Poem: Busy Street

 

Busy Street

 

crosscurrents of obdurate rubber.

 

to pull a smile out of the faces

is to yank the nerves of a marionette. 

 

a seethe of the similar

has reduced even geniuses

to parrots stanchioned in asphalt lines.

 

the only iotas of truth--

twitches in brow, cheek or chin--

come and go like minnows

scattering from deep sea jaws.

 

solemn 

so solemn the steadfast norm.

flatline mouths in cubes.

culture, fashion, human

crammed into the same.

the same.

 

the same single silent alphabet.

the same confined monosyllabic stress.

 

this spectacle of docile drudgery.

these machines orchestrating

face, throat, tongue, heart,

 

mind.

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Poem: The Line

 

The Line

 

nothing hurts

like ignored, absolute proof.

 

they fight you on it.

they stuff people in those ships

even during your speech.

 

you live with their hatred,

that they want to kill you;

that you might not see children,

or old age.

 

if you disappear one dusk,

the world goes on,

full of evil and whippings,

 

and no god, no one

 

to pull your carcass out of a culvert

where it feed rats.

or out of the same seawater

sailed by those ships.

 

life 

it can be as small as the cruellest curse.

 

and yet despite it 

or because of it, you speak out,

even as the gun barrels stare.

 

you keep on.

because of what can and should be,

what must be

 

everywhere.

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Original title, "Abolitionist"

"the line," as well as the moral rubicon, can refer to the Mason-Dixon line.

Great Statement By Emma Gray

 The pithy statement below by Emma Gray captures so much about what is draining, cruel and wrong about 21st century civilization (and previous).  What she talks about is what we, as a species, need to overcome.

We need to evolve ethically and psychologically.    

If we don't evolve, we are headed right toward WWIII--due to nationalism and fascism wielded by demagogic narcissists:

I have spent a decade writing columns and news stories about men who have been thrust into positions of power despite having made a plethora of mistakes — mistakes that suggest a lack of respect for people who don’t look like them and act like them. They consistently fail up through the ranks of corporate America and Hollywood and Big Tech like they’re encased in Teflon. The human collateral damage that might be left in their wake goes largely unacknowledged.  Emma Gray

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/jeopardy-host-mike-richards-exactly-who-you-think-he-n1277227

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Poem: Wrestle

 

Wrestle

 

the brain of the sapient wrestled with itself,

reason versus the cruel.

 

would condos break into outer space,

the Earth crack, a sweet cosmic egg?

 

or would people go extinct

and nature forget the nuke-boom slide?

 

for now, anyway, animals would wear collars

and fail to run wild.

 

factories meant trees would never grow,

flowers never bloom, oceans stink.

 

the whole globe had succumbed to gobble.

a straight-lined, fence-bound grip.

 

each biped tall.  a consumer, a blade,

in the ubiquitous abattoir.

 

who needed other species, anyway,

except the purry, loyal, tasty few?

 

(it was either us

or the last herds of caribou)

 

who needed ice in the arctic circle? or even weather

when you had air conditioners?

 

the brain of the sapient wrestled with itself,

reason versus the cruel--

 

on the edge of doom.

 

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

Having a rough time.  Edited almost every poem I wrote since October.  No certainty.  In my brain or in the world.  Afghanistan debacle unspeakable.  One more horror.  It all mounts.  

Poem: Lack of Dilemma

 

Lack of Dilemma

 

North Korea is as bad

as Nazi Germany is

like the Uyghurs in China.

 

this new thought

seeps through small cracks

in the dronespeech of the television

in the next  room--

 

through such tiny, tiny cracks,

littlest seams in the dronespeech,

 

and it also seeps through

the clicky-clack-clickety dronespeak

of the twitter facebook tik-tokking.

 

but so what and what

to do or not to do

or do about not doing

or not do about the doing?

 

North Korea is as bad

as Nazi Germany is

like the Uyghurs in China.

 

So, 

are our minds 

as indifferent a kind of cell,

in the body of cellphone society,

as the texting, shrugging cells

that gab gab gabble in gaggles,

palavering?

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

Dream Quote

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Sometimes history must die, even your own, to seed the future--dream.

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Poem: Rain Over Field

 

Rain Over Field

 

like a priestess who cannot bless,

the clouds humor a suckle of wind,

and cast forth--

 

to coax the quick of plants,

and lift a rabid euphoria of field 

into laceworks of awkward love.

 

what is worse?

to crave ribbons of fallen affection,

or to strew them through frantic mud,

where greed wriggles its feed-me dance--

 

everything from the antennae of stalks

to the nudity of worms?

 

unsure where to stare,

in such misty glaze of sky,

the lack-of-sun craves excitement,

the swoops of jays or merlins--

 

or some kind of solid judgement,

maybe a sturdy tree.

