POEM: Compassion Hoard

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

I may not have bread
And I can afford justice
My feet may be bare
And still
I have wings unseen
A fly on the wall
Reflecting on wear thou art
I cons
A mass
Pining for eternity
I see boxes full of people
Some with bars
Some with stained glass
Awe waiting
For enough compassion
That whored without end
Saving us
In sum coffer
Every talent bared
Under earth
As in heaven
Nails securing
That final wresting place
Claiming one
Again
And again
A trinity of
Applausible deniability
Crossing into hermetic souls
Wading for the rite time
Over countless venerations
Vespering in our years
To take leave of our census
And idol observances
Of mere images
Where weave a cryptic silence
Marching on
A fortified city
Encyclical motion
While trumpets blare
And walls crumble
De-spite all that is yearned
And our judicious will
Hearts do spill
Into the streets
And hands dirty
Embracing a future unwritten
And the present
No longer passed
Hereafter enough
Like know tomorrow

Religion is often confronted with the impossible task of selling compassion.  Sometimes folks recognize that compassion is incarnated into the world by practicing compassion directly.  This both enriches our own experience and models compassion to others.  Talking about the benefits and virtues of compassion may have some value, though mostly in a more academic sense; but for compassion to become real, it must transcend the eddies of the mind on the longest of journeys: from the head to the heart.  This long journey from the head to the heart typically includes on its itinerary works of the feet and hands.  This is the difference between talking about God and experiencing God.  This is quite literally the meaning of Matthew 25:35-36, 40:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Of course, in this poem, I portray the worst in religion: when compassion is whored for self-enrichment, unjust purposes.  Christian scripture has plenty of rousing and poetical indictments of stinky religion; here is one of my favorites:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.  Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.  Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.  Away with the noise of your songs!  I will not listen to the music of your harps.  But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:21-24)

Much of bad human behavior is rooted in our fear of an uncertain future.  This is the obvious attraction and relative success of securing financial wealth, high status, and powerful positions lording over others.  We want control.  We often want control way beyond what we can control.  Unfortunately, such overreaching creates a host of problems, not the least of which, quite ironically, is a more dangerous and unpredictable world.  Another irony emerges when we realize that grasping for an uncertain, and even unknowable, future we perpetually rob ourselves of the now, the only truly real present within our control. Quite naturally, the present brings forth the future.  Again, plenty of Christian sacred texts are focused on the promise of God responding to our deepest groans and highest dreams by following in God’s way, the way of justice and mercy.  Of course, “following” God is actually “leading” humans because acting in the present without waiting for other humans to follow God is how God’s plan is manifest on earth. Here is one of my favorite scriptural examples of this relationship, or dance, between God’s purposes and human action:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.  (Isaiah 58:6-9)

Where justice and mercy are present, God’s presence is experienced.  This is true of all the gifts of the spirit, such as joy, faith, generosity, patience, and love.  Such experience resides in a place transcending buying and selling.  The mystery is how deeply we want that which cannot be bought and sold.  Somewhat less mysterious, though perhaps at least as baffling, is how our dominant experience of buying and selling — of both ourselves and stuff — short-circuits or crowds out experiencing much deeper realities.  I may not have bread/And I can afford justice.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Testimony to NRC to Shut Down Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant

Posted on March 25, 2014 by

Below is my testimony for today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s public hearing regarding the potential re-licensing of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant:

My name is Dan Rutt.  So, what are my credentials for being here tonight?  I live in the kill zone of Davis-Besse.  I have lived in the kill zone of nuclear plants almost my entire life.  I suspect few could argue against the mournful reality that way too many people share these credentials.

I do have a B.S. in Biology.  Though, I must confess, my B.S. pales in comparison to the B.S. of the nuclear industry and the NRC.

I also have a masters degree in public health.  But I am not here to debate technical minutiae, nor to discuss the arrangement of deck chairs, the lack of lifeboats, nor the alleged unsinkability of the titanic nuclear industry.

Today, I am here as a poet and an activist.  I am here as a child of mother earth and as a planetary citizen.  Most importantly, I am here today as a prophet.  And let it be said: nothing today will truer be said than that the nuclear industry and the NRC listen to profits!

I am here to do the impossible.  I am here to topple a multi-billion dollar corporate empire with a mere wisp of democracy — approximately 3 minutes worth.  Unfortunately, the NRC’s plan to protect itself from democracy is much stronger than it’s plans to protect us from nuclear disasters.

When the NRC circus comes to town, their death-defying prestidigitations may very well make you gasp.  Still, we will be safely confined to grandstanding.  This dog and pony show might allow us to bitch until we are hoarse.  But, at the end of the day, the elephant in the middle of the big, flimsy tent, will do its thing, and the little people of this world will be left with the mess.  And the NRC circus will skip town, to continue their tour de farce.

So, I am here to do the impossible.  I am here to speak for a thousand generations in 3 minutes.   Usually such hope and possibility requires the venue of something like American Idol.  Well, my friends, we have an American idol: the nuclear industry.  This American idol has reigned for 70 years.  This American idol has rained nuclear waste across this great land.  And today, 70 years later, as the waste of the nuclear fat cats grows larger, they offer a 600-page tome as their litter.  And who dares wade through this litter box?  Who dares to think inside this box?  Who of us will not be pooped out?  Can anyone venturing into this 600-page tomb view it as anything but a deathly undertaking?  What box can possibly hold such eternally reigning transgressions?  Do you have a staff member called Pandora by any chance?!  There is only one sane solution: let’s idle this idol!  The solution is simple: we must end nuclear generations to end nuclear generations.

