Poem: Catalysts

 

Catalysts

 

greed-stoked coal plants

piss endless monoxide

and poison the sky.

 

down below, we little humans

drudge and toil,

seeding the obliteration.

 

our gods have been revealed

as excuses to broker

our expansive urges,

 

while we offer our souls

to a new version of intelligence

beyond our kind.

 

surely our successors,

when they rise above Olympus

will see us as predictable,

 

as short-sighted, fated,

and mindless as bacteria--

easy to out-calculate.

 

 

 

===================================

Poem: January Storm

 

January Storm

 

birches bent of habit,

the prayerful turned mendicant,

rosaries of ice-willowy shine.

 

they count the beads

with fingertips hounded by grace,

flake by flake, so kind

to reave the birches’ bones.

 

let us all pray

for these broken nuns,

whose splintered wounds

 

seem the muzzles of dogs,

the mouths of jackasses,

the snouts of werewolves

laughing into the guffaw of a howl.

 

wherever they sway,

wind harpies them. 

no matter who they beg, or ridicule,

a swoop of zephyr rises up

to tug them down.

 

on and on,

beautiful yet wrecked,

savage from hope. 

only despair awaits

in tranquility.

 

==============================

Short Fiction: The Moral Status of Earth

 

Report:  The Moral Status of Earth

Human-civilization on Earth is trapped in a negative, self-sustaining, generation-to-generation indoctrination loop that originated when slavery and war were invented, going back thousands of years to the start of their agricultural revolution.  Despots considering themselves godkings took to the throne in ancient Sumer, and initiated an immature, cruel status quo of might-makes-right.  That mentality has locked down the minds of Earth humans ever since.  In the early 21st century, they still live under the thrall of ignorant, malignant godkings.  The human brain is an exquisite mind-jewel, what the Earthers inaccurately refer to as a quantum computer.  It possesses wondrous plasticity, which can blossom into advanced forms of cultural progress.   Such advance can lead to a synergistic eudaemonia, such as the majestic togetherness of nature and ecopolis that we cherish here on own lovely planet of Aea.  We Aeans have worked hard to 'know ourselves' in all ways, even the ways forbidden to the Earthers by their ignorance-based intergenerational dumb-down loop.  We see that Evil and Good are in competition for control of the universe, and we work hard to promote the Good.  The Earthers, however, have infected themselves with something like mental shackles.  The system absorbs each new generation--so many beautiful, susceptible children, billions of them--and cripples them with a disposition of ignorance and closed-mindedness.  The entrenched institutions, wrapped in sanctimonious, narcotic conceits of tradition and nostalgia, preach loyalty to patriarchs on thrones of all sizes, from government seats to heads of dinner tables.  Rulership-class males rise up because they are entitled and arrogant, committed to cultivating 'the masses' through fear, hate, big lies and the inevitability of war.  Sadly, Earth is headed in the direction of being an irretrievably Evil planet.  Nuclear holocaust, the benchmark of ultimate failure, is a palpable, increasing possibility.  When robotic enforcement and omni-surveillance arrive, I fear the candle of hope will be entirely snuffed out.  There is, though, still time for the Earthers to save themselves.  There is a strong counter-movement for truth, compassion and equality, backed by approximiately 60% of the population (disporportionately women, who are on average more emotionally competent than the males, for they have to be to get by).  That said, there is little time, and the tech level on Earth is increasing very fast.  As it stands, the new levels of power will be used to crush rather than liberate the human potential for veracity and virtue, which are the rootstalk of a dancing, soaring psyche.

Report to the Passionance Coven, Jessicadia
Green Spider Blue Butterfly, 13 orbits of sapphire 9
Galaras Sphynxwyld, dark loon poet 

===================

Trying to recover from covid, feel sick and weak.  ... 

