Still Me

 

There’s so much me

in my veins.

Which is curious to

think about, how much

of me is actually

me.

 

All the time,

I’m filled with me, just

pumping and oozing,

flowing and lub-a-dub

dubbing all over the place,

constantly.

 

This pulsing,

crapping, bleeding,

crying, sneezing,

coughing, bag of

flesh and blood,

being me in vast amounts.

 

The voice of me,

in my mind,

saying things, sometimes,

not too kind about me,

and triggering the anxieties

of being me.

 

Electrified matter,

the essence of me,

biologic individuality,

in a sea of the same species,

who are all filled

with themselves, constantly.

 

Until it all stops,

and then, all the me

will cease to be.

And yet, for what it’s worth,

it’ll still be filled

with

me.

Baby New Year is Coming

 

Bouncing Baby New Year,

is about to be born,

blubbering and babbling,

blowing bubbles and

burping, like all babies.

 

A New Year, on the cusp,

ready to shove more insanity

in your already sunburned

faces, smearing you with

baby New Year ick.

 

I’m not sure of the lessons

learned in 2024, or if there

were even lessons at all,

seemed like people wanted to

go back in time, having learned nothing.

 

I did learn to hold precious those

that I love and keep them close,

to acknowledge the love of others,

a practice I’m still unfamiliar with,

and to be gentle.

 

2024 reinforced the need for

civility, kindness and a general

return to respect, things I fear

will be in short supply in the new

year of 2025.

 

Which is also odd to say out loud,

“2025”.

For those of us of a certain age,

2025 was supposed to be an age

of incredible technological and

human advancement.

 

Yet I fear 2025 will be slingshots

and muddy feet.

But I still hope for the best,

the future is always full of possibilities,

unless of course Baby New Year goes

on a horror film style assault against

humanity.  

 

Happy New Year!

A Poet at Christmas

 

A Poet at Christmas time,

is a curious beast,

whose only desire is to write a

cozy, comforting piece about

family love, or good tidings,

peace and joy.

 

A nice poem about, perhaps,

settling in by a roaring fire,

as chestnuts roast and

the firelight glitters on the

garland and tinsel hanging from

the softly lit Christmas Tree.  

 

But a poet at Christmas Time,

is strangely burdened by the

emotional weight of the Holidays,

the excesses of material desire,

the many hungry mouths and

shirtless backs.

 

Donations can be made,

goodwill wished,

but there’s always this nagging

sensation, as we sip hot chocolate from

white mugs and stare out windows at the

gentle drifting of light fluttering snowfall,

that there’s too much pain and too much suffering.

 

In a world so largely connected,

yet separated by it.

A division that can’t be healed,

with egg-nogg, or any nogg for that

matter. Just a revolving door

of well wishes and in-action,

thoughts and prayers, in

actionable times.

 

Gifts for loved ones,

wrapped under the tree,

but nothing for those we do not see.

And it weighs on me.

But we do our best and what

we can, and we let it be.

 

(Sip) Mmm… good hot chocolate…

(Blinks) – Hmmm… snow falling…

Happy Holidays, from poetry.

Whatever Chicanery

 

My knuckles are cracking

as I type out these words,

the petrification of my joints,

being worked out,

as I considered my self-imposed

heartbroken silence; word by word.

 

We’ve entered (re-entered?)

a time where the worst fears of

my like-minded peers have come

true, much to our collective

chagrin.  A shocking jolt of…

whatever chicanery it will be.

 

I’m not sure they even have

a name for what it will be called

as of yet. I certainly haven’t had the

words for it, much less the intestinal

fortitude, to devise a moniker for the

debacle that may await.

 

There’s still a large part of me,

so stunned and shocked, that I hardly

believe it happened, but I’m reminded

of my own words and what must be done,

what price we have to pay,

to be vigilant and unbroken.

 

As I emerge from this unsure silence; I remind

myself to be more loving, patient and

considerate, to the point that it

sickens those that would rather wish

ill-will than extend a helping hand.

Yet I’m cautious, since I’ve been hurt.

 

It’s a wound that will take time to heal,

and a scar that will take revision;

to overcome the potential future

of a world I no longer recognize,

an unfamiliar zeitgeist, and a strange

populist fever dream I’ve no desire to have faith in.

 

It is, however, by a renewed faith, that I move forward,

perhaps quietly at first, shaking the cobwebs

from my joints, until I am full-throated and

my fingers are nimble gymnasts, tumbling and

flipping like Olympians over the keyboard,

expressing the poetry inherent in our times.

The Inkwell

 

The inkwell has been dry,

the words have been atrophied,

the will and vigor sapped,

by the mourning and grief,

constantly tolling like the

alarm bells at the city gates.

 

The metaphorical paper

on which I write is yellowed

and stained by disillusioned

tears, bitter coffee and comforting whiskey;

this paper; crumpled and thrown into

an angry heap near the trash.

 

I’ve rung my fingers,

I’ve tussled my hair,

I’ve cringed and gasped,

I’ve crossed and uncrossed my arms,

I’ve curiously furrowed my brow

so many times it’s a wonder I

look anything like myself.

