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POEM: Free Verse

Posted on September 14, 2015 by

You are trying
Too figure out
Perhaps even singularly a verse
Paying sum game
Never getting
A head
Dis integrating
As a metaphysical meting
Of meter and anti-meter
Unmoved
Object
And unstoppable farce
With unending meanings
Crying
Help
Lessly under stand
In during a sublime accost
The prize of free verse
Only getting what
You pay for

This poem is about the difficulty inherent in understanding most poetry. There is little doubt that most of my poetry is — sit down for this one — difficult too under-stand. My poetry niche of puns, word plays, metaphors mixing, and parallel, interweaving narratives dancing in tension, calls for the exertion of effort to unlock its treasures. That good things require effort is a paramount law of life exceeded only greatly by the law of grace, that life and its goodness are even available to us at awe. Poets learn both of these laws well under the tutelage of muses of most any sort. You get what you pay for. But don’t look too deep or you may very well get way more than you bargained for!

May you plumb the depths and scale the heights of artists looming a bout, and may you find more than mere scraps…

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems | Tagged Art, Awe, Dancing, Farce, Grace, Law, Life, Meaning, Metaphors, Muse, Play, Poems, Poet, Poetry, Puns | Leave a comment

POEM: Unoriginal Sin

Posted on September 13, 2015 by

Thirst thing in the mourning
Adam collided with Adam
Agin and agin
As taken aback
As it was a hit
Necessitating an equal
Yet opposite reaction
Recoiling for time in memorial
Chastening to watch
As if
One clock to rule them all
As reliably ticking off
As any won could predict
Nay, reckon
How many fateful years
To urn a time peace
As fools goaled
Pain the prize
For what is
Only avail Abel
As kicking morass
Miring won another
As if he only
Poo-pooing
All that is given
Freely
Undertaking
What should be
Wreckless abandon
Lives in untolled runes
Malingering by passing
High noon
Long lost in the shadows
Of a flagging west
As dusk to dusk
And wend we do not know
Sow inconceivable
To sum
As won’s better have
Of what once was
Mirrorly
Eve ‘n
O men!
Of what will be

From whence the spirit comes and to where it goes, nobody knows. The life of the spirit is deeply involved in possibility, originality. As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed in this regard: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19) Denying wondrous, life-springing possibilities and freshness is unoriginal sin. Leaning on the everlasting alms calls us to awe that is anew. The wilderness today is a so-called civilization with a seemingly inescapable rigged game. The wasteland is a close-sum game with all competing for seemingly scant resources and only hoping to make degrade. The life of the spirit is imbued with hope and possibility. The probabilistic universe that we live in is simply a playground for hope to run amuck — amuck being what happens when stardust is mixed with water. Mistaking the universe, creation, for merely a set of rules buy which wee are gloriously complicated dirt determined to be the best rule followers, is the worst sort of religion. Experiencing creation is an inescapable part of our being — “do you not perceive it?” Participating in creating is much more optional. “He made me do it.” “That’s not my job.” “I’m only doing my job.” These are not the type of things that people say who are firmly grounded in the rapscallion life of the spirit, that is, who are in love with hope and possibility — and in love with love. May you be totally captivated by hope and possibility, a vexing wrench in the probabilistic gamers triangulations. And if you must sin, please, try something original.

Posted in Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Awe, Creation, Hope, Job, Life, Love, Mourning, Play, Poems, Poetry, Possibility, Prophet, Religion, Rules, Time, Universe | Leave a comment

POEM: Annoys Pollution

Posted on September 12, 2015 by

Every wear but hear
Beeping phones
And nobody at home
Impossible to a tone
Even with wringing personally
With poor timing
Watching volumes
A little too lewd
Mindless won
And awe the artless
With every bell and whistle
Ears unplugged
Irking their responsibility
In all do coarse
As a pester chide for
Every imaginable
Impertinent busyness
Craven for unsound practices
In the face
Of boorish applications
Inane games
Of hashtag
One trivial hi
After another
As drug nowhere fast
My only resort
A pun with a silencer
Putting on
Quiet a show
Only now
As if
Stuck up
Harass
Muted
To match
The best of them
Dumb typists
Trans mitting
Techs massages
Ghostily beyond their reach
Inescapably com posing
As virtual monkeys
Only slightly more
Than shake a spear
Pointing fingers
At key boreds
As some incanting spell
And in such easy fancy
Imagine many fates
Worse than deaf

This poem is about one of my pet peeves: noise pollution. This is some indication of how wonderful my life is, that such a first world problem lingers near the top of my list. The mental and spiritual pollution of unwanted noise and glaring lights captures my attention far too often. As a free range human being, I am cell free (exceptions made for civil disobedience). The long tentacles of Western civilization purport freedom as being wired without wires, in sum sort of civil religion. Such annoys pollution is closely related to a leading candidate for the biggest myth of modern progress: that multi-tasking improves our lives. Multi-tasking may make sense if the point is to make a race of better virtual monkey slaves, but multi-taking is the enema of mindfulness and how trying it is to do too much shit. Perhaps the most useful definition of Zen that I have ever heard is this: do one thing. When smart phones are employed as multi-tasking machines, such so-called technological progress is analogous to the infamous anarchist slogan: “Bigger cages, longer chains!” If this is smart, then I prefer dumb — or perhaps, shut the f__k up!

