Pressure Adjustment

I just need a second,

I just need a minute,

to catch my breath,

to get my head on straight.

I just need to rest my hands

on my bent knees,

I just need to stretch and arch

my back.

I just need to knead my eyes

with my fingers,

I just need to scratch my head

furiously for a bit.

I just need a deep sigh,

I just need a quick knuckle-crack,

to get alright,

to be okay.

I just need to rest my eyes,

I just need to adjust my chair,

to focus,

to relax.

I just need to roll my head on my neck,

I just need to drop my shoulders,

to alleviate the stress,

to stop the pressure.

I just need to inhale through my nose,

I just need to exhale through my mouth,

to breathe,

to breathe.

Strange Bedfellows

Poetry and Politics would

not normally be something

you see together, unless it’s on

a button or bumper.  

Like Ike,

Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,

All the way with LBJ,

and my personal favorite,

“Let Well Enough Alone" – 1900 U.S. presidential slogan of William McKinley

I’m not kidding, that last one

is totally real.

Yet, there is poetry to politics.

It takes a deft hand and skillful

mind to craft sentences that are

both true and un-true at the same time.

Like any art form, politics,

is in the eye of the beholder. A poem

about a President written in fecal matter can be

startling, insightful and offensive all at once.

You may think it vile, but it’s

hard to ignore the impact it may have had

on you. You may love it and think it’s a

brilliant statement, also affecting your life.

The difference I think with poetry and politics

is I can describe a vagina with flowery language,

maybe quote Hemingway, throw a bird on it,

and no one’s life is radically changed.

Politics however are all about the words,

words with consequences. Words that have

weight. As a poet, I’m not trying to change to world,

I’m just writing about my place in it.

If I like, I can be somewhat irresponsible with what

I type. I’m not running for any public office.

I can be crass or noble without much consequence.

It doesn’t, really, matter.

Although I do feel a certain

onus to be entertaining, or at

least mildly thought provoking,

That’s my deal.

A politician however, a poet of

the public will, must restrain their

urges to sully, muddy or stupefy.

It’s a bigger deal.

I’ve always thought poetry,

should serve to elevate the senses

in some way, be eye opening and

thought provoking.

Politics should aspire to do the

same thing. Then the Poetry of

Politics might not seem like such

strange bedfellows.

Emergency Exit

                Darrell stared at the emergency exit. The bright red EXIT sign flickered as the fluorescent bulb twitched. The lecturer continued speaking about how important it was to complete the right forms while adding the directives to pass the competency dialogue markers in the system wide 220 radiance focuser. Darrell yawned and shook his head. He had dreams of escaping through the emergency exit. Actually he dreamed there was some Die Hard type emergency situation so his inner Bruce Willis could shine through and Mary in Accounting would throw herself at him with wild lust.

                The lecture finally ended from Darrell’s boss. He hoped he could just go back to his cubicle and get back to doing his job, but it was Thursday, which meant it was time for the monthly birthday announcements. Diane from the activity committee stood up and delivered a half hearted list of names for people that were “celebrating” their birthdays.  She was the least popular woman in the office yet somehow she had become the head of the employee activities committee. She was an angry woman, squat in stature, sort of shaped like a softball with arms and legs. She had glasses that somehow never fell off the edge of her nose and she always reeked of cigarettes but she didn’t smoke. It was as if she had bought all her close from a Salvation Army fire sale. He only redeeming quality was her willingness to volunteer for everything.

                Diane sat back down, very proud of herself. There was a smattering of applause for the birthday people. Don, the boss, asked the group if there were any questions. Darrell knew there was always one son of a bitch that asked some dumb ass question, making Don rehash everything he had just lectured about. Darrell slunk down in his plastic chair and stuck his long legs out in to the aisle. He folded his arms across his chest and sighed. Without fail, nerdy god damn Jeff asked a dumb ass question.

                “If we have to reestablish caution parameters in the 220 system do we have to then update the content values in 1640,” asked God Damn Jeff.

                Don started the basically started the lecture over because he had covered that very issue within the first sentence. Darrell felt like if he strangled Jeff right now he would get a better applause than the birthday list did. While Don mindlessly went on, Droning Don, as they called him in the break room and behind closed doors, Darrell looked over at Mary. She was sitting on a table away from Darrell. She was doodling on her note pad and Darrell wondered what she was doodling. He thought it was rare to see a woman doodling. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually saw a woman just scribbling on a note pad. It was a funny thought and he sort of snickered.

