Tacit Knowledge

The wind is winding through the legs of this

Enameled rocking English white warped old

Large lovely chair I’m creaking on the wood

Rain-waved front wrap-around stained porch. My bliss

Belongs among the woven birds, the cold

Beloved branches, all I always could.

Shall I describe the beauty of my home,

The beauty of my wife, the purpose playing

Across the ground in dances now delaying

The writing of a trickster’s epic tome?

At my shape, age, and size, would I dare roam

And find my origin in all my straying

Off the path bringing opinions delaying

The coloring material in chrome?

Holy Night

The daytime of the soul is here, delight
In what the darkness brings, the cold-aired night
Invigorating us inside to sight,
To contemplate and grow the inner light,
To transform every is into a might
While making footsteps in the crystal white
Contrasting with the darkness--source of fright
And mystery--in depth we find new height
And challenge good and evil, wrong and right
To challenge us until we can take flight
Beyond acceptance of our certain plight
And in the darkness let our souls be bright.

The depth of darkness helps us find our goal:
Salvation for our ever-growing soul.

Nomos and Physis

A dash of blood and brains upon the stone
In streaks and strokes designed by gravity
Leading down to the broken body, bone
Erupting from the arms, a leg, a knee.

We saw him disappear across the side,
Heedless of all our yells about the drop --
We heard the branches breaking as he died,
We felt the grip of guilt he would not stop.

Two hours down, we now surround his corpse --
We can't respect our fellow rebel's choice
Refusing to obey our voices' warps
And woofs -- and now the wind's the only voice.

We live our lives in anarchy each day,
But that has never mean never obey.

A Facebook Friend Shared This

Oh what do you think you will do
When nothing you read may be true?
This poem is fake--
And for goodness' sake,
Don't share it!  Don't you have a clue?

"Wave Ontology": An Excerpt from "Upon the Sea of Anarchy"

Geography affects the way you view
The world, affects your myths and metaphors.
We live upon the waves, in endless blue,
And that perhaps is why we all love peace
And think our wave-ontology is true.

I know---ontology---a fancy term
For what we think the cosmos is. Release
Yourself from what you think you know, the germ
Of understanding then will sprout within
That nothing we believe is ever firm.

We see the world as waves and flows---we flow
And float and follow nature's course. Begin
From there, with understanding that. I'll show
You what I mean. The cosmos is made up
Of waves that interact, emerge, and grow

From energy through information through
The atoms which make up this very cup
You're drinking from and those which make up you.
My blood flows in my veins in waves, my speech
Arrives to you in waves, all light does, too.

And thus communication comes in waves---
They're more than what arrives upon the beach---
Our social networks, what each of us craves,
Our every bond is formed by waves. Our years
And months and days in rhythmic waves---each paves

The ways that we experience all time
In rhythms which evolved so all appears
To fall in natural patterns which all mime
The orbits of the earth and moon, the spins
Of which are accidents, but which we rhyme.

Mind/Body

You think that you're a mind and body -- two --
But you are wrong. Perhaps instead you think
You're but material and one, but you
Are wrong. Impermanent, you're but a blink.

Whatever you are doing makes the mind-
Set you are in. Whatever posture you
Are in creates the mindset you will find
You to be in. The one is thus the two.

The physical, the mental -- one and two,
Both neither, both -- a fractal of the pair,
A paradox that makes all beauty fair --
This dissipative structure that is you.

Creating Time

Do you hear that? The midnight nothing sounds
That let my mind mull magic into word
And phrase and line until the structure bounds --
Three calls emerge from the wood cuckoo bird.

The spirits speak at hours such as these
When I'm awake -- in sunlight I'm asleep,
But who will let my soul have its release?
The tick-tock of their time is but a creep.

The wind is cool, the stars in patterns light
The pathways of neural wanderings,
Where words awaken souls with warm delight
To break the wooden meanings into songs.

And with a cuckoo call the clouds depart --
The night enfolds me with its welcome heart.

A Letter from the Jester

I am not here to argue
I'm here to ridicule
You cannot have an argument
With an utter fool

There's nothing in your reasons
That I'd call rational
You chatter with your monkey-mind
Screech just like a gull

And so I thumb my nose at you
And laugh and mock and dance
The stupid things that you believe
Do not deserve a glance

You just believe in magic
Belief is always true
When it supports your prejudice
Challenge makes you blue

Your ignorance, stupidity,
Hatred of mankind
I laugh when you're surrendering
Using your own mind

Why do I ridicule you?
You are ridiculous
And you would ship your enemies
Off by train or bus

I do not care if what you wear
Is either red or brown
You'll still deserve only contempt
Heaped upon your crown

The Lawmakers

Coyote shouldn't go to trainings, laws
And rules are too transparent to his mind--
He sees manipulation, all the flows
Betray the fruit as nothing but dry rind.

Lean Loki shouldn't be a lawyer, judge,
Or statesman--laws just make him laugh out loud
In laughter showing us he will not budge--
He rules with irony the seething crowd.

Mean Monkey always makes a mess--the fools
Of structured order found their plans on sand
When Monkey's chaos makes emerge now rules
That will not bow to any god's command.

The child is playing in the sand--the waves
Destroy and he creates--it's what he craves.

Critical

They crowd the corner waiting for the light --
But no one notices the darkness, whole
And incomplete, embracing every soul
That scatters up the sidewalk through their fright.
And in the certainty that fills the night
Each offers up an overflowing bowl,
Each spill evaporating every goal
Into a crystal salt of endless spite.

The pressing crowd is pushing at the edge
Where too much light means nothing can be seen
Until a fellow falls from too much leaning
Off of the sidewalk as though from a ledge
The crosswalk is the borderland between
The nihilistic void and perfect meaning.

