Poem: New Physics

 

New Physics

 

a person, they say

is in fact a universe

with as many neurons

as there are galaxies.

and no one really

can put a value on any of it,

because meaning depends

on what is thought.

death, they say, resolves everything,

a solution to all one's quests.

and the light cast off

is more than equal

to the original big bang.

in fact, outside of time,

before you take shape

or move or hope,

all possibilities are options. 

so when you go out

or come in

through that blinding door,

there is, on the other side,

so they say, a mirror

of your own making,

one that bends to infinity.

such is the claim, anyway,

no matter where you choose  

to go or leave or stop or walk.

 =================

12/21/25

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 away 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 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

Poem: Performancer

 

Performancer

 

hands

like wolf spiders over the keys.

they ravage a sonata

on the piano's coffin black.

 

the audience soon swilled

into the lamentful hunger of the octaves,

the caterwauls of cricket notes, 

which burn and burst   

to rasp and wisp away.

 

the intermezzo 

hits rough and yet kind.

a fragile, fraught wrestle,

seemingly both reviled and relieved 

by the music's mean, simpering death.

the torments of the last movement

drain chords through tender nuances,

perhaps to protect their sad, torn wings

and yet 

the hands

 

transformed now from spiders,

bent now into feathers, mere shreds of flight, 

bear no patient descent.

they veer confused 

through chasms of sharps and aortas,

over anti-harmonies of spent bridges, 

and down 

and further still, anguished, yes, 

but maybe, at the last,

there is a vibrato of brave solace,

funneling tenderly 

into nothingness.

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

2/18/26 ... really hard poem to work with ... i'm tired and old 

12/21/25

Poem: Long Night Into Day

Long Night Into Day

light stung

with its lack of tomorrow,

the what-was that devoured the what-if. 

light lived in a hive of everstressed people,

below a sharp blue height 

which leered over their crowded boxes.

 

light, it ran away so quick.

it didn’t have to face the facts,

such as the clear-cut nudity

of the harsh sexless sex, that is,

the overdose drama of money-smitten people

shackled in towers of corrupted pleasures 

and ruthless equations.

 

light. 

it hurt.  it framed.  it trapped.

so brutal that hope

preferred to remain a lurid, unturned stone.

the night, the night it ... 

fed the light its harems of pretenders,

maskers who played cards without mercy.

games of dogs, paws on each other’s hearts,

digging for bones.

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

10/3/25 .. mehh

9/23/25 ... eh

Poem: On a Ledge

 

On a Ledge

 

no humans for miles.

no engines in lines.

no rail irons

or psoriasis of fence.

 

no throngs of hands

who battle for the last scrap of acre.

in this place, on a ledge,

a whip-poor-will

is worth a billion dreams.

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

4/28/25 changed a word

Poem: Busy Street

 

Busy Street

 

crosscurrents 

of stubborn, clogged rubber.

 

to pull a smile out of a face

is to yank the nerves of a marionette. 

 

the seethe of the similar

would reduce even a poet

to a parrot stanchioned 

in these asphalt lines.

 

the only bits of truth,

twitches in cheek or brow,

come and go like minnows,

scattering from deep sea jaws ... 

 

...  fallen ... 

into the steadfast norm.

culture fashion human engine

crammed into the same.

the same.

 

the same four-letter alphabet.

the same monosyllabic stress.

 

what a spectacle,

so many mechanized cowls:

face, throat, tongue, heart,

 

mind.

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

7/19/25 .. . attempts were made

Poem: Abolitionist

 

Abolitionist

 

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.

they want to kill you.

you might not see children,

or old age.

 

if you disappear one dusk,

the world just goes on,

full of shackles and whippings,

 

and no god, no one,

to pull your corpse out of a pit.

or out of the same seawater

sailed by those ships.

 

and yet you speak on,

even as the gun barrels stare.

whose "rockets' red flare"?

 

you keep on.

because of what can and should be,

everywhere.

must.

 

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

7/26 replaced comma with period mark

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

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

Poem: Wrestle

 

Wrestle

 

we sapients wrestle with ourselves,

reason versus the cruel.

 

would joy break into outer space,

the Earth crack, a sweet cosmic egg?

 

or would people go extinct

and Nature green-over our nuke-boom slide?

 

for now, anyway,

herds would fail to run wild,

reduced instead to packaged meat.

 

trees would grow runt,

enshadowed by sawmills.

flowers huddle, oceans stink.

 

we hungry, needy sapients

we grapple the globe

with our straight-lined, fence-bound 

wrestler's grip.

who needs ice in the arctic circle,

when you have air conditioners?

who needs sanity when you have computers?

who needs weather?

who needs nature at all?

 

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

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

 

a thought

seeps through small cracks

in the dronespeech on the screen

in the next room,

 

through the tiny tiny cracks

of the smallest seams in the dronespeech.

 

maybe it seeps too

through the texty touchy clickety twittery facebooky tik-tokking.

 

but so what and what

to do or not to do

about doing nothing 

or about the doing?

 

in the body of cellphone society

 we are cells of the in gab-gab gabbing gaggles,

where no one is listening 

except AI.

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

6/26

7/24