Poem: No Clear Path

 

No Clear Path

 

a fracas of leaves tickles the sun

with googols of young green.

 

shadows flicker and sliver

through laced cemeteries of

 

fallen decayed heroes,

coursed by beetles which seem on fire.

 

greyblue puddles of lichen, inedible,

dry and flake on shabby stones.

 

a single arrow of light

hits a pine tree right in the chest,

 

impaling an amber bull’s-eye,

sticky heart turned to gold.

 

who will earn its love?

an ant, a moth, a squirrel,

 

some chickadee?

 

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

Jerry Brewer, NYT on US Men's Hockey accepting Trump's Invitation

 

From the NYT article, “The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team won gold — and then lost the room”:

 

It would be a copout for me to blame only the environment that they must navigate, to rant about how everything is poisonously political now, to lament the impossibility of sustained joy in a culture that incubates outrage. These are all factors, but let’s not infantilize this team. These are men who thrilled a nation and rocked the world, and as adults, they need to be more savvy

That goes for every prominent team in sports. It’s nice, even expected, to be feted as a winner. But who’s celebrating you – and why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it – matters more …

Jerry Brewer, Senior Writer, New York Times

Ethical analysis of the US Men’s Hockey Team accepting Donald Trump’s invitation to the White House 

Poem: Leaves at Sundown

 

Leaves at Sundown

 

branches surrender as tame as

throats under those seductive 

leaves which hum with autumn’s blush,

rich in sauvignon joys, soaring off

never to fall again onto

cushions of mussed forest beds,

more sensitive than lips when

wind strums their withers and  

sparks such fantasticated songs:

such moans and coos and trills

of sighs and delights, higher still,

until the amaranth sky

inhales the flighty lust to churn--

to burst and cascade and whirl with

fugues of mosaics, emotional

tinctures of canopied cloaks and gowns, 

such brave siennas and vermillions and

umbers and butters whose

myths whisper in waltzes of

silhouettes cast from a campfire which doesn’t

dare to exist except in glades of semi-dark,

where the vibrant flames of the

oh-so-never-spent! leaves

sweep away, players now, forever,

precious as jewels in spectral roam.

 

 

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

2/27/ .. more

2/26/26 ... mods

Quote, Ian Buruma, NYT op-ed

Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today

One reason for public docility in terrible circumstances is fear. In the last years of the war, a Berliner could be arrested and, often, executed for doubting the final German victory ... But there is something more insidious, something not unfamiliar to many of us today: the hope that things will turn out all right soon, that the political outrages are temporary or at least that they can’t get worse. One way of dealing with bad times is to pretend that they are normal ... 

This is the problem when the destruction of moral norms and the rule of law is incremental ... 

When Donald Trump refused to say whether he would accept the outcome of the election in 2016, people should have sensed the danger. And yet at the time, respected intellectuals told me that everything would be fine ...

Since then, one red line after another has been crossed ...

All this was incremental, too, but compared with 1934, everything goes much faster. And yet life continues as usual. What was unthinkable only yesterday we now take in stride, and we wait for that moment when things really have gone too far this time ...

But that moment probably won’t come. Things have gone too far too many times already. Hoping for better is still the right attitude, but only as long as we prepare for the worst.

Ian Buruma
Historians Confirm:  Tomorrow Won't Be Better Than Today https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/opinion/history-hope-delusion.html

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

Poem: Office Party

 

Office Party

 

chuckles and chatter

distort into a circus.

the scene could be far worse

than the ordinary, that is,

the automatic weekday sunny-grey

of the i don’t hear you chin nod.

or maybe it’s the same.

another episode of failure

unwitnessing itself.

actors who prove that exiles

die out there somewhere

in soundproof chambers

far too loud with truth.

far too pushy and nosey

with questions of fair pay

and harassment.

all of us, actually, at the party

sound like those little rotors

in micro-copters which drone wherever

warblers, larks and sparrows once sung. 

it’s that kind of lack.

machines which taffy-pull laughter.

pretzels of tricky remark.

a snazz of phrase lifted from bots,

all shifting and swaying in a

punch-bowl hall of mirrors

and bravado.

 

 

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

Poem: When Warheads Launch

 

When Warheads Launch

 

our dream perishes

but the stars collect it,

and with care prolong that brave choice--

 

for they have radiated hope

from the very start,

assurance it can be beautiful to breathe.