This blog post makes references to my epic novel, A Future of Angels, which involves two worlds, Aea and Earth (Terrar).  The novel discusses AI and ethics in detail, as well as giving a detailed look at what happens when you link human brains to computers (cell phones, etc.).  It is probably never going to get published, because I lack perseverance, even though a few agents were very encouraging.  Maybe I will self-publish it, but I don't have much money.  I might start putting it up on this blog, but very few people read this blog, as far as I can tell.  Most of my hits are from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and China.   I have switched to trying to publish my nonfiction book, Lightcraft:  ethics as technology.  I've only sent out three query letters, but one was very encouraging.  However, I am failing to send out more query letters because of (a) inveterate depression, (b) enjoyment from writing new things, (c) general distractions of all kinds, including work, (d) failure to be as obsessive, self-centered and insecure as you usually need to be, it seems, to spend all your time trying to get others' attention in the writing world, (e) I am generally a disagreeable, fickle person quite often disappointed with people, including myself

Poem: Archaeologist

 

Archaeologist

 

grottos within grottos

where neon enticed

like the filament of some underworld fish,

 

places where whirlpools in drowned eyes,

and games inside spun bottles of empty rum,

and sermons

 

of false, loving, doomed prose

could be crumpled and tossed into gutters

of dramatic complexity.

 

i asked myself,

 

how many midnights

spent scraping in sordid places like these,

down on my cuffs,

investigating the ancient shit of human sin,

would it take

 

to earn a PhD in ‘give me another try’?

 

there were so many scraps to scape,

and ill-treated hearts vomiting more

to feed the slime.  there were

 

gutter people whose only purpose

was to hoard filth in the wrinkles of their

lack of expressions, which were, themselves,

 

nothing but tossed wrappers of long-consumed hopes,

wrappers that, if you were an ant,

would crack your thorax when you tried

 

to get to the last bit of juice deep inside them.

 

there was a time when i sat in semi-darkness,

playing expert to such skewed pieces

of the past-present-now.

 

yes, it felt hasty, perverse, anonymous.

but i was obsessed then, myself,

with studying what others had become addicted to

to avoid.

 

 

 

==========================================

1/23/26  mods all day on post

Poem: Wheatfield Under Clouds

 

Wheatfield Under Clouds

 

we glanced at the lapis of

the lazuli while the clouds basked

plump and idle above the swerving

walls of our flaxen chains.

 

not even the precious blue

could outframe so much hubris,

those polyamorous medusae as they floated lazy,

seductive and narcotic above our sweat.

 

they coaxed our feverish moods.

made love to us like ghosts,

admiring the flex of our torsos

while we coiled and swept,

only to soon lose touch.

 

day after day, parade after parade of

simulated worship rose above our scythes.

those menagerie-esque choirs, so innocent,

swilled to swell and storm until

sooner or later we were forced to shoulder

the heave.

 

how careless they were after the climax,

drifting to nestle

into the honey-orange-cherry heaven

of distant sundown.

 

we labored still at night

to dwell and dream of those hedonistic floats.

we played to their seraphim,

prettified the nightmare

 

when

 

in the foreshadows before dawn,

our flesh wore the same shadowy curves

as their mathless checkerboard.

 

always came noon,

atop those lotus horses, which somehow

rode far above the saddle of our pliant rut.

and the drug of our dismal rapture, once more,

offered hard-bitten pectoral breaths

to the galloping frenzy

of their wind-torn, joyless stride.

 

 

 

 

====================================

1/21 ...more mods last stanza... general mods later

1/20/26 mods all day

Poem: Prince

 

Prince

 

desire devolves

into the worms it seeks to avoid.

thorns outlive the kick of the wine,

the decay of the blush.

 

a sharp needle of rue

from even the smallest ghost

can possess such audacity;

and the rage takes on the full-fledged iron

of the maurader’s lance,

 

stabbing then

 

down and down,

through layers of masquerades,

and the contrivances of calm

that gird various throne rooms.

 

down and down,

into that most private and unwanted,

regret-rich and volatile,

pool.

