Author: luke

Born in Iowa City a few days after John Kennedy was shot and killed. Grew up in Minneapolis, on Lake Calhoun. Southwest High. University of MN. Lived in a two-room cabin in the woods on Lake Superior. Cabin on South Long Lake. There's a lake theme developing here.

“A smartphone in heliosynchronous orbit was issuing human screams.”

This from Harper’s “Findings,” May 2013

I love the word heliosynchronous!
It makes me high.
I would swear that it even pitches my voice higher.
I also think it goes very well with smartphone.
Orbit.

You can’t leave out Orbit!
Another outta-space word right there!
Contains Orb and
telegraphs Orbital.
Orb is religious, sacred. Space bends back in on itself.

Earth the size of a pool ball would be smoother.

Why, it begs, is there a smartphone orbiting Earth? Makes sense that it’s on time and in tune, however, being that it’s a smartphone. But why is it screaming?

I prefer to remain in the dark as to the undoubtedly reasonable explanation and instead stay heliosynchronous to my ignorance.

And in a nod to the power of reasonable explanations, also from “Findings”…

“Scientists proposed that male lions’ skill at ambushing prey in dense vegetation was previously unknown because of scientists’ fear of being ambushed by male lions in dense vegetation.”

Right on, that.

The Blue Light Flickers

Each night I wander
through streets mostly empty
and speak to the lights
at the tops of the poles
radiant and still
measured and steadfast
the voices that passed
reach to my present

How real is that nexus
trustworthy the voices?
Am I just a mad man
who’s made the wrong choices?
Who walks in the night
A ventriloquist of wishes
conjuring dead folk?
Highly suspicious!

Terrorized.
Superstitious.
I walk on.
I watch out.

And in every house
the blue light flickers
casting erratic shadows
broadcasting
transmissions
and jittery realities
belying the stillness
the stilted stiffness
of interest coupled with indifference.

To the history of the dead folk
Hubbard’s among them
first to connect us to
the sound and the vision
Like splitting the atom
breaking the silence
smashing the walls
Severing space.

A fine hocus pocus –
And all the world turned
and focused.

But they’re lonely, the dead folk
The ones that you know
They wish you would listen
Pay a little attention
They know that you’re busy, but, really?
You speak to your gods, you stare at your screens
but find not a moment to say what you mean
to the ones who know you
the ones who know now

if you listen, they will speak
if you speak, they will listen
take time. be quiet. talk. wait.
repeat.

And the other dead folk – the pioneers!
they broadcast the future
to eyes and to ears
like sneaky disease
slips in through the breathing
bypassing the mind
dissecting the meaning.
Red, Green and Blue
is plenty for you
native man
lotus eater.

And in every house the blue light flickers.

The sky is eclipsed
by a star machine
manufacturing gods, heroes and
heroines, heroin, mescaline,
vicodin, maryjane,
alcohol, cocaine,
fame,
ecstasy, baby,
you’ll be king!
A queen.
A pawn.

An old man stifles a yawn.

Beneath my feet the sidewalk retreats
the oncoming traffic of life in the seats
and the chairs and the sofas
the idle, bystanders,
loungers and loafers
(bumps on a log
lumps in a bog)
extinguishing stories
personal glories
and staring.

A fine hocus pocus –
And the world turned
and focused.

But the others, the headmost,
ahead of the curve
who colonized the minds
of the hoi polloi,
they were as surprised as you and I.
This technochimera
spearheading and primitive
could (high)jack right into
primordial you and I
inventing the gaping maw
and glassy eye.

And each night I wander
through streets mostly empty
surrounded by dead friends
and family just waiting
for us to discern
them from the gods,
the gods from them,
one is unknowable
one is at hand.

Meanwhile…

A man suddenly stands,
stretches and leaves the room

a woman leans back
and lifts her arm

a guy rubs his eye
and contorts his face

and I see in these moments
what they’ll never see
scenes in the movie
starring the man who stands,
the leaning lady and rubbing guy.

Watching and walking
I’m on to the next.

Please don’t shut your curtains
Please don’t look my way.

Only the children and the animals can make us better people.

That just occurred to me, suddenly, but what does it mean? I think that what it means is to be good is simple and all of our evolution and intellect and religion and forward progress really has nothing to do with being good. Good is there in its most basic form. You can see it in children and you can see it in the animal kingdom. That’s enough. The rest is all of us just trying too hard to claim it.

a stump a storm a stone

A Stump

There’s nothing more sad than a stump.
A hole in the sky where once was majesty.
A disk. A flat, ruined, pointless disk.

