He Tried

That was a remark on a gravestone in a novel

by Kurt Vonnegut. I don’t know about you, 

but I bet me and a lot of others could have

that as our last words too. Who will care 

about what we used to do or be? No songs

sung anymore about great heroes to be 

remembered because they did good. No

medals for going over the top and getting 

cut down, Tyson said all his belts were

worthless.

So, do your best and forget the rest,

as someone once said….

someone dead.

Current Events

In the swing of things,

in the stream, groove, sweet spot,

jazzed up, primed and ready, like

the Monster juiced on electricity…

it’s all happening at the zoo,

in the swing,

in the streaming, wired up and

sparking things up but good:

“It’s Alive!!!”

…said the stockbroker about his portfolio

…said the bartender about one of the regulars

…said the banker about his bottom line 

…said the housewife about her cat

…said the grocery clerk about the bananas

…said the President about his ice cream

…said the Pope about the Church

…said the General about war

…said the Imam about war

…said them all, and then;

they dropped their nail file

they put out their cigarette 

they removed their hand from

the tennis racket

they took their finger off the button.

They put on their pants, got up,

walked out the door and closed 

the door behind them.

Lost In The Statusphere

 Social media a game of King of the Hill,

a honey pot for emotional disaster, as 

we’ve seen, so, why give it any of your 

social credit? At least, so far, the USA

government’s not keeping score.

Another Short Story About Something That Never Happened

 The explorers were having trouble understanding

the culture of the “primitive” tribe of people they

had discovered recently in the jungles of Borneo.

They seemed highly organized, peaceful, and 

ingenious.  When tasked with clearing an area for

a landing pad for a helicopter, the leader who had

gotten the request made a few gestures to the people,

who all simultaneously began working without any

questions. The work was completed in a third of the 

time the Westerners estimated it would take them.

They asked them about their beliefs. They couldn’t 

understand the meaning of the word “belief”.  Also,

the word “God” didn’t seem to register. When we 

asked them where they thought they came from, once

they understood the question, they all burst into 

laughter, some pointing to their heads some to their

hearts, some to the sky and some to their genitalia.

These were the happiest people they’d ever seen.

Comforting Words

 The comfort of words that tell us

so that we know things are OK,

that tell us what we can see.

Much harder to live wordlessly,

things becoming symbols of

themselves, a signless sign

language, Zen master slang,

all only pantomime…a nod and

a wink is all you need they say…

too many words anyway.

Short Short Story #3 1/2

 “Doggone” said Tarzan, truncating an elaborate 

adventure into two words. His bruised and battered

body begged for more explanation, but none was

forthcoming. 

In either hand, he held a severed head by the hair.

This unsettling fact gave more urgency to the curiosity,

but Tarzan remained unmoved.

He was Tarzan! You couldn’t argue with him because 

his vocabulary was not that great. However, if you 

could understand what he said, you could trust he was

telling the truth. Tarzan never learned to lie.

So, the dog was gone. Everyone knew about the dog,

but no one thought it was that important. It was to

Tarzan. He was partial to animals.

All anyone could guess from Tarzan’s statement 

was that the situation was under control, that 

Tarzan had handled things. That’s all they ever

got from him. King Kong could be rampaging

through the jungle…they’d just send Tarzan out,

and, in a little while, everything would be quiet.

Tarzan would return, usually unscratched, and be

very hungry. Everyone accepted this in the jungle;

the people and the animals. Everything was fine

until Jane arrived.

Glory Be To A Cup Of Tea

 Each day is the same, not like days

and weeks and months and years the same,

working in a factory, as a slave, in prison.

No, each day is simple and free and open

and beautiful taking in the kaleidoscope,

listening to the symphony of noises, 

the smells, the movements of bodies, 

their clothes…no…I’m not imprisoned by 

my mind. The simple expressions of

manifestation dance with my essence

in life’s performance; a ceremony of

innocence, the nature of the absolute.

The Universe Is Racist

Aliens?

Look around.

You think: “We’re 

all different looks,

but we’re all Homosap.”

No.

The different races are descended 

from different species of aliens.

The earth has been a melting pot 

of the universe for a long time.

No wonder many people didn’t 

care to mix…especially with the 

Jews, those sneaky shape shifters.

But, hey, it’s cool! Just look at

Brazil’s rainbow population!

Given time, entropy 

takes care of everything.

Backdrop

Dark room slow dark jazz

fan blows softly smoothly 

late sounds outside motors

animals music engulfed by

the simple natural ambience

flowing down the end of time

until tomorrow rears it’s head

again the irony of eternity.

Truth, Or?

 In the beginning was the word…

the word was a lie….the word

was with God and the word was God.

In the beginning was a lie and the lie

was the word and the word was God.

Lies may have been some of the first

words spoken….certainly they began

to happen when speech began to

happen. That’s why the truth is so

special for moral people. That’s why

so many liars still exist.

George Washington was remembered

for telling the truth as much as he was

for being the father of the USA.

The American Constitution

consisted of self-evident truths,

from which it’s authority derived. 

The truth is a diamond that reality 

can’t escape. The lying fetid social

landscape, eventually, will have no 

where to turn except to the truth…

and, maybe, someone you know

will let the lie go. 

Poems Writ Fresh!

 Tonic for the soul!

Music to the heart!

Truth to power!

The Great Switcheroo!

Quantum auspiciousness!

Essence of transmutation.

A recipe for continuity

of inspiration realized by

each succeeding generation 

that happens to stumble 

upon such imagination.

