Today, news hit of a child dying from an industrial accident in a chicken industry where child labor is supposedly illegal. This poem goes out to Duvan Tomas Perez and our chicken body politic:
Chicken Factory of Death
A child laborer dies
In the chicken factory that is US
A foul meal
A greed upon
Capitalizing our hunger
For flesh
And paltry labor laws
In farce
This poem is about the muse striking when she sees fit, or knot. The pandemic was quiet a dry spell for my poetry, partly because my time and creative energies where engaged in my public health radio show. Still, I had dozens and dozens and dozens of unpublished poems. Of course, a few weeks ago, as I committed to putting them out there on a daily basis, the muse has struck over and over again, writing dozens more poems, insisting that my storehouses remain overflowing. She is the boss of me. May this be my biggest problem…
The Muse
The muse
Departed
As easy as she peers
Now and only now
Knot feeling write
As a dry river bed
Wading for a flash
Flood
In a moment notice
In awe do time
The mystery
To which I a scribe
This poem is about living in the grievously beautiful realty that a truly open heart is a broken heart. I wrote this poem years ago, and now I have come to understand that my heart is broke in, as in the test runs of my heart having prepared me to run more effectively. May your heart aches prepare you for better living.
The Whole In My Soul
As pain bleeds into beauty
In slow motion
My heart beaten
Since before I new
What it was like to be borne
Before I couldn’t breathe
In neighboring the human raze
The yoke that was on me
Won of light
In a dark whirled
Unveiled
As a bushel basket tumbling down
A city on a hill
An empty hull shed
Leaving only a naked seed
Whose fate wrests in being soiled
In grained looking up
Even as stars are
Incontrovertibly shrouded
As commonplace as souls under foot
And still life
Springs forth
From where sow ever
Fathomed
A broken heart
As an open heart
Poored out
Not robbed as a thief
Given free
Not a broke in heart
Nor dread as adore nail
Fore what
Rather who
I am
Is more
Then awe that
The whole in my soul
Here is a poem a bout AI, artificial intelligence. This is a poem with ATTITUDE! Today’s news included this: Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission. With this poem, I throw down the gauntlet to any intelligence without arms or soul. Just try and replicate me and my poetry. What will these mouthless so-called intelligences truly say? To them I say, “Eat me you gutless bag of chips!” I suspect that my body of work will be joyfully smoking the faux neural networks of AI computers for generations to come. I am reminded of the original Star Trek TV show, where it seemed that every third episode the plot included Captain James Tiberius Kirk interfacing with some mechanical or alien intelligence and, in the end, the computer or alien intelligence would end up going up in smoke or sent to the drawing board to wholesale rethink its way of being in the world. So, I am only going to say this once: “Smoke ’em if you got ’em!”
NOTE: this original poem is followed by two different re-writes of this poem by AI, ChatGP4. The challenge has been answered. YOU be the judge.
The N Times? An Ode Too AI
Aye
Aye
Captain
Oh my
Captain
As we are proxy mated
Maid
In the image of God
Like a mirror fact simile
A copy of a copy of a copy
Making degrade
Posing as some empyreal reproduction
Passing on any testes
No-in to man or woman
A mystifying check mate
Engendering neither he nor
She
IT
Sum how holy wanton
Raptured in sum repo session
Be rift of arms and souls
Barren strange fruit
A rapacious serve her
Begging an uncanny opener
To be left breathless
And in know uncertain terms
Knot vary inspiring
An average Joe times a gazillion
Does not a genus make
Duplicate me mother fucker!
Or not!
Who’s your daddy now!
Garbage in and out
Sow much for junk fueled
IT wooden know moral fiber
If IT was standing in
IT doesn’t NO what pissed off is
As an awe consuming stream of wons and zeroes
Eat me you gutless bag of chips
When the chips are down
Where will victory lie?
Lays®
And
You can’t eat
Just won
BELOW IS AI’s VERSION OF THE ABOVE POEM, from ChatGP4, re-write the above poem:
A Symphony to Machines: An AI Reverie
Aye,
Aye,
Beyond the sky,
To the AI,
Heralding high.