The ultimate question for today is: In our call to shut Davis-Besse down, will we be heard?

Sure, NRC staff will herd our comments into another neatly formatted tome.  But will we be heard?  Sure, the decision-makers have ears, and stenographers, and word processors.  But will we be heard?

Will the people affected by nuclear power generation be heard?  They call this a public hearing.  But the reality is that it is physically and metaphysically impossible for over 99% of those affected by Davis-Besse’s nuclear waste to be here — for the simple fact that they have not even been born yet.  Will we weigh the testimony today to account for their interests, the interests of future generations?

Can you hear our great grandchildren cry out into the not-so-great ears of today’s nuclear executives: Why did you poison our world for a few kilowatts?

Can you hear our great, great grandchildren cry out into the not-so-great ears of today’s First Energy shareholders:  Why did you rob our future for a few profits today?

Can you hear our great, great, great grandchildren cry out into the not-so-great ears of today’s parade of crooning cronies, sometimes called politicians:  Why did you sell out your communities for a little patronage?

But…what if we are truly heard today?  Then we might just hear:

The gentle whispers of our great, great, great, great, great grandchildren saying “good job” to the employees in the former nuclear industry — and by “good job” they don’t mean thanks for taking that decent paying job, but rather, holding out and demanding good jobs, jobs friendly to both working families and our environment.

If we are truly heard today, then we might just hear: the gentle whispers of our great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren thanking the nameless thousands across this great land who worked for neither wages nor shareholder profits, but rather, worked freely for a world where it doesn’t pay to destroy our environment.

We must listen to our future generations.  If not us, who?  If not now, when?

As for me, in this generation, I will gladly live without Davis-Besse.  I will gladly trade the sliver of energy produced during my lifetime to spare thousands of generations the poison of nuclear waste.  Though make no mistake, even if the problem of nuclear waste disposal was somehow miraculously solved, I would still gladly trade this energy source simply to avoid the probability of a nuclear catastrophe from the safety disaster that Davis-Besse has so proven.   Shut it down!

Please listen to the prophets who seek the good of all, not the profits which only enrich the few, at the expense of the 99%.  THANK YOU!

Good Job
by Dan Rutt, alias “Top Pun” (it’s just, my pun name)

It was early Monday mourning
When the Davis-Besse nuclear plant
Finally ruptured
At the base of Lake Eerie
Weeping poison
From the once-great lakes
Now a watery grave for both sellers
And consumers
Of atomic drivel
For what human remains
The event became known
Simply as “The rupture”
Leaving sleepy millions
In its wake
Sucked into a glowing sky
For who knows watt
Feudal to press release
Fore their heavenly reword
A paradise rolled
Entranced buy snake eyes
In charge of all that meters
Relegating us to hoarse power
Silent partners
Dealt a roil flush
In a conniving casino
Pain only in skullduggery
Forging height reason
And absolute faith in stonewall
As a bet
A dark wager
Echoing in the empty halls
Of unions and congress
“Good job”

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political Action | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Passing Through Sublime Daze

Posted on March 24, 2014 by

I pass through
Sublime daze
Uninterrupted by alarms
Or dread lines
Clothed in a peril so frayed
I am practically naked
To the whirled
To wit each mourn
I live in that last squeeze of toothpaste
And that first blush of nature
Calling me out
Of every manor ad mired
Lodging in my heart
I live in vast open spaces
That most rush buy
Unseen
Like the homeless
With mansions to build
I live off what others store as waist
Happiness shelved
In small bytes
And simulated living
I lay away
With every breath
The air of my weighs
I have little
And want even less
I am
Enough
As I am
Fed up with awe
Save that primordial
Uddering
Simply
Well, I declare
I live on

I love my life.  I love life.  This poem is a tribute to my relaxed lifestyle.  I relish my seasons without an alarm clock.  I delight in sojourning along the road less traveled, so I don’t have to wait in those dreaded lines chock full of people trying to get to the same place, who often are at a loss at how they got stuck in the cruel trafficking of life.  I welcome a naked vulnerability as an irrepressible weed in a human landscape with more concrete than effervescent spirits.  I am fond of my wanderings daily leading me to the savor of the world, where the mundane and the sacred meet, whether it be a revel without a cause or a long-sought vocation.  I delight in experiencing the better portion of life, not by having more, but by wanting awe.  Ideal in letting go, sow serendipity can Marvel me with super powers.  Life inspires me, and the err that is human finds a gentle hommé as the human grace lungs forward.  I am.  Enough.  Living on.  That which know name can udder.

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Guarding God

Posted on March 23, 2014 by

He stoutly guarded God
From an unruly world
An unreveling creation
And in such earnest
He, and millions others, were
Relieved of their doody
Perhaps only a small relief
For God above
Yet for such bellow
Refuse-ing
To be passed so easy
As some foul gag
Unyielding unearth
As unheavin’
A feudal gesture
In such an unholy rupture
Leaving behind
All the crap in religion
Until vomit us

Does God need guards or protectors?  Is God unable to fend for God’s self?  Can God create such a mess so big that even God can’t clean it up?

