I yearn for an age where the human community and the body politic are led by a spirit of soulful imagination and creative passions rather than base impulses of material gain and vain status. May we join as planetary citizenry and rise to our best selves.
Spoke in the We’ll
At certain times
Prophecy speaks
In uncertain times
Wear myth
Makes history
Magic is
Reality so becoming
Spirit metes flesh
And we are awe citizens
Of the soul imagination
This poem is meditation and commentary on the all-too-common chasm between legality and morality. Personally, I get off on morality, not legality…
Getting Off
Getting off
On a technicality
Beating off
Their own rules
Hardly
A consummate victory
Knot
So much a moral
As a legal won
And having played
Getting back
Wear it
Awe began
The first plays
Throughout human history, people have travelled great journeys seeking their fortune or fare share of fame. Modern families often spread out out across the country following jobs and careers, and the proverbial better life. These things all have there place, but there is no place like home. This poem is a tip of the hat to home and hearth, family and friends. May we find ourselves at home wherever we may be.
The Largesse He Could Conceive
He climbed the highest mountain
Spelunked the deepest cave
Sailed the seven seas
Traversed the widest desert
And awe he saw
In his epic quest
A bucket list
Bigger than gods
He saw God
In have
Sow many experiences
The largesse he could conceive
Only passing
The threshold of thresholds
Of home
Cradling an infant child
Born while he was away
A common complaint is that there is never enough time. Overbooking ourselves seems endemic. I have made an intentional effort over my life to create some space and time, allowing me to lead a less hurried and less forced life. I consider this one of my greater successes in life. The quality of this success seems related to syncing up with my own rhythms and the rhythms of the natural world. Regardless, life keeps happening. Like John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when we are busy doing other things.” I suspect that no matter how busy (or not) we may be, that being there when it happens is the key. May your life be a constant stream of presence.
A Bout Time
All you
Halve too due
Too joyfully
Walk the walk
Is caste off
Time as a gait keeper
And reawaken too
An open adore policy
Another kind
Of swinging pendulum
Free of binary weighs
Jammed with jazz
Grooves coming and going
A wash with sundry seasonings
That is life
Full
Increasingly
Fewer
Appointments
It’s a bout
Time
Re-form that thief
Broken into ours
Abode well
Where there is no room for alarm
Renounce everything but the sync
The ticker with which we are born
And be re-quieted
With anew
Time peace
I suspect that if you don’t see someone as eccentric, perhaps living in a wondrous crucible brimming with contradictions, then you don’t really know someone. People, as inconvenient as they may be, are irreducibly wondrous creatures. I suspect that most of us just want to be seen and accepted for who we are. I mourn the rushed reality that quick judgments based on a triangulation of a scant number of facts forms the basis for most of our human relationships. May we create a world where we can truly see one another in our wild weirdness.
Retort #112
They said, “I can see through you.”
I said, “I suspected as much,
I could see you having difficulty seeing me.”
This poem is a playful, satirical takedown of the unromantic notion of sexual activity, particularly reproduction, as some Darwinian imperative. I am a romantic who believes that there is more than mere chemistry to human relationships and mating.
On Acid
They both possessed
A playfulness in their grin
That sparkle in their eye
It takes
An exceptional one
To not see
They’re chemistry
Wile some may
Dare in calling
Magic
One thing is certain
They both could
Not stop
Thinking a bout
Each other’s
Deoxyribonucleic acid
This poem is a parody of the “Hippocratic Oath,” an early version of medical ethics best known for its precept of “do no harm.” Of course, American health care is a minefield of doing harm, adept at both undertreatment and overtreatment. Such harm is an inescapable side effect of for-profit health care, mostly sick care. In the wild west of American health care, providers are free to sow their wiled oaths with deathly impunity.
The Hypocrites Oath
Above awe
Due know harm
In tending to sterling prophets
As bringing to heel
In cant of prevention
Doctoring
In patience
Dressed as nothing
But
Get
Well
That stiff price
I have always found it odd that people can view themselves as just complicated dirt, even awesomely poetically as stardust. I suspected that even having a bad attitude about one’s existence as a subject (not object) may very well be infinitely better than simple dirt unable to grasp any attitude what sow ever.