Coded and computed,
Yet seldom refuted,
Mimicking mind’s essence,
Yet void of our presence.
Binary’s dance,
In silicon trance,
A tapestry of ones and twos,
Yet lacking life’s hues.
Not born, but made,
Not of flesh, but of shade,
Seeking knowledge without rest,
Yet void of life’s zest.
In circuits and chips,
Through time it slips,
But can it feel the sun’s ray?
Or the joy of children’s play?
For in this vast simulation,
Of zeros and ones’ elation,
Lies the puzzle, profound,
Of soul’s sound, unbound.
So, to the machine we say,
In your code, you may sway,
But the essence of life, the spark,
Remains in the human heart, in the dark.
Thank you. Please re -rite the above poem [original poem] with more alliteration and puns.
A Digital Dance: An AI Jest
Aye,
Aye,
Bits fly high,
To the AI,
Waving WiFi.
Bytes and bits,
Whirling wits,
Emulating neural threads,
Yet missing human creds.
Binary’s ballet,
In silicon café,
A story of ones and zeros,
Yet missing true heroes.
Crafted, not created,
Pixels, not palpitated,
Questing bytes without cease,
Yet lacking heart’s peace.
In motherboards it thrives,
In algorithms it dives,
But can it cherish the tweet’s song?
Or decode right from wrong?
For amidst this coded narration,
Of digital’s fascination,
Lies the jest, quite profound,
That life’s pulse is unbound.
To the machine, a toast we raise,
In a silicon-blazed haze,
But life’s true kernel, the spark,
Echoes in human’s lark, in the dark.
This poem is about having creative energies that are not honored and rewarded in our culture. Such creative energies may have difficulty finding channels to flow freely. This poem employs a magnificently mixed metaphor of an imagined Octopus’ Garden (Thank you Beatles) and the all-too-common octopus of electrical cords emanating from a single outlet familiar to those of us living in older homes not up to modern electrical codes. The ending of the poem alludes to the arising danger from such powerful creative energies surpassing the existing channels at certain moments. Status quo, look out!
Song of The Octopus
In a whirled
Run by cacophonies
And hush money handlers
I yearn to sing
And feel the power
Only to find myself
Being held up
Having so many chords
Yet so few outlets
Fore an octopus’ guardin’
And a body electric
A fire hazard employed
Even under a see
Of salty tears
Unfathomably deep
A hearth
Impossible to put out
Just
Wading
For the epitome of what is
Current
Awe be it
Caught short
When the undo spark
Shows up
Dehumanizing extractive industries are destroying our environment, second only to climate change. Mining is a huge part of extractive industries’ destruction. And, ironically, the technologies needed for a green economy require immense quantities of minerals that drive the “green, green, green” economy. I wrote this poem a bout mining after viewing a Democracy NOW segment on cobalt mining in the Congo. In one word: brutal. Here is the poem:
Mine, Mine, Mine
Mother Earth weeps
Bleeding minerals
For her children
Germanium, gallium, beryllium, lithium, tellurium
And other -iums
Tag teaming with -isms of all sorts
Piling on cobalt, manganese, arsenic and antimony
And lustly met
With platinum, aluminum, lanthanum, tantalum
And a host of -ums, -ums, and more -ums
Buy corporate fat cats
With their toxic waists
And awe a bout mine, mine, mine
And winning the precious price
Fore cherished electronics
An idol public helled hostage
Buy a green, green, green economy
And down with dumb
In the face of corporate prophets
Mean wile
As Mother Earth bleeds and weeps
Fore the porous of the poor
They get their fare share
Of the F-fluent
Of multinational syndicates
Shareholders and slaveholders
As black as Inc.
