Walking My Dog On A Country Road

Used baby diapers, cigarette butts,
coffee cups,
a thousand incarnations of styrofoam.
Bubble pack and plastic blisters,
Tim’s cups and lids.
Gas cans, oil cans, beer cans by the dozen,
plastic and glass alcohol bottles.
Throwaway food containers of every stripe,
plastic bags galore.
The odd lost glove, and several roaches,
an old car stereo deck.
Hub caps, broken glass
and plastic from ancient collisions.
Skeletons from roadkill, decaying in the dust.
Plastic frames that hold an inch of dental floss,
as though the effort of using fingers with the floss
was too intellectually taxing.
Cigar and cigarillo stubs seeping poison
to a patient soil.
Plastic straws, plastic straws,
and plastic straws again.
Bits of wood, and metal constructs
that bear no trace of function.
Dozens of cotton swabs,
and endless soiled tissues.

A sad commentary on our times,
and our disposable mentality:
tragic epitaph of our species.

The Silence at the End of Time

Note: Leibniz and Kant postulate that time is part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events.  Without humanity there is no time.

No ranting pastors preaching hate,
and exclusion without Jesus.
All quiet from the imams teaching
religious violence frees us.

Black Friday long has passed,
we’ve consumed it all away:
our depleted planet barren
in the light of a sadder day.

The one percenters’ struggle
to have it all has failed,
and society’s poor can no longer see
injustice against which they railed.

There is no birdsong spreading joy,
in this orb so bleak and sere:
and no inuksuk now remains
to say that we were here.

Corporate and military adventurists
crumbled into karmic dust;
as policies of greed, and depletion,
untempered by empathy must.

We refuse to plan for tomorrow;
instead we wallow in our waste and grime:
our arrogance ensures our species shan’t hear
the silence at the end of time.

It Must Be Me

Surely the headlines every day,
and the carnage that we see,
are fictitious misinformation:
     or it could just be me.

So much anger, betrayal of trust,
dislocation, war, calamity,
with no sign of social enlightenment:
     but that could just be me.

Politicians telling lies,
messages saying we are free,
just shop until you drop, and take your pills:
     then perhaps it is just me.

Flags flying, heroes, martial music plays,
while we sip our coffee, drink our tea.
Military adventurism rules:
     or is it all just me?

Has the mountain of evolved society
shattered into tribal skree?
Are we capable of making a better world,
     or does it only bother me?

So I shall continue to hope for the best,
and see what tomorrow may be.
We could make our world a paradise,
     if we stop thinking “me.”

Against the Wall

  

The crypt coldness 
of the alley walls 
always bothered her 
even more than
the bad breath 
of her furtive clients.
Her thin shoulders 
were bruised and scraped 
by the bricks, 
as the speed of fiscal passion 
abraded foreplay.

Her working clothes 
were a hentai fantasy; 
short, with slits 
and scoop;
and a mile of leg 
disappearing 
into leather micro. 
Her eyes held that look 
of reflective knowledge 
found only in the better work 
of a few Dutch Masters.

The mind-place 
she visited while working 
was an old friend 
from a lost childhood:
a place to which 
she continued to be drawn, 
even after learning 
her test was positive.

On the Passing of a Friend

We all have our moments
when, perusing the past,
we chronicle our lives;
sorting events and changes
from first to last:
our friends, our mistakes, and our drives.

We all have our moments,
when a friend has been lost,
to reflect on what we could have said;
perhaps to have given more of ourselves
not counting the time nor the cost:
now that friend, like that moment, has fled.

We all have our moments,
when tears have been shed,
with regrets and remorse tucked away.
We can smile in remembrance
of things done or said,
and be with him then, each day.

Liturgy for Social Media

Breathe.
Ignore ignorance.
Do not become depressed
by the lack of societal empathy
reflected here.
Breathe.

Breathe.
Do not be sucked into the morass of false news.
Forgive stupidity, and do not respond to it.
Avoid the slimy vortex of hate posts.
This is a product of conditioning,
and is used by governments/corporations to mould
the audience that they would enslave.
Breathe.

Breathe.
Do not be drawn into policy statements:
your opinion will never change the ethos of a closed mind.
Do not invest anything of yourself.
Breathe.