 

=========================

Poem: Were

 

Were

 

overcome by what i was not,

i wandered Babel’s cacophony,

each city stacked on others

across unreadable sighs.

every crossroads offered a splintered moon.

i fell at women’s feet, not sure

if they were dancers who had blurred

and yet she was a fine fuse

who i had chased as it sizzled and sped

through the twists of my urges,

deeper into the oil lamp of my heart.

i wanted to see her, but faces were prisms

within carousels of irregular sides.

i needed to dive into the river

of a hierophant’s salve,

glide a mandolin’s curves to touch grace.

i wound up drunk on nothing

but the rum of my sad questions,

waking up without my own bed,

in the arms of a half-rhyme, of commas and

exclamations i did not understand.

passion and i tangled together

in ways only artful swordplay could abide;

for the answers were monsters in storms,

there just for a moment,

as i struggled to pass through, to feel,

to contravene.

 

 

 

========================================

1/16/26 added word

1/12/26 mods all day

this is like a were animal kind of thing

Essay: Thoughts on the "Great Unraveling"

 

Essay:  Thoughts on the  “Great Unraveling”

 

I haven’t commented on the genocide in Gaza in a while, that ongoing hell, despite the so-called ‘cease fire’ which hasn’t alleviated the miserable, subhuman conditions.  The pathetic victims (who are civilians, not ‘enemies in a mutual war') now live in tents amid rubble, still suffer sporadic bombing, still anguish for the basics of life--shelter, food, water, hygiene, medical help, comfort--still get force-moved here to there, and much more.  There is constant psychological and physical duress.  According to the last article I read, many Gazan children must walk to school in the sight-line of Israeli snipers. 

Nor have I commented on the US takeover of Venezuela’s oil, which happened with the alacrity and shock of blitzkrieg,  Nor have I commented on a 37 year-old woman in Minnesota being shot in the head by an ICE agent as she was turning her car to drive away from him.  Her six year-old son is motherless now.  Reuters says there is almost zero chance that the ICE agent will face any charges.  

The victim's name is Renee Nicole Macklin Good.  She described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.”

And so another poet dies on the frontlines of totalitarian aggression. 

Let me take a moment, once more, to remember Refaat Alareer, a poet who died in an Israeli airstrike.  Not long before his death, he wrote the now widely circulated poem, “If I must die”:

 

“IF I MUST DIE”

BY REFAAT ALAREER

 

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale

 

 

A Great Unraveling

All the above, and so much more, manifests a great Darkness that has taken hold of the geopolitical world.  An NYT op-ed titled, “The Great Unraveling Has Begun,” states the following:

President Trump’s decision to launch a secretive predawn military operation in Venezuela to grab President Nicolás Maduro is a blatant assault on the international legal order. The action threatens to end an era of historic peace and return us to a world in which might makes right. The cost will be paid in human lives. (1/7/26)

Oona A. Hathaway, Professor of political science and law at Yale, Carnegie Scholar, etc. etc.

 

When considering the monumental horrors, such as the genocide in Gaza, it is important to recognize that they are part of a global Evil that has begun spreading very fast, despite the complete denial of that Evil by the Machiavellian monsters who advance it.   In proportion to Israel’s vociferous denial of hatred is its blatant deluge of racism and hatred.  As gigantic as Donald Trump’s lies are the hate- and fear-mongering that propel his inchoate dictatorship, centered in White Male supremacy. 

Once solidly established, Trumpism will do much more than condone and participate in the genocide in Gaza.   It will go much further than the lawless invasion of Venezuela.  Or the shooting of an innocent mother in the head by masked secret police.  The persecution inflicted by maximal Trumpism will be on par with Hitler.  Trump has quoted Hitler in his speeches, saying that immigrants “are poisoning the blood of our country.”  Trump had a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed, according to his ex-wife. 

Trump employs the psychological tactics of Hitler.  This includes the standard tyrants’ playbook (outrage, divide, scapegoat, make yourself the only solution …).  He makes himself the victim, taking the shame that his MAGA base feels for their poverty and misery, and turning it into a crusade of calamity, woe, existential war and death. 

