Kudzu

A living thing that grows out of control

‘till it makes the landscape look like a

painting by Jean Arp

like turbo cancer

like lion fish

like Communism,

bullying existence.

Dystopian

Right now

rubble left from riots

message the future.

Light is brighter:

spectacles, ceremonies, conclaves.

Dark is darker:

aforementioned disasters, wars, plagues,

social mayhem, actual mayhem.

Refuge could be a doorway in an abandoned city.

Escape to the countryside while there’s still time?

The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clark.

Even music echos hollowness of the homosap.

All this survival for nothing?

At least, there’s still the question.

Come In, Rangoon!

I like to catastrophize, hyperbolize, imagine the worst,

or am I just seeing what is?

I emphasize for clarity…all the arts do….

so does propaganda, but, let’s not talk about that now.

The wheel that squeaks loudest gets the oil

is all you need to know,

ever, at all.

So, next time someone says: “Listen!” 

you might want to.

Random Gleanings From The Id

From womb to tomb, 

something something gloom.

An out-of-booty experience?

Pardon my Brand.

Is my Brand in your way?

Pardon me, but your Brand is showing.

I’d like to talk to you, but I’m allergic 

to stupidity.

I’d like to talk to you but my life is waiting.

He’s got a way with words; he gets away

with words.

Before you were born, you didn’t want anything.

Before you were born is  an infinity of time.

Look straight ahead, because that’s where you’re going.

A lot of my fellow Boomers died young because when

they saw what was going on, it was too late to go back.

All my poems are like coming up for air

three times before I drown.

There they go, there they go.

Where they stop, nobody knows.

Ghost In The Shell

There’s a ghost in my shell…

“the next thing” always haunts me,

the fight for survival thing, part of

my body, my shell, my costume.

There’s still the fear of death,

not hidden, in front of me.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a cookie comes my way,

feeding the hungry ghost.

Getting Away With Life

I pretty much got away with it.

I didn’t become what the slave owners wanted.

Twenty years in Mexico, drinking and writing poetry.

I’ll buy that for a dollar!

The end might not be pretty, 

but that’s true for billionaires.

I’m happily poor, unvaccinated, unbrainwashed,

dinking coffee, smoking, writing this.

There are still some of us left in the world.

Others walk by me in some sort of fog.

And so it goes.

Risky Business

At the risk of being stupid, 

(but isn’t that life after all?)

I write some posts on X, 

for example,

and get a little feedback.

I don’t know what it means.

I tell people what I think,

which is why I have no friends…

not complaining…I don’t know

what it means.

Everybody knows that if you go

out that door, you might never 

come back. It’s a cliche.

You can get beyond survival

as a homosap, become rich,

have everything you want,

still, you never know.

Not to be a downer,

but it pays to stay on your toes.

,

Genocide Academy

The possibility of such a thing is anathema.

Moist hazy switchboard allows aberrations.

Making mincemeat of absurdities and stuffing

them into bikinis.

Crude miscommunication melts trust.

Caption this waterfront handgun in terms to study.

Acquire derivations classifications endpoint revelation.

(Backdrop flickers while comatose music roars)

Snowflake religion laments implant wreckage.

Envious prisoner of ambient intoxicant accelerant.

Pendulum appetizer fails crisis priority.

If tongues could taste themselves we’d be

right where we are.

Shadow

A study with a rolled top desk, piles of

books on the floor, you get the picture.

A parallel universe to my own. Why not?

Whomever inhabits that room is more

successful than me, has appointments to

various societies and boards, is constantly 

in motion between engagements,  highly

visible and noticeable in social media.

We are not the same.

Sitting On A Street

Not in Ukraine,

not in Philadelphia,

not in New York City,

not in Juarez,

not in London,

not in Bejing…

so many places I’d rather not be.

The street is perfect with people

minding their own business, 

walking along, some smile.

I’m anonymous, not a target.

There it is, the life I ordered.

If I’m lucky, I come off as a

nice old man, harmless, to which

category I’m happy to belong,

forgotten, even by me.

Inspiration

I had that thought that the jazz swept away

thankfully resting in music vibration ‘till 

captured by a pair of eyes? Maybe, or just

drifting in the ambience, a complete unknown,

part of a scene.