I wrote this poem while on a long bus ride with plenty of multi-tasking smartphone cyborgs. I was largely spared of such an invasion due to my sage employment of a low-tech solution called earplugs. Plus, witnessing people trying to do too much shit provided fertile ground for an even lower tech resolution: writing poetry about whatever issues emerge from my life at the moment. Or, as poets are apt to say. “It happens.”

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Anarchism, Art, Awe, Busyness, Civil Disobedience, Employment, Freedom, Funny, Inane, Life, Logic, Mind, Mindfulness, Modern, Ode, Poems, Poet, Poetry, Pollution, Poor, Progress, Religion, Responsibility, Silence, Spiritual, Western Civilization, Zen | Leave a comment

POEM: A Musing Co-Mission — Nein Poems! Owed to Know One

Posted on September 11, 2015 by

This is nine separate poems comprising one poem, each and all on the theme of the muse mercilessly striking in the middle of the night with irrepressible inspiration from God knows where.

God bid me
Higher than I
Was willing to go
Only to in
Form me
Of whys infirm a meant
That I am
All ready
Hear

He slept
Into conversation
With that God of dreams
Where I’s are not necessary
Only more acute
And in their wake
Brake loose
Countless dawns

Apprehending
I am
A kept man
In my place
Beyond my own
Yet as if
More than
A game
Playing only
For keeps

In the mettle of the night
God has a Lot to say
In that language of silence
A partner
Worth more than
One’s salt
Never looking back
In a God so forward

He said “YES”
To harvest time
In the land of nod
Where more dreams are forgotten
Than anyone could ever “no”
Those fated few under
A night’s protection

The muse strikes
Beyond mirror daze
In the we ours of the night
Where there is know work
And never clothing for busyness

My hand rights
And awe that is mine
Mirrorly follows
Giving
One
A pause
Word
Without sound
Of won hand
Clapping

Amid night rambler
Beyond what is still
Drunk in slurs
Of lucid dreams
Never to be penned
And in mourning will
Be for gotten

The wrest of the night
Is yours
The muse supined
And you knead not worry
I will take care
Of hour many
Fine appointments

I wrote these nine poems one night over the course of a bout two hours. The singular theme of a poet’s helpless relationship with a muse was not designed by me but a mirror reflection of this relationship. My futile resistance was to know a veil, and pun in hand, I consider this my formal certification as gloriously disabled. With the sole of a poet, flat on my back, I have long a go matriculated to the knead to get up and answer the muses booty call. It is simply the write thing too due! Sow, a light bulb goes on, and as pen is in hand, what comes is worthy of the papers. A lass, what may be fodder to some is a parent only too me in sharing presence of what is awe to gather hours. May you find yourself a basket-case of poetry like a sickness and a cure to gather.

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems | Tagged Art, Awe, Busyness, Dream, Dreams, God, Inspiration, Mourning, Muse, Poems, Poet, Poetry, Resistance, Silence, Time, Work | Leave a comment

POEM: Unfare

Posted on September 10, 2015 by

Weighter
Truth be tolled
Whoever’s pain the bill
I’d like a reseat
At the table

This poem addresses the truism that life is not fair. I have spent most of my life and part of most days working to address social injustices. Recently, with the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have redoubled my efforts to examine my own privileges and disenfranchisements. In sum, I am a very privileged individual. I am fascinated by how our own sets of privileges and disenfranchisements play out in society, particularly social justice movements. Perhaps the most prevalent divide, present even within most households, is male and female. Patriarchy is nearly omnipresent. As in any privileged group, men must exert effort to not by default weaponize privilege against those disenfranchised, in this case, about half of the world’s population! I have seen how people of color and trans folks have worked hard to claim their rightful roles and places within the LGBT equality movement. In addition, socioeconomic class issues cut across virtually all social movements. As a U.S. citizen working predominantly alongside other U.S. citizens, the privilege of First-Worldism profoundly impacts our relevance and importance as planetary citizens, where the poorest majority of humanity bears the brunt of the rest of the world’s over-consumption of resources, abuses of power, and assorted and sundry cultural dominations.

As for me, solidarity is a primary guiding principle for my social justice activism. Literally standing with people who are disenfranchised in one way or another strikes me as one of the most direct ways to step toward social justice. This is related to “putting skin in the game,” which serves as my primary measure for authentic commitment to other human beings and the creation we share. As Alice Walker so elegantly stated, “Activism is my rent for living on this planet.” This planet, so teeming with life, deserves our respect, appreciation, and honest efforts to make it the best home possible for millions of miles around. As I like to say: Life isn’t fair, it’s excellent!

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Citizens, Consumption, Creation, Disenfranchised, Domination, Economic, Equality, Female, Gratitude, Humanity, Justice, LGBT, Life, Patriarchy, Play, Poems, Poetry, Political, Poor, Power, Present, Privilege, Respect, Short Poems, skin in the game, Social Justice, Social Movements, Society, Solidarity, Truth, Work | Leave a comment

POEM: A Shoulder Above The Wrest

Posted on September 8, 2015 by

I pulled her over
Two the shoulder
Commuting her sentence
Proffering a rest
Having know knead for license
Or proof of assurance

I just got back from a holiday weekend with my sweetheart. She had inspired this poem recently. We both relish the mutual joy of her resting in my arms. Also, she has had a long commute to work for a long time, thus the metaphorical reference to a respite from traffic. May we all experience such arresting beauty!

