This a poem about not being perfect but being perfectly enough.
Holy Enough
It is hard to brake illusions
Yet I smashed this one with ease
The illusion of me being holy
Evident to awe around me
And especially sow
My secret tell
A simple won
Of being wholly enough
This is a poem I wrote a while back when a state legislature proposed capital punishment for abortion. Perhaps a low for the so-called “pro-life” forces. Hey alleged “pro-lifers,” I raze you, an end to capital punishment and an end to war.
Capital Punishment for Abortion?!
The rabbit died
Death to all rabbits!
Theirs was a veracious appetite
Down the rabbit whole
When it came
Two life
There are pros and cons
Parently
Your womb is their parish
Abhor shun is their crime
The bats in their belfry
Are a real hit to many
A political monster
Demanding fetus
Fetus now!
Dam those moms!
And if that sperm and egg knighted
Make it not
Take the mom to boot
All the same
Lynching would be rued
A state in force meant
Is greeded wantingly
It’s all a bout, their base
There hollowed religion
A crucifix for every problem
Priestly oversight
Of every conceivable thing
And all creepy things unearth
Though if staffing doesn’t permit
You can champion choice
With a meager fry her
One crowning present
Her
And her last rights
Here is a very short poem about the wisdom of living in the present.
In Play Cache
Now
That moment
In play
Cache
Or other wise
This poem is a rare combination of my life as a poet and a public health worker. This poem juxtaposes the personal option of some to choose organic food but the collective difficulty of choosing clean air. Some times we can individually buy our way out of health issues through economic power but securing common goods, such as clean air, require much more collective actions. May we take a collective breath and work together to secure a robust public health for all.
Take a Collective Breath
So, why do you eat organic food?
Because it is easier
Than breathing organic air
And if you don’t get it
It is not my fault
It is our fault
Our collective share
It’s inspired
As our common good
Or not
This poem captures a funny perspective that I have on atheists. I definitely feel for people with agnostic perspectives; though I see it as a bit indecisive. On the other hand, I see atheists as carrying their certainty a bit far. This poem takes into account God’s purported dubious existence or job performance and posits that given awe of that, God is still, quiet, powerful…
Still Quiet Powerful
Wile he scoffed
At the mirror know shun
Of an omnipotent God
And such
On the Job failure
Sow silent missives
Re: lax
One might
Wont to consider
As give in
God slack
Of existence
God is
Still
Quiet
Powerful
Doing doing doing seems to be addiction in our culture, especially when compared to spending time in less goal-driven states. I suspect that relaxing and letting go could free up deeper harmonies in life with perhaps a surprising effect: making our actions better as well.
Re: lax
If there is won thing
That is over-raided
It is too due stuff
There is a flow
Of deep harmonies
That can only be
Joined by letting go
Cleaving to awe
That fine align
In the thick of
Shepherding abound
A mist rhyme and reason
Making us
Act better
Life is full of possibilities. Exploring them is an unending quest. Saying, “YES,” is a good start.
Yes
He new
That it was
A once
In a life
Time
Experience
Plus
One
May say
What he didn’t no
Could fill the hole
Universe
This poem is a commentary on ingenuously using overly complicated machinations and demagoguery to achieve simple and base desires of greed and power. This sad state of affairs is empowered by a sufficient pool of fools, or rubes. The poem’s title is derived from a Rube Goldberg machine, which is a chain reaction-type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way.
Rube Goldberg Rubes
I AM (sic)
Tard
Of cobbling won after the other
A soulless Rube Goldberg machine
Of unfathomable guise
Demeanor the better
Twisted at warp speed
That under
Lying order
A total bluff
Petty prestidigitations
In towering piles
As hole of the world
Plunging entrails
Well
Trod
What will it
Take
Too yearn my keep
Life longing
That whole knew level
Of awe reality
Over and above mirror realty
Flush with the holy possible
Baring our souls
To new heights
Inspiring life-giving heirs
Never halving
Too cross
A line meant
To bar no one
A salud to awe
This poem is a riff on on the Matrix movie franchise, of which one was entitled, “Matrix Revolutions.” This poem plays with the notion of incremental change as often inadequate when facing epic existential choices, and the daunting all-ternative.
