Thursday, November 30, 2017

Culture Convulsion

Every few years there’s a
shudder that runs down
society’s spine.  A tingling
numbness that infiltrates
the culture, waiting below the
surface.  

With each generation that
comes of age, they discover
the new outrage that their
parents never even considered
to be something to be concerned
about.

This new outrage bends the
reeds of previously accepted
normalcy to the breaking point,
until they snap with all the fury
of a bomb, obliterating the reeds
beyond recognition.

The slo-mo outrage explosion ripples across
the social landscape, uprooting
convention and perceptions of
acceptability, tossing every belief into
the air like so many twigs on the
breeze.  

“We didn’t know,” scream the old guard,
as they pinwheel through the mushroom
cloud of outrage.  Bonking their bodies
against the rubble and debris swirling around
them. “We didn’t know, we didn’t know,” they
cry.

“You should have,” shouts the youthful cloud,
 “you should have!”  Their rage in a roiling
boil over the perceptions of past generations,
“You should have known!” They howl as they
beat their breasts and chant for change.
“Your old ways are done!”

The old guard retreat into clumps as they
fall from the sky, blankly looking at each other,
mystified by what just happened.
They thought they were doing so well.
They thought they were doing such good.
They thought it was under control.

The old, older guard, stand on their porches,
and point with their canes, “See, see…,”
they cajole, “we told you it would happen to you,
damn hippies.”
The deposed wipe their noses,
bloodied,  but still they think they’re in
the fight.

They don’t know it but their generational
bubble has burst. It’s over, ended and
joined the choir invisible, to be footnoted
by future historians who’ll remark,
“Unbelievably, people once acted this
way, much to the chagrin of our current
social morays.”

There’s no change like the change that
makes change. Except its very changing changes
how that change will be changed.
I just convulsed a little.  

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

How Do You Write About Thanksgiving?

Here is it again,
another Thanksgiving;
a day set aside for
celebrating what unifies family,
friends, co-workers,
and the occasional stranger.

Yet, how does one write
about this Holiday?
In this era of cultural sensitivity
and being “woke”, (a despicable term)
 can we still celebrate this day without the
shadow of guilt creeping in?

Abraham Lincoln created Thanksgiving
in an effort to unify a divided nation
during the Civil War and remind the
citizens of this nation that we are still
one from many.

Lincoln’s intention was as that of a healer,
while ignoring the ineffaceable scars
of tragedy the early settlers endured and
imposed on each other and the Natives
upon which we built our country.

It’s a holiday designed to help us remember
that though great strife, suffering and difficulty,
we have remained united and that there is
no event, no instance so terrible as to wipe
this Democracy from the face of the world.

It is a day to be thankful to the forbearers
of the greatest of all ideals, that we, that all people,
can and should be forever free and any yoke of
oppression can be overcome through standing
together.  

I guess that is the best way to celebrate this holiday,
with a reverence for what came before and knowledge
of the trials yet to come, and in that knowing reverence,
be thankful we are here, together. 

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Dear People

Dear People,
do not be people.

Do not admit to being
imperfect, fallible,
or human.

Value each person,
but don’t be one,
because that would
imply imperfection.

We must be above person
or people, beyond reproach,
and incapable of even the
slightest judgment error.

Do not be people.

If people are human,
and humans make mistakes,
and if to err is human, and if
being human is to be people,
then people make mistakes.

But no, do not be people.

Be perfect, never make any
mistakes, never acknowledge any
dalliances of youthful ignorance.
Never be held hostage by
your immature thoughts.  

Never lay in bed at night,
re-living the embarrassments
of your past and shake your head
in shame and disappointment.
That would make you a person.

And you’re not a person.
You’re not people.

Don’t be people.

You’re just an Idea,
someone else had. 

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Shaky at Best



The cars herked and jerked,
hmm… “herked”, is that even
a word?

It’s not.

“Herky-jerky”, is appropriate to
describe the motion of the cars
in traffic as I was originally
intending.

But “herked” sounded better,
but it’s not real. Something can be
jerked, but not herked.
It really threw me off my poetry
game.  

I’m not even sure anymore
why I was starting a poem
about traffic, seems less
important now.

It probably had something
to do with my love life,
or relationships or some
other metaphor to color
the stop and start nature of
life.

But I wanted it to be “herked”,
but grammar wouldn’t let it be.
So now I’m here, all herky-jerky.


Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Death on the Moon


To die on the Moon,
that’s what I want.

I want to drink a bottle
of red wine, put on a
spacesuit, spacewalk to
a moon folding chair and
sit, facing the Earth.

And die.

I want to see the planet
I’ve called home in its fullness
and wholeness and try to
work out why it’s so hard to
live there.

From the moon,
where I die.

I want each Spacesuited breath,
to be filled with awe and wonder
as I pass from this life to the
next. I want to watch the world
spin and see it go on without me.

I know that it won’t happen.
I will never set foot on the Moon.
I’ll never go to Space. I’ll never
see the Earth as a whole,
So I guess I can never die.

On the Moon,
like I want. 

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Just an Idea I Like

Miyamoto Musashi was a Samurai
born around 1584 and was likely
one of the greatest swordsmen that
ever lived.

Before his death in 1645 he wrote
the Dokkodo, or "The Way of Walking Alone",
a book on self-discipline with 21 different
rules to live by.

He made a point in this book that
I think is appropriate regardless
of religious belief and it’s rule
number 19.

He wrote, "Respect Buddha and
the gods without counting on their help,"
which ultimately means, that it's okay to
believe in a God or have faith in one,
but your actions are your own and
should never expect divine intervention.
You should “take care of your own business”, as it were.

It’s an idea that I like very much.

I just thought I’d say so.