Category: poetry

Is your attitude a fantasy?

Some contrived bit of theater? “I’m this!” When you’re that? Dichotomies and schizophrenias. Jim said, “I’m doing well!” Julie didn’t believe him. Or did she? She loved life. Nate was great. “‘How much money did they have?’ “It’s not about money!” She thought.“It’s about love.” Nate hated that…everything. “Fuckin’ stupid fuckin’ people!” was an oft-heard refrain. But inside, let’s say it together, are you ready?… he cried. But he really did. So angry he cried. Or so sad he got mad. But which was right/Nate?
Who are you
right
now?

04_22_12 – today

Jesus, The Buddha and Muhammad

Jesus, The Buddha and Muhammad all had brown skin.
Brown skin and brown eyes. Probably.
Jesus, The Buddha and Muhammad all had brown skin
and brown eyes – or, at least, we surmise.

Einstein and Psychology

You can’t see what you’ve done,
you can never see where you’ve been,
because you’d have to catch up to,
and then pass,
yourself
and look back.

Electric Strings

A balloon is mostly empty space
but then again so am I
gravitating toward the ground
yet she can float up to the sky.
I guess it’s her propensity,
and relative density
that leaves me here on terra firma.

But terra, too, is hardly firma.
The space between the particles
is vast as planets ’round the sun,
the distance of their orbitals;
and it’s not hard, it’s hardly there
just tiny specks, to say, is fair:
like grains of sand spread far apart
that hold up ox and man and cart.

Now let’s dig deeper, to the protons,
electrons, quarks and, now it’s, jeepers!
Electric strings that make us all,
harmonized, lest we fall
through the earth, like unballoons
thank God he plays the proper tunes.
Some dissonance, oh, lord, that harp!
We’re gonna die, He’s playing sharp!”

Imagine that. Imagine God.
We’re good at that. We wink and nod.
But others like to look much deeper
find their truths, each one a keeper.
String them together to fashion a rug
that holds us up so we can shrug,
ignore the beauty beneath our feet
and gasp at heaven’s phantasmal feat.

Rufus Cappadocia

Rufus Cappadocia beats the hello out of his cello
Wielding his bow whip – Whappity-Whap-Whap!
Scratching and clawing, pulling and mauling,
But lovingly like the guy in the O. Henry story.

I’ll bet that he’s sorry as soon as he’s done with
The smacking and whacking, backhanded slap hits,
He probably rubs her with oil so softly
And trembling hands and words that sound awfully
Like love songs.

A part of me wonders if she doesn’t like it
I’m judging by sounds that she makes when they’re fighting
Don’t judge me I’m not some sick sadist whose heartless
I’m quick to repel from violence that’s artless

But this guy can hit it, can hit it real good
Right in the sweet spot where pain meets the wood
And the vibrating strings where the pleasure reverbs
Through her beautiful body and elegant curves

And together they sing and both bodies ring
Flicking and clicking, plucking and

Boggling Minds

Think about your mind. Think about the fact that you can think. Think about the fact you can think about thinking. Meta that. Imagine a green airplane with wings with rainbow feathers and a nose the shape of soft serve ice cream cone – chocolate brown, with a purple octagon shimmering at the tip. Think about your imagination.

You can read tiny characters in sequences and glean complex ideas and images from those tiny characters. You can look at a page of notes and translate that through your fingers into beautiful music. You can invent stories. You can imagine the future and remember the past. You can come up with brilliant, dangerous and hare-brained ideas. You can paint pictures and make movies. You can multiply and divide; add and subtract and maybe even do calculations that to many others would be beyond abstract. You can see, hear, feel, taste, smell.

The scent of baking can reach deep into your mind and pull memories of your grandmother forth for your review. A movement of a symphony can move you to joyful tears. Too much heat and your brain will yank your hand away, long before you conscious mind knows to. You can taste the difference between Chablis and chardonnay.

You can love a person with all of your heart. You can feel another human’s suffering. You can stand up for what you believe in. You can sit down and watch the sun set.

Your brain is unbelievably, unequivocally, undeniably amazing. Think about just how spectacular your consciousness is – your awareness! The breadth and depth and sheer enormity of it!

Now think about the fact that there are 7,000,000,000 (seven billion!) other equally spectacular minds humming along right now on this tiny planet.

Think about the power of that.

I Know A Guy

I know a guy knows everything.
You know that guy? I know you do.
He lives right down the street from you.
No matter what you think you do,
he’ll tell you what you ought to do.

His wife, she knows he knows, it’s true:
“He says,” she says, “that red is blue.”
And certainly she’s certain, too,
That blue is blue and red is, too.

I know a guy’s done everything.
You know that guy? I know you do.
He’s done it all once more than you.
You say to him,
“I once fell from a jet airliner.
Thank god I had a carabiner,
For as I hit the atmosphere,
I passed a purple elephant ear,
Saw angels playing synthesizers,
And fans who cheered from balsa risers,
And landed on a 10-foot crow,
who brought me safely down below.”

“That’s nice,” he’ll bleat,
“but my crow was 22 feet.”

Online Shenanigan-sanity

I like to go online and weigh in with a nice dose of balanced, well-reasoned sanity in the comments section after news or opinion articles on, say, Sarah Palin, where the great mass of goombas hiding behind names like Bubba01 ejaculate angry misspelled sentences packed with vitriol. It’s like tossing a carrot into the mouth of the fat kid that’s already overflowing with French fries and Whopper juice. Confusion abounds. And no one ever comments on my comments. There’s the occasional thumbs-up by some poor soul looking for some sanity, but rarely ever thumbs-down I’m guessing because they probably never get past an opening  like “Actually, and while I disagree with the overall premise for reasons I will make clear below, the article is very well written and the support the author provides is relatively sound; however, in light of…” Snooze. I can just imagine them getting about 8 words into it, punching a mental “delete” button, and scanning down for words like “dumbfuck” and “dipshit”, then smiling gleefully when they come across them. The carrot, while nibbled, is left uneaten to rot.

learn after you leap

“Scientists concluded that … frogs learned to leap before they learned how to land,” which is obvious at one level, I suppose, but also inspiring at another. Not only for many of us who experience a certain amount of trepidation when up against that moment that separates the leapers from the losers, but for frogs, as well, who’ve been relegated to croaking, slow-moving blobs by much of popular culture.

It’s hard to learn how to land without leaping first, but having the fortitude to leap first is where the excitement begins. Suddenly, I wish I were more like a frog.