                “Darrell, you have a question,” asked Don.

                “Huh, no, I… no, just… no,” said Darrell.

                He was startled and sat up in his seat. He hadn’t realized how loudly he had snorted when he snickered. Mary and everyone else stared at him with the same hate filled eyes reserved for God Damn Jeff.  Darrell looked down at his shoes and tried to turn invisible. It didn’t work.  Mary continued to stare at him, or at least he felt her sexy eyes drilling into him. Darrell fake coughed and turned his attention back to droning Don.  “Damn Thursdays”, he thought to himself.  The light over the emergency exit flickered again. 

I Am Kicking It

The metaphor maker has

broken down and the words
I want to use to explain how
I feel are just a jumble
of phrases of incoherent
garbage that are barely sticking to
the page.

I think it needs a new light bulb

to half bake the loose meat metaphors
I keep shoving into it. For instance;
I’m feeling excited about a new job
opportunity. A new, full time, salaried,
insurance providing job. The works.

That’s an exciting thing and yet the

only metaphors coming out of the
machine are all about expecting
the sunrise after a long darkness,
or taking a road trip through the
uncharted depths of the mind.

Dreck.

Pure Drivel.

This metaphor machine is certainly

broken. I mean it uses as much energy
as a Lite-Bright and less computing power
than the Apollo missions, and it’s usually
sufficient. But today it’s not
working right.

It’s like a… baseball player in a slump?

Ugh, that’s terrible.  I think the Idiom
generator is on the fritz too.  Let me check
the simile sensors, no, they aren’t working to
well either, they’re like, not working like a…
a… a…. like a…. thing that doesn’t work.  

So I guess I’ll have to be plain

like an unmolested bagel, terrible,
how about just being straightforward,
like a… pencil. Jesus, that’s just bad.

(Kicks Metaphor Machine)

You rotten piece of literary

junk! You bagel warming,
pencil shaving, baseball playing
shmuck!

Anyway, here’s my poem,
that expresses my excitement
about getting a new job without the
use of the machine:

I

Got
A
New
Job.

Yay!

The End

I Love Your Sexy Smarts

                I have always been terribly afraid of roving gangs of stupid people terrorizing the streets. The stupid people in huge mobs, pulling on push doors and pushing on pull doors, crossing in the middle of the street and expecting cars to stop just for them, yelling idiotic things like, “we’re here, we’re queer, we don’t want any more gays!”, and so on and so forth. It always seemed like a silly thing to be afraid of. Until now.

                After the Nevada Republican Caucus yesterday Presidential (I can’t even say it) candidate Donald Trump thanked and even bragged about how he loves the poorly educated in his victory speech. I’m very much a pro-education guy so that phrase chills me to my very core.  I think everyone does indeed deserve the right to vote regardless of social status, education or political affiliations. However, I’ve never heard a candidate for president ever praise people for being poorly educated. The majority of modern era Presidents have touted some level of Education reform, successful or not. Education is often a topic of most State of the Union Addresses and considered a barometer of cultural success. So to praise the poorly educated and thank them for voting for possibly the greatest Presidential hoaxer in American history or a man so mad with power lust he makes Martin Sheen’s candidate’s character from The Dead Zone look sane, makes me terrified.

                It is not snobbish or elitist to appreciate education. Donald himself has had an excellent education, whether he applies that education to anything is beyond me, but he’s certainly not one of the “poorly educated” he thanked in his speech. He had the benefits of a fine education and often says he’ll surround himself with the best and the brightest minds available to help him in his (cough) presidency. So clearly he does appreciate the intellectual crowd. Unless they are too smart to vote for him, then he might need to rely on the poorly educated to slip into the Republican nomination.

                I am also not attempting to tear down anyone’s actual education simply because it is different from my own educational background. I’ve found that in every crowd there are always one or two High I.Q. morons.  The type of people that have read all the classics of literature but don’t believe the Moon landings occurred. The point I’m trying to make isn’t about book smarts or framed Degrees on the wall. I’m talking about critical thinking.

                Critical thinking means you question things that you hear and take it upon yourself to find more about. You do not just blindly follow the rhetoric of some well-groomed huckster. You think about what they’ve said and really weigh it against what you already know and what you can find out.  It’s one of the keys that separates the educated from the intelligent. Critical thinking means asking the tough questions, like “why” and “how” and sometimes even, “really”.