Matrix™ Evolution®
He refused
To get with the program
His life as sum hack
As if some eve
Would deliver him
From his
Unremitting mess-age
Beyond making cents
Follow the rabbit
Shoulder some awesome
Response ability
Without question
What if
He can’t take it
Some pill
As if
Weather feeling blue
Or red
Only to efface awe
Other choice
And
Due the impossible
Down the rabbit
Whole
This short poem is a particular melding of my love of poetry and work for social justice.
It’s Time
There is a time for awe things
And awe things knot
There is a time for writing poetry
And for righting what is
Not poetry
A poem speaking out against monetizing useless or harmful clicks and against tribalism in all of its forms…
Clicks and Cliques
How ever unsure won may be
Regarding what is
The measure of a life
You can wrest assured
Is knot a bout
Clicks and cliques
Perhaps the best Dad joke ever told.
True Story
Won time
In Bible study
We were discussing the whether
A human can see the face of God
And live
The reverend said know
Buuuuttt
Being made
In His image
According to Jewish tradition
After communing with God
As God was just leaving
Abraham caught a glimpse
Of His uppermost buttocks
And having scene
The answer
I could only say
Of course, that makes perfect sense
If the son is a carpenter
That the father is a plumber
You don’t all ways have to believe in soul to have soul.
Not My Sole Brother
He said
My kind doesn’t believe
In soul
Well I’ll be
That’s knot allot of soul
Though fore
Assure abet
Call it
Rhythm and blues
Hope is an awesome thing, not for the timid. If we don’t find hope, hope may just hunt us down and swallow us whole.
Monstrous Hope
Hope is some kind
Of monster
Who metes us awe
With gaping jaw
Where the timid and hesitant lose
A hand, an arm, or much more
Who will only recount
To kin and stranger alike
Tails of loss and whoa
As hope moves on
Only to the innocent and uncowed
Those holy committed
Swallowed whole
And as Jonah’s wail
Find themselves
Threw the end
Sow tell a true tail
Though few scarce believe
Having had
Learned what they learned
In know other way
This poem goes out to all the women who made this world a better place. As a man in a man’s world, I can only say, I would be nothing without you.
As Opposed to De-liver
Thank you feminists
For delivering
This male
In this here somewhat United States, individualism breeds divide and conquer, leaving US, out standing in its field.
Wed to Individualism
Teeming with victory a loan
May the best man win
Baring that wring
That makes life worth wile
Face to face given the finger
Fore bettor or worse
Two too much
And just left
Buy himself
With mere age
Doomed to be dated
Never more than
The sum of they’re parts
The muse finally got around to delivering this one…
Pro-crastinator
It was already too late
He had discovered that
Procrastination pays
Other wise
He would be
An amateur-crastinator
I often wake up to the sound of traffic on I-75 about a half mile from my house. I yearn for quiet in my life. I mourn the impossibility of true quiet in the city. I also no that addiction to busyness and unfettered commerce that fouls our natural world and manufactures a culture that spews heir pollution. This poem is an ode to rivers of petroleum kindling an overly concrete whirled.
Semi-Quiet Neighborhood: Ode to I-75
Weather early mourn
Or passed the midnight hour
A river of asphalt
Overly concrete
Divides silence and noise
Half a smile away
The dawning
Of a semi-quiet neighborhood
Delivering a definitive coo
Humming a crude attune
A buzz of impending busyness
Commerce and other intercourse
Ready to rumble
Trafficking in every workable wake
A purr preoccupation
Out bidding us
As you whir
Entreating us
Drone on
So-so much winning
Daze upon daze
The supposed vehicles of hour security
As you worry free
Kneading knot
The future weights
Spewing heir pollution
Like there is no tomorrow
Sounding every alarm
Of eternal wrest
I recently heard someone describe the Buddhist concept of enlightenment as “lightening up.” I have long been a fan of the Buddhist practice of “nonseriousness.” This has helped me in my perpetual vacillation between being the most serious person in the room and being incapable of being serious. On good days, I vote for “lightening up” when faced with an overly serious impulse to take people down. This poem more succinctly lays out such judgment.
Judgment Call
When dark daze
Come to a head
Weather lightening up
Or lightning down
It’s your call
I suspect most everyone has had an encounter where someone completely misses your point and then launches into an unenlightening screed. This poem puts it poetically, of coarse.
Flick Off
They had missed the point
In tiredly
Icite full analysis
Like a booger in their knows
Just begging
Flick off
