Shimmering Heat

In these apocalyptic times
Our thoughts must turn to culture
It seems to hover over us
And circle like a vulture

But it has not picked our bones clean
There's politics for that
The heat of hatred bleaching us
The teethmarks of a rat

Upon our femur ends the last
Sign that a living thing
Had been near us could stand our taste
Would want what we could bring

Be gone mere strife I wish to love
The unity of each
More dialectic poetry
Is what I need to teach

Myself myself and me of you
And you  you and me me
And how our actions make complex
This world to make us free

So land upon me bird of death
Who lives when others die
And carry me up off this earth
To join your sullen cry

The God Particle

The boson that is known as Higgs
Gives particles their weighty digs

Then God said, "See, don't give me sass --
If I weren't real, there'd be no Mass."

Song of the Reactionary Busybody

 I saw the neighbor tanning in the nude
But public nudity is awful crude
I went inside to put a stop
To her behavior when I called a cop
I'm glad to say that she is gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I saw a kid off smoking pot
I hate to see a mind like that just rot
I went inside to put a stop
To his behavior when I called a cop
I'm glad to say that he is gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I'm sick of people doing what
They want. I'm sick of every slut
Who shows her giant boobs and butt
I want these assholes to be gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I saw a couple men hold hands
I can't believe that they exchanged gold bands
I went inside to put a stop
To their behavior when I called a cop
I'm sad to say that they aren't gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I heard a Spanish-speaking man
On all but English there should be a ban
I went inside to put a stop
To his behavior when I called a cop
I'm sad to say those words ain't gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I'm sick of people doing what
They want. I'm sick of every slut
Who shows her giant boobs and butt
I want these assholes to be gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I saw some children selling lemonade
Though I knew that no permit had been made
I went inside to put a stop
To their behavior when I called a cop
I'm glad to say that they are gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

I saw some teens skateboarding down
My street. They should be run out of my town
I went inside to put a stop
To their behavior when I called a cop
I'm glad to say that they are gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn
 
I'm sick of people doing what
They want. I'm sick of every slut
Who shows her giant boobs and butt
I want these assholes to be gone
Now all you kids get off my lawn

On Biblical Governance

"You render unto Caesar what is Caesar's
And render unto God what is for God."
If money's made by government, it's theirs --
And thus to anarchy came Jesus' nod.

"Thou shall not covet" and "Thou shall not steal."
How can a moral government then tax?
How can it give away that money, how
Can Christians think it's right, their morals lax?

You are not generous with what's not yours --
A Christian cannot outsource duty to
Care for the poor. Did Jesus come to say,
"The government will save, for it is true"?

The government of God was anarchy --
A common law with judges. Isreal sings
They want a king, and God in weariness,
With wit, then punished them by giving kings.

And we are punished still with all their lies,
Enslaving ways and constant theft. We live
So that we can support them and pretend
Without them we would die and never give.

It's time that we returned to Biblical
True governance so that we can be free --
No government to deify mere man,
No legislation -- back to anarchy.

Looting

There's a pork cloud over Mexico
America's it's name.
Watch as China plots to buy our debt
Until we're bust and lame.

Butterfly and Moth

by Troy Camplin and Melina Camplin (age 5)

I'm a pretty butterfly
I sing happily and fly

I'm a pretty, fuzzy moth
Out at night because I'm goth

I'm a butterfly with wings
With my voice I sing, sing sing

I'm a moth, I like the dark
I like flying in the park

I'm a pretty butterfly
I will sing until I die

I'm a moth and I have found
I like flying without sound

The Fullest Eclipse of the Moon

In the sky is an eye red as blood --
It's the fullest eclipse of the moon
Beneath you the dirt's turned to mud
In the fullest eclipse of the moon

You threatened to leave me
I won't let you go
Your loss, it will grieve me
I want you to know
The night that you leave me
The moon will not glow

You have left me, this world and my soul
Is the fullest eclipse of the moon
And I hide as I'm digging this hole
In the fullest eclipse of the moon

The night's darker and red
And now we both are dead
In the fullest eclipse of the moon
I just cannot go on
Now that you, dear, are gone
With the fullest eclipse of the moon

 Oh why did I love you
The night that we'd met
The moon shined above you
I knew that I'd get
Obsessed, my thoughts on you,
You trapped in my net

In the sky is an eye red as blood
In the fullest eclipse of the moon
Now the dirt in the pit's turned to mud
In the fullest eclipse of the moon

With this blade I will join your soul soon
In  the fullest eclipse of the moon

Too You, Too Me, Too Us

The doors slam and I am screaming at you "slut."
The chairs topple as I threaten, screaming, but
I'm too you to go.