                I fear that the “poorly educated” Trump refers to are the types that have not developed the critical thinking skills needed to make informed decisions. The “poorly educated” Trump refers to are the ones, in my opinion, that haven’t spent the time to consider how, why or if we really should force an independent sovereign nation to build a border wall for us, or how, why or if we really should keep Gitmo open to “load it up with bad dudes”, and how, why and if a Billionaire really has their best interests at heart.

                I fear the “poorly educated”, the ones that were never exposed to any sort of cultural diversity, civil diversity or religious diversity, will take their inflated stupidity to the streets and rage against logic and reasonability. It’s terrifying to think how ignorant savagery can destabilize whole cultures, whole empires. History is replete with examples of barbarism against intelligence from the several burnings of the Library at Alexandria to the Dark Ages.

                A society that doesn’t question, that doesn’t critically think about what their leaders are proposing, is a society about to step backwards in time. A potential leader actively seeking to remove or revoke freedoms from the citizenry needs to be questioned about why and how and if it’s really necessary.  (And don’t bring up the “Obama is taking our second amendment rights away” thing. He hasn’t and he isn’t so put that old chestnut down).

                It’s my hope that the “poorly educated” don’t have to remain that way. I hope there is a genuine re-investment in education in our society.  A society that values an educated populace, a literate, open-minded culture, an inclusive rather than exclusive collective, will almost always fare better than a stubborn and dogmatic one.  A “poorly educated” voting block should not be praised, nor should they be shunned. I feel they should be encouraged to think a little deeper about their beliefs and the beliefs of their potential presidential candidate.  

                 Because I’m terrified of gangs of really, really, really stupid people smashing windows at the Apple store because of the witchcraft machines they sell or book burnings or executing people for believing the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun. I fear the rise of the Anti-Intellectuals. I am afraid the accomplishments of a progressive civilization will degrade, like the Roman Aqueducts did when the people of the Middle Ages had no idea how to fix them because the knowledge of their maintenance had been lost in the barbaric sieges of history.

                I am afraid of men like Donald Trump and I think it’s time we stopped thinking he is a joke and take a serious look at his politics. We have to be smarter about the snakes in the garden; they won’t just go away if we ignore them. (Was that metaphor a little heavy handed?)

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-trump-brag-about-uneducated-voters-the-hispanics-20160224

 

 

I Cannot Tell A Lie

                “I hate cherry trees,” said George.

                “I’m sorry sir,” asked William.

 

                George turned around quickly, with a military sharpness and faced William. George towered over young William. He bent down and William could feel the hot, woodiness of George’s breath on his face.

 

                “I said I hate cherry trees,” said George.

                “Alright sir, yes sir. If we see a cherry tree you can cut it down sir,” said William.

                “You bet your life we’ll be cutting it down,” said George.

 

                George turned back around on the road and continued marching with William at his back. William hoped they wouldn’t see any cherry trees. Otherwise George was liable to go all Henry the VIII on it and start chopping away at it like it was one of his wives. William adjusted the heavy sack on his back and adjusted his uniform coat collar against the lingering February cold.  Spring felt like it would arrive any day, but was just shy about it. William looked over his shoulder at the rows of men marching along the dirt road.  All fine men, willing to sacrifice so much on a grand experimental government. It was so strange to be at the foot of such a momentous undertaking, and against the most powerful nation on Earth.

 

                “Is that a Cherry tree,” asked George as he pointed up toward an embankment.

 

                George had gotten off his white horse and had been walking with the men for morale’s sake but now he was strangely obsessed with finding cherry trees.

 

                “No sir, I don’t think that’s a cherry tree,” said William, “I think that’s just a bush.”

                “The hell it is. That’s a cherry tree. Damn your eyes man! That is a Cherry Tree,” shouted George.

                “Sir, no I think that’s really just some sort of bush with red berries on it sir,” said William.

                “Nonsense soldier! That’s a Cherry tree! And it’s dead,” said George.

 

                George mounted his white horse and drew his sword from the scabbard. He wheeled his horse around and cut right through the sea of marching men.

 

                “Yee-Haw,” shouted George as the horse galloped full speed toward the flora.

                “Sir! Sir! Sir! No Sir,” shouted William amid the strange cheers of the soldiers.