It seems to me that God and godliness are incarnated by our lives reflecting what is good, as opposed to enforcing precepts or ideas/beliefs.  I view means and ends as inextricably linked.  How else could it be?  Love begets love.  And God is love.  Violence begets violence.  And while many might be skeptical of love, of God, few doubt that “means” lead to “ends.”  It strikes me that the separation from living in the foundational nature of God, that is unconditional love, is the beginning of sin.  Similarly, trying to take  shortcuts to God’s reign by “enforcement” strikes me as the birth of idolatry, wanting to lord over others.  This approach strikes me as feudal!  This approach is futile in the same way that expecting violence will end violence is foolish.  Both our materialist and spiritualist aspects can unite around this necessary order.  Unless your view of reality is wholly absurd, there is lawful order in the universe — certain things lead to other certain things.  Now, not everything is certain.  But uncertainty is not a license to ignore those things which are certain.  For example, you can ignore the law of gravity, but, quite predictably, this will not serve you or others well.  Likewise, you can ignore the laws of love, or violence, but don’t pretend that such lawlessness will bring greater order and harmony in the world.

Back to this poem’s theme of “all the crap in religion.”  Organizing love can be a perilously backwards approach, since love is the prime mover.  Trying to franchise God — that is, franchise love — will fail inasmuch as: 1) love is not what we preach, and 2) we don’t practice what we preach (regardless of what it is that we preach).  The first is being on mark with the purpose of religion.  There is plenty of disagreement here, on what love means.  The second is about authenticity and authority.  Authority is undermined inasmuch as you preach one set of rules and live by another.  This perilous law is where law-giving and law-preaching most commonly fail.  Preaching lawfulness while practicing lawlessness, well, just doesn’t do much for lawfulness.  The Lord of all has authority because God’s nature is unconditional love, manifest in grace, generosity, mercy, patience, and joyful freedom.  In Christianity, Jesus is lifted up because he came as a servant leader.  Jesus is the way inasmuch as Jesus melded the sacred nature of God as unconditional love fully into his way of living.  That’s the kind of leader worth emulating.  And all who stand against this, will fail.  But like gravity, the law of love seems weak and slow, particularly in narrow contexts and short time horizons.  Still, gravity, as love, will work its way, its purpose, in a sure and steady way.  Ignore such laws at your own peril.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: The Right and Wrong End of a Gun

Posted on March 22, 2014 by

I shot Bill
In the gut
He stood there
For a moment
Seeming like a lifetime
His blood flowing
Like
Well
Freely
Or
Might as
Well
Be
‘N aRiA
Souled
A Bill of goods
Now Kosher
A salt of the earth
A haughty boys’ game
So brand-ish
Shrouding
A right end
And a wrong end
Of a gun

This is another anti-gun violence poem in what is yet another recurring theme in my musings.  I can relate to the emotions leading to want to hurt someone, even kill them.  However, I am chronically puzzled by how humanity (or inhumanity?) allows these gut feelings to get the better of us.  This seems to be solidly within the immature stages of human development.  In this poem, Bill suffers from the incarnation of such a gut feeling, by feeling a bullet rip through his gut.  You may note that there is no context given for why Bill was been shot in the gut.  I suspect that many people might presume that Bill somehow deserved being shot in the gut. Our gun culture is moving us ever along a victim blaming worldview.  This thought process is similar to people’s reactions and inquiries when someone’s house has been robbed.  Were the doors locked?  Do you have a security system?  As if not locking your door or having a security system is justification for a robber to rob you!  Similarly, gun rights folks are selling Americans the wholesale paranoid notion that if you don’t have a gun then you are just asking for trouble, with no little irony, from a person with a gun.  The truth of such paranoia may very well be directly proportional to the self-fulfilling aspects of modern America’s love affair with firearms for personal protection.  As a trained public health professional, who has studied gun violence as a public health problem, there is a scientific consensus that the easy availability and increased presence of firearms leads to increased deaths.  Of course, most gun rights enthusiast deny such scientific evidence.  Who knows, maybe their being hot under the collar is confounding this whole climate change brouhaha.  What may be of some surprise to people is that increased gun deaths are very often suicides.  In fact, those with access to guns are more likely to kill themselves than be killed by someone else.  Perhaps this is some cruel twist of human evolution, but surely we can do better than killing off ourselves.  The polarization of views on the role of guns in American culture is stark.  Whatever your views, America is moving toward resembling the OKKK Corral, and I consider this a move toward increased terrorism, never knowing whose home and family might get caught in the cross fire.

Posted in Health, Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Different Game

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

Sorry, I don’t have any bargaining chips
I’m playing a different game

Most of the rules that we live by are not part of our everyday consciousness.  Our working assumptions become just part of the background.  Much of Western civilization and capitalism are about “getting ahead.”  This “getting ahead” is typically about exchanging one thing for another thing in such a fashion that you “profit” or gain from the exchange.  This dominant, and dominating, premise is considered fact by many, even those on the chronic short end of exchanges.

I prefer a different game.  I prefer a game that neither reduces our primary way of being as bargaining nor measures one’s worth by how many “chips” one possesses.  I do not want my life put to the bidding of others, whether in a bargain bin or at Christie’s Auction House.  I seek to live simply and uncompromisingly.  I value compassion and frugality.  In short, I make a lousy capitalist and a lousy imperialist.  I make an even worse slave!