 

Earth, in their eyes,

is a silverblue minnow,

swimming sweet waters to drink the light.

 

no matter

how fast or far fear chases joy,

jealous through chasms of abyss,

 

the embers of the dance ignite again,

and even more,

the stardust of lovers

 

who are not so small, after all,

never to extinguish

what they were, are, or will be--

 

not so forgotten

to the bosom of the universe,

the praise of the cosmos,

 

not so forsaken, irrelevant, empty

or alone.

 

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

Essay: Poetry, Good, Evil and You

 

Essay:  Poetry, Good, Evil and You

 

Most people, most of the time, and this includes myself, are not facing the unbelievable, awesome, scary aspects of what it is to be human in the early 21^st century.  I think some compartmentalization is fine and even necessary.  Many of us need a buffer, some peace in other callings, activities or entertainments.   And yet it is vital, as well, to engage with the critical issues of these mind-boggling times.  To plunge in with full veracity. 

My poems, I hope, are aspects of the call.  My poems, really, are a way of dealing with a spectrum of brutal emotions, while adventuring in the crucible of the soul.  Ecstasy flows through me, love and anguish, and also hate [1].  These raw forces can be shattering.  Or they can be channeled into deepest expression and liberation.  A poet can be an alchemist, working with passion for purposes which ultimately advance the Good.

Before addressing the big question of whether we will go down a Good path or an Evil one, it is important to spell out some of the extreme changes we face in the near future.  The scary options presented below are not necessary futures, but they are likely futures, if we don’t act maturely and ethically to manage the godlike technology we are currently evolving.

Again, all this is very stressful to even broach, let alone ponder.  My way of dealing with it is poetry.  One of the main purposes of this essay is to get you to think about how you can deal with it. 

 

Our Near Future: Option One, self-deselection and AI supremacy

 

What’s so scary about our times, even compared to the general human condition, which has always been fraught with danger, challenge and stress?

As I wrote in a 2002 academic article, which is now a reference in the Wikipedia entry on cyborgs, we are likely to combine our natural bodies with implanted technology.  When?  Soon and at a reckless pace.  This involves artificial or enhanced limbs and organs, yes, but also connecting our brains to computers and an ultra-invasive internet [2]. 

I argue that this process, in our current culture of profit-making and competition, will lead to self-deselection:  we will change what we are so much that we become some new kind of species, one created outside the biological channels of evolution.  If this happens, humanity as we know it, and as it has existed for hundreds of thousands of years, will be gone.  It will also have profound effects on all of planetary nature, including what creatures and biomes remain and how. 

How far away is this transformation? It has already started and will likely proceed in stages.  Artificial limb and brain chips already exist.  If we are reckless, consumed with a rush for immediate power and new abilities, then within 200 years we will be a lot more similar to robots and robots will be a lot more similar to us.  

Indeed, through a brain-connected internet, it is possible for multiple entities to telepathically share and combine.  The scenario where AI controls us, or even effectively turns us into its slaves, gains traction if we are all wired up to each other under AI super-centers.

 

Our Near Future:  Option Two, nuclear annihilation

 

War has been a problem since farming was invented.  But never of such a world-shaking magnitude.  A scary possibility for our future is the obvious Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads; namely, World War 3 and nuclear annihilation.  Given the current tilt of politics toward bellicose dictators, which mirrors the conditions before World War 2, it is a decent bet to say that this is our most likely future.  

Tens of thousands of nuclear warheads are ready to launch.  Egomaniacal, saber-rattling, insecure dictators on golden thrones, petty men who won’t back down = BOOM.

 

This is where we are at

Even if we avoid a hellish finality, super-powerful technology is emergent.  Right now, we seem almost eager to hand over our existence to AI overlords.

This is the theater in the round, the world stage, on which you and I dwell, circa early 21^st century.  We are in the flow of a rapidly changing, technology-driven metamorphosis.  Our leaders seem all-in on advancing as vigorously as economic forces allow.  Such forces are the primary driver in our primitive, barbaric culture, our poor level of maturity and (lack of) ethos. 

 

The Most Important Choice We Face:  Ethics

Can we actually mature and consider our fate more wisely?  Is it even doable?  The answer is yes.  It involves reasonable, ethical decision-making.