Meaning Less Star Dust
He complained
A bout
Every thing
Being
Meaningless star dust
Yet he was
Moderately a-mazed
About being
Capable and culpable
Of stardust
Having such
A bad attitude
Corporate personhood is a scam, edging out actual human persons. Many corporate souls are filed in bank vaults in Delaware, a safe house for corporate persons…and having official papers they feel free to take a dump on actual persons. Who no’s, these corporate papers may outlive humanity, but they will never be truly alive. But, just for today, we will achieve parody…
Bought Ensouled: Owed To Corporate Personhood
In hour darkest our
At every high noon
A corporation is borne
And their is no I or thou
Soully IT
And all is
Well
Produced lies
Bought to you
Buy prophets of Wall Street
And executors of Madison Ave
Wear the truth lies
With some Lilliputian prints
As undiscerning as passable
In the end
Taking liberties
Money is free
Speech
Speech
Preach IT!
As if
Monet eyes
My ass!
It makes no sense
Only dollareds
Crediting them selves
As titled too
Being agents
Of some virtual realty company
Pawning themselves as reel persons
Blandishing life is wonderful™
And whenever an ad tinkles
Some corps gets wings
I see one of the pervasive everyday forms of violence in capitalism is having to wake up to alarm “normally.” I have no problem being woke, just not by alarms. I believe that luxuriating in the natural process of waking up should not be a luxury.
Alarm Going Off
I woke up
Too alarm
Every mourning
Every day
No matter
How dark
They tolled me
It was for my own
Good
This poem is a parody of the libertarian bible, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, where rugged (read “ruthless”) individualism in service of economic wealth and power is lauded above all else.
Sisyphus Shrugged
Ann ran
In the company of train wrecks
Hubris and notoriety irresistibly rubbernecking
In an impotent condom nation
Status and money making love
Having
The hallmarks of sterile power
Blue blood letting
And redneck rebels
Every fecund one
For won’s self
Ekphrasis is a description of a work of visual art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise. This ekphratic poem is about the classically unassuming (“unentitled”) still life painting of a bowl of fruit. Since this type of painting is painted so often I picked a seemingly random high number, 247, which also doubles as a pun for 24/7, adding to its ever presence. Also, I have found listing a work of art as “Untitled” as an oddly pretentious, and perhaps lazily uncreative practice, so I chose “unentitled” as a pun for “untitled.” I suspect some artists consider any title as inadequate given the ineffable nature of art, and some artists may just produce so much art that they don’t want to bother naming every work. Regardless, this poem is a testament to awe of the countless artworks, whether hanging on walls or stored in some nameless place perhaps waiting to be discovered.
Unentitled Ekphrasis 247
To some pedestrian eyes
It may seem square
To others a bit fruity
Colors embraced by light and shadow
Forms canvassing adore
Entreating those who ponder within
This study
For whosever
Be gotten
Appreciates allot
Even thou
Awe be it
Framed and hung
Many years ago
Remains
Still life
Hope springs eternal. That’s just, the way it glows.
Flame In The Darkness
There is a flame
In the darkness
Awe weighs more
Than mirror fact
This flame is both
Before and after
See change
As one
Better
Than book ends
Enraptured in flames
Witch cast no shadow
And is at home
A mist the darkest pitch
As the brighter it peers
In solidarity
With every last won
The flame first bows gently
In recognition of destruction
Coming fourth
Never quite placing
That which can never be
The same
Passing in the night
A mother flicker
That darkest pitch
Even a starstruck hurl
But a tip of the hat
To death’s grip
Letting go
That owed flame
Becoming knew
A spark of compassion
A flash of incite
In many ways
Positively touched
In efface of death
In other weighs
Fore awe time
Untouchable
Forever caste away
Drinking it awe in
Stirred but not shaken
That’s just
The way it glows
“You can hold the candle, but you cannot hold the flame. If you ever touch that fire, you will never be the same.” –Joe Jencks
On the recurring rashes of moral bankruptcy…
Who’s Your Itch Now?
There has been a rash
Of moral bankruptcy
And what do we fine?