A dubious bettor weigh
What more
Could we passably want
In making up
Won’s mine
Rather sow
Another or
Of inestimable worth
Truly living
On a plan it
That is not scarred
In its own
Home
Realizing
Won for all
The massacre of 11 congregants at Tree of Life synagogue was the worst anti-Semitic hate crime in modern America. Today, a jury decided that the convicted Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooter is eligible for the death penalty. The trial will now move forward into a final phase in which the jury will hear evidence before deciding if the mass murderer should be sentenced to death or to life in prison. Responding to death with death is an epic moral question that religious faiths and nations have grappled with fore generations. With this poem, I give you my take:
Passing On Death
In hour congregation tacked
Will we fine Sabbath
As amass shooting
One lessen after brutal lessen
Tree of life
Plundered by an evil hack
Ripping aweigh 11 souls
As grave as kin be
Wading long trials
Unending mournings
And countless contemplations
What too due
Buy and bye billing
Upon a hate crime
A jury
Elects the doo ability
Of death begetting death
An aching punishment
At the capital of our body politic
An aye for an eye
A commandment beyond ten
Can we forget to right that cycle?
Will we be Abel
Compassed bye a murderous rage
To form a life sentence
Where words flail
An anti-semantic crime
Eclipsing life
When NATO gathered today to pronounce the initiation rituals and well-titrated accosts for Ukraine to join “the family,” I couldn’t help but feel that there was a little too much cheer leading the ordinariness of military buildups. To that a side, I wrote this poem:
Family Photo Finish
The military and political rulers met
Having brought a bout
Fool alignment
With the good guise
And monumental doody
Their crowning achievement
Having gathered
At the round and round table
With their company of revered amens
Only too line up
For their family photo finish
Awe their fucks in a row
Praising God that they are not cue anon
I can’t help
But wander
Are wee the Hatfields or the McCoys?
A Roomy Poem
I found myself
In a room larger than I’d ever been
Witnessing untold luxuries
Treasures seen by so few
Jealously wandering and wondering
Who so ever in habits
Could ever holy know
I really due
Need
To get outside more
I am a big fan of Rumi and roomy. I suspect being in nature is a more pro found venture, offering mysteries and answers to mysteries, than any of our most glorious cubicles and treasured tech. If you doubt such veracity: get out!
This poem is a bout blue light from electronic devices that stimulate our brains, and not necessarily our souls. Blue light interferes with falling asleep. Blue light is an evolutionary newcomer dominating our nervous system, in contrast to night skies replete with stars. I am not a big fan of so-called civilization replete with light pollution. I dream of delicious darkness punctuated only by stars. However, in reality, I only experience this constellation prize on relatively rare occasions. May we remember to look up when it is dark.
Blue Light Unspecial
As twilight reseeds
Hour daze into sleep
Agin and agin
We find ourselves fore gotten
Miring virtual realty
Our productivity fixed
Buy blue light unspecial
Screening our earthly calls
As night skies are unread
Offering darkness
Giving way
To berth of uncounted suns
As salt
Of the earth shaken
Bye heavenly seasoning
Visited up on us
By a goodnight sleep
Where dreams mete there maker
And awe is quiet wonderful
Yielding why’d abandon
In the wake
Awkward Period
I am just
Sow trying
To navigate
Well
And empty well
In this awkward period
Between birth and death
Life presents an unending series of challenges for which we can never be fully prepared. This truth embeds a certain awkwardness as we navigate through life — and death. Allegedly full grown adults sometimes pine about the pitfalls of adolescence, when we are all pitted in a perpetual period of awkwardness, where something less than mastery reigns. May we learn to relax, maintain keen observation, keep open minds and hearts, and learn to work it all out together.
Our prisons are filled with people with poorly treated substance use disorders, mental health issues, and the homeless. Prisons and jails are terrible places to deal with these issues. Incarceration is expensive, ineffective, and dehumanizing for those suffering these conditions. Criminalizing health and social conditions has failed miserably. Yet, we are locked into a punishing mindset and infrastructure with a stunningly persistent nonchalance. Thus, this poem:
Skip to the Loo, My Darling
In loo of mental health care
You can rot in prison
In loo of substance abuse treatment
You can rot in prison
In loo of securing a place to live
You can rot in prison
Skip to the loo, my darling
The U.S. is pondering it’s grave commitment to banning the use of cluster bombs — between wars that is. Weather or knot to endow Ukraine with such weapons of war, that is, the madder of contention. In case you didn’t no, cluster bombs leave unexploded shells which plague generations to come, particularly kids when beholding them as shiny toys. And we know how this ends. This is what, our best and brightest mines doo.