Your breasts crush into my chest -- you turn to sand
In my tight encircling arms. I love you and
I'm too you to stay.

You throw plates against the floor -- you run to get
Your black jacket and your keys. You're certain, yet
You're too me to go.

You kiss hard, smear lipstick in your passion, lust.
Your thin fingers cut into my flesh -- I trust
You're too me to stay.

Our bright passion-dance will burn us, make us glow
With dark love devouring us so we know
We're too us, so stay.

The Devil's Preacher

My daddy was a preacher
With the Devil at his feet
A mostly sinful creature
Who no woman could defeat
He preached the Word, the pastor
Preaching Hell's eternal fire
But he was not the master
Giving in to his desire
The Devil was his teacher
Filling him with lustful heat
Yes, my daddy was a preacher
With the Devil at his feet.

I'd spend my Sundays sitting
In the pew surrounded by
My brothers, sisters getting
Jesus in their hearts and cry
I never knew how many
Kids were my half-siblings there
I never dated any
Girls with green eyes and black hair
No girls beneath the bleacher
Tasting lips so sweet
'Cause Daddy was a preacher
With the Devil at his feet.

Now I'm grown up and preaching
Standing in my daddy's place
I help my sheep, all reaching
Out for Jesus' saving grace
My daddy was my teacher
All the women love to greet
Me as the brand-new preacher
With the Devil at his feet.

The Old Strip Mine

When we were young and still
In love, we'd wander 'round
The strip pit, climb the hill
Look down where your brother drowned
Where boys still fish for bass
There we'd stand and you would sigh
The sun would shine like brass
There in the pond and you would cry

That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young to really understand
That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young, so we both grew apart

We'd row across the pond
The island topped with trees
Were you would show how fond
You were of me. My pleas
Of love would never fail
The silver moon would shine
On you, light on the shale,
And we'd get slowly drunker on our wine

That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young to really understand
That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young, so we both grew apart

And then one day you disappeared
I don't know why you're gone
I only hope that what I've feared
Has never seen the dawn

That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young to really understand
That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young, so we both grew apart

That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young to really understand
That scar upon the land
That scar upon your heart
I was too young, so we both grew apart

Down the Final Gravel Road

Your trailer lights are out tonight
Why did we have to always fight?
I hear the lonely crunch as I
Drive down the final gravel road

Your trailer's silver in the moon
I pray that you will be home soon
I am a man, I will not cry
I'm down the final gravel road

Where did you go?
Why did you leave?
I do not know
Why I must grieve
My loss of you --
What can I do?
I'm down the final gravel road

Your hounds are howling, how they drown
The crickets out -- I see your gown
Before I notice it is you
There  down the final gravel road

I wonder, have you seen me here?
I wonder why you left me, dear
I promise I was always true
I'm down the final gravel road.

Where did you go?
Why did you leave?
I do not know
Why I must grieve
My loss of you --
What can I do?
I'm down the final gravel road

 I was not there
You always said
I did not care
And now my bed
Is missing you
What did I do?
I'm down the final gravel road

You turn away -- am I in luck
You do not see my pickup truck
I drive away -- my sorrow runs
Me down the final gravel road

My long-lost love lives with our sons
There down the final gravel road

The Shower Sage

I contemplate the Will to Power
While standing wet here in the shower

The only time and place where I
Can let the neurons flow -- I'm dry

When I am out -- I cannot think
When all my children want a drink

Ontology can't find a place
When neurons slow, but children race

Around the house -- I watch them grow
But not my thoughts -- they stop the flow

And even these lines are a feat
When little mouths demand to eat

Techniques like these I must employ
To work as I raise each small joy

I feel the water, thoughts again
Begin to whirl and swirl and then

 Before I cleanse my mental drought
There's "Daddy? When you coming out?"

Free Will

The moment shines upon the mirror ball
Of memory, those little lights a part
Of what was woven in our neural flows
That build us into who we believe
We are and rationalized -- story we
Tell ourselves from all these fragments, all
We edited, revised, the flows we chart,
The paradoxes where creation grows
Out of our complex neural network weave
With which we dance in mental liberty.

Spring Rain

Behold the Spring
The dewy rain
Makes voices sing
Befogs the brain

The Birth of Continents

Subduction zones, where up and down's the same,
Where land thrusts up, earthquakes leveling homes,
Where lava rises from volcanic domes,
Are where the Earth prefers to kill and maim.

