Sitting with my wife at the breakfast table this morning, I was struck by the realization that human beings and seedless watermelons have something important in common. We were both robbed of our evolutionary raison d’être, and, in both cases, the culprit was humanity (the OTHER “damned dirty ape.”)
But, at least, humans have gotten a chance to choose their new [and, hopefully, improved] reason for being. Seedless watermelons have not been so lucky.
There was a man from the UAE
who cleaned windows for a small fee,
’til he got the urge
to work at the Burj.
Then his rates went up radically.
In our town, soundless sounds abound.
The right are wrong; the sighted, blind.
The king is fired, and peasants crowned.
The waters plowed; the sky is mined.
The pauper ‘s taxed; the righteous fined.
Arsonists fight fire with more fire.
Notebooks are vertically lined.
Sellers hand money to buyers.
Only the town nudist is attired.
Workers fill holes yet to be dug.
Things are made after they’ve expired.
Patients prescribe the doctors’ drugs.
If your right is left and up is down,
you’re perfect for our Turvy Town.
I saw the black skies up ahead,
but hoped they’d clear as I approached.
I hoped they’d clear as I approached.
I saw those black skies up ahead.
And from the distance I felt dread.
The dark wouldn’t yield to my reproach.
I saw those black skies up ahead,
but hoped they’d clear as I approached.
The ebon clouds began to spread.
Into my mind they did encroach,
and on my bliss began to poach
until something monstrous was bred.
I saw the black skies up ahead,
but hoped they’d clear as I approached.
I hoped they’d clear as I approached.
I saw those black skies up ahead.
I
yellow flowers,
along the trailside,
wave in the breeze;
butterflies flit
with random purpose
II
grazing livestock
trim the trail corridor
golf course neat;
not even the steepest
parts grow out shaggy
III
hear the burble
of the flowing water
where’s the creek?
it’s marsh-like in the grass,
awaiting a naïve boot
They say that every story begins
with an intolerable status quo.
Who it’s intolerable for is an open question.
Maybe it’s the protagonist…
&
Maybe not.
[Some protagonists spend the whole story
trying to get back to that status quo.]
Maybe it’s the antagonist…
&
Maybe not.
Sometimes, the status quo is intolerable to the universe —
(as every status quo must become.)
And every non-blissful moment of living
is an intolerable status quo —
a state in search of [or hope for]
a better state to come.
There was an old woman from Thailand
who lived on a teeny tiny island.
As she increased in age,
she was ever more engaged
in recalling which tiny island of Thailand.
When I was a young boy, earlier than I can remember, I caught hyperqueryitis — a permanent affliction denoted by a propensity to ask “too many damned questions” — or so it was explained to me.
The condition can become exacerbated by certain common treatments — all of which are popular replies of the adult human being, such as:
-“… because it just is, that’s why!”
-“… because it’s always been that way!”
-“… we’ll get there when we get there and not a moment sooner!”
Side-effects may include: the use of words such as: propensity, affliction, and exacerbate; as well as a marked tendency to make up one’s own words.
I
a brass bell clangs
in the old temple yard,
tuning my mind
II
at river’s edge,
entranced by water’s flow —
roused by a chirp
III
noisy forest —
a sudden silence,
roused by a hush
cobble stones & lonely roads
built before I was born
i walk them —
not seeing the ghosts,
and thus feeling that I’m the ghost —
a hot-future injected menace
pumped into a world in which I have no business,
a world whose pace & peace I disturb
i am the ghost of winters future,
and I don’t know how I got here,
but I know there’s no return
