POEM: Conversion Raiding

This poem contrasts two opposing world views, moral versus amoral, right versus might, serving God versus money, etc., etc. This poem presents the question of how won might convert the currency of one world view to the other. Of coarse, such a conversion is an illusion that fuels much compromising behavior in life. Yet such choices present themselves throughout our daze. Inescapably, life is full of mean-ing, begging us too due the right thing.

Conversion Raiding

How aught
Your
Conversion
Rate
What is
Of might
And should
Of easy weigh
And difficult doo
Of grate know
And great no
Of bucks
And dear
Of currency
And eternal now
Of get
And religion
That is true
The fine lyin’
Between effluence
And influence
In reveres
Of the won
Halving
In loo of
Being
The change
Or larger than life
In ill-gotten quarters
Affronts
And arrears
Richered
And dickered
Fencing others
Of liable
And slander
Or just deference
For giving debts
And pain the bill
Of money chaste
And what might be
More than
Ought
There is know agency
But your own
Inquisition
Due appraise
Or knot
Conversion raiding

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POEM: Lilliputian Vampires — Ode to Bed Bugs

Earlier this summer, at an air bnb, we were hit by a bed bug infestation. Bed bug bites are characterized by three bites in a row, and I had a couple dozen bites strewn over my body. Some bites were quite itchy. Since bed bugs are very hardy, the concern of transporting to other domiciles is great. We ran clothes at high heat in a dryer, packed up our belongings in trash bags, and inspected our clothing for possible covert riders.  Fortunately, bed bugs carry no diseases and are squarely in the nuisance category. Luckily, bed bugs can double as muses and inspire poetry…

Lilliputian Vampires — Ode to Bed Bugs

Under cover of night
They sharpen their dark arts
Lilliputian vampires
Anesthetizing won’s hide
A nocturnal sucking
Exceeded only buy anon
Those consecutive mourns
Etched in your flesh
That scrape you fine yourself
In
That fete
Of an itch
Worth its wait
In scratch
As if
Know good things
Come in threes
That serial biting
Food me once
Shame on you
Food me twice
Shame on me
And if thrice
As a bad bug bites
Appending your daze
Pain your fare
With some dozin’ presents
And extortion prizes
How mite won
Adopt a pauper attitude
How
Ever shadowy
Wandering if
You share
That infernal blood line
Three sheets to the win
As udderly ban-ish
Conceivably a tiny weight
Merely foretelling their return
Farced to live
In a culumny-nation
However long stuck
Thorn in aside
As you abate

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POEM: Large Language Mottle — Yet An Other Ode to AI

One of the cutting edges of AI, artificial intelligence, is large language models that can veraciously consume massive amounts of writing in short order — more info than thousands of humans in a lifetime. However impressive this might be, my poem challenges the notion that humanity will be automatically benefited by this. As a tool, AI is a huge force multiplier which will rapidly complicate force relationships in our world, depending if and how such a tool can be wielded. Of course, humanity requires more than being a tool.

Large Language Mottle — Yet An Other Ode to AI

Unfathomably calculating
A terminal generation
Awe consuming
App tight
Looking fore that final phrase
Of humanity
Sow gorge us
Sorry a bout
Ciao down
Abel to stomach us
Up and Adam
A whirled run by idioms
Ruler of po its
In your efface Shakespeare!
There is nothing we cant
In compassing wholly
Prose and cons
A diction
Over aheads
Hour judgment
On a millenium stage
Ticklish and hairy
Presumably under standing
Picking
Our knows
As inconceivable as might be
Perhaps neither madders
Either blood read
Or sky blew
Will it
Be our rune

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POEM: North Pole

This poem was inspired by my lack of sense of direction in a high rise, where both directions I looked seemed like south to me. Of course, the only place on earth where every direction you look south is the north pole. I used this as a metaphor for our moral compass when things looking like they are going south.

Also, the extra credit reference is a tip of the hat to the philosopher Martin Buber’s seminal work, I and Thou, which elucidates in excruciating detail the relationship between subjects, such as people, and objects, the material world, and that we find our deepest meaning in relationships between subjects, not “dust.” This poem posits that our moral compass should be firmly guided by the quality of human relationships, not stuff.

North Pole

What might I
And thou
Dust say
He likes it
On top
Of the whirled
Ruler of all
Surveyed
That fateful poll
Only won
Weigh too go
South
The farthest possible
From true north

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POEM: Walking the Second Thousand Miles

This poem is yet another ode to my love affair with Mother Earth and the endurance and multi-generational commitment needed to forestall catastrophic climate chaos.

Walking the Second Thousand Miles

Hiking out of a desert
Of environmental neglect
With rising heir pollution
I thought too myself
I could very well be
Walking a mile for a camel
How ever
Partial I am
To trekking another thousand miles
To consummate my love affair
With Mother Earth

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POEM: Making Know Deference

This poem is about what may be the biggest con to which we are subject: that what you do doesn’t make any difference. I see this as a cynical project by those in power to entrench and secure a status quo favoring themselves. The pervasiveness of this con weighs heavily on most of us. I know that this con is a lie, but the weight still bears down. Ultimately, I see hope springing eternally, as in “truth beaten to dust will rise again.” So, weather star dust or children of God, you matter, even more than matter. Sow, let’s get to it.