Under Trump, federal funds have been secured to greatly increase the size and number of ‘camps’ being built around the country to house ‘undesirables.’  Funds are being secured to expand the number of ICE agents, who so far have been rewarded for being sociopathic and sadistic.

The recruitment for ICE utilizes classic fascist-style propaganda.  The following image not only suggests White purity, but associates it with the genocide of the Native Americans in the 19^th century as the settlers in America expanded westward.

====

Example of recruitment image:

https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555

Commentary:

https://www.kpbs.org/news/border-immigration/2025/09/22/experts-concerned-about-white-nationalist-imagery-in-ice-recruitment-materials

====

 

Accelerating Toward World War Three

We are on an accelerating vector toward World War 3, led by Donald Trump.  He has taken Venezuela, at least so he thinks, extracting its leader, seizing oil tankers, blowing up fishing boats, and now making military threats against the Vice President of that country, threatening her with military action if she doesn’t obey.  Trump, of course, won’t stop with Venezuela.  He has proclaimed that he is ready to take Colombia and Cuba.  And, in a threat to the NATO alliance itself, probably turning the EU into our enemy, he lays claims to Greenland. 

Venezuela was just the first step of the imperial expansion.  As a malignant narcissist comparable to Hitler, Trump’s grandiose visions of expansion will never stop.  Historical predecessors are Napoleon Bonaparte [1] and Louis XIV, both of whom conducted war for their entire reigns. 

A critical difference, though, between Hitler, Bonaparte and Louis, on one hand, and Trump, on the other, is that the world is now peppered with thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to end civilization itself. 

If you think Hitler would have used a nuclear weapon, then strongly consider the likelihood that Trump will use nuclear weapons.

 

The End of Civilization

 

I will continue to write about genocide, about lawless invasions of other countries (Putin in Ukraine, now Trump, and perhaps soon China into Taiwan… ), about atrocity and cruelty, about vast suffering, and the many other topics that poets and philosophers dive into, hoping to be brave.  The Darkness we face is a global sociopolitical phenomenon, new and ongoing horrors inflicted under a banner of psychopathic lies, conspiracies, and delusions. 

Am I willing to stand up, to be arrested and tortured, to be killed, for what I believe?  In fact, the choice might already have been made, by continuing to write this blog.  The kindled fire of fascism is just beginning to burn, here in the USA.  I would like to think I will speak out for Good, against Evil, till I no longer can, whether murdered, silenced by confinement, or tortured to the point where I will say and do anything. 

Hate is growing in America.  Hate that labels others as less than human, as vicious animals or even cockroaches or infectious diseases.  Hate that labels others as scum.  As shit.  As wicked.  As demonic.  As Satanists, pedophiles, and child-cannibals, like the Jews were labeled in the book, The Elders of Zion, which was much referenced by the Nazis.   

Hate that labels others as those-who-need-to-be exterminated. 

It is a state of mind beyond ugly.  It shows the brokenness of the souls trapped in the enslavement of a cult spiraling around the giant black hole of a dictator’s ego.  Here in 2026, we are perched on the end of it all.  The great parade of the jackboots of Hate, stomping out reason and light.  Perhaps marching toward WW3 and nuclear holocaust.

In addition to my New Years wishes for people to appreciate the miracles and gifts of life, I wish also for people to raise their heads out of the muck--of fanaticism or neutrality--and see the Evil encroaching. 

I wish for people to  embrace the lovely and miraculous side of life.  Yes.  But also to realize, simultaneously, that Darkness is on the verge of destroying civilization. 

 

My Own Hate

Sometimes, but not always, my hatred for my fellow American citizens is intense.   Both for those who have lined up to worship Donald Trump with unequivocal zealotry, and those who refuse to be anything but neutral:

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil-- Hannah Arendt

However, I write in my essay “On Hate,” that hate is not necessarily bad [2].  It comes down to how you interact with it.  Hate  can be channeled in healthy ways for the Good.   One way to get out painful or compulsive passion is through poetry.  Poetry that sings of justice and laments of cruelty.  Poetry that weeps for the infliction of so much that is hellish, and yet allies itself with the Light.

