Bouquet For Anger

Please take your anger
and just walk away:
your righteousness is not a cure,
and injustice still prevails.

Please don’t diminish me,
in your rage:
you have no idea
who I am.

Please take your outrage
to someone
who cares less about the cause
you proclaim to espouse.

Please know you are right,
from your point of view,
and all others are wrong;
your chorus is off-key.

Please set aside your tantrum
and instruct, not berate,
people want to understand,
not through demonization.

Please take a breath or two:
breathe, and release:
we are not your enemies,
but travellers on tomorrow’s march.

Loss of Concentration

Sparkle!
Whoops, here I go
                              again. 
The shadows
     of the maple
          contrasting the torii
               on this cold
                    this crisp
                         this perfect
winter day.
                          Twinkle!
Oh no.  Not another link
to research
on the far reaches
of the InterWorld.
“Will it enhance my life?”
I always feel it will.
All knowledge is

Enhancement

fills this moment,
anticipates the next,
and chronicles the past.
Sort of a sparkly,
                                     distracting,
existentialism,
but with
(wait for it)
enhancement.

The Kaleidoscope of Truth

(Series: Cannabis and Creative Cognition.  Ref: Leafly “AK-47")

The sparkle is compelling,
like dew on a pitcher plant,
and it calls
in a siren’s voice,
and changes
yet again.

Twist the tube,
and another shimmering version
transforms the verity
of the cylinder:
yours is different
from mine.

(and this is where attention strays
and wanders
amongst the mirrors:
so many reflections;
shining interpretations
of individual truths)

The scope drops,
and mirrors shatter,
leaving only glittering shards
of realities that are
anathema to all
but one.

A December Fog

Droplets of fog hung, expectant,
in autumn air scented
by composting leaves.
The dog kept to his duties,
marking anew a territory
that, to his doggy mind,
stretched far beyond
this strip of road.

Time stopped.

The droplets are metaphors
for the contents
of the poisoned cornucopia
that spews

fake news, hate, bigotry, manipulation,
tribalism, nativism, exceptionalism,
entitlement, greed, cruelty,
and other rotted products
of a devolving species

daily on the paths of our lives.

Dog trots happily
on our path
through this young December day,
while across the bay
a pallid sun
brushes away the fog.

Landscape, Without Perspective

(Cannabis, and Creative Cognition series. See Leafly.com “AK-47"
with a sprinkling of kief)

Today’s reality is
shaded, altered, and perverted
by the ignorant haze,
by the brutish hatred
that surrounds the jackboots
of populism.

The strident voices
of demagogues
deafen reason,
while martial music
and patriotic memes
excite the simple.

Our resources,
our jobs, and social progression
are being dismantled,
as we are told
that the magical sleight of hand
trickle down effect
will bring betterment for all.

Our planet is dying,
populations on the move.
Wars and economic adventurism
cause feeding frenzies
for the one percent,
while migration becomes
sole alternative to decimation.

Today’s reality is
dirty, cruel, and self-serving.
Traditionalists all,
we cling to a past that
did not work for us,
while praising gods and people who do not care.

Mea Culpa

Mea culpa,
and responsibility is mine.
Species disappeared at my hand.
It is my fault.

Mea culpa,
as industries turned
the skies to grey,
and the rains to poison.

The fault is mine,
as my god demanded hate,
not love:
patriotism loves a parade.

I take the blame,
but have waited too long:
I should have questioned, but now
the answer is here.

The guilt is mine,
and the near future looms
as a sere and lifeless globe.
Mea culpa.  I am humankind.

Dancing Naked To The October Moon

(Series Cannabis and Creative Cognition.  
Ref: Leafly.com “Sour Nuken”)

Well perhaps naked is too strong a word:
my moccasins saved my blushes.
The south garden, under my jackpines,
was no more a garden
than I was naked:
we were both clothed in the chill light
of a soaring Autumn moon.

And the song of the pines
spoke to the pagan in my genes,
telling me all to be known
is enthroned in this light
and sung by the west breeze
with promises of renewal.

And if there were more to be said,
it would be stylized by my outstretched arms
embracing moonlight
on a vibrant hill
overlooking the Atlantic,
just down the silver reach.

October Processional

(Part of the series:  Cannabis, and Creative Cognition.   Reference Leafly.com "Romulan")

The flight of a lonely seagull, crying,
across a westering sky,
seems a cosmic metaphor
with the meaning not quite clear.