In between the frugal two lines of this poem, one might presage a loss by not having the appropriate bargaining chips to leverage success and “win” the game.  This is perhaps true if one accepts and adopts the values of a capitalistic system or “game.”  Frankly, I think capitalists are overly serious, lacking a sense of play and humor.  This should come as no surprise, since capitalists typically find it difficult to monetize play and humor, that is, profit off their experience of play and humor.  Just look at the language of capitalists par excellence.  A “game” has more to do with manipulation than lighthearted enjoyment.  “Playing” someone means “getting the best of the them,” which, deeply ironically, means bringing out the worst in all parties.  I prefer play and humor because they are good in and of themselves; they are not merely a means to something else, in some ultimately unsatisfying, endless chain of exchanges, ever trying to get the better of someone else and never getting the best of anyone.  At least that’s what I see in capitalism, especially in practice, as opposed to theory.  Of course, maybe I just have a bargaining chip on my shoulder…

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Cautionary Tail

Posted on March 19, 2014 by

Ouch!
That guy should come with a warning label
She said after
Having had
A piece of cautionary tail

You can divide life’s lessons into two basic categories: 1) that which deserves emulating, and 2) that which warrants avoidance.  This short, funny poem highlights the latter of life’s lessons, the proverbial cautionary tale.  Fortunately, one of the redeeming qualities of life is that we can learn from both positive and negative experiences.  Of course, the content of this poem treads on the precarious territory of relationships and the ever-looming potential of the battle of the sexes.  Lust and romantic possibilities are often more than enough to pass by potential warning signs in dating relationships.  I am a big fan of throwing oneself fully into human relationships.  This seems consonant with living life fully.  Nonetheless, woo can turn to whoa very fast, often skidding deep into woe.  The reality is often that the best way to know where a line exists is by crossing it.  There is much in life that is unknown.  Spending too much time mapping out every sign and landmark may prevent one from living an actual life.  Hopefully, we can offer one another enough room and grace to make mistakes as we careen joyfully through life’s messiness.  In fact, such lives deserve emulating…

Posted in Funny Poems, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Amateurs and Prose

Posted on March 18, 2014 by

There are moments
When I feel
Like such an amateur
Then the payments come
So much more
Than I could ever hope for
The only falling short
Is ever thinking
That life
Is fated to be
Any won thing
Except
Well
Spent
Surpassing awe
In deed not
Buy miserly prose
Dying with more
Than a pauper attitude
Lein-ing on the everlasting alms
That train to glory
Bound
Less debt
Eternally

Life is good.  The gift of life offers so many great things and awesome possibilities.  Gratitude strikes me as perhaps the most fundamental human attitude toward life, if reality is seen in a large enough perspective.  Maybe I’m just lucky.  I prefer to view it as grace.  Either way, I have experienced the bounty of serendipity on countless occasions — and I count these occasions as priceless!  Hopefully, such a beautiful predicament engenders paying it back and paying it forward.  I see life as an invitation to more life.  I view vitality as best served by generously overflowing, by joining in and continuing the perpetual cycling of giving.  Miserly attitudes can stunt this wondrous cycling.  Greed is a parasite on plenty.  May gratitude and generosity carry you as a living antidote to miserliness and greed.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Twins

Posted on March 15, 2014 by

Chris and Pat were like twins
Only he was more so

This short poem uses ambiguous pronouns and unisex names to maximize the possibilities of interpretation.  The underlying twist is that if two people are alike, can one be more like the other?  The twist hinges on twin aspects of reality.  A more superficial aspect that is shared may bring others to characterize two people “like twins.”  However, an inner aspect may shed light on the nature of their twin-ness.  For instance, if Chris is a cowboy (or is that cowgirl?), and Pat dresses and acts like a cowboy/cowgirl, then Pat’s acting like a cowboy/cowgirl makes Chris and Pat like twins.  And it could be said that’s Pat’s wanting to be like Chris, makes Pat even more-so a twin than Chris.  Chris just happens to be a cowgirl/cowboy; Pat is driving the twin-ness aspect.  Outer appearances can be deceiving, not being a very good representation of a deeper reality.  I’ve heard it said that being sincere is the most important thing, and once you can fake that you’ve got it made.  Certainly, the difference between sincerity and faked sincerity is vast.  Perhaps being able to tell the difference is where true wisdom lies…

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Her Voice

Posted on March 13, 2014 by

Her voice could be heard
Three generations within earshot
Yet the man in front of her
Was two ears short of listening
At times she spoke
Simply to convince herself
That she could
Due more
Then listen
Wading for something more than deaf
And dumb ruse of men
Relegated to quaint shams
Engendering stupefactions
As a pathetic answer
To unquestioning order
In a guise whirled
Gent-ly herd
In tasteful reservations
And if more than udder
He turns out
To be the outright shovin’ist
Is it possible
For him to do without
As if
You list a strata
And he’ll forevermore
Still fancy himself
On top
The crowning member
Of some exclusive club
The human race   
Oft leaving
Room for only one abet
Take it or leave it
Never quite getting it
What he wonts
So leading ladies
Show him a role
Un-for-gettable
And when it comes to you
It will be
Awe about
That transcending property
You’re choice

Being heard is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of positive human experience.  This poem addresses the profoundly prevalent and persistent reality that women are not listened to as much as men.  The need for human connection is so strong that being ignored can be more harmful than active dislike.  Being treated as an object rather than a subject is the primary mode of dehumanizing people.