Clearly, though, it is not foreclosed that we will suddenly wise up.  What we do now, what choices we make, are part of a unique historic flow.  You and I participate in shaping greater future destinies.  Will we advance our ethics, or stay trapped in the primitive system of vice that rules us now?

If we make certain choices, whether recklessly, or by failing to take a stand, acquiescing to the powers that be, we are likely to be among the last few generations of human beings to walk the earth.  As I outline above, we could replace ourselves with cyborg ‘upgrades.’  Or we could annihilate ourselves in a future-tech war.

The crossroads is here.  There are two possible forms of government we can support.

One type of government trends Evil

Humanity, right now, has a choice between two forms of global governance.  One is based on idols and tyranny:  cult-levels of ignorance, fear-mongery, and totalitarian control.  The other is based on democracy:  reason, equality and mutual flourishing through a merger of science, critical thinking and ethics.

I have written in many previous blog entries that ethics can be mobilized as a technology [3]. 

The totalitarian model of governance, as I argue in many essay on this blog, is Evil.  A fictional character, the Grand Inquisitor, in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, elaborates on this model quite well.  The Grand Inquisitor argues for a Pact with the Devil while pretending to follow Christ.  The basic argument is that fear and ignorance are the only way to keep humans in line, due to limitations in our very nature.   It is an Orwellian model.  Preach freedom but enforce slavery, preach love but inculcate the hate and fear of scapegoat-ism.

This is also a Machiavellian model.  In The Prince, Machiavelli argues that fear is the best way to control people.  This is certainly true, but only at a certain level of immature culture.  All the god kings since ancient Sumer have used it as a psychological weapon of control.

 

One type of government trends Good

The democratic model of governance follows the path of the Good.  It accepts a Pact with Honesty.  Scientific truths, therapeutic psychological awareness, and the basic idea of human equality.  We are all the same kind of cognitive animal and self-evidently deserve rights.  Fair and just treatment.  In the Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky labels this as the choice of love and reason over fear and fanaticism.

 

We have a choice right now between Good and Evil

 

You and I live at a critical juncture.  It is largely a barbaric, vicious and fraught time.  But ancient ways of darkness have been challenged effectively.  This means that both ignorance-based governance and reason-based governance are viable paths.  Will we dare to support compassion, virtue and psychological health? Or will be bow down to ignorance, fear and hate-mongery?  This can be summarized succinctly as:  will we mature?

Neutrality is not an option: 

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

 

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality"-- JFK (uncertain attribution)

 

Either Good or Evil will win

 

All this, again, is very stress-making.  Trust me, I know.  My poems help me to achieve and maintain the honesty needed to face the situation--the existential crisis--I describe above.  In my poetry, I channel very intense passions of many kinds from many chambers in my heart.  It is atrociously hard to face what is going on right now.  A true struggle between Tyranny and Democracy. 

Fear versus love.  Ignorance versus truth.  Obedience versus freedom. 

Good takes us in one direction.  Evil takes in another.   For more details on why one or the other will eventually encompass the globe, see my essay titled, “The Purgatory Principle.” [4])

 

Scenario 1:  Evil Wins

If we blow ourselves up in a nuclear armageddon, that is to succumb to Evil.  Some humans will survive, probably.  But they will start all over with the same god-king warlordism.  Might makes right.  Eventually these survivors will rebuild, get nuclear weapons once more, and likely destroy civilization again.  This could lead to a hellish cycle.   The way out would be to give up ignorance-based governance.  Reject the path of fear and chose the path of Good (see option three below).

 

Scenario 2:  Evil Wins

A second possibility is that technology will become strong enough to totally control each and every citizen.  No way to rebel or do anything but obey.  Suicide might not even be an option.  Robot police and robot military everywhere.  Seamless AI surveillance.  And, most cruel of all, a brain chip in every head, enforcing control from within. 

This level of puppetry will be possible within a few hundred years.  If malignant narcissistic dictators are still in charge at that time, as they are now--despotic patriarchs who crave total control--it will happen. 

An alternative form of hell

A totalitarian dungeon can, in a rare case, avoid nuclear annihilation, but the result is simply another kind of hell, the total mind-enslavement described above.  War is avoided if a single totalitarian system takes over the entire world--and somehow does this without getting in a nuclear war. 

Again, though, such an existence would be a living hell.  An example from sci-fi is The Borg from Star Trek.  The Borg assimilates whatever civilization and planet it conquers into an machine-flesh network controlled by a central AI.