The clarity of the harbour’s reach,
bending with lodestone truth
towards a hidden sea:
frozen moment in a transient beauty.

Thoughts skip to and fro
across a multi-dimensional Rorschach,
sometimes winning credibility:
more often not.

It seems that Autumn has arrived.
She brings her own time,
and colours her personal agenda
with crisp memories of peace.

The Open Door

I once stepped out an open door
in some far distant past.
At first the path seemed barely there,
in this landscape new and vast.
One step lead to another
as steps are prone to do,
leading from familiar and mundane
to vistas bold and new.

Often storms assailed me
and I huddled lost and cold,
but then my skies would clear
into a sunrise of beckoning gold.
Some hills turned into mountains
swept by bitter gales,
while others were cloaked with flowers,
and soothing forest trails.

Phantoms flickered around me
but they did not stay long.
They vanished in the distance
as I sang my lonely song.
With wonders to distract me
I would sometimes lose my way,
and sit, crying quietly,
then move on another day.

Time often seemed to change,
and lose chronological coherence,
often speeding through the days;
sometimes held in abeyance.
Faces flashed, and words drifted by,
no logic, just confusion.
I was not sure if this was real
or just a strange illusion.

One day the road became less clear,
its call was less demanding:
the lure of the path was less profound,
no longer so commanding.
I rested now, more frequently;
less able to endure,
when there, in the peaceful valley below,
I saw an open door.

Brain Worms

I’m oh so tired, intellectually bored,
with people mouthing memes,
and slogans over and over again
as if logic is not what it seems.

I hear so much stupidity
that I question whether or not
I have early onset dementia,
or if my mind is just shot.

In the Guardian the other day I read
that pollution has made us less smart:
from some of the thoughts I am hearing
I’d rather listen to somebody fart!

Our world is completely polarised
between the left and the right:
given the choices that we now have
I think I’ll just give up the fight.

We had so much potential
to forge social justice for all,
but now each side is only concerned
with new marginalising names to call.

I’m oh so tired, and I feel alone,
as the world rants around me, insane.
There is so much good that we could do
if we’d just lose this worm in our brain.

We used to boast of great thinkers,
of intellectual gods:
but hate and time destroyed all that:
we are now just stupid sods.

Carousel

No Coney Island ride is this,
nor Rodgers and Hammerstein romance:
more Bradbury’s dark undertones,
offering retrogressive trance.

We buy our ticket with childish glee,
hoping to grab the brass ring,
but the longer we ride, the quicker it goes:
a gaudy and sinister thing.

Riding garish hobby horses,
we head gladly into the past,
and circle ‘round and ‘round and ‘round:
each cycle may be our last.

Why must our minds be stuck in time,
refusing progress and change,
cycling through the same old ways,
rather than improve and rearrange?

I jumped off long, long ago:
no recycled past for me.
Now I just watch the pretty lights,
and dance to the calliope.

Testimony

He easily ignored
the stares,
the crude comments,
the threatening gestures,
engendered
by his street-corner ministry:
his testament of Faith.

He overcame his fear
with his Belief
that, even in these squalid
ghetto streets,
the Word
should enlighten.

While he sang
“What a Friend we have
in Jesus,”
a hulk in gangsta garb
spat on him,
and he worried that
his Testimony
only made
his God
sad.

But I’ve Got A Plan

I’ve got a plan, and it is good,
and long-range,
built-in safeguards,
kind of plan,
and, oh yes, 
I know...
shit happens.

AND IT IS SO DEVASTATING
SO MIND DESTROYING
IN THAT/THIS INSTANT
ALL
HAS
CHANGED

I shall go slowly at first,
and cry,
and shiver without control,
and go slowly
at first.

I saw a glimpse of colour today,
but when I looked for the source
it was gone.

I heard me crying today,
hearing for the first time
the encapsulated grief,
the engrained sense of loss.

And I stopped.

And stepped into today
where joy is the norm,
and love is the root.

Unfolding

(Cannabis and Creative Cognition series.  Leafly.com “Granddaddy Purple”)

Heaviness seeps in,
blurring the sharp edge
of reality.
Outlines shimmer
with nascent interpretations
of being,
rendered in gentle memories
of black light posters,
and throbbing day-glo colours.

Kaleidoscopic tunnel vision
offers brief glances 
at thoughts that lose cohesion
as they unfold
into the frozen magic,
the stillness,
of here, now.

