Against War

 

The young men charging out across

muddy, cratered fields into bullets,

so willing to go to their deaths – or not.

They get gassed, bombed, peppered with shrapnel,

some are left mangled, others survive,

still alive, yet permanently damaged.

 Their offspring fight across battlefields

European and Asian, leaving death,

despair, carnage and torture across the globe.

The wars keep coming,

one after another.

Compelling reasons spouted by leaders,

populations follow willing or not.

Harsh, cruel, unfair deaths

bestowed on generation after generation.

Most have stopped asking why,

humanity seems determined to

heap misery upon itself,

over and over.

And now, this day,

we are getting ready to do it again.

No surprise, warfare;

no shock, carnage;

just head-shaking sadness.

Too bad we aren’t amoebas,

oblivious to everything,

not feeling the end,

not understanding or caring,

just wiggling and eating.

War, the human offense,

destroys innocent bystander The Earth;

Mother Nature crushed by tank treads,

destroyed by nonsensical human stupidity.

Pity the poor animals,

the only innocents left.

Honor of Experience with Poets

 

That connection with fellow poets is invaluable.

Those local minds that I interact with,

exchange ideas, images and metaphors

are so valuable to experience and enjoy.

I sit there with Pat, Mary, Jeff and Dick,

Lynn, Joyce, Jane, Frank, Virginia, Jim and more.

We read each others work, share our impressions,

and for a brief time, join hands across time with

Emily, Edna, Edgar, Robert, ee, Allen, and all those

voices who speak to us of worlds and feelings near or far,

distant in time and space, or close as a neighboring city yesterday.

Humanity’s collective harmony of thought, feeling, existence

reverberating and reflecting, absorbing and coruscating…

creating new ideas as fast as old ones are consumed.

Us lucky few, able to attach to this deep, vast well of being, and

become at one with it (as much or more than some Internet device.)

Gratitude goes out to my fellow poets,

for all the shared experience

we have enjoyed together throughout the years!

Looking forward to more time spent together,

sharing in the human experience that seems to

encompass galaxies and universes.

The 2020s are here – strap yourselves in,

it should be a great show – to write about!

Don't talk down to people

 

Those in business and want to earn my money

had better not talk down or condescend to me.

Treating someone like a child or incompetent

is a good way to see them vacate the premises.

So many different places default to this standard,

talk to everyone coming in the door as if they

are lesser beings, children, or otherwise deficient.

So you have hordes of people out there with the

impression planted repeatedly that they are lesser

in some fashion or other, just for shopping for something.

It is no wonder our society, our country lags in so many areas.

Large masses of the public get repeated imbecilic messages.

Advertisements full of nonsensical puffery and enticements,

insincere doubletalk and blandishments from public officials,

baby talk and condescension from so many public venues.

What good is a public or private school education,

when it is soon cast away in favor of mindless babble?

No wonder life expectancy is down and suicides are up.

What is the point of doing anything right if it is always

greeted with jealous derision and bitter backbiting?

Crazy effing world out there.  

Stay rational if you can.

Inflated Prospects

 

Prices are really ballooning fast these days,

along with waistlines – winter eating forays.

Positive Covid-19 tests are also increasing fast,

and there are rising tensions between East and West!

I thought 2022 was supposed to promise growth,

better prospects for our employment and health.

But “Katie bar the door” this is not the growth we want,

all the nasties are growing, in vain hope is sought.

There is still that small part of the self hanging on to hope;

have to focus on the positive, maybe tell a funny joke.

But the larger mental soup seems stuck in a quandry,

how the hell to stay sane until we escape this January?

Never underestimate the indomitable will of the human spirit,

Never “say die,” never let oneself quit, even if it feels

like one is being roasted on some metaphorical spit.

Stay cool, stay hip, time to ‘keep on keeping on,’ time to flit.

Real or Virtual, or Both

 

    There has been a lot of talk about Web 3.0, a coming virtual world where we will all have avatars and identities. What will it be like having a virtual presence, as well as a physical? Not so different than now, with our online email and Facebook presence. It will take time and attention to set ourselves up virtually, and that will likely suck away free time from other pursuits, both necessary and recreational.