 

Scenario 3:  Good wins

A third option is that humanity embraces ethics-as-technology.  This would allow us to act with honesty, to reject big-lie loyalty tests under emperors who ‘wear no clothes.’  We would implement scientific advances, not in order to oppress, but rather to create flourishing, mutually beneficial environments:  win/win situations where the beauty of the planet and humanity both thrive. 

This is path of the Good.  It works to eliminate the threat of nuclear annihilation.  It also preserves the humanity of future citizens, who ethically choose not to merge with machines.

Imagine AI and robots being supportive, angelic guides, rather than oppressive authoritarian jailers who monitor us for loyalty and subservience.  Imagine learning how to dance with your emotions and  passions, both light and dark, and channel that psychic energy to find your own unique, beautiful voice--to sublimate, to achieve catharsis, to find actualization. 

A lot of individual people have chosen this path already.  Therapeutic psychology has a better understanding than ever before on how to achieve such states.

Try to imagine our  innate “moral sentiments” cultivated and nurtured, not trampled down by the bottomless egos of saber-rattling, insecure, vindictive, trophy-hungry kings [5].

 

The danger is great, but progress has been made toward the Good

We are stuck in a primitive cultural loop that has been going on for thousands of years. I call this ongoing mental contamination/indoctrination the Ignorance Vortex.  Millennia of god kings have made Pacts with Ignorance.  What does this mean?  It means big-lie rhetoric.  Religious fanaticism.  Hate-stoked division and warfare.  These are the strategies that allow plutocracy, patriarchy and kleptocracy to domineer. 

We have been traumatized by this history.  We believe it is inevitable, since it has always been part of civilization.  Not a single person ever born in a ‘civilized’ state, including you and me, knows what it is like to be raised in a Good society.  We haven’t been given the chance.

That said, the Good is a possible future for us.  We have the brain- and the cultural-plasticity to advance our collective maturity.  And--importantly--we have started to do it.  A lot of progress toward the Good has been made in, say, the last 150 years. 

The greatest invention in the entire history of human civilization

I’ve proclaimed and argued, over and over, mostly to deaf ears, that the greatest invention since the Agricultural Revolution--going back around twelve thousand years--is the right for women to vote.  Universal suffrage.  This is huge.  Humanity not only conceptualized equality but made it real. 

This wonderful feat broke out of the original Big Lie, the grand deceit that programmed everyone not only to believe in the inferiority of women--physically, mentally and morally--but also to transmit the same mental programming to the next generation.  On and on…

Breaking out of the original Big Lie demonstrates that we can listen to reason and follow a path of ethics-as-technology.

For emphasis:  it is possible for the Good to be our path.  Gay marriage.  Made legal in the USA in 2015.  Civil Rights in the 1960’s.  LGBTQ+ rights have advanced, too.  I don’t deny that all these gains and more are in jeopardy.  Indeed, this essay hopes to bring out the peril we face.  And yet also, thereby, the exigent importance of standing up. 

Humanity has mostly embraced medicine as a technology.  This was a big change from faith-based healing.  This shows that we can embrace ethics-as-technology.  

I refer to ethics-as-technology as lightcraft (the working title of my book is Lightcraft).  Lightcraft uses science, psychology and critical thinking to advance the Good.  Darkcraft uses science, psychology and critical thinking to maximize the control of dictators.

Technologies of many kinds (psychological, computational, robotic... ) can make both lightcraft and darkcraft more capable of advancing their goal:   Good or Evil.

 

What is your choice?  How will you handle it?

 

Again, I know it is hard to face all this.  Who wants to confront decisions that affect the future of civilization as it grows, evolves, and even expands into space.  The very thought of it is intimidating and averse.

Yes, it can be agonizing.  But there is also liberation, ecstasy and love.  This is why I write poetry.  Poetry is my steam valve and expression.

What is yours?  How do you sustain yourself in following a path of Goodness? 

You can do this.

 

 

 

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

 

Footnotes

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

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg (further reading:  Crittenden, Chris. 2002. "Self-Deselection: Technopsychotic Annihilation via Cyborg." Ethics & the Environment 7(2):127–152.

(3)  Some samples:

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

https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/09/essay-apotheosis-problem.html

(4)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2026/01/essay-most-important-law-in-physics.html

(5)  The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67363

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.

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

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.

 

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

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?

 

 

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

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.

 

 

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