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems | Tagged Beauty, Experience, Heart, Joy, Love, Love Poems, Poetry, Short Poems, Time, Work | Leave a comment

POEM: Existential Realty

Posted on September 4, 2015 by

You can say “No”
You can say “Yes”
If one can say “No”
Two can say “No”
If two can say “No”
Three can say “No”
If one can say “Yes”
Two can say “Yes”
If two can say “Yes”
Three can say “Yes”
If no else say’s “No”
You can still say “No”
If no else say’s “Yes”
You can still say “Yes”
You can
Still

This straightforward poem asserts the simple existential human reality that we have choice. It implies also that there is additional ease if others align with the same choice. Still, choice is available for one’s soul discretion. We can shape the manifestation of our soul in the world by choosing that in which we say “yes” that in which we say “no.” The nature of choice affirms both possibility and value in that which we choose, over infinite other possibilities. What you choose to do (or not do) matters!

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Choices, Existential, Nature, Poems, Poetry, Political, Possibility, Reality, Soul | Leave a comment

POEM: Signs of The Tines

Posted on September 3, 2015 by

At the White House speak easy
Blah blah blah blah blah blah
The media drinks it up
At a mine-blowingly vapid clip
In the mean time
On the plantation
Grounds to a halt
Surrounded by offense
In arose guardin’
At least since 1984
Black sheep a massing
Estate clearly
As to klan destined premises
And as such a tract
An overwhelming farce
Met with all arm
As privates in public places
And wile mill or tarry
As eventuality
Weather picked up for loitering
Or trashing national security
Hour constitutional is put down
And though wee are like
A communal terrain
Pigs offer another forum of public transportation
A signing
This won in the can
Matching our zeal to the maxim
In another banner day
For homeland security
Or whatever it scald
As free speech grows smolder
And another die cast
For the prints of darkness
Wielding a pitchfork for the signs of the tines
A tail never to be told

This is a poem about police and/or military — sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference these days — putting down a protest at the White House. Typically, the corporate media give little coverage to such democracy taken into the hands of ruly citizens, and what coverage they give is often superficial and dismissive. The demonstration in this poem has overtones of a Black Lives Matter protest, making it contemporary, but it could very well be most any protest in modern times at the White House. The title of this poem, Signs of The Tines, has what may be an easily missed pun, referencing the tines of the devil’s pitchfork casting signs into a bonfire, which might very well be the preeminent renewable energy source in America. Protest politics and direct nonviolent resistance has always forced America to confront a legal and political conundrum of law enforcement routinely violating constitutional rights, often under the pretext of national security. Most any perceived threat to the state triggers an overreaction, even an existential crisis, from most any nationalist from right to left. Exposing the naked sovereignty of the state, particularly when in moral bankruptcy, is one of the most useful effects resistance offers. The veneer of civilization can be quickly peeled back to witness the assertion of brute force in the religion of nationalism and state sovereignty. And for those of you who may dare to believe that we are a nation under God, think again. I confronted this directly in my legal challenge to draft registration. As a motion to dismiss based on draft registration offering no opportunity to indicate conscientious objector status, the federal judge rejected the motion citing a Supreme Court case from the 1930’s which stated that the federal government has the absolute power to conscript anyone in the United States, regardless of conscience or anything else. Conscientious objector status is merely a historical and political concession which was literally referred to as “legislative grace.” I must admit, in this decade-long resistance to forced military participation in Team America, this was the only thing that truly surprised me. I, for one, am unwilling to concede absolute authority to any government. I actually wasn’t even very excited about this motion for dismissal, but my pro bono lawyers wanted to test this legal argument. Frankly, I wouldn’t have registered even had there been a way to meaningfully indicate conscientious objection. I think I registered my objection quite meaningfully without their approval or feigned “grace.” You might want to pay attention to the wizard behind the gracefully flowing curtain, dutifully colored, red, white, and blue…

Posted in About Top Pun, Anti-War, Peace, Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged America, Argument, Authority, Citizens, Conscience, Conscientious Objection, Constitutional Rights, Conundrum, Democracy, Demonstrators, Draft Registration, Evil, Existential, Farce, Free Speech, God, government, Grace, Law, Law Enforcement, Lawyer, Meaning, Media, Military, Modern, Moral, National, National Security, Nationalism, Nonviolent, Poems, Poetry, Police, Political, Politics, Power, Protests, Rage, Religion, Resistance, Security, State, Status, Superficial, Supreme Court, Time | Leave a comment

POEM: How Ever Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb

Posted on September 2, 2015 by

In his rock
Solid doubt
Thomas
Had herd rumors
Of unflailing love
Abuzz of hope so high
If only
To find himself
Quite
In the dark
Wear time stops
To the ever sow gentle
Beating
To a singular conundrum
As sound as it gets
In the artlessness of won’s
Perpetual searching
Where awe is aloud
And know license kneaded
Yet so long
Due
Over
Come
Warming to the extremity
In a hospitality of patients
Still
Not sure
What he thaw
He’s frozen code
Hesitatingly lust
Pulling out
Aplomb
The surest proof
Of assurance
Yet knot enough too
Drink the Kool-Aid™
Turning to whine
Taken in
Bred of skepticism
Only willing
To live on
Crumbs
That will
Surly re-seed
In annoys
Of the daze
The quest in
For gotten
How ever dumb dumb dumb dumb

