As we formally move into the oligarchic era, my lifetime project of valuing humanity over money continues…
Razing Money
My whole life
Has been
Trying
To raze money
For humanity
As we formally move into the oligarchic era, my lifetime project of valuing humanity over money continues…
Razing Money
My whole life
Has been
Trying
To raze money
For humanity
On this MLK Day, I am reminded of his “mountaintop” speech delivered the night before he was assassinated. I used this “mountaintop” reference in my poem, BUCKET BRIGADE – Owed to Karen Krause, written for a friend who died in 2013. Here is an excerpt:
For what death cannot touch
We have firmly held
The mountaintop
In portions made human
Sizing us up
Long the weigh
Only making us stronger
Martin Luther King, Jr. referenced difficult times ahead, and 56 years later this reality persists, within the long, multi-generational struggles for peace and justice. May each of us incarnate the good fight. “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have no need to wait for tomorrow’s bloviation.
Inaugural Be Rating
A tyrant who rhymes with orange
As a bully pulp it
A caca phony
Of coinages
And doing his deed
The highest doody
In the king dumb
Bye a baptism of you’re fired
The guise we can
Ad mire
Threw the mud
A nation drug
Buy the highest oaf in the land
Some may see God as unnecessary in their search for meaning. I like my spirituality Allah mode.
Allah Mode
There is plenty
Of human kind
That lives without
God of any owed understanding
I AM
Never the less
Still
Quiet covet us
Of God desserted
That as other wise known
Allah mode
NOTE: I think that this the first poem of mine involving an Arabic/French language pun. Fortunately, these references are common enough in the English language that most readers should get it.
This poem is based on a Zen story where a conquering general sweeps through towns, and people, like a sword through water. The general eventually comes upon a soul monk practicing a meditative prayer. The general announces himself, “Do you not know that I am the warrior who will run a sword through you without blinking an eye?” The monk answers the question by announcing himself, “Do you not know that I am the monk who can be run through with a sword without blinking an eye?” In the original story, the general throws down his sword and begs the monk to take him on as his disciple. The poem has a more open ending.
General Li Wong
A warrior
Of ultimate rank
Thinking to hi heaven
Conquered village after village
Like a sword
Running through water
Life scattering
Like only blood kin due
Until won fateful our
He showed up
At the peek
Of his kingly ambition
And every corporeal aspiration
A loan temple
A soul monk
Exorcising a breath preyer
Bringing a bout
These ordained udderings
Due you no who I am?!
I am the ruler
That will
Run my sword
Through you
Like water
Without blinking an eye
To which he was presented
A stair beyond belief
That most inviting peer
I am ruled by no won
Can you know who I am
Who can have a sword
Run through him
Without blinking an I
And what can lonely be learned
By a thousand villages razed
A cryptic seeing
A dooring pupil
That in is capable
Disciple to be
Of a terminal preyer
A poem honoring the fact that Mother Earth is the source of our wealth.
Rooting for Success
You may have herd
Financial advisors claim
Diversification is the key
To long term success
If only
The planet could add
This to its bio
Biodiversification
A true growth strategy
Whatever your life is, may it be times cherished, that is, X cherished, multiplying awe that is good.
Times Cherished
Once in a wile, I talk the talk
Every sow often, I walk the walk
Not with standing
The times I cherish most
I run
Heart long into the loving
Alms of the universe
The sores of being
Brought to heal
Here is a poem about a life full of flocking phoenixes. I wrote this a while back, but it is eerily apropos, and perhaps hopeful, considering the inferno devastating Los Angeles. May mutual aid win the daze ahead.
Burned
I had
A peek experience
Of what
Behind me
Sow many undertakings
Bridges burnt
Deeds smoked
Eyes watering
Blind to what is
Ahead
The future
Is courted by my many peeps
Phoenixes
As we be flocked
Libertarianism can be self-limiting in many weighs…
Libertarian High Weighs
My way or the highway
Except the highway
We don’t do public works projects
Reality gives feedback. If we humans find ourselves stubbornly living outside natural limits, Mother Earth is obliged to complete our will.