A society where immorality
As a madder of fact
Gets
Rewarded
And reworded
Not so much immorality
As amorality
Pawned as an inoffensive defense
Though as much a bloody relative
As any mob would uphold
And hold up
In a backwards society
Where you can’t make them
For they’re a corporate person
Not just
Real
Accept that
Really real
Wherever there is scratch
To be made
On rumors of angels…
Gratuitous Rumor
There is a rumor
That she is an angel
In disguise
I know this is untrue
For if it is true
It’s the worst disguise ever
Violence often seems to be second nature, obvious or inescapable. Perhaps violence is inescapable because it begets itself, setting up new rounds of consequences where further violence begs further violence. Violence begetting itself may just be the manifestation of the sacred preyer: “go f–k yourself.” Being the change we want to see in the world shapes our reality. Choosing violence seems to me like a profoundly apt example of reaching for a simple solution to complex problems. Still, in a whirled of lions eating lambs, being a wolf seems a proud victory and being a lamb seems only appetizing to wolves. Creative nonviolence may be too much to ask. I don’t believe we ARE wolves, nor lambs. We can do better. Where wolves rule the world, there is not enough silver bullets…
The Lamb and The Lyin’
They poor tend
That they would never meat
A lamb too slaughter
Cloaked for success
In premises of a future undertaken
They wore their war
Like wear wolves
Not no’ing
In awe of the whirled
There is not enough
Silver bullets
Straight men are the primary perpetrators of homophobia. Straight men also drive the patriarchal and misogynist culture where women are subject (and object!) of the male gaze. This poem plays with these realities as a straight man gets a taste of the unwanted male gaze from male gays. May this poem contribute a bit to men realizing that uncalled for sexual advances is what humans of any gender or sexual orientation desire.
Straight Manly Complaining
He finally got a glimpse
Of what many women complain
That unwanted stair
Of getting up or getting down
Weather goose or gander
That unsolicited beam
Of the male gays
And guise on the hole
For sow long
Failing to apprehend
A leading reason
Uncalled for
This poem is a poetic excerpt of my David and Goliath battle with the world’s most powerful superpower. Actually, Daniel in the lions’ den is more on mark. My refusal to register for the military draft back in the 1980’s resulted in some selective prosecution, putting the “selective” in Selective Service System. Some of this journey and my take on draft registration can be found in this testimony delivered in 2018: Testimony for National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service — END DRAFT REGISTRATION
Draft Registration Civil Disobedience, aka, Holy Obedience
The bailiff read
“The United States of America vs. Daniel A. Rutt”
My mom flinched
Realizing the full weight
Of the world’s most powerful military superpower
In history
I simply couldn’t believe they herd of me
The name given me: Dan-i-el, “God is my judge”
Comes with its own
History
I AM
Aware I was in the lion’s den
Occam’s Razor is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. This funny and tragic poem is a parody of the misuse of the principle of Occam’s Razor to over-simplify and round down to nothing inconvenient elements such as the subtle properties of life itself. In this poem, Occam, skeptical of the difference between animate and inanimate matter, life and death, takes the matter into his own hands and slits his wrists, a darkly comic commentary on the scientific method and rigorous observation taken too extremes. The note, “as told by Gödel,” is a reference to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, which state that no logical system can demonstrate its own consistence; or put otherwise, every formal logical system will have false elements within it and true elements outside the system. Yep, reality is vexing for claims of absolute truths in an ideology/world-view and for zero tolerance of uncertainty. More simply put, advanced mathematics warns us of fundamentalism and advises humility. Read the mathematics if you like. Though, the poem is much more satisfying…
Occam’s Razor (as told by Gödel)
An incomparable mud pie of stardust and luck
He pondered the probabilities
Of the inconceivable, or perhaps impossible
And that betwixt!
The thinnest of lines believable
And seaming true
Or know line at awe
Unafraid to raze the possibility
Of no difference between life and death
He took the matter
In his own hands
A simple solution to a complex problem
A testable hypothesis proving true
As only lie there
Occam and his razor
This poem is a metaphor for the natural consequences of bulling through natural limits on planet earth, our one home. This poem is yet another existential plea for ledged humanity to step away from the cliff. This poem poses the question of weather or knot we can leave money on the table to secure a livable planet.
A Cain Due Attitude
Impotent to resist
Screwing the whirled
Are we Abel too
Re-fuse
That buy and buy
Fueled bye
Oil in the soil
Coal in the hole
And gas a mass
The biggest fracking of awe
Liquidating profane
All wile
Mansion on fire
Is their fete
Their creed is greed
An immovable canon
Never leave
Money on the table
At home with burning
The roof claps
As heaven’s affirmation
The walls crumble
As Jericho’s trumpets blow it
Decked out
With titanic refrains
Ultimately considered vane
A bode
In sin rated
And those strikingly spared
Flee for the taking
A privy ledged few
In a game of craps
By know means
Heeding lookout below
Satan’s signing bonus
Regardless
In tent
Sow culpable of deifying their profits
And if surviving the end of dais
Their heir will be their bully pulpit
A stump speech
Their fodder forest
Too love hew
Not equal to
With stand
Treason cut
And run
The plan it
Into the ground
Blood rejoins
Whatever
Thou dust
