A Faint Hope

So much global anger and division,

government arrogance and derision;

Many deaths result from one decision,

Career boost gained off military destruction.

Stars and ribbons and polished jutting chins,

swagger in rooms packed with high tech sweat.

A quorum is reached on territory to win,

lives to snuff for death's quota to be met.

Another adventure in some dusty Afghan province,

or propping up another regime in Baghdad?

Perhaps large bribes to area tribes to convince

them to attack Hezbollah and make Israel glad.

The players change places, retire and write books,

recount heroism repeated by predecessors.

New ones take over and “sink in their hooks,”

creating their own local ruling oppressors.

Perhaps they would listen to one of their own,

a general who fought many battles for peace.

Time to call Eisenhower's ghost back home,

give tired troops and bloody populations relief.

- end

Listy listy listy

Links to my books for sale on Amazon etc - thanks for taking a look  :-)

Future Property – Michael Wilson

https://www.amazon.com/Future-Property-Collection-Speculative-Fiction/dp/147524732X

Experimental Tales – Dycen Alexander

https://www.amazon.com/Experimental-Tales-Enjoyment-Dycen-Alexander/dp/1500992429

The Osmotics – Dycen Alexander

https://www.amazon.com/Osmotics-Dycen-Alexander/dp/1495486575

New Venture – Dycen Alexander

https://www.amazon.com/New-Venture-First-Contact-Kuiper/dp/1508688729

Epic Prime Collection – Dycen Alexander

https://www.amazon.com/Epic-Prime-Collection-Dycen-Alexander/dp/1530631017

Crime Spree – poetry - Mike Wilson

https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Spree-Mr-Mike-Wilson/dp/1535057610/

A Strange Enterprise collection of speculations

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Enterprise-Collection-Speculations/dp/0615818072

Shadow Intersection - poetry

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Intersection-collection-Michael-Wilson/dp/1481859412

29 Stories – Kindle Edition – collection of short fiction:

https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Nine-Stories-Mike-Wilson-ebook/dp/B0714D14JD

- end

A historical find

Oh, how serendipitous, delightful it is to be idling by, digging through old notebooks and reading what my younger self wrote.  When I found this snippet of spontaneous poetry I wrote at age 27, when I was in love  (or at least infatuated).   Now you can enjoy it too.

"Years have gone by;

years of pain, suffering, loneliness.

I have searched, questioned, agonized.

Feelings came and went in a mad swirl of seeking.

Millions is the magic key; or is

it college; no, maybe electronics,

to create an intelligent machine for a pet.

How about plants, to “grow my offspring.”

Or catching fish to snag some good cheer.

Music, sweet music is always nice to hear

                             even when you're queer.

Love is the force I seek –

and into

its warm, bright, soft center I peek.

Money can't earn it. Business can't pay it.

Trees can't grow it. Art can't paint it.

Fishing won't catch it – music can only say it.

Love is the key to your soul."

I thought I was old or something - LOL.

Youtube links

Here are a few experimental videos on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTD_Ypz1jwM
Live Clam in a small Iowa river

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG26EGjpBRE
March for Science and a bell ringer in the background

Tettegouche Falls in northern Minnesota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQIziOGjqnA

Iowa State Fair 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQt2V9YYf-Q

Navy Blue Angels seen while driving on I-80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_tCJWwUJUg

Enjoy them all.

What Happened to US

What happened to You

America so beautiful,

once you were harsh wilderness,

tamed by adventurers,

settled by Europe's castoffs and so many others.

Now you have turned into a miasma of

self-absorbed fluff addicts,

peppered by extremists and hate groups.

Once you gave the blood of so many youth

to combat fascism and racism.

Now you grow these evil weeds within your borders.

The quiet majority needs to set down their toys

and shout as one “Enough! We will not stand for this again!”

“We paid a horrible price for this in the 1940's!”

“Too high a price to repeat the mistake.”

Say NO to Nazi fascism, NO to racism, NO to bigotry

America was supposed to be better than this,

is supposed to be better than this,

Can become better than this.

These battles evidently must be fought over and over

by every new generation.

We are all one nation and had better figure out how to get along,

before we tear ourselves apart.

One civil war was enough.

Grow up, USA.

Get over the Fascist and Racist Foolishness and move on!

Ready or Not (again)

A rising din of engines and voices,

Dual-wheel pickups tow livestock

trailers to and fro, cutting corners quick!

Porta-potties line up like arriving crowds will,

border the edges of grounds throbbing with preparation.

Nearby neighborhoods sprout campers like weeds,

colored tape marks off yard parking areas,

manicured lawns awaiting their first oil stains,

tire ruts and trash piles of the season:

Promising profits for the property owners.

Cars are already lining some streets...

Various species of livestock announce their presence,

bleating, mooing and squawking their magnificence.

Their odors precede even their reputations...

August 10 is coming soon,

with that another Iowa State Fair is here.

The beast seems to get bigger every year!

This year, the grounds barely hold it all in.

An enormous roar will be felt as fireworks

cap off the entire garish spectacle.

Ready or not,

like a winter snowstorm, it is coming.

Everyone around may as well take in the show.

(Bound to be a good story or two hidden in

all of that confusion.)

Enjoy.

August Cool

Farewell for now cursed sweat rivulets,

stay away clammy air, too heavy to breathe.

Time to step outside and exult in the beauties.

A touch of Fall coolness has arrived in Iowa.

An August wonder, seventy degrees at noon;

In July it was a hundred and people swooned.

Now the yard work can get finished,

natural areas once again explored...

Overworked air conditioners can catch a break,

car engines and children whine a whole lot less.

Grilling and chilling outdoors returns to being fun;

The only ones sweating now are triathalon trainers.

Enjoy this brief respite, lucky Iowans;

we know mother nature is in the windup,

ready to throw us some more misery soon.

At least we caught a nice weekend this time around.

- end

Sub and Super Constructs

If our universe is a mere simulation,
death need not be feared as a destination.
Energy-ciphers flitting about in imagined
reality, we really have nothing to fear.

A curious mind wants to know how far
up and down the universes go, nested
inside each other as they must be.

Realities are created inside
energy-vessels of ever-larger realities.

Larger and smaller the universes come,
occupants within knowing only vastness.
Some distant origin-explosion or
"Big Bang" remains unimaginably distant.

All physical laws, time and 'the real'
fragment or super-assemble and
are incomprehensible to our
relatively tiny human brains.

Consciousness may dissipate,
but our energy persists,
and will return again in
some unimaginable form.

See you in the some-when of
an ultracoherent some-what,
at some time or other!

Lucky Seventies

Farewell for now cursed sweat rivulets,

stay away clammy air, too heavy to breathe.

Time to step outside and exult in the beauties.

A touch of Fall coolness has arrived in Iowa.

An August wonder, seventy degrees at noon;

In July it was a hundred and people swooned.

Now the yard work can get finished,

natural areas once again explored...

Overworked air conditioners can catch a break,

car engines and children whine a whole lot less.

Grilling and chilling outdoors returns to being fun;

The only ones sweating now are triathalon trainers.

Enjoy this brief respite, lucky Iowans;

we know mother nature is in the windup,

ready to throw us some more misery soon.

At least we caught a nice weekend this time around.