The Circus

Stand on your right foot and touch your left leg
Now pick up this spoon and balance this egg
Color the evens in nothing but blue
The odds all in red to show what you knew
Just listen to me and don't make me beg
Now fill out these forms there's lots more to do

I put up these charts in case they walk in
For failing to do so is the worst sin
Miniature horses perform to applause
Dogs are all leaping without a good cause
Now stand on command so we can begin
And do not complain for these are the laws

I made the mistake to think you should read
A strategy is the one thing you need
We'll poison the dog to make it play dead
And all the adults can lie in their bed
Mistaking performance for a true seed
Nobody knows even one thing they read

Harass the acrobats, make them all cry
And we'll twist them all up 'til they want to die
We're beating the horses 'til they lack breath
We'll pack in the clowns and work them to death
We'll paper the walls to maintain the lie
Perhaps we'll succeed if we're using meth

We all agree the performers are great
That is the lie that no one will debate
Each will applaud and smile shaking their head
Pretend that there can be nothing to dread
Zombie performance yes that is our fate
Careful that you do not notice they're dead

The Promethian Invasion

The alien invasion was an odd
One--ships appeared across the sky--we've seen
That part in movies--then the part of God
Was played by them--a Rapture!--not the clean

And good--but legislators, presidents,
And kings, police and petty bureaucrats,
The rapists, murderers, those seeking rents,
The thugs and thieves and all the human rats--

Were disappeared--and with the criminals
That ruled the world now gone, communities
Emerged--a ship remained for future culls--
And people prospered when they tried to please--

A single ship is circling the earth--
We do not know our liberators' face--
But from their actions they have helped to birth
A world of peace, prosperity, and grace--

And so we gave these aliens a name--
Promethians--for ending mankind's tryst
With rulers, giving us a brand-new game,
And showing they are true philanthropists.

Philosopher of Adverbs

He quickly, daintily, and randomly,
Begrudgingly and fortuitously,
Unbelievably deftly only walked
Away the moment that he saw the bear.
Show me the stronger verb--come on! I dare
You to improve, "The bear perplexly stalked."

Above Domination

"From the top of his tower, the philosopher of domination sees the universe in miniature. Everything is small because he is so high. And since he is high, he is great, the height of his station is proof of his own greatness."
--Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Coyote, trickster god, looks down on us
And laughs in joy. He's laughing high above
Those who, in thinking they look down on us,
Are misbelieving all they know and love.

Nature's Beauty

The Great Bear rises over me, new moon
Allowing all the Milky Way to stream
Across the sky--I hear a cougar scream,
I hear the lamentations of the loon.
A burst of palest pink and green balloon
And dance across the sky--they only seem
Alive as they are given breath to team
Above by a sun of another's noon.

The chill is frosting droplets from the air--
I see my contribution by starlight--
I warm up to the cold that clears my mind.
The almost-quiet makes me want to stare
Into the inbetweenness from the height
And depth of nature's beauty, humankind.

Rhythms of Time

Diastole and systole push flows--
You hear the swoosh of your own life pass through
Like heat through day and night that ebbs and grows
Along the varied seasons black, gray, blue.

Just listen, hear your singing neurons link
The world to thought, the thought to world to make
Imagination realize we think
The things we see--we give more than we take.

The city flows with iron that it pumps
In strong, slow beats through fractal blacktop veins
From heart into periphery, the clumps
Cleared out as flows move slowly down the lanes.

He who has ears should listen, hear, amass
The different, subtle ways that time will pass.

On the Essence of Culture

A single gene mutation marks each Native
American--it's not enough to make
An essence, a collective soul--and no
More are their cultures something we can take

As constant and essential--they must change
If they will live, like every living thing--
They have a soul, but like each living breath
You cannot steal the wind, but only sing.

The eagle feather is not theirs--coyote
Is not the only trickster dueling rules--
And men emerged from earth onto the earth
A thousand times, ignored by only fools--

One bangs a drum--technology much older
Than all of humankind--with dreadlocks worn
By ancient Greeks and Aztec warriors both--
The ignorant deserve eternal scorn.

The Poser

You say you're from the ghetto
But you dress like Jared Leto
You only have the trapping
Of the poverty you're rapping

A Random Walk Through Boredom's Lands

Scattered, shattered, darting thoughts
I don't know what I think I thought
Lots to do, but I am bored
I hoard and stored what makes me bored
Fragments and too-abstract thoughts
What's more abstract than abstract thoughts on thoughts?
The book is mocking me
The paper's mocking me
Stupidity is mocking me
Your thoughts are garbage-in, garbage-out
It doesn't matter how you process it
I have to hear stupidity
I'd rather go for a walk
Watch T.V., a movie with my wife
Watch a play?
Too literary today--I've bored myself
I close my eyes
I hear the whispers all around
I want to give a walk and take a talk
I saw bluebonnets blooming on the roadside
The wisteria have dropped their purple clusters
I want to bury my face in her nakedness
My arms pressed against my wife
The rest of you can go to Hell
Let us escape yours at least
Its relentless, mocking, cruel demands
On time and life
The crime of rhyme
The cruel crime of rhythmic rhyme
You hear the heartbeat in my line?
Shut up and work
Shut up and let me work
Shut off the phone--no, throw the phone
Thrown into the world
Among a people who don't care
That they mistake me all the time for them
Bring the backhoe to retrench
Your prejudices and hatred of the new
Your constant glue
To every we that you mistake for the true
Like every monster man in Scooby Doo
I'm really sick of all of you
There's Facebook on the phone
An article about creative block
And how it's fixed by using neuroscience
None of this is at all creative
It didn't even break my block
And midnight now has struck my clock
I'll sleep until the crowing cock

Whirlwinds of Being

You think because I live inside a shell
That I am shy, perhaps that I am weak,
Mere mollusk and invertebrate, some freak
At worst, perhaps, at best unwell.
Projecting, you think I must live in Hell--
I either won't shut up, or barely speak--
You call me introverted, nerd, or geek--
Because I will not buy the crap you sell.

The cone snail makes a shell so beautiful
That divers risk their lives collecting them--
A stinging death from living snails is sure
From this surprising carnivore--you mull
The risk over to gain this gorgeous gem
And understand that beauty can't be pure.

Daniel's Plan

My son said, "Daddy, I want a bee hive."
I want the bees to fill my room." "The bees
Will sting you," was my reply. He said, "Please.
I want the bees to sting and fly and dive."