That’s not enough, I know, just a leaf adrift

on a turbulent stream.

Teacher’s Pet

“Easy, boy, easy!”

I talk to myself like an animal

when my instincts bristle, 

watching, not identifying.

I’m just another rube in the carnival.

No need to make something out of nothing,

besides, it’s already been done.

Just look around.

Aftermath Of A False Apprehension

Things could have gone quite differently.

I was braced for the worst, but the best happened.

Still a bit quivery from that other possibility,

but I just noticed the air,

how fresh it is today.

So, things are looking up.

Oh Yeah

Could be a playground dare…

could be a sigh of relief.

Everything is contextual.

Only the oral traditions 

spoke the truth.

They chiseled the truth

into monuments, in case

anyone was wondering,

which they used to do a lot

until internet/social media

vampired curiosity, which

makes me, a writer, no matter

good/bad, an endangered species.

Saved In The Nick Of Pan

On the edge of a crumbling cliff…

no cliff notes to refer to.

Everything could go wrong in so many ways…

but maybe it will wait until I’ve had breakfast.

Wheelhouse

Sitting there

observing, aware

of the flow of life,

of energy, me and

around me.

“Nothing personal.”

You don’t like to hear that

when a gun is pointing at your face.

You don’t think that’s your daily life,

thought that is in fact the case.

The most profound truth is right

in front of you.

Trosang

Day of relaxation…I’m not going to worry,

nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.

A lovely feeling, like being a child again

for a moment.

What should I do?

A leaf falls, kerplop!

I could just notice that.

I did, and my mind began to analyze.

Stop that, mind!

Haven’t you learned by now you don’t 

have to figure it all out?

Don’t waste the moment trying to do 

something.

Funny, how I feel this residual need

to hurry.

Why Not?

Why can’t I write when I’m bothered,

frazzled, vibrating from intensity?

The waters are cloudy, roiled, lacking

clarity, foggy, at least that’s clear.

The pain of getting things done, having 

continually to be getting things done is more

tedious and draining.

Survival is more a question; I wonder if

it’s worth it, like Berryman.

It’s just the mood I’m in.

It’s just that I can see why people kill themselves.

It all just gets to them.

Everyone has a breaking point, but life seems

to go on..”they tell me that it will kill me

but they won’t say when.”

No More Troys

No Eden, Utopia, Paradise…

Shangri-lha/Shambhala not included…

No more Great Halls to hang your sword.

No more Victory Feasts to celebrate certainty.

No more calendar dates to commemorate.

Everything starts new now when we don’t know

we know things are changing but not what to.

Personally I am in Paradise how long I don’t know.

You feel things are changing people dying sadly

all over the world that needs to be exposed and is.

Let the Great Eastern Sun of the truth shine on all.

Threadbare

When Teflon tape was invented,

plumbers rejoiced everywhere.

It mean you could take a pipe where

the threads were barely there, slap the

tape on and make a great connection.

You didn’t know that.

You never needed to know that.

But, my imagination being threadbare,

I slapped some Teflon on it, and it

still holds water!  Har Har!

I don’t think about death all the time

 …but when I do.

When young there is the occasional 

burst of feeling immortal because your

body is getting better all the time, the

opposite of watching it all fall apart.

What comfort in knowing it’s just a

natural display?

At least, 

it’s something I can’t be blamed for.

People give us elders leeway, knowing

it’s not our fault. That’s nice.

I feel like I’m stealing time since I quit

drinking.

I always loved being an outlaw.

Three

Poetry, a jazz riff,

transforms emotions,

evokes vision,

if you have an elastic, 

fantastic mind,

I want to run away from my cell phone.

It promises freedom, but is just another

link in the shackles.

It’s like a chained dog,

sleeping, that I have to pass

to get somewhere.

Supplication

May the universe torture me

in a certain way that needs a poem

to express what we all know.

Harmony=Wa

They don’t have that in the West, except 

for a little motel in the Catskills called:

The Harmony Inn.

No, the West never looked for peace too

busy manufacturing Hegelian synthesis,

progress into the future whatever that 

was supposed to be.

“You may say that I ain’t free,

but it don’t worry me.”