This is another poem on a familiar theme of skepticism of skepticism. In this poem, skepticism is juxtaposed with a simple and profound reality at the center of each human life: your heartbeat. In fast-paced, postmodern society, we live in a precarious and constricted mental and spiritual territory. We are, well, maladapted to ask “What have you done for me lately” a-long-side routine strings of epic fails to live in the moment. In a triumph of evolution, we walk a mathematically constructed line that every mathematician knows doesn’t exist except as a mental construct. And then we complain about God’s ethereal nature — with a periodicity much less regular than a heartbeat, in between ignoring God’s good creation. I can’t help but note that the bulk head of such complaining seems more fitting on bar stools than in poem or song. Of course, I don’t recommend sobriety when it comes to being drunk on poetry. In the book, The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the main character tells two stories: one hauntingly mesmerizing and another as a police report. When asking another character which story they prefer, not surprisingly, they choose the captivating story; to which the main character replies, “and so it is with God.” I, for one, would much rather be captivated by a good story than limit my reading — and living — to police reports (though many good stories include police reports). I strongly suspect that God wants us to make epic stories of our lives, for our hearts to beat captivating rhythms, to grow bigger and fuller today than we were yesterday. For this to happen, at some point, we have to make stuff up as we go along. This process can be analogous to scientific discovery, proposing stuff that we are not quite sure are true and then testing them out with out lives. Not surprisingly, scientific-minded folks are greatly disturbed when religion hypothesizes great truths and then fails to adequately test them in the here and now. Not all shit is worth making up. Fortunately, most any shit can be used as fertilizer. Even cautionary tales are indispensable. Nonetheless, as Native Americans traditionally began their storytelling, “This may not have happened, but it is true.” Or, as I might put it: God is the coolest being I ever metaphor.

But back to the even more palpable. Your heartbeat serves as a metaphor, gentle reminder, and literal lifeline to, well, life. The heartbeat is both a shared human reality and intensely intimate and personal tether to life. In astounding irony, the common ground of a heartbeat at the center of each human life seems to be easily taken for granite, that is, common ground. There may be a fine lying between common ground and complicated dirt, but I suspect that the road less travailed makes awe the difference. Akin to breathing, our heartbeat is a great center for meditation, that is, simply centering our life (see my poems, Breathing and The World’s Shortest Meditation). I find the persistence, reliability, unobtrusiveness, and effectiveness of both breathing and our heartbeat as a wellspring of metaphors and insights into the deepest nature of life. Still, may your life take definition by those moments which take your breath away and that which makes your heart to skip a beat.

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Art, Awe, Cautionary Tale, Character, Conundrum, Creation, Evolution, God, Heart, Hope, Hospitality, Irony, Life, Love, Meditation, Metaphors, Mind, Modern, Nature, Pi, Poems, Poet, Poetry, Police, Reality, Religion, Skepticism, Society, Spiritual, Time, Truth | Leave a comment

POEM: The Short End of The Shtick

Posted on September 1, 2015 by

The earth quaked
Beneath the CEO
As he re-torted
It’s no bodies fault
In a sense
Coming upon
The prophets of owed
Raking over
That thin lyin’
Between purveyor and consumer
I’m just
Doing my job
And it’s knot
My job
You are
Welcome
To the short end
Of that shtick

This poem was inspired by a specific instance of the ever-present marginal customer service amidst corporate America. There is an entire universe of bad customer service that lies between “It’s not my job” and “I’m just doing my job.” There is an entire universe of bad customer service that lies between callous executives’ inhumane policies of profit over people and wage slaves who have made learned helplessness an uninspiring art form. Our humanity can only slip away if we abdicate responsibility and response-ability. As much as the status quo sucks at any given moment, this is an invitation for humanity to step into such a vacuum. Even as the invitation is addressed as “Dear Occupant,” merely serving as a notice that your short end of the stick is being pared back or that the light at the end of the tunnel is being turned off, this would better serve as a pretext for revolution than learned helplessness. Part of humans’ Jōb description is a test of faith regarding devilish abets inhumanity. There in lies an affirmative response-ability to fix ballsy dehumanization that metes life on our knees. Countability de-mans it. In choiring mines want to no, excuses for whining a bout their purported eunuch situations, as if hitting the Hi C in loo of Kool-Aid™ was somehow passable. If this peers as sum bizarro universe, wrest assured that the job you may have may have nothing too due with this. Other wise, just, do your job.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged America, Art, Faith, Helplessness, Humanity, Job, Life, Poems, Poetry, Present, Responsibility, Revolution, Status, Status Quo, Universe | Leave a comment

POEM: Opportunity Accost

Posted on August 31, 2015 by

Having arrived
Delivered by a private message
The bad knews
Out of the weigh
Surrounded
Only
Good news ahead
Able to attack
On any affront

This poem is based on an old joke, that goes something like this: The courier arrives with news from the battlefield, telling the general that he has good news and bad news, and asks which he would like first. The general asks for the bad news first. The courier indicates that they are surrounded by the enemy. The general then asks for the good news. The courier replies, “The good news is that we can attack on any front.”