Obliged
Mother Earth obliges
The will
Of the human race
Allowing us
To finish
First
A cross
The finish line
As I have moved into retirement, I noticed on my facebook profile that my “employment” was outmoded. So, I have created a new busyness: Mystic Ink 2.0 (to point: oh!). As a little background, in 2011, I decided to write poetry as an intentional vocation and serendipitous vacation. This emerged as an extension of my business, TopPun.com — Maximizing Prophets, which itself originated from my realization that I am the best punster for peace and justice in the English-speaking world. Sow, I have adopted a new “employer” for Top Pun: Mystic Ink 2.0 (to point: oh!). Here is a poem to launch this soul vocation:
Mystic Ink 2.0 (to point: oh!)
Who am I?
Prints
Without papers
What am I
Maid of
100% recycled electrons
Peering as sum kind
Of wholly goest
From hear to there
Wear awe
Is well
Or a fart in the win
Inspiring
Ass can be
Soully employed
Mystic ink
My mark it
Welcome to the free verse
Worth every pen he
NOTE: facebook, a posed king of the virtual world, rejected four characters in my “business” title. I would have settled for them rejecting this singular character. Quiet fitting!
One of the things that I would like to do in this new year is organize my life in such as way that I can commit civil disobedience and risk jail time while minimizing the destructive effect on other parts of my life. I plan on powering up my long term project to live in voluntary simplicity/poverty. Also, I would like to fill the role of bard on any great quests involving team civil disobedience. Here is a poem on this theme:
Courting Civil Disobedience
We stood
In that space between
Just us and justice
Wholehearted quests needing
A poet
Judges and jailers
Knot sow much
Here is a VERY short poem for the holy days. This poem is a tip of the hat to my favorite commentary on prayer from the poet and mystic, Meister Eckhart: “If there were but one prayer, ‘thanks’ would suffice.”
The Purpose of Life
Thanks allot
The best criteria that I have come across for keeping a poem is whether it improves upon silence. Here is a poem on that theme. Feel free to read it silently…
Empty Page
The messenger delivered
I am
Caught short
Buy the world
Less than won
Word
Wholly silent
More than
Speechless
Some have noted that you need to speak a different language to understand my poetry. Here is a poem on that theme:
An Other: Language
He tolled it
Like it is
With respect to my write mined
You knead to know
An other
Language
To under stand
You’re poetry
Suns and knights
God daughters
Mother tongue
Rob her’s
By the dozens
Soully too fine
No less rich
Mirrorly uddering
O pun says me
In the presents of
This
Secrets cave
As life alight
Transcending a diction
This poem goes out to all of those whose recognition of climate existential crises is met with denial and minimalizing:
Suicidal?
Why due you
Home in
On Mother Earth
And existential cry seas
Passably reckoning sow
You know weigh too much
Are you suicidal?
No
Weigh less
Then humanity
As hole
Do you no who you are? I have found that art helps me resolve this question.
Author Author
The author of authors
In formed me
Right what you no
The story of you’re life
O pen
You’re art
I have found that one of the enemies of life is being clenched. Life needs space to flow. Forcing solutions often leads to a somewhat constipated life. Of course, this may be one of the most difficult things in the whirled to grasp. A pop reference to this poem could be the 1981 hit song, Hold on Loosely, by 38 Special. “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go.”
Clenched
The more
I grasped life
The more
Life ran through my fingers
Un-be-no’in to me
God clenched his fist
And awe the more
Life
Reigned
On the just and unjust
I have found great freedom in being de-institutionalized from a “regular” job, religion, and overly organized endeavors of all sorts. I see institutionalization as a process and infrastructure that routinely trades our highest humanity for stacks of lowest common denominations. This poem goes out to each and every singular unicorn human. May you be untamed.
A Veritable Zoo
There is know herding cats
There is no herding unicorns
As a soul creature untamed
In countering chiefly
As some fateful meet
As hows broken
Like a pro
Down with trading up
A singular unicorn
For a dozen workhorses
Perhaps a thousand
Bargained as a savvy genus
Or buy and large
A mettle manager
Inc to pen putting
Weather mirrorly institutional eyes
Some concentration camp
Or Three Stooges™ pokey
Every human
Institutionalized
Is a REAL zoo
Souls borne
Free
Razed in captivity
A mythical quest
Bar none
Each moment begs our attention.
That Infinite See Waving
Here ye
Here ye
The present calls
That infinite see
Waving
Just
For you
Sounding hi and lo
As awe hail breaks loose
And life surfs
The whirled over
Anchored in gentle tidings