Air Vent Requiem

His muttered dialogue with Jesus
was apologetic and respectful,
politely drawing that Deity’s attention
to cosmic oversights.

The supermarket cart,
full of strange lumps and extrusions,
seemed a natural extension of self.
His eyes never viewed
a potential acquisition directly:
they fluttered, like children’s wishes,
skirting the object of desire,
until, overcome by belief,
he would pounce.

The temperature drop,
that negated the meagre warmth
of the hot air vent that was his home,
temporarily interrupted
his celestial conversation.

In the thin morning light,
the cart stands guard
over the still and huddled body,
like some alien monument
commemorating a battle
few have known.

October Changes

Waking this morning, I felt
that all my nerves
were dangling,
quivering
like the last leaves
of some ancient autumnal oak,
awaiting the quick
sharp
merciful
breath of a north wind.

Later this morning, I felt
that all my senses
were growing
pulsing
like the first buds
of some young and vernal oak,
quickening in the warm
sweet
fresh
winds of spring.

Extrapolating this afternoon,
good humour recovered,
chuckling,
chortling,
at my germinating metaphor
on the oak of life:
my brain an acorn green,
small,
fragile,
but still to grow.

Not Unlike A Fruit Loop

(New to series:  Progression: These Are The Best Days Of My Life)

You can’t bring me down
with your tiny mind,
running around its hamster wheel.
You can’t harsh my buzz
with derisive words
of hate and dogmatic zeal.

You may think that you’ve found
an answer or two,
to invalidate all that I’ve said,
but your answers are stock,
without substance or proof:
now begone!  Get out of my head!

You tire me out, and I can’t make sense
of most of what you say:
your grammar and syntax abused.
Volume can’t replace content,
nor can myth replace fact,
but simplicity keeps you amused.

I am reminded of a fruit loop,
composed of nothing real,
and bright colours artificial:
one could eat the whole box
and be left with the thought
that this really is nothing special.

So I’ll just walk away and salvage
what little remains of my reason:
I’m not sure that you’ll know I have gone.
You will find some other ear to bend
and prattle away until it bleeds:
in the end, you will stand all alone.

Letting Go: The Lesson of the Mandala

(New to series:  Progression:  The Best Days of my Life)

Realities change:
the arrow of time is random
and chaotic.
Aging changes, often drastically,
the notion of self,
and to dwell upon what was
contaminates the joy of Now.

Release those acquaintances
who cannot become friends;
Cease endless dogmatic dialogues
containing faith, belief, and prayer.
Set free the essence of the young adult
you were so long ago;
Let go innate politeness
that makes excuses for the rude.
Dispense your focus on societal sadness,
embrace both love and peace.
Liberate your mind, controlled too long
by corporate Newspeak.
Unchain the propaganda
preaching tribal exclusivity.
Just let go
to Become.

Impermanence is the foundation
upon which each life is built,
and acceptance is to understand
the fullness of what is.
Letting go does not subtract,
but fulfills, enhancing
who you are.

Theoretical Paranoia

Sometimes, awake at night,
I fear that I shall find
my synapses all firing
in someone else’s mind.

As solid sleep eludes me
I can’t leave it unsaid,
through quantum entanglement,
I’m in some other’s head.

Or perhaps I could be walking,
just strolling with my dog,
visualizing strangeness that exists
in this quantum fog.

Is that a bird that I see,
or a leaf?  But then again,
it may be a weirdness peering
from a multi-dimensional brane.

With vibrating strings humming
through all that I’ve learned,
connecting the unseen and bizarre,
I’ll admit I’m a trifle concerned.

So many hypotheses in my thoughts
make me so tired and weary,
I’ll contemplate the Mandelbrot Set,
and switch to Chaos theory.

Elevation

(Further to the series:  On the Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)


The struggle,
and the weight
of trying:
reaching for a point
of departure.

Dropping the repetition,
putting away the routine,
the boredom,
the sameness,
of constant distraction.

Letting go of the spiels
of strident people
beleaguering their very own
hobby horses,
until the beast falls.

Unchaining from the distraction
of the reality of others:
setting aside the blackness
to which our masters
condition us.

Then rising, with song,
and a sense of joy
into the cool, crisp air of logic;
into the sunshine
that dwells within.