Every person that works on bettering the human condition knows that there is an abundance of needs, bordering on the overwhelming. This very reality is perhaps the leading cause of burnout among do-gooders. I like this old joke because it highlights the overwhelming opportunity present in life. While we may spend huge amounts of resources in needs assessments, and countless hours in planning meetings, to get just the right mix of strategies and interventions, you don’t have to look very far or even very closely to find human need. If a human need touches your heart, lend a hand, even your whole life if need be. As a former professional planner, now trying to recover from such a chronic predicament, I am reminded again of the quote from United Methodist theologian and activist Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I suspect that whatever purported efficiency gained by most needs assessments and most time spent in planning meetings would be better invested in doing whatever makes us come alive amidst the dizzying array of human needs ripe for the plucking. For some rare individuals that may even be conducting needs assessments or planning meetings. For most, the time would be more enlivening spent in the fields of humanity where “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” (Luke 10:2, Matthew 9:37)

Posted in News, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Abundance, Efficiency, Heart, Humanity, Joke, Life, Poems, Poetry, Present, Reality, Time, Work | 1 Comment

POEM: Inspiring Life Itself

Posted on August 30, 2015 by

Hear
I am
My life
Unmeasured
By awe but
Smiles
And ours alone
A forum of love
Only known by agape
Sometimes taken as dope
And every sow often
Be held as a parent
Breathlessness
Be gotten heir
Inspiring life itself

Where does life come from? Some claim, in a type of miraculous skepticism, that life emerges out of nothingness. Others figure there is something more seamless in the creation of life, like coming from like. Regardless of where one’s perspective begins concerning the ultimate origins of life, most can agree that, in the here and now, life produces more life. Life in its fullness is contagious. Also, the highest human experiences seam to be inescapably linked to awe. Awe strikes me as being sublimely taken in by the sheer breathtaking and breath-giving nature of life. Awe seems close kin to gratitude, particularly of receiving something that transcends our own doing or merit. For me, such experiences inspire me to live in a way that will breath life into stale social contracts, however well contrived, and knock the wind out of social relationships where another’s humanity is bargained away for supposed profit. A life well-lived should be more full of celebration than calculation, carousing than conniving. We will gain much more from dancing than delineating which dances are viewed most positively by each market segment, so we can maximally profit off others’ dancing. Life, in its fullness, will dance around such cramped connivings. Of coarse, such lessens will be self-taut, whereas life involves a boundless teeming beyond grasping.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Awe, Creation, Dancing, Experience, Gratitude, Humanity, Life, Love, Market, Nature, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Relationships, Skepticism | Leave a comment

POEM: Constipated Destiny

Posted on August 24, 2015 by

He knew knot
Exactly where
He was going
As fate would have it
Seized by easy convictions
Big house
Auto, pilot
And every won else’s
Re-guard
Of one self full
Filled
Buy in
And sell out
In humanity
A sure thing
The gold
In rule
A void
Apprehensions
Of vassal late
Making one’s self
The whore of certain knowledge
The john of dreams undared
Unfailing in his coarse
Fining himself
Scared to dearth
Of his constipated destiny meting

This poem deals with the vanity and danger of pursuing material success and cashing in on conventional wisdom. The good life is all too often pawned off as having fine possessions or relishing in status or celebrity. Possessions have a way of possessing us. In a world where so many have so little, fine possessions can be devilish. Status or celebrity has a way of simply highlighting our own emptiness or hypocrisy in a pressurized or scrutinized existence. Fine possessions and status are typically acquired through the successful use (and misuse) of conventional wisdom, or simply through unmerited privilege. Albeit, celebrity sometimes comes through more notorious means. Still, we all know where this leads: the well-worn hierarchies of winners and losers. In a constipated destiny, everyone knows their place. Predictability (sometimes better known as ‘security’) and fatalism serve as poor substitutes for true daring and bold hope. Well-worn rules (and rulers) of the game leave little but cheap thrills and expensive highs to assuage our stultified lives. The bulk of our lives are leased for weekends. Passionate vocations are bartered for passing vacations. Awe sold for certainty. Dreams pimped for fear of being a sucker, or worse. May you live a life where you are not scared to dearth, settling for mere material finery or tranquilizing status, a constipated destiny, or hellish blandness. May you follow your dreams in a way that literally scares the hell out of others!

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Awe, Celebrity, Conventional Wisdom, Dream, Dreams, Evil, Fear, Hell, Hope, Humanity, Hypocrisy, Life, Passion, Poems, Poetry, Poor, Possessions, Privilege, Rules, Security, Status, Success, Vanity, Vocation, Wisdom | Leave a comment

POEM: Fully Human When Wholly Divine

Posted on August 23, 2015 by

From wear
You ask
Came quiet
A storm
At the end
Of won’s rope
The blest piece
Ever no’ing still
Falling in too
A death too small to handle
A life too big to grasp
Laughing at what was wince
A mirror
A side
Having passed
The looking class
And seeing
One’s love
The phase of God
Fully human
When wholly divine

This poem is about glimpsing beyond the veil and rooting one’s life in the mysteries experienced from the other side, from passing through the looking glass. Of course, if unaware or too deeply skeptical to lend any credence to such experiences, then you can also reliably fall back on love manifest directly into this realm, as Victor Hugo, in his classic, Les Miserables, says, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” God is love and we only need to see love to see God. May you see love wherever you are looking, even if you don’t happen to be looking for love.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Death, Experience, God, Life, Love, Poems, Poetry, Religious, Spiritual | Leave a comment