Bouquets of visions
dance in fractal perfection,
drifting in profusion,
as they seek solidity
in the changing abstract
of this, then, and when.
Coffee anchors,
and quiet review
reworks the wonder
that continues to unfold,
just beyond
the present.

Ballerinas of Deception: Chimaera of Deceit

Ballerinas of Deception: Chimaera of Deceit

(Series: Cannabis and Creative Cognition (sub-set: Tropicali- See Leafly.com))

Flittering, always random motion,
but you sense
a guiding,
a forecasting,
a constant

vibration
of unity.

It would be easy,
if seeking verity and variety
were simply buttons
on our I-have-just-opted-out
remotes.
But no.
Things just seep in,
flashing and whispering
in eleven dimensions:
not just straightforward.
Ever.

And the interaction,
the incessant interplay
of individual realities
clashing
against the familiar.
Familiar?  Is not familiar 
simply a dream
that doesn’t hurt?

And wait...
over there in the corner:
a shiny promise
of intellectual rewards,
and the present is abandoned
to the moan of the different,
or the thought of
the real.

Existential Layering (Blue Dream)

(New to “Cannabis and Creative Cognition” series.  Ref:  Leafly.com "Blue Dream")

A summer verandah,
with birds twittering
their constant gossip...
the jays scoff.
Wind wisps sweep 
in ever-changing directions,
seeking to surprise themselves
at the next sudden turn.
Electric and gas motors curse
at the pressure of coiffed lawns.
Distant traffic hum across a bay
silver-plattered by cloudless sky.

The sense of otherness:
an expectant feeling that 
something completely unknown
is happening.
To you.
On a level of which you are not,
yet,
aware.

A graffiti of goldfinches
flirt
in the lower branches
of the jackpines.
And the old man,
lost in being,
at home
in now.

In The Process Of Extinction

We live in a static bubble,
a constant place called now.
Past and future flicker on temporal walls:
causal pictures of why, and of how.

Our lives are egocentric, greedy,
and the need to acquire is strong.
We’re conditioned to want and to use.
We are right, while others are wrong.

Corporate masters control us,
supplying false memes, and lies.
They teach us to suspect the different;
what to hate, who to demonise.

We live in a shiny plastic sphere,
with fake news and chemical food,
and if reality should seep in,
we take pills to adjust our mood.

So our masters do just as they please,
while we ignore our plight.
Our environment is being killed.
We’re on the edge of nuclear night.

We are taught to expect Eternity,
but Forever doesn’t care:
the concept of Always does exist
but we will not be there.

We could have made a difference,
but we would not see:
in the process of extinction
there is no you, nor me.

The Button Box

Skipping stones
across the pond
of time.
Coleco
SNES
Nintendo
Internet
smartphone
tablets
and good old
D and D.

My Mum had a button box
full of magical tokens.
Rainy days,
                   or sick in bed,
those tokens were all mine.
Armies on the field,
arrayed bright and dauntless,
                  against the glittering foe.
And the Wish Market,
where the correct combination
of contrasting coloured counters
purchased your wildest
                  dreams.

Now, in a later time,
the buttons are recalled
complete
with memories of innocence
                 and youth.
But the security
                 and the surety
of those wondrous,
those different
                 times
remain,
safe          and          real,
in a button box
          on a rainy day.
      

The Cage

The outside was brightly painted,
adorned with cheery slogans,
inspirational memes.
Inside was dark and dank,
with an acrid smell
that spoke of captivity,
and pain.

Outside the sun shone
with the insistence 
of a Norman Rockwell painting,
and the joy of an ice-cream van;
bright memories
of a kinder, happier time
of swimming holes and dusty roads.

The captive stalked and grumbled,
biting his chains in angry futility,
and clawing at the steel bars.
People came, paused, pointed,
and poked at him with pointed sticks,
as they called him by the myriad names
of the Demon.

The moon, his faithful and only friend,
came to visit one evening,
with heat lightening on a dark horizon.
Ozone crackled as the bars melted
to the sound of an arcane lament,
and he stepped out
into a changed and different world.

He adapted, and learned the language
of networking and power-dressing.
Master of the easy smile
he was sought for his insight,
for his erudition, for his charm.
Alone, however, at day’s end,
he remembered the cage, and cried.

Timeline

Some of us base our lives
on traditions of the past;
and tribal beliefs and customs
keep life from moving too fast.

Others live for tomorrow,
and plan lives years ahead,
embracing a religion
that promises life when they’re dead!