He didn't want the honey--bees alive
And filling up his room to sting his knees
And arms--not safe outside and in the trees--
But crawling on his walls when he'd arrive.

He made this odd request one morning drive
To Kindergarten--perhaps on the breeze
He  saw a bee land lightly on a clover
And thought that no one ever should deprive
Themselves of such soft gentleness and ease
So, ignorant of pain, invites them over.

The Date

Get off your fucking phone--your game
Is not important--nor are you,
Such that you need to send that text
Right now--there's no one that is due
Such rudeness--it will be your next
Dumb accident that brings you fame.

You're on your fucking phone in class,
You're on your fucking phone and drive,
You're on your fucking phone and sit
Across from me and do not strive
To interact outside your mitt--
I stand and leave your fucking ass.

In curiosity I stay
And watch for when you'll notice I
Have left. It takes you almost ten
Long minutes--when the bill comes by--
Before you glance around, but then
Your phone determines, yes, you'll pay.

Your Loss

It seems our disability makes you
A jackass and irrational--you run
In fear from difference and all that's true--
You try to fight the future like a Hun.
You run in fear from anything that's  new--
You threaten all that changes with a gun
And anything we make you must undo--
You must make sure that all like us are none.

Our disability is in your eyes--
You're just as strange to us in all your fears
And hatred, worries, stress, and neediness.
It's truth and working hard that you despise
And then you say that we're the faulty gears
When history shows that we mostly bless.

The Nest Egg

The nested sticks are nestled in the tree-
Top nest that grows in circle-width and height
Until the laws of physics' cold decree
Of gravity launch both the eagles' flight.
The ground is littered with the broken twigs--
The rats are licking yolks from shattered eggs,
And they are chased away by wild pigs
Who dine, ignoring what each eagle begs.
The golden eagles bring the branches, build
Upon the nest they add to every year--
And we have joined the golden eagle guild
Where constant growth seems all that's ever dear.
The wind will dissipate each human oath,
For nature always limits growth.

Broken Boxes

The broken boxes, small containers, locks
All rendered useless, as they always were--
There's not a yard without a broken box
Here in this neighborhood. Must we endure
Exposure of these things we want to hide?
With guns they came, but hammers were their tools--
They only took where secrets would abide
And we're exposed as intimates and fools.
The contents of our boxes, those they left
For all to see, to expose all our lives
There in the grass, the intimate bereft
Of intimacy, all that it derives.
The boxes broken are meant to expose
That no one is the person who he shows.

An Offer From Our Institutes

Congratulations Susan Harlan! You

Are found most worthy of a place in our

New Institute of Envy Studies due

To all your expertise. You’ll be the flower

Of our institute. We are sure you’ll seed

The future of these studies as we need.

I’m certain you’ll be happy you’ll receive

No money whatsoever – not from banks,

Philanthropies, nor businesses – you’d grieve,

We’re sure, if you were funded by such cranks.

Since money is the root of evil, we

Are happy to ensure your virtue’s free.

We’re also certain we can find a place

Within our Institute of Misanthropic

Beliefs – we know it would be a disgrace

To pay – participation on this topic

Is free from such material concerns—

We’re certain of what in you truly burns.

We hope the summer has not meant we missed

Our opportunity to offer this

To you for you were placed high on the list

Of people we should offer all the bliss

Of being one who we should study for

The vices which make others become poor.

Laundering

The mind is quiet folding towels, large
rectangles three-dimensioned with the fold,
The simple bringing together of corners
And building solid stacks to fight damp, cold.

But not all folding is the same--the socks
Are rummaged through in desperate search for pairs
That match--and now the mind is hard at work
That everyone will have what each one wears.

The towels give us boredom, repetition
We need to meditate and quiet mind--
No hanging, sorting, unclean folds--just even,
Uncomplicated movements to unwind.

Sent Home

I stood there in my doorway, watched them walk
Into the blizzard, white on white dissolved
Them into night--the bushes bearded old
Beside the door--I felt the frost evolved
From nasal breath begin to build--my back
Too warm, a trickle in my hairs. They're bold
To venture out when footsteps vanish, lack
Is filled--the last to disappear is talk.

A Taxing Ascent

I tried to build a hermit's hut
Where I could have repose
A place where I could live and think
And feel warm nature's flows

But I must pay the yearly tax
Upon this property
And those who tax insist my hut's
Connected to the tree

Utilities must all branch in
And therefore I must pay
And so I have to get a job
To live here every day

So now I have to go to town
And deal with everyone
And I no longer have the time
To think--the state has won

Fairy Tales

Our souls remember infancy, the crib
Confining us in safety, mother's breast
A source of food and safety where our warmth
Resided--we remained her favored guest.

And slowly from this comfort we emerged
Into a place of play and isolation,
Connections made and not ensured, where love
Is earned and life becomes a cold frustration.

And when we face frustration we all long
For arms, the lap, the crib where we were kept
In safety--we all long for one who would
Take care of us, protect us as we slept.

Alas, that mother is long dead for us--
And we are Hansel, Gretel, Cinderella,
Snow White--a litany of fairy tales
Where mother is replaced by Bella.

Cruel Bella Donna promises she'll take
Good care of you--that she will soon replace
Your mother--she will feed you pudding, cake
And slowly poison you into a vase.

And you will love her as your lips turn blue
And thank her as you shiver in your bed
Because she keeps you warm and keeps you fed,
Though everything she does ensures you're dead.

Drawers

They lay like wrinkled flowers in the cedar
Drawer, pastels and white, cool cotton wraps
Absorbing smells of bourbon--I would feed her
Musk-scented soul with all our evening naps
And gaze upon her breaking morning, drink
The milk of morning that we must forget--
Of all love's tragedy of time. I shrink
From every little death--I gently set
A cotton flower at her feet--she'll raise
The flower, smooth its petals out and hide
Behind those cool pastels--I love to gaze
Upon her every finger-stroke, abide
Within her flower bed, the cedar trees
Presenting me their scents upon the breeze.

