Poem: Collapse

 

Collapse

 

we held onto

the jabberwocky

in the center of it all

 

but the center

had its own desires,

didn’t want to be our holdfast,

 

wasn’t there to whirl

with a feeding-frenzy

of absolution.

 

there were all these silk ties

around powerful, smug necks,

the yank of compliance,

 

the intoxication of the doctrine

aided by the garrote of caution and

reason--

 

so that going down meant down is up,

our cherished motto,

the loyal, steady bray

 

until death decided for us

that none of our fear-throated policies

made any sense.

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Poem: Late Walk

 

 

Late Walk

 

the leaves were not as

grey as my hair.  a month

for them was decades.

somehow it mattered

to my cobwebby thoughts,

that cities of leaves would fall,

garmented in rot, before

i got slabbed down.

 

perhaps.

 

but the change in my

moods appeared in the mottle under

my feet.  there was little

beyond the thin grasp of twigs

to restrain the moths

that wanted the inside of this heart,

to cloister there with their dusky

diamondback riddle of poisonous

unfinished things.

 

such doubts were

as effective as those aphids

which gnawed holes in

the long gone green of youth.

these fears were as monstrous

as a dissolve of worms

to the contours of a robust, colorful

tapestry of life.

 

the roots of the trees passing by

did not assure a moor, such that at any time

i might let go, lost from history--

and then catapult-flutter off,

far on some cold gale of distress,

lashing out at nothing with

my last exclamations.

 

worse still to land somehow,

and look up, tired and broken,

tilted on a mattress of beetles,

just to breathe.

 

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Poem: Tongues

 

Tongues

 

the ocean, always a child,

as if it had been denied

because it is fed so much.

every mountain weeps

into its aquamarine arms,

feeding height to its depths

of silt and darkness.

 

maybe too much hope had been placed

in the thaumaturgy of rain.

the myth that it coated the skin of

the ocean’s grim water with fresh chances

which had spent previous lives 

catering to death.

 

the ocean simply

sticks out its many tongues, savoring,

always a child, as if the rain

were the gentle paw

of a grey-ribbed cat.

what could that cat know, after all,

of the regal yet defiled salt

of the wounded earth?

 

 

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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.

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

 

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1/16/26 added word

1/12/26 mods all day

this is like a were animal kind of thing