Saturday, December 31, 2022

Poem: Ochre On Beige

 

Ochre On Beige

 

rolled like dough for years,

leavened by slaps of foam,

illusory yeasts of brine.

 

this scattered stash.

bits of towered treasures

left over when prosperity caved.

 

see the solemn,

weathered, wind-whipped

fragments and structures,

not-so-piquant now,

on a plateau of the broken:

 

crushed idols.

nuggets of castles.

eremites on salted piles.


a chartreuse crab

fat as a silver dollar

ambles over stubs of rubble

once picturesque.

 

bladderwrack flogs them.

a pillory of gulls

swoops to berate.

 

a single pure rectangle 

half lost in anonymous sand,

hides ever so quiet--


a grave without epitaph.

a rusty bed frame.

this solidified tear.




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4/8 took  out an adjective

1/1/23  more changes later in the day ... 

1/1/23  massive changes to the crap awful poem

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Poem: Fallen Pine Needles

 

Fallen Pine Needles

 

they were born incomplete,

and when they fell,

it wasn’t like Lucifer at all.

 

if some God noticed,

it was only to ensure that each needle

comprised its own pinnacle,

 

never to be higher

or seek victory greater

than a clue among splinters,

 

a fragment from some benighted Basket,

some ominous Ark.



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Sunday, December 25, 2022

Still Here

 

Still Here


Six decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had 2022.  It was a scary, pivotal year of comparable danger.  At stake was the fate of the world, determined by US elections.  If democracy had lost the vote, fascism would have risen, with the geopolitical balance teetering into darkness.

But the American people did not support the hate-cult worship of a tyrant.  Because of this, all of us, everywhere, have been given a gift this season, a certain hope:  that we are not necessarily doomed, that our better angels can prevail.

One prolific historian, speaking on a newscast (Jon Meacham, I believe), said that this is the most hopeful he has felt in six years.  The New York Times posted an article yesterday on the survival and surge of democracy:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/us/politics/democracy-voters-elections-2022.html

 

From the article:

 

Whatever their reasons for voting against candidates who parroted Mr. Trump’s election claims, Republicans who did so often spoke of a more general estrangement from a party that had broadly turned those claims into a loyalty test — and of their distaste for both the party’s indulgence of Mr. Trump and of a no-holds-barred brand of politics that they said favors winning at all costs.

 

I never thought fascism could rise in my country, much less on the shoulders of a flagrantly despicable man.  No wolf in sheep’s clothing, just an obvious egotist of avarice and prejudice.  Despite his sadistic lack of morality, or perhaps because of it, he seemed a political juggernaut, someone who possessed the ability to obsess others, someone with the dark charisma of a Hitler.  One third of the American populace bowed down.

What I’ve learned of fascism, during this ugly six-year trial, is that it is an old strategy:  warlords with truthless loyalty tests.  It is what Plato sought to refute when he challenged Thrasymachus.  He argued that reason should govern, not an egomaniac who had turned a portion of the people into fawning worshippers, and cowed the rest with readily used swords.

Can reason govern, without being subverted by a demagogic monster?  That is the big question facing humanity in the 21st century.  It is tantamount to, “Will we survive?” 

The right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ based on the innate dignity of every person, is beautiful intellectual bedrock.  If such wisdom steers us, moving forward with honesty and integrity, a wonderful future awaits. 

Imagine robots that have been engineered with limitations, so that they have no capability to inflict hurt or harm.  Robots that promote happiness.  Contrast that with a different future, one where robots surveil and police us, robots that kill easily and swiftly, at the merciless whim of a paranoid warlord.

2022.  It was a huge test for democracy.  To quote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “We are still here.”  He made this announcement in February, right after the Russian army, under the iron-grip of a tyrant, invaded Ukraine to annex and assimilate it.  

Just a few days ago, Zelenskyy gave an historic speech to the US Congress.  Democracy still struggles onward in Ukraine.  And for now, it struggles onward here, in the United States, as well.



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Saturday, December 24, 2022

Poem: Snow Melts Off Spruce

 

Snow Melts Off Spruce

 

Orphan Annie eyes,

silver dollar dreams

that slip into grottos of one-armed bandits

bobbing in the wind.

 

they weep in fever,

coruscant as they go,

not afraid to die like this,

sifted through the ribcage

of a silent forest.





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Friday, December 23, 2022

Poem: St. Anthony's Fire

 

St Anthony’s Fire

 

erratic cross-stitch,

bellies braided into a jerk of snakes.

 

a scream cuts through the dance,

begging the wicked centrifugal fury to stop,

 

and yet the danse macabre

yanks and twinges us,

 

untill we are rotten as leaves

that grope each other’s dogeared yelps.

 

bruised, clattered, lacerated, mangled, falling

the holy fire lifts us,

 

and we shriek without sound,

locked in the torturous rigor

 

of a zealous conglomerate.

 



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No, this poem isn't about ergotism.

 

 

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Poem: Right As It Gets

 

Right As It Gets

 

beneath the statue of a blinded woman,

well-dressed politicians 

reaped votes by casting hate.


and yet to confront them was to suffer,

and logic no defense.


the way to get through

the verbal mindlock, one hell of a wall,

with anything less than civil war,

what could it be?


was it hidden somewhere

in the torture-fields of wounded egos,

in an unlikely ditch?