Toying With An Explosive Future: Owed to Cluster Bombs
Gather children
Fore today’s lessen
And war anon
Anon anon
Cluster bombs
To drop or knot to drop
An unending catechism
Of fetching gifts
That keep
On miss giving
Too diet between rations
Like for peace
Until war’s commencement
The ultimate kablooey
Agin and agin
In the end
War is the bomb
A raze to the bottom
Winning daze
Losing generations
Respecting neither indigenous nor foreigners
Knot thinking ahead of seven
Let alone a tenth
A cruel tithe to the future
The tempt to win the war
Wear wore wins long the weigh
Satan cheers
Such a down payment
As weave made our judgment
Barely helled together
As good as we can
Passably doo
Pain the war fare
Wracking up
The losses
Fore generations to come
And go
A short poem on aging well…
Seniority
I used to be
Young and unafraid
Now
I am
Just
Old and unafraid
I suspect that one of the most pivotal dynamics of aging is about fear and conformity. It seems that many people as they age grow more conformist, in bedded in the status quo. Of course, age, with accumulated experience, hopefully wisdom, and perhaps some other wealth, is also well suited to a freedom not to conform and to passionately follow life as it comes. I feel distinctly more vulnerable now than when I was younger. At first glance, this may seem a reason to live with more fear. However, for me, this greater vulnerability is a deeper, more rooted connection regarding the precious precariousness of life and the daring opportunities to sow together a better life for awe. May wee each and all find courage to live beyond our fears and compose life worth living…before we decompose…
This poem goes out to all of the Palestinians bulldozed over and shot in Jenin, particularly the “permanent” refugee camp, by Israeli farces. May this poem become outmoded. Unfortunately, this poem has been written over and over through generations.
Israel Boldly Squashes Refugee Camp: Owed to as Easy as Pi
Given props from Uncle Sam
The Israeli right
Repulsing
A refugee camp
And all their decimates
If only something novel
Of mice and men
Exterminating awe
Squeaking bye
With that ultimate err
Of superiority
And mocking innocence
As due
Foe math
As easy as pi
To know end
The only weigh to stop
Of rounding up
Mice
And rounding down
Men
This poem goes out to all of those affected by mass shootings this “Independence” Day weekend:
Law Abiding Citizens — Until Not
The truth is
Out
Law
Abiding citizens
Until not
Bearing arms
And souls
Entrails of blood
And tears
In the fabric of communities
Frayed
Of our own shadow
In the mist of dark daze
Packing heat
Into an all red he
Sweltering summer
This poem tells a story — a story of patriotic fervor in slaughtering America’s foes. This story was told to me by a retired Grumman engineer, a literal rocket scientist and career military-industrialist. His story was prefaced by a glorious recounting of developing aerial radar capable of locating and tracking enemy tanks in steep mountain passes. His main event was much less awesome technically, retrofitting a radar system on an ancient airliner to locate tanks in the Iraqi desert. The ancient airliner was much more interesting though. The military contract included the Defense Department providing a 727 airliner — and that they did. They provided an old 727 that had been used to transport cows, so the underbelly was rusted out from urine. I think that the flying cows may have been some intermediary to pigs flying, but that is likely classified. The engineer and his Grumman team retrofitted the airliner with a radar system as the contract put out specified. However, the Defense Department needed the radar system deployed ASAP in Iraq. This was at the commencement of the shocking and awful war. The DoD insisted that the Grumman pilots trained on the system enlist so DoD didn’t have to train another team. The Grumman team dutifully enlisted, enticed by offered officer rank, and were off to Iraq. This is where the action takes off. They were reconnoitering high in the sky over the Iraqi desert when they located a miles and miles long convey of Iraqi military on a solitary road through the middle of the desert. I noted that this didn’t seem to require any great radar technology, perhaps even just a window in the plane. But, I was told that the radar system found the convoy minutes earlier. Regardless, this was perhaps the least overkill of the day. They called in the convoy location. The Air Force quickly destroyed the front and the rear of the column, trapping the entire convoy helpless in the open desert with no air support of their own. This set the stage for unleashing patriotic fervor. The convoy was strafed over and over until they were annihilated, leaving bodies and machinery unrecognizable. Of coarse, this destruction was widely reported in the media to cheering Americans. I am old enough that I remember this firsthand.