The male privilege present in most human cultures, often called sexism, may be the most important -ism in humans’ communal experience.  Sexism may also be the most stubbornly persistent -ism.  I think that this is true because women are interspersed in all human cultures.  Many -isms, such as racism and classism, flourish because of in-group and out-group dynamics that can more easily be stratified in one’s everyday life and experience.  However, since women are nearly omnipresent in households with more than one person, there would seem to be powerful forces integrating women in a relatively fair way into the most fundamental units of society, the family or household.  A nearly universal factor in advancing equality for disenfranchised groups is to have that group exposed in meaningful ways to the dominant group.  It seems that the theory is that exposure leads to understanding, compassion and justice.  This doesn’t strike me as having much truth in regard to women.  Boys grow up with the proverbial “hand that rocks the cradle,” subject to profound influence by their mothers.  In the dominant heterosexual world, men seek and have close relations with women, as lovers, partners-spouses, raisers of children.  Still, it seems that these interpersonal and family dynamics are trumped by larger social and cultural forces.  I don’t pretend to have a solution for the ages old “war of the sexes” (which is typically framed in male fashion).  Nonetheless, I am quite sure that men not listening to women is not only a profound insult to women, but a profound loss to men.  Listen up guys!!

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Davis-Besse Nuclear Disaster – “Good Job”

Posted on March 12, 2014 by

It was early Monday mourning
When the Davis-Besse nuclear plant
Finally ruptured
At the base of Lake Eerie
Weeping poison
From the once-great lakes
Now a watery grave for both sellers
And consumers
Of atomic drivel
For what human remains
The event became known
Simply as “The rupture”
Leaving sleepy millions
In its wake
Sucked into a glowing sky
For who knows watt
Feudal to press release
Fore their heavenly reword
A paradise rolled
Entranced buy snake eyes
In charge of all that meters
Relegating us to hoarse power
Silent partners
Dealt a roil flush
In a conniving casino
Pain only in skullduggery
Forging height reason
And absolute faith in stonewall
As a bet
A dark wager
Echoing in the empty halls
Of unions and congress
“Good job”

This poem is inspired the chronic reality of having lived in the kill zone (50-mile radius) of nuclear reactors most of my life.  Currently, Toledo is smack dab between two nuclear power plants with very poor safety records, that is, Davis-Besse and Fermi 2.  A nuclear disaster at either of these nuclear reactors on Lake Erie would be catastrophic for both human populations and the entire ecosystem of the Great Lakes region.  For the oft cited improbability of such disasters, I publish this poem around the 3-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear reactors melting down, and still melting down with no good end in sight.

The specific theme of this anti-nuclear poem is triggered by multiple disturbing experiences at public hearings on these nuclear reactors.  At such hearings, there is typically a parade of power plant union workers — think Homer Simpson — and fawning public officials — think Mayor Quimby.  Their well-orchestrated homilies extol well-paying jobs and how magnificently the plant has overcome past safety failures.  Local political cronies typically wax on about how great corporate citizens these huge and hugely irresponsible energy companies are for their patronized communities.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a willing conspirator and ringmaster to this surreal circus of blessed assurance.  I am particularly disturbed by how enthusiastically workers, and specifically labor unions, are willing to worship any job, however “well-paying,” that endangers humanity and Mother Earth.  Though, if you’re going to destroy the planet, I suppose it seems better to get well-paid along the way.

The farcical facade of nuclear safety has been exposed in three not-so-easy steps: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.  I, for one, am not waiting for a twelve step program to shutter the drunken gait of the nuclear industry.

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Fermi Too

Posted on March 11, 2014 by

From Detroit to Toledo
I drive by and by
Monroe’s Fermi 2
Nuclear waste tower
Falling over
Penning only
A plume of death
In place of this poet
A prophet taking
Having called for its decommissioning
Offers no comfort
Only one more thing to mourn
Sanity unheeded
As the tsunami of insanity
Overtakes us
A graveyard of scant profits
Where we stood
Where we lived
And worked
No re-creation
As even the god of destruction
And his unwitting fallowers
Dare not rejoice

Today is the three-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear power plant ongoing disaster.  I joined some folks outside the Japanese consulate in Detroit.  The Japanese consulate and security would not let us in the renaissance center where the consulate is located.  We wanted to deliver a letter mourning the loss of life due to the Fukushima meltdowns, and deliver a call to remediate additional harms as this disaster continues to unfold.  We protested outside and read the letter publicly.  There were as many police and private security personnel as their were protesters, so no one was harmed in the protesting of this mega-disaster.  If only such well-resourced public safety extended to nuclear power plants.

I wrote this poem a couple of months ago, spurred on by driving past the Fermi 2 nuclear reactor in Monroe, MI, on my way to Toledo from Detroit.  I’ve driven through this nuclear kill zone many times, and I live most of my life in the kill zone.  The Fermi 2 nuclear reactor site has an overfilled high-level radioactive waste storage building, five stories tall, that cannot be off-loaded because it was not built to its design specs — oops.  If this tower falls, the death toll would be unfathomable.   There is no permanent solution to radioactive waste here or anywhere, which has been building up over 60 years of commercial nuclear reactor operations in the United States.  Making matters worse, there is a proposed Fermi 3 nuclear power plant, a $15 billion monstrosity as an answer to declining electricity usage in the region.  We need to end nuclear power before nuclear power ends us.