Sativa Cookie Moon

(Cannabis and Creative Cognition Series)


High above the silver-clothed bay
Selene rules.
She contemplates.
Several harbour islands
are black cutouts,
with scrub spruce 
starkly standing guard.
The stars are dimmed
with respect,
and more than a little awe.

The scene evokes
Black light posters
from the psychedelic age:
lifetimes ago.
All is imbued with a surreal peace.
One can sense the subtle presence
of a Universal Vibration,
and feel the sympathetic harmonic
of belonging,
while remaining separate,
and unique.

There is the sense,
the feel, of a shimmering curtain,
the nearness of another reality,
singing its own cosmic song
in the glowing velvet night.
The night breeze exhales,
and the goddess smiles
as the bay breaks
into silvery shards
of eternity:
reflecting past changes,
under far different,
and distant,
moons.

Greyhavens Meditation

(Anti)Social Media

(Further to the series:  On the Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)

This is my wall.
I hide behind it, peeking
timorously, eyes lowered:
hiding, not seeking.

This is my community.
My mask talks to your mask, 
reflecting nothing of self:
real exchange a traumatic task.

I have no idea who you are
if you should malign me,
but I don’t care: it is simply
my persona that you see.

We say, and we do,
and pretend that all is real;
but no emotions trickle through:
online just doesn’t feel.

I can blather on for hours,
and you may prattle too;
but exchange nothing of substance:
this is what we do.

Our faux avatars reflect
naught of whom we might be:
lost, lonely individuals;
anonymous, but free.

Graven in Stone

We are buried deep beneath
old tablets, made of stone.
These rules, made in another age,
command sinners to atone.

They teach us how to bear the weight
of suffering, pain, and woe,
by abandoning sense and logic,
for something we cannot know.

A stitch in time saves nine, they say,
and other folksy stuff:
and the tough get going
when the going gets tough.

It totals up to nothing
but a yoke to restrain your soul,
and make you more compliant
to those who would control.

There should only be one tablet,
(and it won’t come from above!)
and graven on it are the words
“Inclusion, Peace, and Love.”

Rehearsing the Script

Each of us maintains a book,
with ragged, dog-eared cover,
and read it faithfully every day
with no surprises to discover.

In each of our relationships
the script makes dialogue clear:
no unexpected exposés
to cause us dread, or fear.

Sometimes we have to extemporize,
when a page is smudged or stained,
and we stumble with words and narrative,
until the storyline is regained.

And sad the day when we go out
and leave our script behind,
leaving us to prattle foolishly
forgetting each and every line.

Each of us maintains a book,
with ragged, dog-eared cover,
and read it faithfully every day
with no surprises to discover.

Deus Ex Machina

(New to Quantum Shift series)  This is a rework of the first draft.



Forget epistemology, for the moment,
then set aside onotology too.
With common sense as our guide
let’s examine what may be true.

Brane theory, with branes flapping
in some marvellous cosmic breeze:
brushing against each other,
with a poke, a crash, or a squeeze.
Superstring theory, with shivering strings
vibrating in endless dimensions,
couldn’t this  interdimensional weird
fill our lives with a strange jangling tension?
Little wonder how we live in turmoil,
with gravitational waves breaking
at the speed of light, with ripples
and rips: catastrophes in the making.
Never forget the Mandelbrot set,
with spirals infinitely repeating
with iterations odd and wondrous,
continuous, and never completing.
The many-world theory, especially 
Everett’s interpretation,
where every thing that could be is,
just confounds imagination!

I could go on for ages
about theories, tests, and facts,
but the essence of my narrative
could then fall between the cracks.
Notwithstanding Bohmian physics,
quantum entanglement, and mechanics,
our species, when contemplating the unknown,
invariably panics.
The supernatural answers
to all that puzzles and perplexes,
make us feel safe, and cozy,
because some god provides the nexus!
It isn’t all just about us,
but we strive to give life reason,
and manufacture yet another god
that changes with the season.

We don’t need gods to make things work,
nor accept our eternal fealty:
we are more than capable by ourselves
to understand reality.
Learn, observe, make valid tests:
knowledge isn’t something terrible
Look for proof, not folk tales,
shun dogma, avoid parable.
On your path to understanding,
you must first open your mind:
abandon faith, seek logic,
and be amazed at what you’ll find.
With no cosmic Geppetto
pulling our cosmic strings,
you can learn, and love to embrace the joy
that natural progression brings.