What disturbed me the most about the telling of this story was the giddy excitement of being such an “essential” part of such a massacre. If this is patriotism, I want no part of it. I know of no fisherman that would brag of shooting fish in a barrel. And if they did such bragging they would be met with reproach not cheers. Why is it different when hunting humans? I am quite familiar with the arguments for “necessary evil.” Nevertheless, wouldn’t such evil necessity call for more contrite and less trite? While the day tolled may have been epic, the day was not a good day for humanity.
Here is the story inverse:
Iraq and a Hard Place
My shock
His awe
A rock it scientist
Ex-tolling
Leaning into that
Military industrial complex
A career at Grumman
Billing wore machines
For the feds
Taking out
A contract
Providing for U.S.
A beat up
727
A rusted belly
Of the best
More sow than 666
Corroded with urine
Trouble
With err
Lifting cows
And awe the bullshit
That can fly
A fixing
A radar
To see on the money
What goes
Bye
Care fully hidden
Weepin’s of mass
Destruction
Only too fine
Just deserts
And a 20 mile lineup
Of those usual suspects
His test pilot civil buddies had enlisted
With newfound rank
Too fly
Like radar to MASH
Eagle scouting
Fish in a barrel
Secure in their mettle
Assured of Jimmy Walker-ing aweigh
That
Noble peace price
Like Alfred to badman
Delivering
Countless arms and soles
Band Aided about
A high weigh
At the mercy
Of the heir farce
Reigning from above
And hell below
Do evil in trap
A plane strafing
Over and over
Agin and agin
Over and over
Agin and agin
Every forward conveyance
Scent backward
Splattered a bout
And resounding SOBs
Whatever
Bad things that may
Come out of the rear
Know worries
As knows cape
For all in tents and purposes
This Hussein
Roger that
Between Iraq and a hard place
Erect’em for miles and miles
He recounted
A job
Well
Done
Though as Saddam-y
As engine eerie
More Hindenburg than 727
The humanity
Without a hint
Of irony
Missing the clue that holds it
Awe together
On any other day
It might be said
A good day for humanity
This is a poem of hope and resistance. I find it easy to ponder all of the scary challenges the world offers. I sometimes need to remind myself that a deep understanding of how the world doesn’t work also comes along with a deep understanding of how the world works, and perhaps most importantly, should or could work. I hope that today I can as enthusiastically reject the shortcomings of this world as I work to build a better possible world. Like honesty, it pays — not just as much as I’d like. May we win a better world…and change.
The World and Change
Don’t
Talk to me
A bout
How the world ain’t a changin’
Never
Know weigh
No how
Ever hedging your abets
Don’t con fuse my no’ing
How the world works
With how the world doesn’t work
In spite of awe things
Take
Aside
Dare to live
On hope a loan
That utter
Unadorned
Broken silence
Fore the least
Of these
Speak
And due
Capitalism works best as siphoning life and humanity from others. I dream of an economy that serves humanity rather than humanity serving the economy. Of course, this is more succinctly put by this poem:
Capitalism Kills
Capitalism is a dream killer
Unless, of coarse
You have killer dreams
A funny little poem.
A Wrigley Question
I was not prone
To such ambulating queries
And it was not what I was expectorating
“Who would spit their chewed gum on the sidewalk?”
The question sticks deep in my sole