Flags and Heroes

A flag denotes a boundary--choose your hero,
A carrier of flags across the edge
To colonize new lands and thoughts
Where peace is made from winning wars and zero-
Sum games are all the hero plays--he'll wedge
Himself into old lands with his old oughts?--

Or heroes who will dance the boundary, stand
In known and unknown, burn the flag, and sing
New songs, build up a new horizon, love
In a new key--and who will bear the brand
Of childishness, unrootedness--yet bring
Alternatives to choices on dot gov?

To My Audience

You. I speak to you. In the cacophony
I will speak to those who listen. I will find
Ears of gold, an audience who will not flee
Possibility, to be transformed, inclined
To dissolving all they know to become free
In a way that nothing more could ever bind.

I have chosen not to care, to just let go
Of the fools who wish to worship rules, who fail
At the task of seeing, thinking that they know,
When the theater surrounds their stage. They flail,
Strike at all who love this life and seek to grow--
Glow of health and wealth just make them become pale.

They will never grow, and they will always tear
Down the lovers of all knowledge, wisdom, life--
Misanthropy is their sullen game--they wear
Hatred on their eyes, their love is only strife--
They just want to cover all the things we bare,
Seeking to enforce it with serrated knife.

We, entwined with joy of love of life, we dance,
Fly, and sing, discover all new joys to lift
Ourselves, all of humankind. We will entrance
The entire world and slowly heal the rift
Killing humankind--we'll blast them from their trance,
They will sacrifice us for our precious gift.

It is certain that our sacrifice will raise
Many from the floor to break their golden chains--
It is certain that a mass will gaily gaze
Through the door we opened up--they'll love the gains
We were murdered for the sin of making--praise,
Songs of praise will raise up for our righteous pains.

Psychopathia sexualis

The star that wanders every evening shines
Within the lunatic's hysteria
That grows as fast as Southern kudzu vines,
Exposing pine cones in their mania.

The days demand the dancer shed her shame
And reinvent the rules to lure her out--
Emerging from her cave she shines the name
Of things that in becoming leave you doubt.

Back in the palace pleasure fears foment
And framed the world in awkward angle aimed
At tripping dancers who will not relent
At covering themselves and those they've claimed.

As you lie--listen to the sacred loon--
The dragon dines upon the dancing moon.

A Necessary Outcast

I suffer from seeing too much, the laws
Are bare before me, unveiled, exposed, nude---
How can I take them seriously, claws
Exposed as but imaginary things,
Teeth dissolved into gums---they all exude
The smell a month-old rotten apple brings.

I am the enemy of serious
And somber things---I cannot see them there
But rather see we needn't make a fuss
About those rules we all could change if we
But wanted to---to show that there's no hair
Just a toupee on every head we see.

The serious see me as enemy---
And, yes, they should---because I may expose
That everyone is truly, deeply free
But we do not appreciate the world
And much prefer the emperor has clothes
And that the is is not what has unfurled.

I speak these things into the hurricane
That wants to drown me, wash away the sin
Of questioning the law---I'm shown insane---
I neither break, obey the law---I laugh
Because I play but cannot lose nor win
And dance about with ivy, snake-twined staff.

The Revolution

The panic like a virus spread
Each wondered where they'd get their bread
And others filled them full of dread
And so they went and found some lead
And through the streets they marched and tread
And entered houses, bed to bed
And dragged out those who had not fled
And on their wealth each person fed
Before the streets were flowing red
From bullets, crowbars in each head
And once these enemies they shed
They found that it was they who bled

Nowhere

"The wisest in Cloudcuckooland are here
To greet the great and bold of earth who need
To see the ideals in their glory, clear,
Unstained by mere reality to feed
You all a perfect food you cannot eat,
To show you the unseeable, to grant
A touch of what cannot be felt. You'll meet
A leader who cannot exist--you'll chant
About his virtues none shall have. You'll see
A peoples perfect, ignorant of "can't"
And who are equal, virtuous, and free."

"Those idiots tried to give nothing breath
And realized but envy, vice, and death!"

Wisdom's Costs

Blind-eyed like Odin--where's my wisdom he
Was granted? Am I wise like Socrates--
A gadfly, unemployed? I am made free
By wisdom--free from work, kept on my knees
By people everywhere in every time--
I'm freed from any normal life--I'm freed
From all the simple joys. Is it a crime
To gain in insight, see the links?--what deed
Did I commit to make the world my jail?
Insisting on humility from all
I meet. Insisting all grand plans will fail.
Insisting all must tear down every wall.
With ancient understanding we will find
That wisdom's insights always make us blind.

Neither Rule-Breakers Nor Rule-Followers

The rules, the rules---believed by fools
Who treat the world so serious
And don't appreciate this life
You hear them always whine and fuss
And twist true love into mere strife

The rules, the rules---they're only tools
The poets of all kinds can use
To turn explosions into works
They're only things we only choose
And nothing necessary lurks

The rules, the rules---such charmless ghouls
Insist the rules are sacred truth
Believe the fools are those who think
They're only tools and these uncouth
Deserve a cup of hemlock drink

Difference

We found a cure for Thomas Jefferson
And Albert Einstein, Mozart, Kafka, too.
Now they will simply sit, obey and chatter
About the weather, gossip on no matter
Worth passing on to future generations,
And fill the air with noise that's meaningless
If meaning means significance. We'll cure
Society of challengers, make pure
The mass of men, be sure to skin the goats
(Who as we know all go to Hell) and render
Each person into bricks of purest fat
So everyone can feed the fattest cat.

Five Flocks

I saw a goat among the sheep
He would not let them go to sleep
He danced and pranced and with a leap
He told them tales that made them weep

Another goat in the wrong herd
Told them strange things that were absurd
But they believed his every word
Each died thinking he was a bird

Another goat another flock
And all the sheep were taking stock
A fence a gate and then a lock
And every head caved by a rock

A swirl of sheep a lone white goat
Who had an idea for a coat
But they rejected every quote
And left him in the sun to bloat

A final flock a goat denied
In purity they would reside
And from this purity came pride
And from the wolves each one has died.