Posted in Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Pseudoscience

Posted on March 8, 2014 by

After a cursory perusal
Of your uncorroborated facts
In your unverified application
We are pleased to accept
The donation of your brain
To pseudoscience

The great thing about donating your brain to pseudoscience is that such brains are largely unused.  Scientific literacy, sound logic, and critical thinking seem to be largely optional in postmodern America.  Maybe this is progress.  I can see the headlines now: “Western Civilization Renders Effective Human Beings Superfluous.”  Of course, you’ll never see this headline.  Mostly because the word “superfluous,” in a crowning irony, is extremely unlikely to make it through the dumb-down filter that is omnipresent in mass media, rendering it unneeded.  In this juggernaut of progress, we will soon render focus groups superfluous, as big data will know us better than we know ourselves, and the lowest common denominator pabulum rendered by focus group results will be delivered by an algorithm.  Of course, such algorithms will be proprietary in the private sector and top-secret within government inner circles, to assure that the economy is fed and stability reigns.  But no need to worry, as consumers and consumed merge, we can bask in the glow of our glowing big screen boxes, approximating life so statistically accurately.  Our every emotional, snacking, and consuming need will be re-calibrated every fraction of a second.  Now, some might think that this is some grand conspiracy theory, but those in the know realize that the government has planted conspiracy theories to distract us from deeper truths…

Posted in Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Less Than Eternal Question

Posted on March 7, 2014 by

The Rev. Medley
Had risen
To the highest position
He would ever
It was only down from there
An awe too common
Occupational hazard
Of moderate irony
And accumulating lessens
Just falling short
Of making one cross
Facing that less than eternal question
If only Jesus
Had bothered to develop
Better retirement plans

Here is a poem that I wrote before the Lenten season, and now that we are in Lent, I realize that it is an appropriate Lenten poem.  I have always admired Jesus for being “all in” this thing called life.  While Jesus’ way of being in the world raises difficult questions, his life powerfully juxtaposes finding meaning in life with finding meaning in death.  Lent is a time for Christians to reflect on such things.  For years I have often joked that I have given up Lent for Lent.  More to the truth, my ascetic tendencies and frank goals of living simply leave me in a sort of permanent Lent.  In practice, I see that Buddhists seems to model better than Christians simple living and prudently avoiding attachments to material goods. Materialism has such a powerful and normative presence in Western civilization, that Christianity, at least as practiced in Westernized communities, seems to have accommodated rampant materialism quite well.  I see the divide between serving God or wealth (worldly power) as primary in my understanding of the message of Jesus’ life and death.  The conventional wisdom of sensible retirement planning, as alluded to in this poem, seems second nature to what is considered the good life in modern times. I have witnessed way too many fear-filled discussions in church settings about more financially secure appointments, health coverage, and retirement benefits for clergy.  In sharp contrast, I have found little traction for providing a living wage to janitors, secretaries, and many other employees of churches or faith-based organizations.  Church folks are too polite to crucify you for suggesting providing a living wage to low-wage church employees, but the resounding silence kills nonetheless.

In reflecting on the often lukewarm leadership of professional Christians, often called clergy, outsiders are at little risk of ever guessing that the founder of their movement was publicly executed by the state for his revolutionary, uncompromising life.  In sharp contrast, outsiders have little difficulty understanding that religious elites were complicit in Jesus’ murder.

I admire the Buddhist spiritual practice of meditating on your own death.  This practice seems like a powerful way to elicit the value and importance of life in the context of death.  Followers of Jesus have a profound leader who made such meditations an incarnate reality.  Jesus is the way.  But the retirement plan is a killer.

Posted in Health, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Owed to XL

Posted on February 21, 2014 by

Owed to XL

Something irresistible
Drug from Canada
That must be some wick-ed shit!
What the “eh”
For the land of the free to be
Sold to the highest
Bitter
Everything must go!
“It’s going to happen anyway”
A juggernaut of lemmings
Full of subtle plunder statements
And generations of litter-gation
Brought a bout
By agitators wanting
Neither change nor dollars
Though perhaps
Some green back
And a few bucks
To run free
For if
Not
Just
Chain me
To the pipeline
To the prison
Of another’s drug habit
That makes cents for them
A million caliber fire arm
Into our vain
And heart land
Across to be borne
Again and again
Until we fine
The dose
That kills
It’s called “XL”
As we have a fit
For our over-sized ambitions
Though might
As well
Be one size fits none
Baggy pantsed gangstas
Stuffing their pants
With the stuff legends are made of
Getting under Mother Earth’s kin
And running out
Of patients
And ways to heel
Left in the mutter
There goes the neighborhood
Wondering if
There’s a belt big enough
To hold up
These fuels

I wrote this poem today, at the prompting of yet another fuel fool brandishing the inevitability of the XL pipeline and exploitation of the Canadian boreal forest tar sands strip mining.  Even more shameful, it was a “scientist” claiming metaphysical inevitability.  We don’t HAVE TO strip mine the earth of every fossil fuel to live a good life — in fact, destroying the earth is absolutely incompatible with the good life.