POEM: Awe The Deference In The Whirled

Posted on August 22, 2015 by

He said
She said
You seem full of yourself
Or full of something
As I would
Decidedly be
Rather mistaken
As too much for sum
Than sow scarcely perceived
In convenient lacking
A peace meal
Leaving hungry
Or crocodile tears
Without hankering
Putting oneself out
With friendly fire
And faux alike
Sew much
Wee must take in
The unconsuming whole
Hemmed in
The bind leading the bind
For if we were to a peer
As God sees us
As children sew sew proud
We’d break out
In stitches
Rather than
Go bust
At the seems
Making awe
The deference
In the whirled

This poem is about living largely into the grandiosity and wonder in which our souls are made. I have been accused on occasion of being full of myself. I just see this as being me — albeit really me! I see one of the major forms of social control in modern, so-call civilization as keeping people small. This oftentimes passes for humility. I suspect that as many times as not, the offense people commit against God and their nature is living much smaller than for which they were designed. I suspect that as many times as not, when someone expects someone else to stay “in their place,” it is less out of a desire for high morality than maintaining a predictable and unintimidating (also read uninspiring) environment that conveniently benefits their own status quo. Fully alive human beings are going to have an overflowing and even overwhelming quality that can be intimidating to those trying to hang onto a tightly ordered, small piece of real estate. Well, the real state of being fully human involves a perpetual freshness and a range of freedom that should be challenging and hopefully inspiring to others. Such newness incarnated in the world reveals the irrepressibly of hope, curiosity, playfulness, and creativity. Such free range humans inescapably reflect a certain lightheartedness in the face of seemingly serious social boundaries, recognizing the often arbitrary and inhumane nature of substituting abstract rules for face-to-face human relationship. Any dimension of newness present in humans can serve as a reminder and invitation for a fresh look into the soul of another. Such fresh looking can help us step out of the constricting algorithms of triangulating rules and compounding conventional wisdom into a jazzy rhythm that can only be experienced by playing with a band of eccentric souls. Such playing can cure the oh so lame and the hardening of the attitudes. When the overwhelming awesomeness of life bumps into the brick walls and lines in the sand of any given culture, that culture better get ready to change as purveyors of life dance over purported lines and occasionally take time out to break down a brick wall. Giving deference to awe invites a certain boldness in this whirled of ours. And if you should find hurt in this world, may you also find a way to break out of your stitches.

Posted in About Top Pun, Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Attitude, Awe, Change, Children, Control, Conventional Wisdom, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Environment, Experience, Freedom, God, Heart, Hope, Humility, Life, Mind, Modern, Moral, Morality, Nature, Play, Playfulness, Poems, Poetry, Present, Rules, Soul, State, Status, Status Quo, Time, Wisdom | Leave a comment

POEM: More of the Sane

Posted on August 21, 2015 by

Going through life
Various docks said
You are just
Going through a phrase
And heeling
Wood be
Yores soon
Enough
Finally cured
Of awe
That is
Green
With envy
Of what might
Passably be
More of the sane

This poem is about the insanity of sanity. This has less to do with the faults of the status quo — though they are myriad — than it does coming alive, infectiously alive, in a living world. Security, in conventional wisdom, is sought through well-worn, predictable means. Such security is based on a knowledge of order present in the world. This is simply the triangulation of scientific facts, providing a coherent framework from which to navigate our lives. Yeah, go science! Well, order is knot the whole of life. Disorder is necessary for possibility, any veering from a determined course. Order as the hole of life negates freedom, creation, and certainly most of the fun. Of course, the point is not to create disorder, an abundance of that already exists, the point is to bring to life — that is, create — new order, more conducive and congruent with the higher and deeper orders present in creation. This perpetual creation and recycling is sharing in the experience of what it’s like to be God, perhaps God’s greatest gift. We are meant to play with creation, as God’s children, not be some play set for God or other humans to manipulate to their own — and our — constipated end. Our creation is not a disorder that needs to be cured, it need only respect life by infectiously creating more life. Such disorder is not a threat to the well-ordered physical world. However, such disorder is a metaphysical dis-ease with existence being reduced and lived (sic) out in simply a mechanical weigh. In truth, such disorder is a higher order that cannot be reduced to mere mechanics, lifting up the hood and fixing it. Such disorder is the infectious need to sail life’s oceans. Of course, this is vastly aided by abundant knowledge of shipbuilding, navigation, etc. Even greater though, it requires a love of discovery, a love of the feel of the ocean’s wind and spray in your face, and the courage to risk the vagaries of the wild, the powerful, and the unknown. While boldly and infectiously sailing life’s oceans may strike many as much less secure than, say, building ships for others, I strongly suspect that one of God’s deepest desires for us is to freely be the captains of our own lives. However exquisitely we may craft tools for others, God does not desire that we simply be tools for others — that would deny God’s exquisite craftsmanship. God is a crafty one, peering behind the veil of indeterminacy, which many consider a disorder itself. This thorniness behind creation results in much anguish and pain, the inescapable fareness of a free life. The thorny crown atop God’s craftiness is unparalleled, except perhaps among humans, made in God’s image, where an irrepressible willingness to pain the prize is billed in. May your inborn desire to create be guided by an abiding respect for life and it’s infectious nature seeking know cure.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Abundance, Awe, Children, Conventional Wisdom, Courage, Creation, Envy, Experience, Facts, Freedom, Gift, God, Image, Insanity, Life, Love, Nature, Play, Poems, Poetry, Possibility, Power, Present, Rage, Recycling, Respect, Risk, Science, Security, Status, Status Quo, Truth, Willingness, Wisdom, Work | Leave a comment

POEM: Attorney General Edwin Meese III

Posted on August 20, 2015 by

I know of a man I never met
A foe of mine, I can only bet
A very close impersonal friend
To my unknown needs he’s supposed to tend
To rehabilitate me from what to what
Maybe he’s a pure-bred and I’m only a mutt
We make quite a pair
‘cept it’s me in the pound
Yet he’s always around
A thousand miles away
Yet I can hear his voice
“If charged you are guilty”
“If hungry it’s your choice”

I wrote this poem in 1987 while imprisoned for my epic failure to register for the military draft. Below is a copy of the actual handwritten poem. I had the original taped on my office wall near my desk for years.