Dasypeltis

The serpent suns itself upon the log
Before it slithers off to find the nest.
It's climbing up the tree--no life can rest,
No soul discover peace--it finds the fog
Convenient to its task--a silent flog
To keep you off your task--you're not your best
When he's here to annoy, harass, molest
You, drag you deep inside his putrid bog.

The serpent sucks upon the egg--your play
Will go unhatched--you lift the broken shell--
The light illuminates the promise lost--
And no one seems to mind the social cost
Of things they never knew had lost their day--
The serpent slips in silence down the well.

Crowd

The more I ignore them the louder they get
The endless, endless chatter fills my ears
The inane nonsense nattering about nothing
They cannot seem to breathe without a voice
Distracting movements endless blah blah blah
My nerves are on the rack they're drawn and quartered
They're placed  within an iron maiden by the noise
It's more than just the volume that annoys
It's the endless cacophony of girls and boys
Who I must hear in details so I hear
Their pseudocontent pseudotopics ignorance displays

Tradition

I've battled beside Gilgamesh, the Bull
Of Heaven slain by us. I've fought beside
Achilles, hot beside a burning hull,
And watched as Agamemnon, captured, died.
With Oedipus I've lost my vital eyes
With insight gained, avoiding my own lies.

I've been to Hades too with Gilgamesh,
Again with Dionysus, Heracles,
With Hermes, Orpheus, yes in the flesh
With brave Odysseus, and it may please
You too to know I've been there by myself,
Led there by Nietzsche, unlike Dante left
Alone, unguided, virtually bereft.

I've argued here and there with Plato, fought
With Socrates and Aristotle, gained
In insight beside Adam Smith, and thought
With Nietzsche and Aquinas, became strained
With existentialists, romanticists,
And felt that Marx, Rousseau deserved my fists.

With Sundiata I fought with a king
To gain his country back. And then I danced
With Ame-no-uzume, danced to bring
The sun out of her cave. I've held a lance
With Launcelot and Don Quixote, stole
With Jean Valjean and with him became whole.

I've fought in France the Revolution, stood
Against the tyrant king. I fought in Russia
Against the French invaders, too. The good
I argued long with Kant on walks through Prussia,
Discussed duality in paradox
With Lao Tzu, who turned into a fox.

I've lived ten thousand lives ten thousand years,
I've been both men and women, straights and gays,
Lived ten thousand cultures and shed more tears
And laughed more laughs than you have lived your days.
You think of all these lives with only scorn?
This world did not begin when you were born.

Divine Quatrain

The soul of deity is not control
The wind exudes its breath in randomness
That orders only itself without goal
And only with that voice can it then bless

Sex and Cell Phones

The bees are opening each clover, drink
The nectar, open up another flower,
Collecting pollen so they can devour
The honey that they make--each one's a link.

The earth is splitting--lava fills the sink
The seam is making--sulfur flows to power
Archaebacteria that every hour
Sextuple to feed worms white, red, and pink.

The asteroid is orbiting its pace--
A comet hits, the pieces shatter, scatter--
The fragments streak across a midnight sky.

The galaxies are diamonds on a lace,
But move along its interface--our matter
Is on a network field we can't defy.

A Summer Ritual

The fireflies are flashing by the tree
Upon the very edge of day and night--
Luciferase is breaking ATP
So hard it make a flash of light, of light.

Down in the grass a female firefly
Is looking for a certain pattern, bright
And healthy light--a light she won't deny--
And she will flash her light to catch his sight.

And he will drop down to the fresh-cut grass
And for the evening end his flash-filled flight
He undertook below the sassafras
To find his perfect fit, his soul-delight.

I'm drinking root beer on my porch--this dance,
This swing, your hand have put me in a trance.

Magical Thinking

I do believe I ought to bang my head
Against this wall again--I do believe
This time will work--I'll bring alive the dead
A final failing time--yet none will grieve
When this penultimate attempt will fail--
Just three or four times more and nature will
Give in, her laws will break, I will prevail--
And when I do I'll send nature the bill.

I'm certain that, unaided, I can fly--
I won't give in to nature's tyranny--
I know my good intentions will ensure
This leap success--I know I'll never die,
That I can overcome mere gravity--
I know this since I know my heart is pure.

Koans

The moment that the wave approaches you
It waves goodbye--but that I know you knew

The more true rules the universe evolves
The more true freedom comes about, it solves

The sign read "We treat you like family here."
I left. I wanted kindness with my beer.

The finest deed
That's if you read
It's how you're fed

Left Turns

The anti-Semites and eugenicists
Looked at the concentration camps and cried
That that was clearly not what they had meant

The central planners, all the socialists
Looked at the gulag, killing fields and cried
That that was clearly not what they had meant

The deconstructionists, postmodernists
Looked on as Donald Trump succeeded, cried
That that was clearly not what they had meant

A century of Leftist plans and -ists
Have rendered only evil as they cried
That that was clearly not what they had meant

Mass murder, truthiness, ordaining theft:
Among the evils brought on by the left.

Red Tape

I'm all entangled
Almost strangled
Maybe mangled
All because I have a gift
A gift to lift
A gift to shift
The tides for me
And you you see
If I could only flee
These barriers
Debt-carriers
And parriers
Of independence progress
A regular advance of Congress
Ensuring only regress
So I can only work
For some jerk
With stupidness the only perq
The fat cat bureacrat
Ensuring that
I stay an economic gnat
And sell this thing I made for cheap
To some connected creep
Not smart enough to make the leap

The Devil's New Mission

The Devil went to every single school
Across America to find a Faust--
But no one wanted knowledge. Each dim fool
Stared at a phone--the Devil could not roust
A one to lust for power, wisdom, art--
None could be tempted for none had a heart.

The Devil went back down to Hell and spoke
To all his demons--Pandemonium
Gathered around and silence finally broke.
"I searched around America--I come
With nothing for a one of you to do--
You can't corrupt the ignorant. It's true.

