Poem: Gulp

 

Gulp

 

moon like a pill

on the roof of my mouth,

the ocean all rummy and

somehow this gulp is tragic.

but i’m inside a car,

or some rolling cube,

and my empathy for those confined

runs stark as we

circle towers along parallel lines

which in turn lead to squares.

 

not so far away,

over the ocean under the molly,

 

gulls whoop frissons into my ears

but that isn’t the party,

never has been or will be, 

no invitation even possible.

i exist to glaze in a car bar,

not a sandbar.

the gulls have their whirls

and loves and cocky calls and

i am a strand in the net

which shadows them.

===========

To think you are beyond good and evil is to succumb to evil.

===

 

 To think you are beyond good and evil is to succumb to evil.

                                            --Setuva Pumadancer

===

Poem: Only a Stone

 

Only a Stone 

 

how dare i kick it. 

chuckle while it rolls.

me of crass flesh,

immature toddler

who slaps an old man’s crotch.

 

it’s true. 

i tease this immortal scone,

toss it with my toe.

a hobo’s kind of roulette:

which face ends where,

which will look up,

gnaw on a fallen moth,

or kiss a tigerlily’s paw?

 

i need this.

something.  anything.

imagination.  

persistence.

survival.

a decent bet.

==========================

Poem: Chronic

 

Chronic

 

the pains in my body

have been many creatures.

some with poison.

some with teeth.

 

they’ve done their best

to slay patience,

ensnare the wings

of my mind;

 

and my tendons

have struggled in their webs,

my nerves gnawed

by their scorpions and widows.

 

i’ve lost many times,

pinned down by sobs,

surrendering to hate.

 

when i can walk,

how different life’s moments are.

how naïve--

 

the little smiles and frowns

of the ordinary,

childlike in the gaps

between the knives.

=====================

Longterm chronic gout, took many years just to get the correct diagnosis.  I've spent about four full years of my life on crutches with active gout flare ups.  Sometimes in a wheelchair.  Lots of related atrophy, injury and arthritic issues.  These days I can walk a fair distance with a cane, no active flares.  

For one injury, I waited a year to get treatment, because in America, medical treatment is not a right, and I would've had to pay $9000 before the insurance company even began to help out.  I didn't have that money to spare.  I had to wait until I could figure out some better insurance.  This is how we live in the USA.

Americans who vote for Republicans continue to vote for this system, and more and more tax breaks for the wealthy, and less medical assistance for everyone else.  They were completely enspelled by the demagoguery of radical right politicians, even before Trump brought charismatic fascism on board, further tattering a tattered, broken democracy.   

One thing our mainstream newspapers still get right (New York Times):  democracy is, at best, moribund  when  over 70% of the total wealth is owned by .1% of the population.

The sad story of America is great wealth and power after WWII, and then that wealth and power causing greater and greater corruption and decline, the moral fabric of the people degenerating d into cheap hedonisms, petty envy, pernicious bickering and decadence for the wealthy.   That said, there was an awakening, too, of values of equality and Earth-awareness, a counterforce to the corruption, and the longstanding climate of vicious racism, which originated in slavery and only intensified in the South after the Civil War to end slavery.

Poem: Vision

 

 

Vision

 

a moth

slices my skull like a spade,

digs up maggoty pasts

which split into ribs, maws, spines,

jumbling

as they clatter down

into pupils of ooze,

seeds of vision.

 

i lick a ditch

where life pools,

nothing but ambitious jelly.

i fizzle among microbes

that die in sparks

to prompt a circus

of evolving hides.

 

merged

with hyperactive goo,

i not only rot

but strip back

to the ferment of the first broth.

i bleed not blood

but the slime in all life--

 

what we came from, what we are,

what makes us babble and coo,

create, love, believe, devour,

desecrate.