Deus ex machina:
why can’t we use our brain?
Stop dangling gods from a hook,
and make good use of the crane.

Into The Woods

(Part of the series: On the Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)

I am running off into the woods:
I can’t take it any more.
Far too much stupidity
from far too many boors.

Off into the quiet woods,
with no talk of various gods,
no ideological dogma
spewed from plastic-minded frauds.

No fences in this forest deep,
not a uniform in sight:
not a storm cloud in cerulean sky:
quiet peace, with dappled light.

Willful stupidity offends me,
and it now seems epidemic:
love and logic have been erased,
and hate has become systemic.

I know I should stand and scream,
and man the battle lines;
but I have grown too old, too fast,
to hope for better times.

So I’ll hide in my intellectual woods,
and heal in shadowed tranquillity;
and wait, dreaming of a world
devoid of hate, tribes, and hostility.

One Size Fits All

(Part of the series "On the Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters")

Don’t squeeze me into templates,
or assume that I’m like you:
you’d actually have to be me
to know what I call “true”.

Don’t quote me words
from your myriad gods,
sold wholesale with ten percent markup
by televangelist frauds.

Don’t tell me your country is the best
while flapping your flag at me,
and kindly cease this meme about
land of the brave and home of the free.

Stop for a while your vapid speech
about conditioned point of view,
and seek out wisdom in others:
learn truth you never knew!

Don’t cram me in your little box,
full of dogma too demanding;
come join the march for global peace,
inclusion, and understanding.

Fences

(Part of the series:  On The Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)

We each construct our fences 
to give order to our lives.
They protect our paranoia from the different, 
and the strange,
So we fence off this idea, 
that concept, or belief, 
then mount a set of guidelines, 
protecting it from change.

Our neighbours have their fences, 
their moats, 
and their walls,
guarding ideological boundaries, 
and isolating all.
We wave our patriotic flags, flying on each fencepost,
with rousing martial music 
giving frisson to our pride.
Our hegemonic leaders give proof
to Gramsci’s thought;
empowering us to build more walls,
and do exactly as we are taught.
Inside our tiny separate worlds,
behind the barricades,
we celebrate our freedoms,
with rockets, and with parades.

One fine day we may awake
and find our world has changed,
with our fences turned to cattle pens
as our leaders had arranged.
Can we not tear down these fences,
these abhorrent tribal walls?
Let us hasten to embrace the light
before the darkness falls.

Girded With Anger

(Part of the Series:  On The Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)

Just who do you think you are,
to speak to me like that?
How dare you think that I care
about anything you have to say!
You think you know me?
You believe you “understand” me?
The inhabitants of my reality
have no reference point
in your experience;
they are strange and frightening
(for the most part)
with verbal barbs
to infect and destroy
fragile flesh and feelings.

Leave me alone!
I am trying to protect you from me,
but you keep returning,
pretending that you have a sense
of me, and what I really think.
Acting kind and understanding
will not spare you, should you
dilute my anger, 
and deflect my searing gaze.

Leave me alone!
I have problems with which I must cope:
a moment of quiet, please,
so I may seek resolution.
My anger is my regard for you,
and the desire not to flail out verbally,
hurting you, and scarring the core
of who you can be.
I gird myself in anger
that you may walk in peace.

Rehearsing the Script

(Part of the Series:  On The Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)



Each of us maintains a book,
with ragged, dog-eared cover,
and read it faithfully every day
with no surprises to discover.

In each of our relationships
the script makes dialogue clear:
no unexpected exposés
to cause us dread, or fear.

Sometimes we have to extemporize,
when a page is smudged or stained,
and we stumble with words and narrative,
until the storyline is regained.

And sad the day when we go out
and leave our script behind,
leaving us to prattle foolishly
forgetting each and every line.

Each of us maintains a book,
with ragged, dog-eared cover,
and read it faithfully every day 
with no surprises to discover.

Trick Questions and Tribal Tattoos

(Part of the Series:  On The Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters)

Vestigial memories:  huddled in a cave,
hungry, frightened,
destined to die
in two or three decades,
if not painfully and suddenly
as prey.