Draft registration was reinstated by President Jimmy Carter as a response to the Russians invading Afghanistan. Seems to me that invading Afghanistan would have been punishment enough. We had the opportunity to learn such as lesson later — or not. President Ronald Reagan, after breaking a campaign promise to abolish draft registration, continued it. I was in the first batch of young men subject to this new law in 1980. I spent the entire decade sparring with the world’s greatest military superpower, with a couple of years of probation and community service ending in 1989 — like I need the federal government to sentence me to community service! Out of the millions of young men in violation of this Military Selective Service Act, less than a dozen were convicted of such flagrancy; all were public in their opposition. Seems pretty pathetic for a so-called superpower. I didn’t learn my lessen.

I feel no need for vindication, but I do feel like I have now lived through a full cycle of history, and history is on my side, if you believe in sides, that is. While assuring my incarceration to make sure that I wasn’t around to not defend our homeland, the U.S. was training and equipping their version of freedom fighters, the likes of Osama bin Laden and the lesser known Frank N. Stein.

This poem is about President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III. Though there was a lot of competition, Ed Meese was only clearly beat out as the most pathetic administration crony by James Watt, Secretary of the Department of Interior, which Mr. Watt, in his signature suicidal hatred of government, wanted to abolish; though it’s still not entirely clear whether it was the department or the environment he wanted to destroy. Ed Meese was infamous for the two sayings recounted in the last two lines of my poem. In an astounding disavowal of the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Meese, claimed that most suspects can be rightly assumed to be guilty. Well, it’s not like he was the overseer of federal and constitutional law — sheesh! The other statement, out of the jurisdiction of even his ignorance, was that if people are hungry in America, it’s their choice. When I heard this, I could have swore that his little round belly shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. Well, OK, it wasn’t his belly full of jelly.

I’ve made my choice, and 28 years later I’m still hungry for justice…

Posted in About Top Pun, Anti-War, Peace, Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged America, Community, Competition, Constitution, Draft Registration, Environment, Failure, Freedom, government, History, Impersonal, Justice, Law, Military, Poems, President, Protest Poetry, Punishment | Leave a comment

POEM: Megabus Late

Posted on August 18, 2015 by

The loco bus
Was barely running
Trafficking in creep after creep
At Lake & Michigan
It was sink or swim
Facing too soon departed
To be won or lost
By foot
Right, left, right, left, right, left, right
Miraculously walking on Water St.
Run
Run forced
Run
Will it be
Decided by a minute minute
No bus in site
Faded to stay
In Chicago another day
Only then realizing
The line I had crossed
As pre-sumptuously late
Other poor soles
As per usual waiting
Fore the Toledo Megabus
Mega-late

This poem emanates from my trip earlier this summer out to Iowa. This poem is from the last of four legs of a Megabus trip. As it turns out, two of the four buses broke down and had to replaced with regular tour buses. This poem is about the serendipity of things not always working out as planned. Oddly, it never occurred to me that the bus I was racing to on foot would be late. While the bus ended up being two hours late, this was much better than missing the bus by mere minutes! What a beautiful thing that a bus being two hours late is a cause for celebration! I am a big fan of serendipity. As a recovering professional planner, I have spent much of my life planning to “make things happen.” Fortunately, I have witnessed so many times in my life that my plans not turning out as I liked turned out even better. As I have been known to say: God never gives me what I want; God gives me something much better! My daughter now parrots back to me the saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans. More recently, you might find me repeating the Niels Bohr quip: “Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.” Though perhaps John Lennon said it best: “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” May your life be overflowing with wonderful surprises.

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Beautiful, Future, God, John Lennon, Life, Poor, Serendipity, Surprises, Toledo | Leave a comment

POEM: God’s Perish

Posted on August 17, 2015 by

I under stood
God’s might
And might not
And in awe probability
New
That I
Will only
Fooly see
Phase to phase
Until awe of creation
Come prized my parish

This poem is about dying to see the face of God. This takes two forms: dying when unable to see the face of God and dying if a mere mortal human were to see the face of God. The first form is the traditional form preached about and at others to point out their deficiencies and need for God. I find this form fraught with peril as pedantic and fixated on the lack of God’s presence, the very thing it seeks to dispel! As if God could successfully hide; fortunately, on this account, God is a total loser. God bursts forth from creation, if not well reflected in humans, then from nature. Still, God is a total loser because God cannot reveal God’s full face to humans without literally blowing out our mind and being as humans. There is a protective veil necessary to preserve and maintain human existence. I am far more intrigued with this second form of dying to see the face of God, the Oneness of awe, worthy of my worship. My deep faith is roughly matched with deep skepticism for authority. I want peace and reconciliation in this matter — perhaps even to the point of my matter exploding.