Holy Ghost

 Quantum waves of magic power

overwhelming the senses with richness

unexpected bliss and emptiness 

uptight illusion dispelled into simplicity 

spontaneously arises as the blessing’s 

of reality poured into a worthy vessel,

a natural consequence of persistence on 

the journey, the same as a flower blooms.

An Objective Correlative Of The Categorical Imperative

 The Muse is the siren calling

this sailor to dash his hopes on

the shores of a greater vision.

Poems are revealed to the poet…

they spontaneously arise like

the universe,

living beings,

all phenomena,

without meaning to,

simply due to cause, effect, 

and karma.

The kaleidoscope of perception

is a drama without intention

always moving in one direction…

East.

Spontaneous Human Combustion

 It’s time I wrote a poem about

spontaneous human combustion 

because spontaneous human combustion 

waits for no one.

Having been spontaneously combusting 

for all of my life, burning the candle at

one end, it was spontaneous because I

didn’t really think about it…I just went

ahead and acted, plumbed, taught, all

spontaneous human combustion of

inspiration, compassion, until now,

in the burned out ashes of the final days.

Video Evidence

 If a video changes 

what you think you know

you’re still wrong

not in the real world

not of the world

in a virtual dream of reality

as much as you believe it.

The electronic religion called

social media, the epitome of the Asura, 

(jealous god) realm of Buddhism,

warring intellects fighting for control.

So, that’s what you’re seeing, the

puppet show that hides the strings 

that pull you…the tar baby where 

you can’t find a way out.

Circular Logic

Allure is a lure of organic machinery mechanisms

the cosmic automaton

it never hasn’t happened this way

too big to fail.

Allure is the lure of a lure…

the Matrix has you…

what are you addicted to?

We have some here..would you

like to try? Sure you would…

it’s what you do….

it’s all you do until you’re through,

what then? Another life?

Do it all over again?

I would…..wouldn’t you?

The “ Thing”

 I see myself sitting in a chair,

looking at the screen the way

I have for so many years, the same

routine, schtick, manifestation of a

minor player in a drama complicated 

seven billion times, not including the

extraterrestrial extras that slide through

the scenery. Nothing that I said was new…

nothing that I wrote was original. It was 

all the echos of vibrations of previous 

words that have been cried for 

millennia, songs that have been sung,

lauding the wonders of life.

I couldn’t help doing it…

it wasn’t even me…it was…

the “Thing” inside me, 

trying to get out.

Markers

 Look what happened to our lives

now that we’re old 

moulded by time an events,

choices we made,

paths we took,

how the hell we got here.

You can read a person’s face

like the rings of a tree, not just 

their age but also their story.

People are very nice to me.

Sometimes they just come up

to me and say: “I’m sorry.”

Art For Art’s Sake

 People did art

in concentration camps 

when all seemed lost.

When all seemed lost,

people did art anyway

to still feel alive.

Art, which arose from nothing,

is always there

available to be seen and felt.

Art is truth in the form of beauty.

It’s a sign that you’ve come the

right place.

It reminds you who you are.

It’s not entertainment.

Writing In Self Defense

 Not in defense of self… no, none of that.

Supplicating the muse, the spirit, quantum being,

the Holy Ghost, the essence, the continuity.

May these facets of my being not lose track of

the truth in the maelstrom of obfuscation we call

today’s world. 

May my words distract from the distraction and 

point to the path.

May confusion be transformed into wisdom, as

painful as that may be.

May the clear light of reality

shine over the world.

Karma

 Trains of thought choo-choo-ing along in your mind.

Momentum of past time stored in memory grid axions.

Walking along covered in mousetraps, reacting to

everything, seeing nothing.

Let’s talk about free will.

Is Dis Evolution?

 If the earth has the only intelligent life in the universe,

I question how you define intelligence. Maybe the earth 

is the only planet to have stupidity too as well as all the

other foibles of evolved intelligence, like psychosis.

Would it be worth it if it was? Do we want to colonize

the universe with crap? We’ve even surrounded the

earth with a lot our crap. Maybe it doesn’t even matter.

It makes more sense to blame aliens than to blame Gods.

There’s more evidence of aliens than there is of God.

It makes sense to ascribe human evolution as, to some

extent, fostered by aliens. Too many ancient 

technological societies said that their knowledge came 

from higher beings. How could they believe in imaginary 

beings and a meme temps built structures, irrigation 

systems, everything with such precision? Maybe they 

were telling the truth.

Our problem is we’ve all been lied to on all levels about 

every aspect of society for so long that is difficult to get 

a handle on one’s common sense.  

A Long Way From Barnes And Noble

 Writing pencil and paper again 

like when I began, then, a

typewriter! Who remembers when?

Before computers…that gen. is dying

like dinosaurs…the hardware is 

becoming part of the mind…

no more symbolic information

nothing left to translate

organic quantum holographic

encyclopediac brain.

Diminishing Returns

 Laptop is down.

I have my Ipad…

beyond that pen and paper.

I’ll write poems and fold the

paper into white butterflies,

let them float into town, where

one or two might get picked up 

and looked at before being discarded.

I don’t expect more than that 

anymore anyway.

Sombo Man’s Glue

 “Come in Rangoon”, Shangri-Lha, Atlantis, Utopia, 

Xanadu, Eden…the fact that there are these examples 

means they are part of human experience. Whatever 

can be imagined will happen at some point…whether

we like it or not…like, right now. Hurry up, please, it’s 

time. To live free is to wake up to reality, not somebo’s

idee fixe. Remember that the next time you feel the urge

to burn yourself up in your car.

Happy New Year

 Throwing up all day.

Connected with an old friend

I haven’t seen in years.

This is the year of…..

something 

looming on the horizon 

we can’t quite make out yet.

Soon we will.