"You can't tempt anyone who will not care,
Who neither love nor hate their lives, are loathe
To value anything, feel no despair,
So ignorant they think the poet's "Goethe,"
Assuming they have even heard of him--
Why put out any light that glows so dim?"

The Devil  left them, went to Heaven. God
Spoke, "Lucifer, what brings you here? A soul
You want to tempt?" The Devil gave a nod
And said, "I wish. But I can't meet my goal.
There's no one there to take a dare. They stare
As screens, indifferent, without a care.

"They shrug their shoulders over everything--
They're natural nihilists who at their best
Discourage greatness before it can spring
To life--so lazy they must always rest
From never doing anything. A nation
Who cannot even rise up to temptation."

"There's greatness still in Asia, Africa"
God said. "These peoples rise, and with them great
And awe-inspiring men. America
Is slumping, slouching--there's no debate
That they're as dead as Europe. Do move on.
Your Western opportunities are gone."

The Devil shook his head. "I know you're right.
I've gotten used to tempting in the West.
To wrestle with a Faust is my delight,
But now it's time to take on all the rest."
"I think you'll find the rest a worthy foe,"
God said," So now, my adversary, go."

The Solitary One

What don't I know or haven't read or thought?
Yet what has all this knowledge ever brought
Me? Love has run from me. The more I know
The less I'm liked, it seems. I dare to show
My knowledge and I'm treated with disdain
And told I'm arrogant. Should I refrain
From saying what I know? Your ignorance
Be given more respect, the mental-dense
Revered by everyone? I cannot work
For none will hire me--they see a jerk
Or threat to their own place should they embrace
A person who like me dares show a trace
Of knowledge broader than a needle's tip,
As though they'll be infected by a drip
Of knowledge from my brow. I just face hate
From every person. Should it be my fate
To live in isolation, unemployed
Because the ignorant are all annoyed?
My love for knowledge, wisdom, beauty snared
Me in this culture where no love is spared
The worst cold fate--not mockery, derision--
Of being actively ignored for vision.
You celebrate the stupid with delight
And then lament that everywhere is night.

To the Socialists of All Parties

I'm sick of your conservatism, sick

Of all your hatred of the changing world --

Dismal, wicked, that's all it has become --

A pitiful misanthropy that lies

It loves all of mankind but licks its chops

At thoughts of power over everyone.

Let's go to the savanna, take a vote--

The termites win! The aardvarks starve to death,

The holes of aardvarks can't be turned to dens,

The smaller predators lose all their young,

The smaller prey eat all the seeds -- the drought

Kills plants that cannot then replace themselves --

The ecosystem then collapses, death

Makes desert lands and herds all die, and death

Kills off the lions, leopards, cheetahs -- death

Then visits all the termites who now starve

From lack of plants they used to always eat

And now are gone with socialism's win.

Perhaps a friendly strongman should replace

These stupid voters -- they can't seem to choose

Their socialism with democracy

And do it right -- hyena's always laugh,

Perhaps we ought to put such cheerful things

In charge. Hyenas get the lions, leopards

To join in killing cheetahs off, then lions

Kill off the leopards, too, and fail to see

The pattern. Laughing, the hyenas turn

The smaller predators against the lions

Whose brutal actions fill them all with fear.

And thus the lions are brought down, the last

To die brings out the dark hyenas' laugh

As they wipe out the smaller predators.

And thus the cruel hyenas come to rule

The prey in peace and grow hyena numbers,

Eating at will the herbivores they rule

Until their populations start to crash.

And once the prey has gone extinct, the prey

Becomes hyenas for hyenas -- death

Has found its way in savagery again.

I'm sick of your conservatism, sick

Of all your hatred of the changing world --

Dismal, wicked, that's all it has become --

A pitiful misanthropy that lies

It loves all of mankind but licks its chops

At thoughts of power over everyone.

Ritual

I'm hiding in the piney woods
I want to sing my song
My magic will make all things goods
Now won't you sing along?

Now pucker up your funny face
And discard all your robes
You used to cover your disgrace--
Dance in the lightning's strobes

Now leap and laugh and loll about
Among the lilac limbs
The scents will overwhelm your doubt
And you will spin like rims

The bass is booming in the boughs
Your car is lit beneath
In lilac lights--this song allows
Its hood to wear a wreath

I wrap myself in ivy vines
I'm tossing you pine cones
Drink up! Enjoy all of these wines!
Play music with these bones!

Coyote Songette

Coyote hides here in suburban woods
And likes to run in fields and across yards--
Unlike the wolf there's no Red Riding Hoods
In his mythologies sung by the bards.

Coyote likes to live in inbetween
And he invites the bravest of the brave
To live in places seen and yet unseen,
To stay out in the sun, out of the cave.

Coyote comes to you in vivid dreams
And speaks a language you have always known
Although you failed to recognized the streams
That tumbled from the sky with every groan.

Coyote knows you don't believe in him--
You think he needs to eat--he's awful slim.

For the Artists Formerly Known as Alive

Perhaps we don't deserve them anymore--
An inartistic age will bring collapse
That spreads as death upon the island shore
Of greatness, lost big beat without relapse.

How can't I grieve--how can't those waves wash high,
Erode my soul and yet rebuild my soul
With every death--how can I now deny
No time is guaranteed to reach your goal.

The sea of time's eroded far too long,
Too much--two times my life is what I need
To do all I must do--I must be strong
And let these deaths become my vital seed.

It's early when an artist has to leave:
They help us see ourselves--that's why we grieve.

Permanence

Concrete is the poem
Concrete is the heart
Concrete are the labia
That let the soul depart

Concrete is the butterfly
Listen! Concrete Blonde
Reject God in anger, sing
Against the divine bond

Concrete is the soul
Concrete are my words
Lusting for a permanence
Concretely lifting birds

Concrete are the ruins
Concrete Romans raised
Concrete music, mandolins
Are strumming like we're crazed

I want to whisper with the wind,
Enjoy my cycled breath--
So chisel on my concrete tomb:
My soul-words conquered death

Left

The problem with this rusty ship
Is that it needs more oxygen!
I say we put it in a tank,
And do make sure it's very dank,
And then get all the smartest men
And we'll go on an ocean trip!