 

                George rode up the small embankment and swung his sword at the plant, slicing the top portion off. He turned on the horse for a second strike but the horse bucked and George was tossed to the ground. George didn’t miss a beat and rolled over as he hit the ground and sprung to his feet, which was amazing to William, since George was so large of a man.

 

                George raised his sword over his head and ran full speed back toward the plant and dove toward it, slicing and hacking at the air. He landed in the middle of the thick foliage and lost his sword. He began tugging and pulling at the plant, smearing the red berries all over his white uniform pants. George punched at the plant with his hands, strangling the leaves and branches.

 

                William watched as George punched down on the plant with his gloved hands. George tore the gloves off and began punching at the roots with his bare hands. There was sweat dripping off George’s face and his hat had long since flown off. William woke from his open mouth staring and ran up toward George.

 

                “Sir! Sir! Please, that’s not a cherry tree, it’s just some kind of bush. It’s just a bush!”

 

                George plopped back down onto his rear end and splayed his leg out on front of him. He was breathing heavy and his stomached heaved with each deep breath.

 

                “Should I get your valet sir,” asked William.

                “No, no,” said George as he waved the suggestion off with an exhausted gesture.

 

                William reached his hand out to George and George reach up and took it. William pulled the large man up and started dusting off his uniform.

 

                “It’s my birthday you know,” said George.

                “What’s that? You’re birthday? Well, Happy birthday George. Sir…General Sir, I mean,” said William.

 

                William retrieved General Washington’s hat and handed it to him. George beat the hat against his thigh and turned away from the destroyed berry bush and began walking back toward the rows of marching soldiers.

The Argument for Shame

                There’s been a story floating across the social media universe showing a bunch of tourists taking selfies with a baby dolphin. The tourists “selfied” this baby dolphin to death. It’s serious and I honestly think there should be some criminal charges leveled against the perpetrators.  They took this creature, which might have as much, if not more intelligence as human beings, from the water and paraded around with it in a mob, taking pictures. The audacity of people makes me wonder. Where has shame gone?

                Shame is an important part of the learning process, it teaches us empathy. If we find ourselves in an unfortunate situation and made to feel bad about something we’ve done, something wrong, then we learn from it and try to behave in a manner that won’t produce similar consequences.  We remember how bad we felt about some particular action and vow to ourselves that we don’t be doing that again.

                So where was the shame on that beach? Where is the shame in general? I know our culture has been vaccinating ourselves against shame for a while now. It’s in the merchandising and mantras all around us; “Just Do It”, “Dance like no one’s watching”, “Damn the torpedoes” and such. These are damaging phrases if adhered to un-tempered by shame. This go-go culture has no time for shame. Shame is a bad feeling and we don’t like bad feelings so we’re just not going to allow people to feel shame. We’re just going to tell them to live their lives like there are no consequences and you don’t have to feel the bad feelings.

                Without shame, however, we do not regret anything. Without regret we never give ourselves a chance to learn something new about ourselves, we never grow. Shame and regrets aren’t necessarily bad things. In some instances, I’m proud of the mistakes I’ve made. They taught me how to be a better person.  I arrived at that place through understanding shame.

                I’m not advocating corporal shaming punishments. I’m not talking about the shame some children endured under the heavy yoke of a Catholic education or any other dogmatic doctrine. Some of that stuff bordered on bullying, rather than constructive shame building. I’m not talking about finger pointing type of shame either, or body shaming. I’m talking about the basic, human ability to feel bad about something and their desire to make it better yet knowing they can’t, but declaring they will never be in that position again; that kind of appropriate shame reaction.

                A society that isn’t occasionally ashamed of itself will stagnate and rot. We have to remember there are consequences to every action and that things don’t always work out like we planned. We have to listen to the voice inside, the voice of experience that says, “These people taking pictures with the baby dolphin are assholes and I should do something to stop it!” Understanding the consequences is key to human evolution and spreading that knowledge to others, even through the use of shame, helps the species survive just a little bit longer.

                If we fail to learn from the things we feel bad about, then we do not deserve our place. We will be outmoded and nature will decide we are unsustainable and eliminate us. Nature could do it, nature has no shame.

                Shame reminds us that just because you can do a thing doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. It’s an important distinction and I fear there are not enough people that understand it. It’s okay, every once, in a while to feel bad about something that we’ve done or said. It’s what makes us such a remarkable species. A remarkable species that through shame found the capacity to forgive each other, and that has made all the difference.