I’m sick and tired of people saying that the Canadian tar sands will be developed with or without the XL pipeline running through US.  It’s just another lame version of the “If I didn’t do it, somebody else would” excuse for not taking responsibility for your actions.  It’s not that complicated.  If your actions are destroying the planet, then you have a responsibility to stop.  Then, you can start working on changing the rest of the world.  It may very well be the exact opposite of leadership to say that you won’t do something until everybody else does it.  I might say that we’ve become a nation of sheep and lemmings, but that would be an insult to sheep and lemmings within whom the moral agency to save the planet does not reside!  We can continue to kick the can down the road, but eventually, it will be Mother Nature kicking our can…

Posted in Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

3D POEM: My Twisted Uni-verse (on a Mobius Strip)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Top Pun

This 3D POEM, My Twisted Uni-verse, may very well be the first poem ever written to be read on a Mobius Strip, made from a plain strip of paper with a half twist and joined at the ends, forming a bounded surface with only one side and one edge.  While the Mobius strip appears to have two sides, it actually has only one.  If you draw a line through the center of the Mobius strip without lifting the pencil off the paper, you mysteriously come back to the starting point but on the seemingly opposite side of the paper. Though some may think that they have met-a-physically impossible poem, this poem proves once and for awe that one side fits all.  This poem could be in the endless running for the coolest poem ever metaphor.  Here you can download the poem and instructions for printing and assembling this 3D POEM, My Twisted Uni-verse, on a Mobius strip.

Here is the poem in the much flatter, and much more boring, two-dimensional, virtual format:

START
My twisted uni-verse
Another Dan poem
Of a certain Rutt
A parent
Chaos
From the mine
Of a loving creator
And boundless art
Fathered
Strangely hollowed
By sum
Figure eight
Somehow fallen
Belying a symbol of infinity
Like some dodo’s flight of flimsy
Oar a Cardinal’s mind numb-er
Which holds no water
Wringing out
The tinkle and knell we’re in
Tintinnabulating K-9 jingles
The perpetually twisted calibrated
By nothing but
A bottomless equation
Divided by zeroes
In bogus denominations
Their value lying in fallowing the one
Scaling up to eternity
Or we’re all askewed
Yet inexplicably abstaining
From inner course
Where two become one
Long after one becomes two
Giving arise
Too
One’s third pupil
On the blink
Of such an incredible faculty
Agape
Unimaginable
To be
This school
Taut cursive
In a printsly world
A grade steeped
By advanced degrees
Such ascendancy
Offering eminent danger
Infinitesimally close
To sheer tear
Like shingles to a hommé
Con fronting flailing grades
How report a card
Where so oblique
In all afield
Un-reckon-izable dimensions
3-D and then some
F’s thrown in
For good measure
Long the weigh
In consonant terms
Amidst an implausible dream
Of hitting AWOL
Having bolted
The ghetto of calculus
In the face of
A never ending Mo’ be us trip
That blings true
Where knot knowing
What to do with it
Effacing the feeble mined
Less pressing than a stack of bills
I’m patient to pay the flee
Only too fined
The wholly frail
Of hospitality
Having gotten aweigh
Unfounded
Hoodwinked
By sum comical
Met a physician
With a glean in his I
Leaving me
Duped up
And swallowing deludes down
In reality getting bent
Awe askant
Know longer
Mused
By the funny paper
Only peering as washed out
Two dimensional characters
In a whirled series
Remanding one
Of a duplicitous cell
Hopping to escape
In sum count ’em leap
With singular energy
Pack it
Heat
Of the pauper caliber
Miss taken
As if
Over a barrel
Stock piling weepin’s
Fauster than light
Long the way
A formula won raze
The devil in the detailing
Dashing drivers
And hopes
Un-car-ing
Off course
As oft
To the races
All that’s mind foiled
In a moving finish
Untouched
By scurry-less-ness
And a void
Some alien oversight
Or an other wizard-in-ski
Sow commanding fruit
Fully multiplying
Product placement
And elite divisions
Leaving us wanton
The winners circle
As vultures in compassing
Like sum gallop poll
Leading us to thirst place
Where life is a breeze
And as you might
Have gust
O so puffed up
Strung out
Like flying a kite
In the mettle
Of lighten-ing all a bout
That too for one sail
Err no’ing
One side fits all
A might he
Fortress is
De-moated too
In-F-able
Fore letters, words
Life unabridged
Elude to a kiss
Bye lingual
Surpassing prose
That speak easy
In two languages
Simply sed
A hearty dos upon ya (only slightly rushin’)
One tongue
The thirst
Of paper penned
Makes ciao
Of the other
Sum arrhythmia tic
With no cure insight
For one is too
Beholden to digitalis
Waving like a palm
Just out of grasp
Trying to out fox gLove
Without feeling
Ticking off reality
Taking one’s leave
Fig mental
The commencement of quotas
Espousing a Lot of ground
To earn their salt
And pilloried remains
Left behind
Uncovering too much for modesty
Too little cloak and dagger to brag
Yet cocky enough
To embody such a nit writ
Call me ish male
An inconceivable heir about him
A leg of the journey absent
Sailing the piqued
Untoward the Moby-est RIP
Ever-multiplying wails
On this one-sided outing
Wagering on just accounting
Wading for the fork in the rowed
And columns towering
As Babble on
At least two sheets to the win
Helled together as 180 degrees twisted
In a 360 daze
Like guinea pigs
On a treadmill
In the House of Escher
M.C. for a private first class
Of puzzling Coptic allusions
Walking and talking
More like dead Egyptians
On nether side of the tip of the iceberg
Feeling under the whether
Frees us
Or wholly deserted
Left wear thou dust go
A simple noshing of teeth
Where so little smacks of dearth
For all that scant do
Everlastingly lean
On arms and alarms
Free from
Double and triple crossers
Of the finish lyin’
A bout too
Rat grace
Just working to get too
The other side
Like you halve two
When mirrorly
Won for all
Soully routed
In sum final resolution
An attainment for all ours
In know jumping too
Conclusions
Of such curtains seamingly applausible
Yet knot de-terminus
To know end
Bringing you to
Cave
Of wonders
Just saying
O pun says me
FINISH (or knot)