Here forests can be flattened, burned, destroyed,
And people killed as houses crumble, crack,
Collapse -- a pyroclastic flow attack
Cannot be fought whatever you've employed.

One would not blame the genius who could stop
Destruction of this kind, the lives he'd save,
Eliminating the tsunami wave --
We'd celebrate as human deaths would drop.

But unless land is always being built,
The Earth would be all ocean, full of silt.

The Black Hole

Darkling light, the deep black hole,
Darker than the blackest coal,
Bends to singularity
Space and time with density,
Spinning galaxies, so bright,
Holding all the stars in sight.

Emotional Energy

I think I want to join the flow of you,
The Mississippi brings together land
And streams across America, the true
Of science helping us to understand.

I think I want to join the flow, I should
Join with the Nile, white and blue to one,
To drain east Africa, and thus the good
Of virtue, bright as the Sahara sun.

 I think I want to join the flow, my duty
Is with the Amazon which wider grows
Though South America and bringing beauty
Throughout the world as every rhythm shows.

I think I want to join the flow that made
The Yangtze from its wondrous gorges live
In China, bring prosperity in trade,
And understand the wealth that it can give.

I think I want to join the flow of joy
The Danube brings as its blue waters shine
Across east Europe. I want to employ
The sacrifice that brings us the divine.

I know I want to join these flows, but each
Is not enough for me. I must be free
To bring all flows within my ocean reach
And view the world in its complexity.

Against the Tribe

The darkling water vortexed down
To drag me to the sea’s abyssal plain –
I fear, so certain I will drown,
That every person is my family’s bane.

No sparkling stars leaven the night
Engulfing me as others’ problems fill
My vision, obfuscate my sight
And sap my warmth, enwrap me with a chill.

A life of pressure, bringing stress
That crushes, pulverizes every joy –
A nightmare, I can feel it press
My chest – I’m certain it will soon destroy

With strife my crafted healthy flows.
I only want a simple life where I
Enjoy my family as it grows
Strong feathered wings so each of us can fly.

A Day With You

I want to spend a day with you
Without our kids without our worries
I simply to sit and hold
You in my arm all of our hurries

Spread to the sky to dissipate
Away to carry all our cares
Into the dark where they belong
So we can join the joyful pairs

That fill the poems of all time
That celebrate our kind of love
That fit together and will fly
Like lovely diamond Inca doves

I want to spend a day with you
A life of days that intermesh
Our love expressed as lovers and
Unconsummated naked flesh

A Teaser from "President Faust" (Which I am working on)

Faust:

My Lord, have mercy on my soul! Dear God!

Mephistopheles:

You have the mercy that you meted out.
Too bad, for mercy is the grease of justice.
Her gears have ground down to a halt with you.

Faust:

I do not understand what’s happening.
How is it justice can give rise to pure
Injustice as I managed to unleash?

Mephistopheles:

You foolish man, why do you think we chose
To lift you up? Look at the justice you
Embrace: pure, simplifying order. Don’t
You know the universe’s tendency
Is toward much more complexity? The chaos
Becomes the atoms, then the molecules
Emerge, then life and mind and consciousness
In social man. And then in man we move
From tribe to heroes like Achilles, then
To Christ-like pieties and on to men
Who make the world in commerce, then to those
Like you who wish to flatten everything.
You should have grown beyond all that to see
The world as more complex and unified –
But, no. instead, you chose to take the path
Of simplifying Satan. Yes! My master,
The Prince of Darkness, known as Lucifer,
He loves to simplify, to bring men down,
To make men animals if possible.
In you I saw potential and I brought
Your case before my master, who then asked
Of God if we could make our offer. I
Am proud I found you, Faust. I found the man
Who’d simplify the greatest country in
The world to nothingness. You did our deed.

Faust:

Can such injustices emerge from justice?

Mephistopheles:

You do not think that out of good we can
Still find a means of evil? Yes, we can
Discover in the best intentions ways
To bring a man – yes, every man – to grief.
The best thing that we ever did was make
Mere man believe himself the source of justice,
Denying God, and in his justice kill
True justice, citing freedom destroy freedom,
And think to be a libertine to have
True liberty. No judge, no advocate,
Just me, the prosecutor, as the law.
I do believe in justice – merciless
And terrible. You’ll pay for all your sins –
And I shall punish you. Yes, you will pay.