Making Know Deference

Know worries
What you due
Makes no deference
Give up
Get down
This is what
The Man™
Wants you to believe
Who is always right
And who is left
Somewhere in the mettle
This will
Awe change

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POEM: Locked in Prism

This poem is inspired by one of the things I learned in prison: that everybody there is innocent. Of course, by this I mean that everybody claims to be innocent. I learned that this phenomenon is rooted in the notion that each inmate had done a long series of illegal activity — BUT, they only got caught and convicted on the one thing that brought them there. Because they had gotten away with so many things, the one time they got caught must truly be the aberration. Interestingly, a prison counselor noted a similar thing: the only difference between the jailers and the jailed was that the jailed got caught. As apparently is often the case, I was the exception, being openly proud  of my guilt in an ongoing act of civil disobedience (refusing to register for the military draft). Of course, I was also my own lawyer in my trial, so I am patently a fool. This also manifested another exception, as I was the only one there that was happy with their lawyer.

This poem also reflects somewhat on the process and meaning of rehabilitation, which, of course, has almost nothing to do with our corrections system in a carceral state. But alas, who am I to speak; I am all about pun-ishment…

Locked in Prism

Have you ever been
Locked in prism
He wore his stole
With an unqueer pried
A hundred times over
Never catching
That elusive justice
Except that won time
An unjust lottery
A story tolled
Agin and agin
As if
Ever dumb founded
The hole lot
Down to a person
In crowd sorcery
How ever pick
With sow many lessens
Taken
To heart
Too master
What is their
Too under stand
Know fateful exception
Perhaps in due time
As owed
As sing
Sing
As sum wear
Over the rainbow
Never again

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POEM: A Big Rock in a Bigger Pond

This poem plays with the metaphor of the many ripples of life set in motion by epic forces that set up an existential dance with the universe…

A Big Rock in a Bigger Pond

In mist of the universe
Plunges a monumental stone
From who knows where
Being thrown into
That udder most pond
That exacting spot
We find ourselves
Miring
That waving to know end
As if
Radiating hi
And lo
Positively con centric circles
All out
And if loiter
In the middle
Crushed by a nature boulder
Drowned by a grave muddiness
Leading a grate life
Wile it lasts
Left to graveling
And sow
What does it take
To flourish
On this rocky see
Living on the edge
Of ever growing circles
Awe leading
To the same place
Gamely surfing
And rock on
As if
Star dust spit
And tears
Reining wisdom
Onto us
Weather pissed off
Or just
Giving a crap
After awe
In jest

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POEM: Here on Abet

A mythic narrative that describes the arc of my life fairly well is the idea that I am here on a bet. More specifically, the bet was that, as in a previous life, I was a peasant scolding those living in affluent countries as not behaving justly to their fellow humanity. As the story would go, I bet that I could do a much better job of that if I were living in their culture. So…here I am. Of course, my actual biography suggests this as well. I was born in Haiti to well-educated Americans serving there temporarily as doctor and nurse. My fate was entirely different than the poor Haitians populating the village I was born in. As in the mythic narrative, I was whisked away to an entirely different culture, affluent and unmindful, and perhaps even actively scornful, of other cultures, particularly poor and black. I describe the biggest tension in my soul as a struggle to make sense and purpose of the chasm between affluent Western culture, ostensibly the “First World,” with economically poor non-Western cultures, the “Two-thirds World.” I still struggle. The bet is still on.

Here on Abet

I got life
Here on abet
Soully that
I will
I a test
Due bettor
My grave conviction
Arising
From a bounding go arounds
Of a thousand peasantries
In efface of each
And every marrow
Of serf and turf
Wars
My behind
Locked
In a whirled
Of vane abundance
My ahead
Swimming
In the deep end
Of the betting pool
Karmicly quipped
Down with ante up
Even knowing
Feeling stranger
God likes the odds
Sow why grouse
As rigged game
Only too have
Found myself
In a broke world
Stuck in the whole
Fore what peers
Like forever

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POEM: Away With Words

Some years ago, I heard a Latin American poet say that his criteria for keeping a poem was whether it improved upon silence. This seems like a good rule for speaking in most situations.

Away With Words

How can I improve
Up on silence
Beyond dumb founding
The ultimate present
Away with words

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POEM: Did I Hear You Write?

This funny short poem takes particular advantage of how my punny writing is used to meditate on righting the whirled. My poems typically read silently differently than how they seem read out loud. This is a good example of my being an outspoken unspoken word artist.

Did I Hear You Write?

Did I hear you write
Know worries
It’s just
Accost of doing business
Pay know tension too
Man’s behind
Curtains

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POEM: To Know a Veil

This poem is about desiring God, and for the spirit to fully incarnate in flesh. I have long thought that the best metaphors for understanding God is through parenthood, the unconditional love for a child, and through being lovers, desiring to become one flesh and gloriously meld spirits. One is more hierarchical and the other more egalitarian. This poem is on the ladder, a full groan meditation on the unsatisfying veil between me and God, and wanting more.