We marginalize, and demonise,
discounting others’ points of view.
Our tribes care not for probity,
and discount veracity too.
Huddled around our little fires,
in the midst of our simple caves,
letting enhanced tales of our history
soothe us like gentle waves.
Or let us live for tomorrow,
and pretend that we’ll never die:
our tribe guarantees us all
an eternal home in the sky.
Today and now is so frightening,
filled with hate, greed and war;
we refuse to focus on solutions,
and return to our group, secure.

It is not easy to live in the present,
to be in this glorious now,
surrounded by difficult problems,
that ask what? when? and how?

Now requires great commitment
to accept that we live, then we die.
We can build a truly utopian world,
but we must stop complaining, and try.

Odyssey

Nothing.
Darkness.
A blue shimmering
that morphs into
light.
It begins.

Storms of love,
of hate,
of the sour taste
of anger.
Siren songs
of promises,
of lies,
of truths now false.

Rocks and reefs
gut tender vessel,
but the voyage
continues
in grief,
in exultation,
and, finally,
in relief.

The mighty gift
of direction,
arriving too late
as the horizon looms.
A harbour of home,
of completion,
of wonder,
and of fear.
It ends.

Light
that morphs into 
a blue shimmering.
Darkness.
Nothing.

Plastic Flowers On Our Graves

I can understand an epitaph
befitting of heroes and knaves,
but there is no respect in
plastic flowers on our graves.

“IHS,” “RIP,” those I understand,
but it would take an oracle
to comprehend, how faded plastic flowers
say something allegorical.

Perhaps a quiet moment would suffice,
memories of friends and family,
but what strange story does reside
within this plastic homily?

No headstones, please, 
to mark my transition.
No comments about heaven,
or death, or perdition.
No quiet glade, with bench,
and leafy green bowers,
but most of all do not give me
those curséd plastic flowers!

The Roaring In The Woods

There was a roaring in the woods today,
as a cranky nor’east gale
trimmed the scrub spruce,
and imparted secrets of renewal.

It wasn’t karmic vibration
that gave words to the wind’s lament;
rather a bittersweet keening
that mourned lost verdant youth.

Future deadfalls in the spruce creaked,
and planned their transition
to enriching a soil depleted
by human growth and greed.

We deny the change we have wrought:
we reject a logic that speaks of decimation.
We accept the global plundering
our masters call their right.

(refrain)
Resources are meant to be used,
and nature completely abused.
Corporate trickle-down helps us all,
and greater consumption is the call.
A little fracking here, more plastic there,
with more pollutants for our air.
No healthcare, no retirement plan,
there’s no free ride for the working man.
And when our world is bleak and sere,
there will be no record that we were here.
Our cosmic gravestone has been graven:
you can’t eat cash, nor breathe tax haven.

Shattered

The shards lay
scattered:
cohesion gone,
they carry 
no pre-catastrophic memory.
They are broken.
The whole has gone,
disassembled
into a broken past.

Searching the sharp bits,
the jagged edges,
the flaked chips,
you see no clues
of what was,
previously,
complete.

You never discerned
the fault lines,
the weak spots 
in a pattern
that was,
ultimately,
flawed.

Set aside
thoughts of repair,
ideas of restoration;
rebuilding
something better.
Sweep the pieces
into the dustpan
of a misunderstood history:
forget instead
the broken mess
that shattered,
and scattered,
but in the end
mattered little
to the reality
of what will be
your tomorrow.

Cyclopean Viewpoint

He stares
outward,
without blinking:
to blink
is to die.
No matter
which direction,
the perspective
remains centred
in the middle
of his forehead.

A turn of the head
brings a new world:
to close the eyelid
destroys
the only reality
he possesses.
Relentlessly,
his solitary vision
draws him ever forward
into the dulling
sameness
of his days.

Society On A Möbius Strip

It seems that it has always been thus:
tribes and interest-groups battling
to impose points-of-view
not shared by others.
And, yes; it may well be that social media
makes the horror seem more immediate,
more in-your-face,

than yesteryear’s faded newspapers
read weeks after events.

There seems, however,
a logarithmic scale 
that pegs the degree of insanity
to population growth,
to religious intensity,
to corporate and political greed.

Pause for a moment: reflect...
if our wishes were granted
without revising our wish parameters,
would the paradigm shift at all?

Now is the time to educate,
not indoctrinate;
to negotiate,
not obfuscate;
to prioritise,
not demonise;
to change our direction
to social perfection.