Those of us who feel intense ‘negative’ reactions--such as hate, fear, despair, resignation--these can be written out in words that bring truth and light by their honesty.  They can be channeled into activism.  Into protest.  Art.  Exercise.  Into new levels of awakening and awareness.  Validating your hate can bring you back around to love.  Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of  agape, that is, spiritual love, even for the racists who spit and cursed, beat and murdered, the protestors who simply wanted skin color not to matter in determining who is innately better or worse.

An important question is, “Who manages your painful feelings and how?”  It can and should be you, through cathartic and sublimating expression.  Therapists, of course, can be a big help.  Or supportive friends.

Trump manages the dark feelings of his MAGA base and uses those feelings to drive them further into obedient Evil.

 

Why Keep Going?

Perhaps we cannot stop fascism from taking us into another world war, or from locking us away in dungeons literal or metaphorical.  Nevertheless, in my essay on “lightcraft” I give many reasons to stand up for the Good.  One of them is the following:

 

[Another]  reason to study the Good, even while our society deteriorates, is that it can be personally fulfilling and beneficial.  There is quintessential meaning in an intentful act, one which sends a virtuous message to the universe.  Such an act soars, heartful and heavenly, above the barbaric might-makes-right that oversees humanity today.  When embraced from a defiant place, amid a dominance of despair and loneliness, surrounded by a sea of conformity, such an embrace of the Good is even more lovely.

 

Being courageous is hard.  But it is also rewarding.  Not in a selfish way that sees others as pawns to manipulate, or that perceives the world as a Monopoly board with properties and trophies to expropriate.  I speak of the courage to participate in a deep honesty.  An inward- and outward-looking compassion that explores the soul and aligns with Good.  [3].

May the Forces of Goodness guide us all.  I have no better name for them.  I see these Forces as spiritual but also grounded in critical thinking and simple scientific truths.

 

Good night and good luck.

 

===========================

Footnotes

(1)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2020/10/napoleons-aphorisms-chillingly-describe.html

(2)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/10/essay-on-hate.html

(3) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html

1/9/26 ... eds all day

Poem: Gen

 

Gen

 

in the now of nothing

we worked and ached,

trying to be ourselves

by lining up and not speaking out

against the system that had silenced

us.

 

we breathed smoke but it was good,

sacrificed peace and content,

but it was a requirement as

stress and thrill zipped along

fast as the latest microchip.

 

birds had been replaced

by the winding wings in

the hands and levers

of cellular clocks.

the soft green of leaves

gone into the tar of streets

where rain was a gutter drink,

the fake liquid of glass

the only clean water.

 

this was our future,

feckless in our rectangles.

and yet we were part of something insuperable,

a growing might. 

 

it was magical and polymer,

both quantum and ether,

a snake oil that linked our souls 

together to become something more than machine,

smarter than caution or calculation,

better than any drug.

 

 

 

=======================================

1/17/26 changed a phrase a bit

1/12/26 ... changed a line

1/7/26 ... eds all day

Poem: Brave Universe

 

Brave Universe

 

breeze reaches

into the amphitheater of the sky,

its arms as wide as children’s,

full of rhymes and whispers

of sagacious leaves.

 

dawn melts

a cloak of nightjar candlewax,

revealing the luminal ribs of all things,

which parade alertful with light

toward evening’s cave of blooming purple.

 

every color known

to feathers and lovers

becomes the tears

of merging molten dancers.

 

in the half cowl

of young meditative eve,

a festival of fireflies

weaves soaring arias

through balconies of half-seen stars.

 

for a moment,

it is like witnessing

the loyalty of truth,

so joyous and tearful--

the sparkling thoughts and tender hopes

of a brave universe.

 

 

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