a word of God.”  Meister Eckhart

An old guy Jon Turk kayaks to Siberia and meets 96 yr old indigenous Koryak holy-woman Moolynaut who asked Kutcha Raven-god to heal Jon's pelvis shattered in an avalanche--and so he was healed. Koryak life was lived among Raven Reindeer Salmon Mink Wolf Rabbit Bear River Fox Ice Tree Ocean-Being for thousands of years until the czar's soldiers and priests came from the west and took most of the Reindeer and Furs every year and the czar's priests called them savages and devils so some of the Koryak began wearing brassiere and drinking vodka but other Koryak moved farther into the Wilderness to preserve their lives and culture. years later stalin's soldiers came and took away the czar's priests but also the rest of the Reindeer and furs and proclaimed that all Koryak were now comrade-citizens of the great soviet socialist republic!  so the Koryak had no more Reindeer and their life was violently shattered and the Koryak went hungry or were forced to work in factories and many killed themselves or died from rotten livers. but some few remained on the Tundra and meagerly survived hunting Rabbits and fishing Salmon.  but then again officials from moscow arrived but now they were capitalist and they announced that all the Koryak were now subjects/citizens of a democratic republic, and they possessed many papers (and weapons) proving that all the Salmon and furs were now fungible commodities entirely owned by rich overlords in giant cities thousands of kilometers to the west and then factories invaded on boats tracks planes and they took all the Salmon Fox Mink and cut down Trees so the Koryak could not hunt or fish or breathe. the capitalists priests returned also and preached to the Koryak that their Raven-god was a devil and must be destroyed and since the western men were great destroyers, the few survivors now pray inside wood boxes with colorful pictures of a strange god on the walls.  but it was the men from the west who had killed their own god not the Koryak so they ask why should the Koryak be made to suffer? Moolynaut is the last Holy-woman of the Koryak and she worries that no one will follow her in the way of the Tundra and Kutcha the Raven-god.  there was one other holy-woman even older than Moolynaut from the area of Magadan but 2 years earlier she knew she would soon die so when she could find no young woman willing to learn her wisdom she embraced the sacred Tree and prayed, 'my power came form Kutcha Raven-god and now i return it.'  then the Tree exploded as if struck by Lightening and she and the Tree fell shattered and dead among the smoldering splinters and so her power returned to her creator.  I fear when Moolynaut dies something immensely good, holy, and life-channeling will be lost from this world; not like when the dinosaurs went extinct or a tsunami kills thousands, we may grieve through the loss caused by an ocean storm and still come to dwell in a greater wholeness, but how to we come to abide the transformation of the whole Earth into a murder/suicide crime scene?

Much obliged.


* List of some of the tribes of the northwest coast of usamerica where I live:

Tlingit
Nisga's
Bella Coola
Nuu-chah-nulth
Haida
Tsimshian
Gitxsan
Kwakiuts
Haisla
Makah
Heitsuk
Nuxalk
Salish
Quileute
Chimakum
Nootka
Nisqualli
S'Klallam
Wilapa
Chinook
Makah
Tilamook
Wuikinuxv
Shuswap
Nuxalk
Haisla
Quinalt
Kwakwaka'wakw

"Jesus told his followers a parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field.  It is a small seed yet it grows into a great tree and becomes a home for all the birds who come to shelter in its branches."  Matthew 13:31-32.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Golden Crowned Kinglet

Invisible Killer.  Daniel Imburgia.

I found this beautiful little bird
Dead on the concrete floor
It had crashed into a large picture window
Newly installed and freshly cleaned
I warmed her in my hand and waited
While her Spirit decided if she would stay
I called her *'Lizzie' after Elizabeth Taylor
Who survived many near-death experiences

I prayed for Lizzie but nothing too specific
I wanted to allow space for her and the
God of birds to consider all voices
See the big picture so to speak
Reflect upon future aeons
Who am I to say who lives and dies?

"Golden Crowned Kinglets
Are an exceedingly tame bird,
Often entering human habitations and
Allowing themselves to be picked up or stroked."
(Audabon Field Guide To Birds)

For a hundred thousand years at least
Tiny Kinglets have been flying above these cliffs
Migrating up and down the west-coast
Over glaciers a mile thick and arid desserts
Evading terrible storms and hungry predators
Until men (sic) erected
Stupendous windows on this bluff

In human words the Kinglet's songs when
Flocking and mating translate as a
Very high jingling--'tsii tsii tsii' followed by a
Thin sibilant 'Tsieeee' that chatters toward the end;
'Tsii tsii tsii tsii tiii djit djit djit djit'

Each song has a purpose just as
The window on the bluff has a purpose
As some believe that "Nature has a purpose"
Or as one might speak of a being
Reckoned by what it chooses to see
And what not to

Obliged.

Thursday, January 21, 2016



To A Grieving Poet:

Forgive us when we say
There are no words
Let us mourn together
Their ultimate failure and
Make for them bodies to
Dwell among us
Incarnations of word-flesh
Are no going down though
But a rising
Into speakable love
We are told that
Energy is fungible
Matter thrums
Quarks accelerate
Particles collide, but
My broken child
Is all the universe

That matters

obliged.