 

There’s a different level of

hurt being explored,

the depths of which I’m unsure of,

it’ll take a spelunker of a exceptional skill

to get the bottom of this abysmal pit,

and return to the surface, changed.

 

But all that; all that needs to be done,

the milk has been spilt and there’s

no crying about it.

We can work through our profound

sadness and disappointment, with

calcification of the truth in our deeds,

in our actions and by our virtue.

 

No tyrant, or dictator, or self-aggrandizing

narcissist can ever truly diminish the passions

we hold so dear and to the liberties that we’ll

have to fight for, again, and again. The cause

of Freedom is greater than the depths of

our despair and those of us willing and able will

wipe our runny noses, wipe away the tears from our cheeks,

and steel ourselves for the next great challenge.

 

Liberty, freedom, and the fight

will refill the inkwell and the words

will flow and the pages will fill. 

Halloween 2024

 

All Hallows Eve,

Halloween,

Samhain,

when the misty veil

between the living

and the dead is

thinned.

 

Ghouls and Ghosts,

may roam the streets,

looking for goodies

and snack to eat,

but it’s memory that

haunts me.

 

All for the sweet, lost Lenore,

in her sepulcher by the shore.

 

No. Just kidding. There’s no Lenore.

But who else should you quote on

Halloween, but Edger Allen Poe?

 

If ever I could write so sweetly

and yet so melancholy, about

the incredible depths of passion

I had for the incredibly mundane.

I would then be a poet of some

renown I’m sure.

 

Halloween is for the children now,

getting treats, wearing costumes,

going trunk to trunk in safely lit

parking lots as local DJ’s play annoying

Halloween novelty songs.

It’s no longer really about the horrors

of Death, a grim reaper curling its boney fingers

around your throat as you struggle against the inevitable.

 

No witches are flying across the Moon,

stealing children for their bones to add

to the eye of newt soup, boiling in a cauldron

back at the coven.  They probably feel bad

because the horrors of the real world completely

usurp the imagined horrors of lore.  

 

Frankenstein’s Monster,

would be a welcome guest at many

tables and be a marvel of medical science,

rather than the soulless, tortured

creature of literature.

He’d be less of a pariah than your

racist Uncle who always ruins Thanksgiving

with his rants about, “those kinds of folks.”

 

In a world of true terrors and horrors,

it’s hard to rectify the enjoyment of

cursed mummies, vampires and spirits,

teasing the living with nightmares and

spine tingles.

 

Nevertheless, Happy Halloween!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nativism is Old

 

Whenever I hear anyone spout the ridiculous phrase,  “America for Americans”; I am always reminded of the “Know-Nothing” Party of the 1830’s and 1840’s here in the United States. 

A ridiculous movement, alleging they were  Nativists who were attempting to protect the United States from outside foreign influences often through violence and the fear of violet reprisal. 

A party that called itself, The Know-Nothing Party, obviously could not sustain its anti-immigrant, and often anti-Catholic, public opinions because they literally knew nothing. They were stupid people doing stupid things. Yet, they were effective in influencing multiple government policy decisions of the past. 

Their politics were based on old stereotypes, misinformation, racism and fear mongering, which if you think sounds familiar, let me let you in on a little secret:  “It’s never gone away in the United States.”  There are still huge portions  of the population who do not understand the benefits of this melting pot of a country or that their own existence in  this country is likely due to immigration. 

Creating fear and mistrust of immigrants is the cornerstone of any Nativist movement.  Be it here is the United States or Germany, Europe, the Mid-East, it’s always the same. 

The hallmarks of Nativists are always the same, “those people are not us, so we should shun them, beat them, shoot them, or otherwise keep them separated from the rest of us through poverty and inaccessibility to opportunity.” That’s what they do. 

It’s what they did in the 1830’s through the present. They make you think that your way of life is being threatened by some person or belief system that is different than yours. They use that to make you afraid and to keep us divided.  It didn’t even have to be about immigrants either.  It was always about race too. 

The threat of Nativism is usually just seething under some other layer of political double-talk. It’s always sort of there, but the angels of our naivete seem to simply ignore it and pray it stays confined to the small corners and pockets of old-World thinking, hoping it will eventually be naturally snuffed out through generations of progressive idealism and an expansion into the greater global markets. 

Yet, it reared its ugly huge head recently, spewing the vitriolic acids that the worst rhetoric is made of. It is poured into the ears and empty heads to bubble and corrode any moral compunction to do the right thing. And those is the crowd cheered at the belittlement of their fellow man. 

It’s always been snake oil and shenanigans.  Because on this tiny freaking planet. The only one we have. We’re all just human beings trying to live, have a good life for ourselves and our progeny. So for god sakes, stop falling for this Nativist bullshit. It’s old, it’s ridiculous and frankly what’s held back this human society for thousands of years. So get over it. Love thy neighbor and shun the proselytizer who tell you otherwise.   

Vote for the party that wants to bring us all together, not tear us apart.