A Storm

April is the cruelest month
when days in the fifties
are marched back to February
by eagerly unwanted snow.

A Stone

They combed the beach for agates
gathered whatever they found
they named them all agates
then left them on the ground.

Facebook is…

Facebook is to communication what chicken McNuggets are to haute cuisine.
Facebook is where people who don’t really like each other can stay in touch.
Facebook is to friends what 🙂 is to happiness.
Facebook is an opportunity to say “happy birthday!” (to veritable strangers).
Facebook is where real thoughts are nipped in the bud and presented as such.
Facebook is a grandmother’s dream come true.
Facebook is where you can picture yourself over and over and over…
Facebook is where people are sure to find…something.
Facebook is where bitter people blossom.
Facebook is where interesting ideas can be shared until they are no longer.
Facebook is where people who are obsessed about something obsess.
Facebook is to friendship what water is to single malt scotch.
Facebook is the bathroom wall for logorrhea sufferers.
Facebook is where you can care shallowly.
Facebook is to productivity what termites are to two-by-fours.
Facebook is for sad people to seem happy.
Facebook is where you can change your status without changing one iota.
Facebook is a kennel of barking dogs.
Facebook is the La Brea tar pits for the egregiously self-centered.
Facebook is a tower of babble.

Facebook connects human beings to bits.

Just because!

We do lots of things and believe lots of thing without really thinking about them and sometimes someone else shines a little light on the strangeness of it all. To wit: I came into the bathroom and my eight-year-old daughter was holding one of the large bath towels. The area between her two hands – an eight inch circle – was soaking wet. She was obviously washing her face with it.

“What are you doing?”

“What?”

“The towel – it’s soaked!”

“So.”

“That’s a towel!”

“So.”

“You should be using a wash rag!”

“Why? It’s the exact same material.”

“Wash rags are for washing!” I was getting a little snarky. “Towels are for drying!”

“Wet things.”

“What?”

“Drying wet things so they get wet – like this.” She held up the towel.

“Not like that they don’t!”

“If it’s wet enough they do.”

“Yeah, but now…”

“It has to dry.” She finished my sentence. “Like it always does when it gets wet. And then it gets dry and everything is fine.”

“But that’s too wet!” I said and just then realized how ludicrous this all was. Two pieces of the same material – one two feet by four feet, the other six inches by six inches. I’ve always known that the smaller piece could get really wet and the bigger one could not! Period. End of story.

But why? Just because!

the republicans have been robbed!

Part of me wants to say “Hip Hip Hooray for Rob Portman!” The republican senator from Ohio came out yesterday in support of same-sex marriage – which is gutsy in a party that generally thinks homosexuals are deviants, the earth is seven thousand years old, and all you need are bootstraps to be as fat and happy as Wall Street CEOs.

It seems Rob’s son came out to him and that is what changed his mind. This is all still laudable, but when you are unable to have empathy for any sort of person until there is one of those sorts of people in your own family you might be lacking a sufficient amount of empathy. I’m not even sure empathy is what we feel for our own children considering the absolute closeness we feel with them. The sadness and joy we feel when our own children feel sadness and joy seems closer to some sort of Vulcan mind meld than something called empathy.

Either way, I’ll go with “Hip Hip Hooray!” And add, “Welcome to the enlightenment, the 21st century, and common human decency!”

welcome back, major tom

Had I the option as a teenager, I would have done anything in my power to be David Bowie. I have this seared memory of my own 8-ish-year-old self kneeling in my jammies in front of the television and Wolfman Jack’s Midnight Special watching Ziggy Stardust sing “Ground control to Major Tom…” It was a life changing moment. I didn’t know guys could look like that. I didn’t know guys who looked like that could play an acoustic guitar.  I was supposed to be in bed – everyone else was in bed, but instead… I woke up different.

So as a huge fan i’ve been only slightly impressed recently with Mr. Bowie’s output. As a huge fan, I, of course, like it all, but I’ve been waiting to have my mind blown. Me. Jammies. Midnight Special. Freak out. Where’s the moment?! Got it. It’s now. The Next Day.

One listen and I’m willing to commit – This is a great Bowie album!! You have to go back to Scary Monsters to get this quality Bowie! Who saw that coming?

It’s not quite the kid in jammies, but definitely a flashback in real time to the best of what this amazing dude can do. I’m dancing out in space – again.

I don’t love the cover though. Flash and the Pan already played that silly card. And it was awesome. Interesting though, do covers even matter to the generations of kids who didn’t grow up clutching and reading every album cover, front and back, down to the “mastered by…” and soaking up the lyric-laden inside sleeves of every album that mattered in any way whatsoever?