 

no one was going to find it,

this corpse of compromise lost,


because the firebranded fire-eaters 

saw themselves as able stewards,

divinely called to know the path 

through the very darkness they spread.


they were as right as it gets,

and their lies kept courting lies,

both between and within hearts--


the drought of their compassion

had brought the end of anything

that truthful people wanted to hear.


they kept right on, always so right,

swilling greed from the depths of ignorance,

cultivating blame in dried-up gardens,


and salting the invidious soil 

 with their lickspittle drool.



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3/29 ... better poem now, more mods


3/24/23  ... major changes .. tried to take the confused POV out of the poem 

12/21 ... significant mods to the poem in the "stewards" stanza


Still grading papers... 

Friday, December 16, 2022

Lots of Grading

 I am grading lots and lots of papers, so can't get any poems up on this blog.  I work as an Adjunct Professor and am paid poverty-level wages.  By this, I mean, it is less than a living wage.  I have a PhD in my field, teach college students, and I make less than $15 an hour.  Right now, for instance, I am grading papers over eight hours a day, starting in the morning, ending around 10:00pm.  Then I start all over tomorrow.  It would take less time, if I limited my comments to the students.  But then I'm not doing the job I love with the quality of professorial engagement the students deserve.

I also don't get affordable healthcare from my employer, the University.  They want about $300 a month from me to pay for my own insurance.   The only medical insurance I have is catastrophic insurance through Obamacare.

The good news is that I find my job very meaningful.  I've also had time.  Time to write thousands of poems in my life.  And a novel.  And there is more planned.  This is my calling.  Even though I live in poverty now and it may get far worse.  

The USA needs to start treating its teachers better.   All teachers, except those at the very top, the tenured professors, are treated like dirt.  This when education is needed more than ever, as we move into a complex, tech-heavy, world-shaking future.


OWL


A victory for adjuncts at one university:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/13/new-school-adjuncts-strike-wages/

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

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Poem: What It Was Like

 

What It Was Like

 

light sockets stare,

minimalist zombies,

 

unfazed by the zeal of a flower.

 

leaves

dance, blush, scurry or mope.

 

walls languish,

as continuous as they are anodyne.

 

a poem, written in such a home, 

is just a séance


conducted on the altar of the slain.

 

fugues of inky phantoms

who pretend to remember


what it was like to bloom,

or to fly.



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4/8/23 ... chopped off half the poem and reworked the rest.  Completely different, new title, etc.

12/12  "an altar" replaces "the altar"

Friday, December 9, 2022

Poem: Ant Sting

 

 

Ant Sting

 

an irksome sockful of ants

swells my ankle to realize mandibles

as the forerunners of war.

 

and i curse

 

the unsoothing graveyard above,

and the crumbly switchbacks below.

 

unfazed by whiffs of sage,

or the summery musk of rosemary,

 

yes, i curse them both,

 

and too the loathsome nettles,

phacelia and longspur,

projecting from every niche.

 

as if the dry earth 

were nothing but a chuckle of cracks

which dare seeds and insects

to call such scorn home.

 

the same seeds and insects

that accreted and attrited over eons and eons

to stir a slow eruption,

 

thus humanity.

 

arid kin of the proboscis,

consigned to the desert,

jealous and bitter,

stung more than they sting,

 

they fret and pinch,

knowing full well we stole their secrets,

grew them into cities.



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12/10 ... lots of modifications to the second half.  brutal. 

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Poem: Field Day

 

Field Day


dim the blushed green sighs,

harebells and heathers,

and flirty banter of sparrow.

 

the hundred honeyed notes

fade to dusk, serene

in the deep hum

of a sunken cello.

 

moonlight’s seeds

dissolve as lambent cymbals

on a strummed pond,

 

and as they effloresce,

and glissando,

 

night swells into lacewings

and purple anticipations,

a whirr and chirr of sotto timpani.

 

so jubilant,

so scintillant,

 

the untethered flourishes,

nebulous of firefly.




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Scottish meadow theme ... I think ... 

Friday, December 2, 2022

Poem: Unseasonal Xmas

 

Unseasonal Xmas

 

mutton clouds

wrap an eyeball of sun.

filet-white stare

to overlord the trapped sinews

of a meekening winter.

 

such bleachers

of half-flaxen stick figures.

icy, droopy, dirty,

heralds of translucent daze:

 

people bent in pews, offices, classes, theaters, stores,

melting with humdrum,

suffering unthought poses

through staid, forgettable gamuts.

 

this blizzard of fallen wings.

a challenge of glazed angels.

similar to those laminate ornaments

available at the dime store.

 

it is true,

 

hope has been known to survive such fiascos,

half-starved and hurt,

till it braves the next trenchlike punchbowl,

amid avalanches of fake smiles,

and forced laughter.





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1/6/23   "forced" replaces "fake"

12/4   switched positions of "false" and "fake" 

12/3   "ornaments" replaces "tchotchkes"

12/2 ... changed the prepositions in the "pews" stanza ...