The Judaeo-Christian tradition of dying if one were to see the face of God originates in Exodus 12-23, when Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments from “I am,” the name God chose to reveal to Moses. This is how the conversation is retold (NIV translation):

Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

In a conversation with one of my former pastors related to seeing the backside of God, I noted that this made perfect sense, that is, a carpenter son would have a plumber for a father. His irrepressible grin and laugh reflected the joy that is the infallible presence of God.

For as much as God does, God may seem to do little to nail down God’s intentions at the crossroads of our lives — humans seem much more intent on that! In surpassing logic, God proffers a taught a logical lessen: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Grate! So God expects me to lead my life based on mercy and compassion coming out literally from God knows where?! Of course, there is also that whole ten commandments thing, written in stone no less! In the coarse of life, the Jews expanded this to 613 laws, establishing a firm foundation for eternal arguments. My whole point is this: it is never enough. As my one-line poem matriculates: I often find myself stuck in that awkward time between birth and death. This built in yearning to understand God and God’s creation drives both spiritual enterprises and scientific endeavors. Learning to live into this fundamental yearning, whether experienced as the mystical union with God or a unified scientific understanding, comprises much of wisdom: Until awe of creation / Come prized my parish.

Awe of this wrests in the shadow of an unwholly dissatisfaction. I am deeply intrigued by the profound dissatisfaction with spiritual enterprises, most commonly cited as religion, that live in this shadow. Ironically, in such a critique of religion, this perfectionism and idealism to which religion falls woefully short is precisely that which under-girds religion: the quest for a coherent whole which can bring with it the peace of heart and mind. This common quest is shattered by fundamentalism, weather buy religious legalists or militant atheists. I view such fundamentalism as the grate divide in life, not simply the speak easy surrounding theism.

I am fascinated by the contention often put forward by atheists, that God is a projection of human minds. There is much truth in this. Psychologically speaking, projection is superimposing the ego’s shadow, or incomplete understanding, onto that outside the ego, thereby purporting or inferring a distorted truth. More simply put: “We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.” Of course, this is neither proof nor reproof in the master debate over theism. This is true whether God’s perish or God’s parish. Nonetheless, projection is a powerful force and critical diagnosis each of us should make to move toward a more robust and healthy relationship with reality. The diagnosis of projection is a necessary but not sufficient condition, the hallmark of never-ending scientific discovery.

The deeper quest in is how do we best move through inevitable projection and, even more boldly, firmly center our self (ego) in a ground of being that will most reliably guide us to an expanding humanity and more accurate under standing of the deepest realities. I contend that the spiritual master Jesus best articulated this in the spiritual practice and commandment (a should) by instructing us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I am unaware of any more powerful and reliable guide to an expanding humanity and more accurate under standing of the deepest realities, whether from a religious or an atheistic perspective. I cite my own experience and the experience of millions of others in testing out this hypothesis with scientific rigor and skin in the game much greater than most of the most articulate purveyors of scientific discovery. Most simply put, if you want to put the God hypothesis to the test and dare experience a glimpse of the awe mighty, this may very well be the closest we can get: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” This existential treat ease rests on authority emanating from scientific rigor applied to our whole life and God deeply roots for us to experience this phase to phase in hour life. In the face of a whirled of hurt, may your life reflect the mercy and compassion that comes from God knows wear.

Posted in About Top Pun, Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings, Uncategorized | Tagged Argument, Atheist, Authority, Awe, Christian, Compassion, Creation, Death, Enemies, Existential, Experience, Faith, Fundamentalism, God, Heart, Humanity, Idealism, Ironic, Jesus, Joy, Law, Learning, Life, Logic, Love, Mercy, Militant, Mind, Mystic, Mystical, Nature, Passion, Pastor, Perfectionism, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Power, Probability, Projection, Reality, Reconciliation, Religion, Religious, Skepticism, skin in the game, Spiritual, Success, Time, Truth, Wisdom, Worship | Leave a comment

POEM: Reining In Global Warning

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

The economy was
Humming
Having change
Their tune
Given
The overabundance
Of hot water
And cell a-steam
Showering down
Hour earthly reign
In the scheme of things
In a call amity
Of biblical portions
They had everything
Save the earth
And after
Having one
Wore on the environment
Mother earth’s
Pursed lips
At the outpouring cache
A river bed
Tried to the bone
Of no use
Pointing fingers
As more than
Putting up
With money where mouth is
Re: tardily sane
As never too be
Ever food agin
Mouthing a mint
In perpetual bad taste
Sow un-full
Filling a void
That wee only have
Won planet
Wont of reign

Yet another poem mourning the way we treat our beloved Mother Earth. As global warning wrings out more lost species, extinct forever in the wake of our mindless consumption and heartless capitalism, I am reminded wince again of the Cree Indian prophecy: “Only when the last tree has been felled, the last river poisoned and the last fish caught, man will know, that he cannot eat money.” Can you help but ask weather when we put our money where our mouth is if it will be too late. If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. If mankind can’t let go of the crappy job he’s doing, mama will get unrule he Let us not temp our mother.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged Abundance, Capitalism, Change, Consumption, Economy, Environment, Extinction, Food, Job, Love, Money, Mother Earth, Mourning, Poems, Poetry | Leave a comment

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