 

==================================

Poem: Apple Tree

 

Apple Tree

 

mobile of the delicious,

luring me as marionette,

even does and cubs

tugged from the theater of

the forest for a taste.  so alive, 

August’s living golden buzzing robe,

winesap- and pixie-dappled,

cox’s orange and dorsett.

the honeybee-drenched orbs 

blush toward evening,

more buxom than twilit Venus,

or a lunar floribunda.

 

who wouldn’t fixate

on the gifts of dance

arrayed over the decades,

centuries, too!

are we not swept up

by the minuet of airy seconds,

graceful boughs

in waltz with arms of breeze?

does it not captivate us,

lend our hearts to whirl?

 

 

 

===================================

8/16/25 ... diffy poem

8/13/25  added a "the"

8/11/25 ... more mods, struggle

8/10 ... hvy mods 

8/9 .. changed last phrase

changed word, shortened a phrase

added a "the"

Poem: Faraway

 

Faraway

 

happy clouds,

a white glove party

which laughs and points fingers.

 

they float over

a cherry soda sun,

sugar in their bellies.  safe.

 

just like that, they change:

behold a pale crowd,

pockets bulged with stones.

 

a swoop of nighthawk

and throats of nameless frogs

frame the stage

 

as the victim waits,

watching many a vee

of northbound geese.

 

always, she thinks,

that same letter

V  V  V …

 

flying off, 

swift with hope,

to chase some faraway home.

 

====================

8/2/25 ... some mods throughout the day

Poem: Fox Tale

 

Fox Tale

 

the yellow of the grasslands flexed:

a stretching gush of lions

speckled with manes of raspberry thorns.

they greeted the bay with a stark whip,

leaping into nowhere,

past a pure of azure and a few sparse ribs 

but no sun.

far from the lions,

spruce in spotty acres

might have been reaching up

proud and exhilarant

or convulsed by rage.

axes of wind, swung by

northeastern cold, had splintered

flanks of the evergreens

and tumbled them to the ground 

where

the cracked trunks attracted a fox,

rusty yet warm of tangerine,

a vibe as plush as it was sleek,

curving through a whirl of pounce

to pluck a squirm of gopher.

off then, quick as a flirt,

smudged by the terre-verte

of the madcap groves.

===============================

7/29/25 same day mods... all day .. mods

A look at Down East Maine before some of the significant global warming effects, when there were more spruce and few maples. 

Commentary: Israeli Rights groups finally call out the Gaza genocide

Today, the New York Times front-paged an article on the genocide taking place in Gaza.  The title is, "In a First, Leading Israeli Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Gaza Genocide."  .  The article is a step toward global mobilization and moral awareness. It starts off: 

Two of Israel’s best-known human rights groups said Monday that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, adding fuel to a passionately fought international debate over whether the death and destruction there have crossed a moral red line.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/world/middleeast/israel-genocide-gaza-rights-groups.html

First of all, it is appalling that an "international debate" is taking place.  There's nothing to reasonably debate here.  Great evil is soul-stingingly evident in the malevolence being inflicted on the Gazans.  The presence of an international debate, in and of itself, shows that we live in barbaric times.

 It is never morally acceptable, and always utterly loathesome, to reduce the homeland of two million people to rubble, fence them into that rubble, and continue to bomb and starve them.  Hospitals gone.  Schools gone.  Fertile land gone.  Potable water gone.  Everything gone.  Via social media, the world watches scenes of starving people reaching through IDF fences, begging for scraps of food, reduced to dog-like instinct out of inflicted levels of extreme hunger.  This is never acceptable.  Never.  Again, no reasonable debate is possible here.  None.

What if the two million people reduced to homeless, fenced into the rubble of their homeland and starved to death weren't members of the same racial, ethnic or religious group?  Technically, it wouldn't then be genocide, but it would still be utterly unforgivable and ultimately wicked.  Again, there is no possible reasonable argument that treating two million people this way is morally acceptable.  Never.  None.  