 

but the seeds of hope

conveyed by the rain are too fickle,

the shine in the droplets torpid,

before crashing on sunken ruts--

 

roads slain to passage; to storms of surprise;

roads that no longer believe

the tenderness of water.

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

Poem: Snow Melt

 

Snow Melt

 

what mean passion slew a serene heart

that once swelled brave as Pegasus?

 

why do contours weep to evict smooth pores--

for irascible nettles, long-gone scarecrows, viscid sludge?

 

the ashen sun, did it cast embers and spears?

or did the snow in summary tire of enviable clouds--

 

raptures faraway, much closer to heaven, similar, yes,

save for the weight they shed to fly.

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

Poem: 3am Switch

 

3am Switch

 

the lamp attacked,

a bright noise that flooded my cochleas.

fate, it seemed, lay prophecy

in the transit of light.

as if some divine army turreted its wattage.

some celestial extract of wheeled fire.

 

so to me it seemed.

 

the jounce of amps defied limbo’s snore.

its crackles and blasts swung

between two all-essential apogees,

those incompatible weltanschauungs--

angel or abyss.

 

in the same way that a star

could fall for light years,

if only to raise a single hair on one pate,

in that way, a slain part of myself rose up,

so ready to die again, this part of me,

a martyr whose heartbeat spiked

to implore another chance.

 

to demand innocence.

 

it all came in a cold second.

trillions of pleas and lusts,

as small as a lumen

as implacable as a chemical

as shocked as a Jekyll--

just like that--

 

charged up.  switched.

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

Light woke me up. 

Regarding The Poems

 

Thank you for reading the poems!

Often the poems are not in the best of shape when I put them up.  The reason I post them is that they get more attention from me than if I filed them somewhere.  

Sometimes poems don’t get modified at all after posting.  Others get edited into decent shape after a few days.  In some cases, it takes me a long time to get things even somewhat right.   “Crystal Ball,” “Mosquitoes on a Screen,” and “Written,” for instance, involve months of struggle.

The editing process never really ends.  And, of course, some poems will never be ‘good’, simply due to my lack of ability. 

I am very glad, though, that some people find a bit of impact reading them.

Fly Well In The Dark,

 OWL

owlwholaughs@gmail.com

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Poem: Glass Pitcher

 

Glass Pitcher

 

curves

of sculptural water

tango waist-to-waist.

 

swerves

swoop down upward,

weightless without falter,

 

so inward, introspective,

nimble of moods that spout

to ease.

 

such beguiling eidolons.

such visual

invisibility.

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

Aug 7, 22

... "nimble of moods"

 ... changed a period to a comma

 

Powerful Piece By Charles Blow of the New York Times

 Charles Blow wrote a naked, powerful opinion piece in the New York Times recently (see excerpt below).    The title is "The G.O.P Menace to Society."

He is completely right about the extreme threat.  He is completely right that those resisting the threat, such as the Democrats, need to be aware of the immense peril.  

The question then becomes, What sort of action is Blow suggesting?  

If we come right out and treat the GOP as what it is--"a national security threat and a cancer on our democracy"; as a "zombie" thing that "can't be reasoned with"--what is the nature of that treatment?

I don't see how Blow can write what he did, then turn around and suggest bipartisanship or any sort of negotiation.  

So, what's left, Mr. Blow?  What do these metaphors of "cancer" and "zombie" entail as a response?

Blow mentions Malcolm X, without at all suggesting the use of his proclaimed tactics.  I myself am hoping enough USA citizens can just start speaking up enough for a Martin Luther King, Jr-kind of momentum.  An overwhelming peaceful protest from so many quarters that a vast social movement is born to save democracy.

Blow's article is so evocative, honest, heartfelt and wise (I haven't included the arguments here), it should get us out of our damn seats, and speaking out.  

Streets.  Internet.  Donations.  Whatever you are doing, up it.   

OWL  

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“What do you call members of a party who, from top to bottom, from elected officials to voters, largely believe a lie and a liar determined to undermine, corrupt and even destroy our democracy? What do you call a party whose leaders use that lie as a pretext to suppress the votes and voices of Americans with whom they disagree? What do you call a party slavishly devoted to a cult over the stability and prosperity of a country? …

I call that party a national security threat and a cancer on our democracy …

… I have no intention of treating this Republican Party the way I treated it just 10 years or 20 years ago. That party doesn’t exist anymore. It died. This thing we have now is its zombie. Zombies can’t be reasoned with.”

 

The G.O.P. Menace to Society: Charles M. Blow

Blow, Charles M.New York Times (Online), New York: New York Times Company. Aug 1, 2021.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/opinion/republicans-threat-america.html

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