Tag Archives: Thoughts

In Captivity [Free Verse]

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bars at your back,

and their stripes
 permanently etched 
  into one's field of vision.

so much so, 
 that you feel they're 
  a ubiquitous feature
   of the world beyond. 

the cage should be a hated place,
 but one can grow to love the cage.

the cage is shelter.

the cage is delivery address
 for food & water disbursements.

the cage forms rollbars --
  like on a dune buggy --
   protection in the event 
    of a sudden & unexpected crash.

the cage offers one a range --
 narrow as it might be --
  of distances at which one's captor
   may be kept,

and, as long as the cage is shut,
 that gives one a delightful 
  illusion of control. 

what a hated place a cage should be,
 and yet how conflicted are the captives?

Food for Thought [Voltaire & Smartphones]

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When Voltaire said:

“Once a nation begins to think, it is impossible to stop it.”

I don’t think he’d anticipated smartphones.

Silence [Blank Verse]

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This cave is too quiet --
  a squeak, a drip, wing snap.
 But mostly silence &
  hushed sounds without meanings.

Too quiet for my mind.
 Too quiet for our times.

The Golden Age Mythos [Common Meter]

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There never was a Golden Age,
   a time much better than right now.
 But playing martyr 's all the rage:
    to think our world the garbage scow --
     whose stinking mass forever grows.
 Lest you think that I'm saying these
    are times of pure and sweet repose,
 Please, let me put your mind at ease:
    
These times are best. These times are worst.
    (To blatantly steal from Dickens.)
 This twist is just how we are cursed
    to shriek like that sky fall chicken.

A Life Improbable [Free Verse]

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Each of us lives a life improbable,
 the gift of an ancestor who struggled 
 through some terror which killed others.

We each have an iron impulse 
 to maintain a cracking grip on life,
 but some won't ever be pried away,

growing like the stunted pine
 that juts from the mountainside:
 gnarled but indestructible.

Live improbably 
 with your life improbable.

Everything City [Free Verse]

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Everything is happening 
   somewhere in that city.

Blocks of block buildings
   broken into smaller blocks,
    in turn into smaller ones.

Those blocks -- rooms --
    are the city's unit of interest.

So many rooms,
    so much potential for the:
        -nefarious,
        -virtuous,
        -ill-advised,
        -hideous,
        -hopeful,
        -hilarious...

Someone is hanging 
   from a rafter,
   waiting to be found.

Thousands are masturbating.

AI surveys the porn they surf,
    making new genres in real time
    based on unfulfilled search terms...

In one room, a scientist
    figured out a cure for cancer
    in a burst of inspiration,
    but by the time she'd found a pen,
    she'd lost it -- no trace remaining.

    She then convinced herself
         she'd never really had it...

         but she had. 

Everything that can happen 
   has happened,
   will happen,
   and is happening
   in the city.

Under Pressure: Or, A House Divided [Free Verse]

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A construction worker once told me -
    for a building to last -
 depends not so much on
    its materials,
    nor even on its foundations,

but rather on the building being
    in balanced strain throughout.

A building stays up when its 
    parts press into each other firmly,
    or pull at each other strongly,
    but never too out of balance.

This web of unseen forces
    allows the building stand solid
    against any huffing, or puffing,
    the world might throw its way. 

A democratic society works the same.

It must have an establishment.

It must have a counterculture.

And these two elements must 
    constantly pull at each other
    or mash into each other:
    tension & compression,
    compression & tension,
    tug-of-war & sumo.

If one side is unopposed, or too weak,
    the state will crumble into some kind of
    authoritarianism by another name.

Destroy your enemies at your own peril.

Master & Slave [Lyric Poem]

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What will be your master,
  and what will be your slave?
Will you court disaster
  to be perceived as brave?
Will you call your pastor
  to hide that which you crave,
    or be your own ringmaster
       and own how you behave?

And will you choose virtue,
  or live in fear of vice?
Will you choose to be true,
  or default to being nice?
And when there's much ado
  will you jet their paradise?
Or just defer your view,
  as act some men and mice?

Edgeless Edge [Free Verse]

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Some speculate about
 the edge of the universe,
  and what exists beyond.

But that edge - if it exists -
 is beyond another edge:
  the farthest points
   from which we can see light.

In a tower
 on a mountain,
  there's still an edge
   of our eyesight --
like the others,
 it's an edgeless edge, 
  signifying nothing 
   but our own limitations.

We are builders
 of edgeless edges,
  fashioning boundaries
   that don't bound anything,
    but by which we are bound.

Disintegration [Free Verse]

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crack the tablets:
smash & shatter them
until they flutter into dust,
dust that's wisped into eddies
and sparkles in the creek bed
and is flushed out to sea
and is but a glittery trace
of what they once were.