In Media Res

Pleasure in the midst of pain

clinging to a dying animal

a man who was just blown up

gives the thumbs up even with

no legs, go figure.

A Samurai standing still in the

middle of battle.

“Would you like more tea?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

Hurry up, please, it’s time.

Decent

I try to look decent

in public decent

clothes it’s the decent

thing to do, the social

contract, circling each

other and sniffing, it’s 

the least we could do

let alone explaining the

meaning of life to the

masses, but let’s not get

ahead of ourselves.

If It Was A Snake

Try to remember…

nope…that one’s gone…

it seems like only yesterday 

how time flies

there’s always until there isn’t 

look behind you…too late…it’s gone

ice cream truck

red wheelbarrow

a chance for redemption.

Uncertainty

Something in my mind, a concern, in

my whole being, the yoke’s on me,

blocks out, narrows perception, sensation,

retreating into reptilian brain.

That’s it, that’s what’s happening now,

all  I can describe,

poem diminished to an afterthought.

Tingly Tangly

Tingly tangly with the jingle jangle of guitar

tugging tangly with heavy mind machinery 

a monkey wrench in the works works for me.

Next question!

Hard to say…hardly worth mentioning…

everything, I mean, the world, poor thing.

Yes, what’s happening affects all our lives.

OK…

everything’s clear when you’re cornered.

Still Life

Still so much to say feeling time’s passing away

we all go this way, cricket, spit it out. What do you

say at the most important moment of your life?

“I regret I have only one life to give to my country.”

“Fuck you assholes!”  It’s a question I have.

What was it for you?

A college interview?

Proposing to your wife?

A Championship fight?

Acceptance speech?

Address to the world?

“No tramping through vast Arabies of hot

meaning, you just numbly don’t get there.”

The Transfiguration Of Blind Joe Schmidt

 On a too long night waiting for that tomorrow 

that never comes expecting liberation always

just out of reach like a brass ring realizing

suddenly one day out of the blue he’s free.

Wabi Sabi

Chaos is part of natural order.

What’s happening in the USA now

is remolecularization.

Everything is changing…all we see

is the changing, not the result.

So far, what we might have figured out,

is that everything we knew was wrong.

I mean, what else?

As We Go Along

Like it or not, things keep happening,

like flaming boxcars down and endless rail.

Quieter, more hidden before, now in your face.

I live where there’s lots of country, the trees, 

greenery and so on. We are part of nature.

Separation from that makes us unhappy and crazy. 

So, join me in nature.

Pretending

I thought I knew what I was doing.

That’s not the same as pretending.

Now I know I don’t know, and I’m

making it up as I go along….changes

happening quickly feels like on a log

racing down a roiling river no control

everyone’s affected by what’s going on.

Maybe your piece of earth will be the

next to collapse….just say’n.

Those people in Maui and L.A. were rich.

“If you can keep your head when all about

are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”

Kipling’s recipe for a man.

Or, as Buddhist’s say as an insult:

“That’s very interesting.”

March Fourth

Birthday

a tooth falls out

thank you

a friend surprises me with

exactly what I need

thank you

Trump speaks tonight

thank you

a trifecta

“What’s it all mean, Mr Natural?”

“Don’t mean shit.”

House Of Cards

House of charades,

Eugene O’Neal house of pancakes,

whatever you say, Sir,

make it up as you go along…I know

you will.

The best of intentions are paved with

fool’s gold.

Seeing is believing, but, why does that

need to be said?

Isn’t it obvious?

Obviously not,

and so it goes.

Carnival 2025

Party time…

always party time in Mexico,

might as well, the earth’s been explored…

what we don’t know is where we came from.

Theories and opinions are all the same…

might as well raise a toast,

give a cheer,

because we’re here

because we’re here

because we’re here.

Listen With Eyes Still And Become Free

Or not, your choice, you blinked and you missed it.

Catch your impulse and stop. Wherever you are, stop.

Remember the phrase “wherever I am.” when you 

remember it, stop.

A big goldfish bowl full of water.

A bell rings, two fighters eye each other.

I drop to the ground on my hike and feel the earth.

It all comes back to me, as if I’d been here before.