More of yesterday’s same,
for today and tomorrow,
will, of course, lead
to more death, more sorrow.
We must set aside 
narrow tribal banalities,
and accept, and enhance
our global commonalities:
else one day tomorrow may appear,
and, suddenly, we will not be here.

A Rest By The Side Of The Road (Purple Kush)

Aging is
intimately related
to the acceleration
of time.
There is a point,
however,
where,
if you focus,
the vehicle in which you travel
can be made to slow.
With one’s mind
free of speed blur
details of the side of the road
start to emerge.

It is a magical place:
no pressure,
no pain,
simply review,
and the beginning
of understanding.

I stepped out of the vehicle
some time back,
watching it disappear
into a future
that would merge
with past.

I am content here,
serene, at the side of life’s road,
and understand
that this place
will continue
long after I have gone,
and that it doesn’t
really
matter.

Thoughts on Chopin’s Etude in E Major Opus 10 Number 3 (Gorilla Glue 2)

(Part of series, "Cannabis, and Creative Cognition."  Ref:  Leafly.com "Gorilla Glue #2"


Lost in an idealism,
bound 
for relentless punishment;
aways looking
for a light
behind the light,
we all strive
for the majestic,
the transcendent,
the awe.

In each dark outcome
we keep seeking stars,
and hope,
and see beauty,
when clouds block
the sun.
And when our candle
flickers out,
when we have had
our day,
our epic will continue
though our part
has been played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFKeV-slkHU

The Secret Garden (Super Silver Haze)

(Part of the series, "Cannabis, and Creative Cognition".  Ref:  Leafly.com "Super Silver Haze"



Unobtrusive,
the garden gate
hovered
at the edge
of awareness:
entering was more of
a merge
than an opening.
The corners were indistinct,
shimmering
with the promise
of something...
something more,
beyond.

Blossoms suggested themselves,
through vibration,
not colour and scent.
The tree leaves
stirred softly,
as though driven
by gentle laughter.
Overhead,
should one dare look,
the cosmos
spoke of forever,
and replaced belief
with endless truth.

Receding (Gorilla Glue 2)

(Part of series, "Cannabis, and Creative Cognition".  Ref:  leafly.com "Gorilla Glue 2")



...and everything
that happened,
and is happening,
and will happen,
is receding...

...and the realization
of inevitable,
and eternal,
g r  a  d  u  a  l  l  y
blossoms,
and becomes
what is:
forever
receding...

Finding Direction

What place is this
where people hate
with such a profound malice;
and demonise their fellows
with words untrue, and callous?

What tribe is this
devoid of love,
with no joy, or compassion;
who are programmed by their masters
to embrace the chains they’ve fashioned?

What people are these,
who repeat dogma and lies
as if it were some cosmic verity,
while disdaining those who struggle
with no hope, without charity?

We’ve become lost and confused
on our stumbling path,
making obstacles to hide the way.
We’ve made an art-form of exclusion,
and our anger darkens each day.

What place is this
where such promise
morphed into something unclean;
where dreams of creating a heaven on earth
became simply cruel, and obscene?

What sadness is this
when a poet must pen
lines so dismal and black
rather than words of peace and love;
lost concepts that we now lack?

What place is this?
Can we change it?
Can we wake to a brighter dawn?
Can we break from those who bind us,
or has our humanity gone?

Hermitage

I’ve found a nice allegorical cave
high on a lone mountaintop.
Now I sit seeking meaning
in the campfire’s flames,
while I wait for the madness to stop.

Looking down, all I see
are thunderheads dark,
roiling over the carnage below,
where ignorance rules while constructing
a loveless world bleak and stark.

The flames dance before me
with memories strong and bright, 
that can't lessen my inner chill:
I long in vain for a bright new dawn,
to dispel this endless night.

I’ve found a nice allegorical cave,
and others are finding it, too.
Our numbers are growing,
and with truth as our sword,
we shall make our vision come true.

Willful stupidity rules the day,
but ignorance’s days are numbered.
A global dystopia was imposed
through conditioned hate and greed,
while love, and intelligence slumbered.

I’ve found a nice allegorical cave,
and it is bright, and warm, and vast.
It is filled with people of great resolve,
with social plans of inclusion and love:
an Enlightenment we shall make last.

We’ve found a nice allegorical cave,
and you are welcome to join us here:
with libraries, wifi, web access for all.
We need all the help you can give
as we rebuild a world without fear.