    A virtuality could be a mirror of one’s personality, out doing things and pursuing things, with only a check-in at times with one’s ‘real’ self. Some might have a lot of virtual personalities, all doing different things, and occasionally check-in in with each other or the regular self. I do this to a small degree now. I start a kettle of water heating, and then walk away. The heating process continues, until the kettle whistles, and calls me back to attend to it. My space heaters warm the room, a process that goes on and on until I say otherwise by flipping a switch. And so forth.

    But presumably, virtual personas will be intelligent aspects of somebody, that will pursue their own lives. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I’m sure that underlying it all will be mountains of computer hardware, storage mediums, and gigawatts of electricity usage. How much power can us humans drain out of the universe to satisfy our virtual and real needs? That remains to be seen. But we are not done yet.

    Perhaps if we could make the computing and virtuality-generating hardware self-replicating and self-managing on a simple scale – semi-sentient underpinnings for our coming virtuality – then that would free us for more adventuring in our virtual worlds. Robotic craft could go out into the Solar system and harvest needed ores from asteroids, then assemble processing facilities that orbit the sun, and auto-connect with the rest of the virtuality. The possibilities are dizzying. Sometimes I wonder how many versions of me will be around by 2030? Never know, they could number in the dozens :-)

    But don’t count on it!

(Right after finishing this post, I read an article about a new John Deere tractor that is fully autonomous - no human driver needed.  they demonstrated it at the CES this year.  Change keeps happening.)

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

 

The cold, barren ground throws off any

kind of warmth that tries to gather;

Bitter gales and swirling snow ensure

that the Earth’s surface stays unyielding.

But in the time it seems to take to look

up and down, away and back, Feb changes to March,

the sun fires up brighter, things begin to thaw.

Then before one turns around a couple times,

the grass greens up and grows, lawn work resumes.

Summer sweat and swooning is back in season.

Then before one can scratch their nose or sneeze,

the leaves curl and change and the days decrease.

A cool wind stirs up again, cold rain freezes,

winter spits ice in your eyes, “Remember me?”

So many seasons have slid by it makes one dizzy.

Makes you want to reach out a hand and grab

Time’s throat, say “Slow down, dammit!”

But life’s existence will not relent, and all

us human beings can do is adapt.

Thank goodness for the warmth of 

my lined suede leather coat,

gifted to me by a dear old friend who walks

down time’s corridors with me.

‘Look, what’s around the corner?’

Won’t know unless we keep moving forward!

HNY 2022

 

Another year rolls on by, and an imaginary

analog odometer clicks over in older minds;

the younger may see some LED numbers flickering.

No matter - change is always there for everyone.

A Russian leader is issuing threats to his

American counterpart – some things never change.

A worldwide pandemic is taking on new form,

yet not relenting in the least. Human ingenuity

is racing to keep up with the mutations.

Don’t count us out, though.

Space programs around the world proliferate,

as nations large and small race to grab the high ground.

Fortunes will be made – or lost.

We all struggle to meet climate change problems head-on,

but economic issues keep popping up and conflicting –

like the city that plants lots of little trees, yet rips out big ones

for that must-have new development somewhere.

Jobs and money are paramount –

just try making it without either.

Capitalism and Socialism may have to give way to an Environmental Economics,

that forces us to exist within parameters that help the world ecosystem.

Nice in theory – but I don’t think that climate scientists will be able to

intervene in the best possible way – we are groping in the dark, it seems.

Human beings have an innate skill at screwing up the ‘natural world.’

Sad to have lost great entertainers like Betty White and many others:

Michael K. Williams, Norm Macdonald, Cicely Tyson, and DMX

But room is being made for a new crop rising up – each generation

mourns the loss of its own great icons.

There will be more greats, never fear.

Meanwhile I am thankful for good health,

continued economic survival and comfort.

May all of us experience some happiness,

or at least continued survival in this new

2022.