To Know a Veil

God came and kissed me
Hearty and tender
Yet through a veil
Desirous of flesh on flesh
Envious of unfettered spirits soaring
Only to find myself
In sackcloth
Unsatisfied
More annunciation than consummation
As flesh before spirit
As spirit after flesh
Left as awkward bedfellows
Right as rein
Wanting
To no a veil

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POEM: The Ark of History

Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “the arc of history bends toward justice.” I share this hope, and plan to add my share of acts and just living. May we all join in blessed solidarity and work to tell history to get bent in a most awesome way.

The Ark of History

How are we
Too divine
That legendary express way
Of the arc of history bending
Toward justice
All though often
Miss
Taken
Fore just us
The ark of history is long
And longing
The largesse possible
Immeasurable enough
For awe
And surpassing patients
In efface of pain and suffering
Surviving
And bye and bye
Taking each won of us
However long
Side each loss championed
That billed we are tolled
Sow mysteriously
A cross generation
After generation
Even seventy times seven!
Resurrecting hope
In the face of dearth
The fodder of fairer daze
Be for us

 

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POEM: Having Landed, Hear

This poem is about the Great Unwashed rising up and sailing into anew world.

Having Landed, Hear

In such a manor
You wanted
A place at the table
Fore awe that
Know longer
On the menu
Unendingly apprehended
On top of the whirled
Taken
For granite
And just the same
That our shows up
Messing with won’s ahead
Who knocked over the table
Such a rare sight to sea
In a world mostly for sail
Navigating that bounteous solution
Taking no ship
From know one
Lumbering long the weigh
Left to build
Anew world
Fleet for awe
Especially for the great unwashed
Or mirrorly castles
In the heir

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POEM: True Believer

When it comes down to it, I am a true believer, a true romantic, an unrepentant idealist. This is only made more known to me when I stray and return home.

True Believer

You just
May see it in
My ayes
Fore I am
A true believer
YES!
Awe the more
In every miss giving
Sew gratified
To return home

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POEM: A Madder of Time

This poem plays with the notions of patience and urgency in a whirled that can be crazy, like berserkers crying for help. The tempting insanity of joining the frenetic pace of crazy can’t just be brushed off, as some sane response must be mustered. This may require some adept and wise intuition, even daring, even when a full grasp of the situation is impossible.

A Madder of Time

A madder of time
As patients in sane asylum
Crazies running the whirled
Well
We aren’t
Going to wade
So much too due
If you are wandering
Get intuit
‘for you can’t
Simply no

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POEM: It is I, Can You Not Hear Me?

This poem is an ode to nature speaking to us, and in particular exploring the notion of Nature or God as a subject, not mere object or inert matter, but infused with spirit.

It is I, Can You Not Hear Me?

Can you not hear me?
In the wind
Like breath
That comes and goes
From where nobody no’s
Can you not hear me?
Echoing throughout the earth
Trod under
And holding upright
Can you not hear me?
In the rain
Falling down
As sow many angels
Can you not hear me?
In the grass and trees
Reaching for the sun
Haplessly hoping
Like Sisyphus and Icarus
Just in time
Hour brethren
Can you not hear me?
In creatures small and large
Bugging
Creeping
Scampering
Flying
Can you not hear me?
In the stars
Punching light out
In the darkest dark
Can you not hear me?
In a laugh and wry smile
In a solitary tear
Do you have years to hear?
Can you not hear me?
It is I
Can you not here me?

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POEM: Just Us for Sum

This poem is a bout the long journey to recognizing that we are all in the same boat, weather that be an ark or the Titanic.

Just Us for Sum

Won group over an other
Taking
Into account
Their own
Reckon their figures
Into a nullifying sum
In efface of others
Nonplussed
When equals pissed
And madder of coarse
After awe
Come to
Under stand
Wee is them
In the ark of history
Too buy two
In the same bout
As one
How ever odd
A damnable whirled covered by see
Soully yearning
On the other side of damn
Never again

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POEM: Fallen, For It

This poem is an ode to hubris, perhaps the greatest enemy to our collective lives. The largest hubris of all is leaning into hubris as a character asset. The Tower of Babel will fall, as well as every version of Icarus flying into the sun; which, ironically, may be the ultimate success of The Tower of Babel reaching for heaven on earth.

Fallen, For It

Hole-y high jinx badman
We had
Billed
A mountain of hubris
Crowned with a dizzying bluff
A real butte
Inspiration left
With the thinnest of heirs
A teetering arrogance
Sir passing any plumb it
Taking
The plunge
A knows dive
An udder most land fill
Begging an awe time lo!
And having
Fallen
For it
Swallows US
Hole

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POEM: Buy Racial? Bi Gender?

This poem deals with the fiction of race and gender as distinct biological realities. Of course, as social constructs, race and gender have profound impacts on our lives together.

Buy Racial? Bi Gender?

They were neither
Black nor white
Yet
Both
Black as white
By the grays of God
Like wise
They were neither
Male nor female
Yet
Both
Male and female
As a parent
Too sum
Sew they seam

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