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!