You say that oxygen's the cause
Of all the rust? Don't be a fool!
With nitrogen I've seen rust end,
And oxygen is like it's friend,
And it's a more reactive tool.
Don't bore me now with all your laws!

I can't believe you let me take
This ship out; now the men have drowned.
We'll lift it up and take it back
And give more oxygen--the lack
Of that is what is clear--I'm bound
To get this right, cause I'm no fake!

You In Here

As poet there is nothing I can do
About the fact that all you read is you.

On Misanthropy

The lovers of humanity are really misanthropes
Who cannot stand real people. Smiling, they just bring the ropes
To tie their legs and hands--and when they have their victims bound
And when they've cut out all their tongues so they can't make a sound,
They'll look in pity on the slaves that they have cruelly caught
Within their misanthropic web of hate and say they ought
To thank them for the drink and food they give since they can't take
Care of themselves. They swear they do this for all mankind's sake--
They see themselves superior--their egos love to grow
Upon the flesh of all their captive prey. But soon they'll know
What every autocrat will someday learn--that slavery
Will one day end and from the misanthropes we'll all be free.

The Door

You stand before the wooden door. It's closed.
Perhaps it's locked. What stands behind the door?
Another room? Outside, where you're exposed?
Will you be safe or will you dare explore?

You stand before the open door, each hinge
A tarnished plate of brass exposed to sight--
The threshold dares invite--you feel a twinge--
Of anger? Fear? Of sorrow? Hate? Delight?

You stand before the weathered door--it's cracked
And all you have to do is push--a breeze
Could open it--anticipation's wracked
Your muscles, which must push and which still freeze.

There's sometihng that you sense deep in your core--
You know that one of these is your own door.

Soundings

I made a sound--it made you laugh, or cry--
It made you wish that either you or I
Would die--it made you pause and reminisce--
It brought you sorrow, joy--it brought you bliss

I made a sound and you got off your chair--
It made you gnash your teeth and pull your hair--
It made you gasp--it made you clasp your mouth--
It made you take a trip down to the South

I made a sound--it changed your very brain--
It made you want to sing its soft refrain--
It made you feel the absence of all ground,
For that's the power we have in a sound.

The Politician

He came into the cave with trumpery
To spare and found the prophet, shot him dead
And told the chained men, "Only look to me.
I'll care for you and you will lose all dread!"

He climbed up to the cavern's open mouth
And rolled a stone across it, made a seal
Against the sun, and then he headed south
And doused the flame. The dark engulfed the real.

"Just hear my voice," the man announced. "That's all
You need, for I'll take care of all of you.
Behind you I have made a great stone wall
Protecting you. I promise that it's true."

He said, "I promise I'm the chosen one!"
Then lit a fart and said, "Behold! The sun!"

Misreaders

You think my poems analyze or blame?
Then you don't know how poems play the game.

Progress/Regress

I stand before the world, astonished--see
The ways words fold in people's mouths to flee
The facts, the truth, the myths which must explain
The things we've learned--and in that knowledge, gain--
That violate what's clear and obvious
To anyone who has evolved, like us,
From social apes in hierarchies with males
Who love to dominate. It never fails--
We must have government, an alpha who
Will tell us what is just and right and true--
The world is zero-sum, and what is gained
Just comes from loss or others' fortunes waned.
But none of this is true--we do not need
To keep the species at an ape-slow speed.
We stand on new horizons--do be proud
We are the urban species, and we crowd
Ourselves in interactive densities
To get along with strangers, seek to please
Them rather than to use cruel force to steal
The things we want. The Huns want to repeal
Our civilized discourse and interactions
And, racists, sexists that they are, make factions.
The trader, innovator link to make
A social world for everybody's sake.

To the Failed Entrepreneur

You stood upon the brink and stared down fear
And sought to sell what you thought we would want,
But you miscalculated and paid dear--
You took a risk and then you took the brunt.

And though financially you're ruined, broke
And bankrupted because you couldn't make
It work-and though you are unknown, a cloak
Of ignorance about your fate can't take

Away your courage, everything you've done
For everyone by trying--when you fell
And failed, you helped us learn. No, there is none
Who did not grow from water from your well.

Unlike a soldier you's shot down in war,
Your loss is hardly permanent--you stand
To try again, to learn--an open door
Is what you see, and through it are the grand

And awesome opportunities that you
Will make if you succeed or fail--the wealth
Of our society is only due
To those who fail and learn--you are our health.

Coffee for the Soul

You shouldn't want to quench a student's thirst
For knowledge--No!--You ought to make them burst
With thirst and die to know still more and more--
Like coffee, knowledge is a drink we pour
And pour into our endless cup--awake
It makes us, makes us thirst for more--a lake
Of coffee makes us want an ocean--know
And you must know some more--it is a flow
That opens flows. It's when a student's cursed
Your teaching that you've quenched a student's thirst!

Social Justice Warriors

They march, they march, they march
Against imagined slights
Their lives are almost perfect so
They're out there picking fights

They're easily offended
They're always waging war
They wear the mask of the oppressed
And play at being poor

They think that they're so moral
They think that they're so brave
But all they really want to do
Is put love in the grave

But all they really do is
Project their guilt and shame--
Cry-bully racists who oppose
Themselves think you're the same

They hate free speech, propose
New segregation rules--
These racists against racism
Are dangerous and fools

And so they march, they march--
They march against a ghost
Of history they keep alive,
For they love hate the most

To Whom the Future Speaks

The things he said just seemed ridiculous,
As everything a prophet says must sound,
For we are certain that the future's open
And prophets mean the future must be known.

But boundaries are never absolute--
The boundaries of these poetic lines
Are not deterministic--freedom grows
In spaces that each good rule will define.

The futures whisper in the prophet's ear
In metaphoric lines like rapid streams
And rivulets that therefore are poetic
And often come in vivid fever-dreams.