We live longer now
but still seek the tribal cluster,
for security,
but mostly to assuage
the overwhelming and debilitating
sense of being alone,
and insignificant, against the void.

We develop secret handshakes,
certain ways of dressing,
arcane reference buzzwords,
and mark our bodies
so those we seek to emulate
may recognise us as one of
“them”.

When shall we evolve far enough
to recognise that,
in order for our species
to survive cosmic extinction,
we must stop tribal wagon-circling,
and accept that we are one?
We are one species,
wrought from elements
of dying stars.
Our destiny is one:
we are born,
we live,
we die.
Beyond that no evidence exists for furtherance.

It behoves us, then,
during our breath-taking ride
on the arrow of time,
to strive for peace,
for inclusion for all,
for kindness,
for understanding,
for acceptance,
and for love.
All else is folly:
just a crude tribal tattoo
to mark the passage
of a brutish species
who refused evolution,
and tribalized themselves
to extinction.

The Strange Case of the Fallen Guard

This poem is part of the series:
On The Establishment, Care, and Maintenance of Personal Social Parameters

The Strange Case of the Fallen Guard

This is the way of things:
I recognise you, and
react towards you,
and interact with you,
in this manner.

Through a series
of mind tricks, I am aware,
but do not react 
to the person you present me.
Seeing you for what you are
forces me to hide.
The mind structure is tower-like,
but not a Disney castle,
more like Bran Castle 
on a dark and stormy
All Souls’ Night.

I have arranged complex schedules
for the guards:  
never look within the rooms
never open the doors
be deaf and heedless
to strange whisperings,
and,
stay alert.

We may speculate on why the guard slept:
too tired for too long?
spite and the hatred of a boring job?
Or had he perhaps always known
he would sleep.
Speculation does not change the fact:
when the guard was fallen
the truth of our relationship escaped,
and things were never the same.

Sleeping Naked

A slow motion cascade
of gold, and dawn
teases her way slowly
into the day.
The dunes are drenched
with warm shadow,
and displayed with endless variations
of sand, sun, and shadow.

In the silence of this jungle clearing,
an orchestra slowly grows.
Soft sounds of life,
unseen but felt
as a rhythm slow
and eternal.

The stars stretch to forever,
and the lanterns
on the dugout fishing canoes,
scale universal splendour 
to this night.
And the waves that bob the lanterns
flow relentlessly south 
to a distance Antarctica 
ten thousand kilometres away.

I hear your breath in the night,
and feel the harmonic 
being near you brings.
Then, just as smiling sleep
reclaims, we touch,
to travel,  yet again,
our variations on a dream.

Bathroom Continuum

My father's face surprised me one morning, 
peering at me from my bathroom mirror. 
My joy at seeing him (dead these many years) 
was tempered by a sudden knowledge of the message
he brought.

I never sought wisdom from my Dad, 
but in my blundering adolescent way 
found much that would return in later years 
to haunt, and to guide me.

He, a quiet yet vibrant man, taught me 
that sorrow and tears were never solely
the private prerogative of women: 
men also wept in private anguish.

He, an undemonstrative man, showed his love 
at the most unexpected times. 
A sudden gift, and shy explanation 
of how he thought I might like it.

He, an unlettered man, offered support,
approval for my serendipitous ways. 
With hesitant words he voiced his pride 
in the directions I had taken.

Seeing myself in my children's eyes, 
I can only hope that the genetic gifts 
I leave with them can partially repay 
the legacy of my father's love. 

Collateral Damage

Just a euphemism we have coined
to mask the slaughter of innocents,
people much like you and me
who got in the way of war.

Just a phrase to make it neat,
and hide the body bags,
while we wave our flags,
sing our anthems, and shed a tear for  “heroes”.

We colonised, destroying cultures,
imposing religion, and societal mores
on peoples who had been civilized
long before the Enlightenment.

We pushed our hegemonic aspirations,
driven by corporate greed,
and the leitmotif of economic expansionism,
with military muscle hammering compliance.

We speak democracy, but install tyrants
who ensure human rights abuses,
economic stagnation, theocratic indoctrination,
and we ponder the causes of terrorism.

So: another day, another headline,
screaming of blood, and death, and pain.
When will we realise the collateral damage
is empathy, tolerance, and social progress?