Make No Gods of Ordinary Deeds

 

We once stood around
in great, Earth-worn circles,
raising our arms up to
the heavens, praying for
rain, or a good hunt,
in front of a stone monolith,
made from some curious
geologic event.

On stone alters smeared
with human blood we prayed
through sacrifice for good crops,
a good hunt, the end of drought,
for more blessings of fertility;
head-dressed priests, yelled and
smoked, chanted and wailed,
while the people kneeled on rocks.

The ancient mysteries of our
human need to worship
lost to time,
lost to new stone idols,
lost to new Earthen-worn paths,
then new worship thrust upon gold, or
jewels, or even the rare
prophet.

It is our human nature
to want to worship at the feet
of power, even if that power is
fiction. Even if that power comes
from an evil place.
Even if that power is based in lies
and deceit.  We cannot resist
the unrelenting call to worship.

Sky Gods, Sea Gods, Land Gods,
patron Saints of shoes and sand,
heretics and martyrs, vying for a
panoply of virtues, listed on tomb
walls of the wealthy and the poor
alike, tied together in dusty death,
forgotten under time.
Forgotten prayers of the faithful.

Do not pray for the defeat of foes.
Do not worship at the feet of those
who would step on you.
Do not idolize the cruel,
masquerading as if it was bravery.
Shy away from gold lined pockets,
begging for alms.
Follow no crowds over cliffs of grandeur.

Make no Gods of ordinary deeds.

 

 

 

 

The Us in We

 

Burnt out bastards,
bent on bemoaning and
bludgeoning the beautiful
bounty of being.

Loudmouthed lard heads,
licking the lighter fluid off their
lips like incendiary licorice,
lashing the listening with liquid death.

“Me, oh my,  oh me,” they moan,
as mercenaries march in municipalities,
making the masses memories meander
in murderous remembrances.

Clutched pearls as patrols and posse’s
play pretend police to pacify political
practices and punish perspectives of
opposing polarity.

Smiling like snakes as they slither,
from simulated sympathies to scolding
suffocations of simple societal
salvations.

Televised talking heads,
telling lies like truth,
and twisting the truth altogether
into a tortured tumbling turnstile of misdirection.

Nothing needed but nonsense,
noise and negativity to nudge the needle
toward nihilism and negligent nostalgia,
negating the neo-futurists.

Burnt out bastards,
loudmouthed lard heads,
Snakes and talking heads,
missing the point of Human beings.

Forgetting from us,
is We.

 

Another Matter for the Shoes

 

In the never-ending wait
for the other shoe to drop;
the one that also has a
pebble in it, and a nail sticking
up through the sole, and always
blisters your heel, our
anticipation reels.

We know it is coming,

we can see it,

we don’t know where it’ll

land though,

and that is what is keeping

us awake at night.

 

The shoe of Damocles,

dangling by shoestrings

over our chests,

ready to drop through our

ribs and crush our hearts,

again.

 

A shoe the size of a

continent, tumbling

end-over-end in the whistling

wind, plummeting like a dive-bombing

Stuka, wailing with alarms and

chilling the blood.

 

This uncomfortable shoe,

ugly and obscene,

greasy and grotesque,

is coming down,

and we’ll have to decide

if we’re going wear it.

 

Or chuck it into the

ashbin of history,

and get a new shoe,

on that’s clean, comfortable and

well-tailored to fit any

shoesize.

 

I like new shoes.

Good Shoes

 

As I fall off this cliff,
I want you to know,
that I really like these shoes.

As I spin through the air,
I can see the laces flapping
and twirling in front of me.

Still tight on my feet,
as the wind buffers
my graceful plummet.

I see every Sunrise and
Sunset, as I tumble,
end over end in the air.

And my shoes,
tightly tied on my feet,
not going anywhere, but down.

When I land,
broken and dead, I bet
the shoes will still be good.

So, send them to the Moon,
or Mars, because
they are good shoes.

Unless the wolves get me,
Then, maybe,
not so much.

At Least We Can Dance

 

Here we are again,

like never before,

once again,

brand new,

interpreting ancient tea leaves

for a glimpse of the future.

 

A harrowing future pathway

along a disintegrating bridge,

rickety, corroded,

nuts and bolts,

held together by

hope and prayer.

 

Like we’re used to,

but have never seen,

footprints we’ve followed,

along  a wave crashed beach,

don’t know where they’re going,

but we’ve seen where they’ve been.

 

Another new plan,

based on the old,

a bright idea,

dimmed by the cold,

genuine ingenuity,

halted by a cuckold.

 

Nothing so new,

as something passé,

an original plan,

from the outdated textbook,

a forward pass,

to Knute Rockne.

 

We can’t make sense of it

because it doesn’t make sense,

a conundrum of juxtapositions,

all crowded together to appear

large and imposing,

but meaningless.

 

It’s hard to get better,

out of something worse;

at least we can dance around the

fire,

as it all burns.

 

Painting Credit: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-bonfire-dancing/1721966/8154848/view   

Needlepoint

 

Writing poetry in chaotic

times is a delicate sort of

needlepoint. Pull the wrong

thread and the whole thing

could unravel in a knotted

cluster of jumbled loose ends.

 

A tapestry, spun with words,

to express the zeitgeist of

our current times, one wrong

line and the entire image gets

blurred or marred in a blotchy

canard.

 

I know how to sew,

I know how to stitch,

I can thread a needle,

I can follow a pattern,

I’ll fix that tear,

but a weaver I am not.

 

The thread of our lives,

handled by three old crones,

all sharing an eye,

they hold the shears of fate

at our throats as they speculate

on the future.    

 

They never wrote poetry

in troubled times,

they don’t know how the

starting and stopping,

erasing and editing,

of meager and frustrated prose goes.

 

A fair untroubled hand should

hold the needle as it jabs and

pulls through the fabric of life,

a clean sharp point to puncture

through the designs and craft

works of unambiguous art.

 

Writing poetry in chaotic times,

is hard…

boob.

 

Damn it.  

 

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.