We live in a primitive, dysfunctional time, far below the level of ethics technology we are capable of achieving as a species,   This is no excuse.  It is the opposite:  a catalyst to change and grow.  We have the brain plasiticity and the cultural plasticity to move forward, to someday, even fairly soon, achieve a non-barbaric and minimally decent civilization (1).

Anyone who is reasonably and morally aware--and we all can be educated to this level of perception, if given a chance--can see that this is genocide.  And it is very very very hard to watch.  It is loathsome, disgusting, reviling, abhorrent ... I could pile up futile words and it would never capture the horror of genocide.  Yes, it is hard to face.  But that is no excuse for putting one's head in the sand.

Humanity can move forward.  We have moved forward.  Even long ago, there was some incipient progress when, for instance, the Romans banned crucifixion.  In the 19th century, slavery was made illegal.  In the 20th century, women attained the right to vote.  All they needed was an opening in the rigid, enforced social mechanisms of ignorance- and fear-based governance.  

In general, there is a slow yet generally positive momentum observable in the trek of civilization, from the times of ancient Sumer to the present.  Much of the positive change has happened in the last two centuries.  

So, in conclusion, there is hope for us.  For humanity.  We don't have to be barbaric, cruel twisted versions of wolves.  We don't have to take the worst in nature and magnify it into heartless, rancorous malice.  

Knowing this, that we can improve and advance toward the Good, makes it even harder to watch what is going on now.  I try to remind myself of the wrenching strength it takes to be ethical, to fight for what is right.  To seek the Good.    It is painful to face the truth.  It takes courage and strength.  But it is, yes, an ultimately meaningful fight.  One can feel the Light of truth.  

I try to remember that not so long ago, about 160 years ago, not so distant in the scope of things, slavery was legal in the USA.  Brave abolitionists fought the good fight, despite the 'debates' that were taking place at the national level.  There is no reasonable argument that slavery is acceptable.  None.  And yet, still, 'debates' took place. 

We ended legal slavery.  This took thousands of years.  

There is hope.  

Not only that, honesty can feel wonderful.  Honesty engenders deepest meaning by its very nature.  It is a gift and a virtue, but it can also be miserably painful, especially in these barbaric, primitive times where people 'debate' whether depriving, fencing, torturing and starving two million people is acceptable.  Over sixty thousand killed outright.  And many more wounded by bombs, guns and the inevitable riots and thuggery when food becomes scarce.

Whatever pain I feel is nothing, the puniest picayune, compared to what the people in Gaza are suffering.  I have to deal with my pain, and I try to do it in healthy, cathartic ways that keep me aware and active.  In this sense, my pain, and all my emotions, are front and center in my life.  Every day can be adventurous.

The only way to defeat Evil is Good.  Honesty is a great step.  A Pact with Honesty is hard and demanding.  And yet it enriches and lifts the soul, nurtures growth and wisdom.  The opposite of a Pact with the metaphorical Devil.

=========================

(1)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html

   

8/3/25 fixed typos

Poem: Overturn

 

Overturn

 

does it rain when

the night-flesh of the city seems to sweat?

small glistens of spells

in the streets?

 

for even a moment,

could the wet dissolve our dry?

and in so doing, overturn

what seems like centuries?

 

maybe our skulls

could still hold water.

a tongue to sprout in each lonely cavern,

giddy with the truth, playful

 

as a river. 

 

you’d think it was Eden,

this outburst of succulence,

humans seduced once more by the fruit,

yet better off for it,

 

no longer starved 

for the dances of empathy

which would brim our eyes

as we leapt in remorse, breaking

into the freedom of joy.

 

might we then proclaim,

to no one god, an exultant

hallelujah?

 

but no one here, 

despite miles of peopled space, 

will celebrate something 

that has less-than-occurred.

 

the wind takes a drag

on sparse weeds in the cracks,

and the old dust

wrapped around gutters of trash, 

 

and i look up, just to pretend,

and, yes, the water that dared to speak

is gone.

 

 

=======================================