Our branching choices speak from future times
Through whisper-voices that but speak in rhymes.

My Spring

The winter ends with the emergent crocus
That violates the snow. Bright daffodils
Add sun to melting sun. The fiery tulip
Cups sun and dew before the watery iris
Brings violet once again. The blood-tipped dogwood
Flowers spread white beside the rosy redbud.

Is this a tiny pea upon the redbud
Tree, smaller than the tiny grounded crocus?
The flat and woody flowers of the dogwood
Approach in size the nodding daffodils,
While all the twisted petals of the iris
Bring beauty different from the simple tulip.

In streaks of color, there's no simple tulips --
In small complexity, match the rich redbud
While solid color, simple lines on iris
Flowers balance complexity, and crocus
Delight us with their sign. Fields of daffodils
Spread dancing delight beneath the dogwood.

The forests turn white in the spring with dogwood
When snows are gone. I fill a crystal tulip
Vase, bring the spring in yellow daffodils
Into my home. Outside our window redbud
Trees purple yards. There's but a final crocus
Left in our yard, transferring roles to iris.

The ground shoots forth the green blades of the iris,
A contrast with the trunk and limbs the dogwood
Displays. And lost within the grass the crocus
Hides thin leaves. Waxy, wavy, thick, the tulip
Leaves look so artificial. The dark redbud
Twigs hide in hearts. Strap leaves grow daffodils.

You are the dance and sun of daffodils,
As complex and as bold as are the iris,
The red and heart of fractal-branching redbud,
As solemn and as layered as the dogwood,
Delightful and inspiring as tulip
Flowers, you break my snows like the first crocus.

The daffodils all fade beneath the dogwood
Cross -- then the redbud beans. Aspiring tulip
Beds fail. The iris seize spring from the crocus.

The Kings Elect a Jester

We found a field of fools
We planted long ago
Before our eyes, what a surprise
To reap what we would sow

We thought that we would like
To hear the honest truth
But it's all lies, and who denies
We like fools just uncouth

There's something in the soil
That grew our fools all wrong
The old were wise, but these despise
All those who don't belong

The jesters with their bells
Are doing somersaults
Their ignorance is just as sense
As all their many faults

And yet the crowd is cheering
They want them to lead on
The tightrope breaks, the jester rakes
Dead bodies until dawn

Deceased Poet

What good's a living poet?
He won't be taught in schools --
His words, though true, aren't subject to
The ramblings of such fools.

What good's a living poet?
There's no one gets his rules --
You just sit there, quite unaware
And call him king of fools.

What good's a living poet?
His words seem useless tools --
They won't convey the things he'll say
To you unreading fools.

What good's a living poet?
There sitting on their stools
To read aloud to such a crowd
Of five or fewer fools.

What good's a living poet?
He'll die and then you ghouls
Will think him great and then his fate
Will be exposing fools. 

Might or Right

What sort of justice justifies you Gauls
To dare demand this land, by threat of force
And violence, from these, their rightful owners?
What business do you even have to ride
And raid through Etruria, barbarians?

Because all things belong to those who, brave,
Will carry justice on the points of swords!

The Romans, civilized, thus asked the Gauls --
The Gauls, barbarians, gave answer back.

And thus the civilized continue asking,
And thus the barbarians still reply.

What sort of justice justifies demands
That others must hand over what they own?
Injustice born of force, unjust justice,
What's justified by all barbarians
Whenever those barbarians may rise.

On the Prophets of Beauty

In ancient times the prophets were the wise --
They saw into the unity of things --
There's nothing human they could not surmise --
They promised people but eternal Springs.

In modern times the prophets only know --
But knowledge brought a power and a call
For specialty, diversity to grow --
But somehow people felt it brought the Fall.

And now the time has come for prophets who
Preach beauty -- wisdom, knowledge both combined --
To unify our senses with our reasons,
And show how old and now create the new,
So in this wealth humanity can find
Appreciation of all of the seasons.

Strength and Health

Goethe gave a literature of strength
And health -- and should we not be strong?
Why do we seem to go to any length
To say that strength and health are wrong?

I must confess, along with you, I held
Romantic views of illness, sang
The song of dissipation, those we geld
With institutions, those we hang.

But now I see that different kinds of health
Are brought about when we define
The human into realms of newfound wealth,
Diverse in taste as finest wine.

True beauty binds diversity to one,
Makes one diverse -- we should find joy
In all our healths, each learn how we can run,
Each learn to build and not destroy.

Romanticism, Classicism both
Are health -- as Hegel said -- are true
To who we humans are in all our growth.
A greater truth combines the two.

Yes, the eternal feminine must rise --
And raise true manliness aloft
As each sprouts feathers as poets devise
A verse of strength, both hard and soft.

Ashraf Fayadh

Where words are dangerous, the poet lives
In symbols and allusions just to find
Another day to bind to wisdom which he gives

You face the world, must bow before the dreck
Who think the poet's magic make a witch --
The heretics will pitch their axe into your neck

They cannot silence you -- your death will seal
Your words in souls who heard of you in death --
Your words will pass your breath and make your readers heal

The cowards seek the power of the state
To silence those who give the world a glance
Of better things -- a dance, a song, a better fate

A Song of Seduction

I want you to seduce me --
Your sensuality
Needs to emerge -- you need to purge
All that won't set you free

I want you to seduce me --
Be confident! Be bold!
Your ample waist is to my taste
You're all I want to hold

I want you to seduce me --
To take me in your arms --
I'll hear your heart, breath pull, depart --
Enjoy your rhythmic charms

I want you to seduce me --
I want to feel you bind
Me with the joy that you employ
When you engage my mind

I want you to seduce me --
I'll look into your eyes
And, yes, I'll drown in their deep brown,
Delight in all our ties

I want you to seduce me --
Be confident I will
Enjoy the charms your body warms --
I cannot get my fill

I want you to seduce me --
And let your fingers roam
Across my skin and we'll begin
The dance that makes you home

I want you to seduce me --
There's nothing that you lack --
So never hold back, just be bold!
And I'll seduce you back