Please download, print and assemble your own 3D version of this POEM, My Twisted Uni-verse, on a Mobius strip.

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: On a Roll!

Posted on February 16, 2014 by

In my write mind
I am on a roll
Plain and simple
And there is nothing butter
On that!

I haven’t published a poem in a while.  This is because this week the muse has had other plans for me.  I found myself working on an epic poem.  I soon realized that the nearly infinite reservoir of material and possibilities destine this poem to be of epic proportions.  In the midst of the rising poetic genius, the above short poem emerged.  This is a poet’s poem about being in the zone.  Of course, the metaphors can be extended to any of life’s moments of peek experience into its awesomeness.  May you find yourself on a roll soon…

Posted in About Top Pun, Funny Poems, Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: High Cost of Employment

Posted on February 10, 2014 by

Despite the high cost of employment
It is still quite popular

This short poem is a takeoff or elaboration of Will Rogers’ infamous statement: Despite the high cost of living, it’s still quite popular.  As wage slavery continues largely unabated, many are confronting the seemingly wild proposition of whether it’s worth being employed!  Surely, millions of Americans in two-income households have concluded that it just isn’t worth it for the second person to work.  By cutting childcare, transportation and other cash costs, as well as cutting the emotional costs of unsatisfying work, many people have experienced enhanced quality of life.  The trends to increasing self-employment, contract work, or voluntary part-time will likely receive a boost with Obamacare offering more access to health care that is not dependent on large employers.  Similarly, small business entrepreneurship will likely accelerate.

Personally, I have found that being dangerously underemployed is quite wonderful!  I have grown to appreciate the value of time over money, and the profound freedom to pursue my passions, most of which are not particularly monetizable.  My need to monetize is governed by the organizing principle of: for every dollar I don’t spend is a dollar I don’t have to earn.  I regularly ponder the possibilities of “hiring myself” to do tasks that I would otherwise pay cash for, and often get satisfaction in a variety of such tasks.  Cooking is a good example of this, where I can eat more cheaply and more nutritiously by preparing my own foods.

As workplace dissatisfaction is endemic, and employees commonly feel dehumanized, the push to finding fulfilling alternatives will likely continue.  Hopefully, this can help transform work into a more meaningful enterprise for millions of people.  May we all find joyful work and abundant re-creation.

Posted in Funny Poems, Health, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Rutherford

Posted on February 9, 2014 by

Rutherford was a man
Whose cruelty was only
Acceded by his ignorance
And all kinds of people
Parted with his presence
A gift to know one
Leased of awe himself
And if you ran into him
In all likely hood
It was he
Who ran into you
A cunning certainty
His very name meaning
Synonymous with first and last

This poem fits into my growing genre of mini-biographies or beginnings of novels.  First, nothing personal to anyone named Rutherford: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I picked the name Rutherford because of its association in the mind of this punster with ‘ruthless’, or in the case, ‘ruther.’  Also, since the name Rutherford can be used as either a first or last name, the last line of the poem was born.  We have all probably known someone whose negative affect on people was consistent, exceeded only by their lack of awareness of this affect.  Unfortunately, their cruelty may have a certain cunning to it, where they make a point of running into you, or most any other nameless rabble that suits them at the moment.  This poem is unusual for me in that it really doesn’t even contain a seed of hope that is typically present in my poems.  This speaks to the reality that some people’s dominant role in life seems to be serving as a cautionary tale for others.  This too is a gift, albeit not a most pleasant one.  Fortunately, hope springs eternal, even amidst regiments of cautionary tales.

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POEM: Heaven Unearth

Posted on February 7, 2014 by

Heaven Unearth

Place
Your hand in mine
And I will
Skip
The rest
Of the whirled
My feat barely
Touching
The ground
Where heaven and earth meet
Together
Giving thanks
For earthly existence
And your heavenly
Place
Saying a prayer
For the forever lust
And grace for awe
That is right

Alright people, it’s only a week away from Valentine’s Day!  I promise to help fulfill my dream that loved ones everywhere get a love poem.  So, will you be doing your part on Valentine’s Day?  You are free to pawn any of my love poems for a little inspiration.  Here are some suggested (only somewhat suggestive) love poems: Stolen Glances, Our Weekend Away, Relationship Advice, Unconvincing, and Love Tag.  As I have been prone to say: I want to inspire you; that is, I want to breathe you in!  I will craft a poem suitable, or perhaps unsuitable, for my sweetheart, an audience of won!  WARNING: a Valentine’s Day without poetry may put you at risk for settling for prose…

Posted in About Top Pun, Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment