Haiku: On Buddha I

I woke up today.
I will wake up tomorrow.

Beyond, it’s unclear.   

Knowing existence, 

The Buddha had pretty teeth-

Vanity distracts.  

My teeth are on fire.

They distract form the peace around. 

It is hard to chew. 

Water and fire

Are more than we can control, 

And yet we want more. 

Violence in the mind

Shows by violence in the world. 

Make peace in your head. 

I am not your light.

You must find it within you. 

You can teach yourself. 

Upon his last breath, 

Flowers fell on Buddha’s body-

On his face a smile. 

Poem: Wrong Way Earthworm

Sitting on the front porch during a rain, 
a long earthworm meandered out of the irises onto the concrete. 

Knowing that they can drowned like the rest of us breathers, 

I did not interfere, only watched. 

In my time that has been much longer than the life span of a worm (so far),

I have seen many wriggle upon concrete 

only to die away from native earth and dry in the sun.

This one made it several feet away from the soaked ground

 only to stiffen a little and reverse its course back to moisture.

  

As it turned back, it lost the way

 and moved closer to the bricks of the house. 

 

From my point of view, it seemed confused. 

Do I help it or let choice take its course? 

For a time it sought shelter in a crack between the concrete and the bricks, 

but was too large to fit. 

It gave up and moved on, the concrete drawing away the water from its body. 

The trail it left glistened. Then it turned and moved back toward the rain. 

A question of conscience arose. Knowing that higher ground was so near,

do I help? 

If it received help, would it expect the same help in the future? 

What if I wasn’t near? 

Is there something above me watching with the same conundrum?

Poem: A Living Ghost

I am a living ghost. 
A walking memory of someone else who says, “Remember when he—“
I engage with and move past other ghosts, but they have stronger ties to existence. 
They do not know that when they go, others will continue. 
I know. I have. I will. Until I do not.
Made of star stuff and touched by an angel is all bunk. 
Some say that energy cannot be destroyed, and we are energy. 
They mix science with religion and comport being now with being after. 
I do not feel like energy.
I feel like the empty space between a nucleus and its electrons. 
There are forces and particles moving through me, but I am zero space. 
At least, I am a location. 
This place is haunted by me. 

For now.

Haiku: Birds

I think about birds
Birds are not the same at night
At night they are words

Words in the darkness 

Are only sounds in the air

Waiting for an ear 

Whispers on the wind

Hiding the secrets of flight

And truth of being. 

Birds are glorious 

As long as they are shitting

On other people.

Poem: The Unseen Construction

 Surely as the red fox walks our streets at night and doesn’t realize that humans built the houses and made the roads, there are constructions in our world built by others that we do not recognize, but just as assuredly we walk through and ignore the builders thinking only of the moment and our stomachs.

Haiku: On Death I

Leaves fall from the tree.
Existence is all I have known.
We are not the tree.

Food gives no pleasure
When someone you love suffers.
Tears salt everything.

Go out with a bang, 
Or go out with a whimper,
It is all the same.

Halfway

Sitting under a redbud tree looking at a branch from the underneath, silhouetted against the clouds, I see an ant making its way toward the end of the branch and wonder how that little body could contain enough energy to complete its journey; because unknown to it, it has traveled to the end only to realize it is halfway back to the beginning. 

Poem: Words Forbidden in Poetry

Until recently I had lost touch with my hatred of poetry. 

Words to never use in a poem. 

God - capitalized or lowercase. Especially not lowercase. 

Goddess - unless it is preceded directly by green and then only if you are describing salad dressing. 

Soul - just never. I mean get a thesaurus already. That is unless you are expounding on styles of music. And then only if that leads you to jazz. 

Spirit - not unless referring to liquor. 

Woman or Man - in the context meaning all women or all men. Generalizations hurt because individuals exist on a spectrum and name calling is never helpful. 

Maidenhead or fountainhead - never for any reason. 

Anger - especially not as white or hot. 

Do not describe skies as blue or grey. Flesh as quivering. Leaves as dappled.  Blood as red, burning, pounding, or otherwise. 

And goddammit listen to me when I say this, never use the word love in any sense or connotation. You sound like a hormone dribbling simpleton. 

These words are forbidden to you. 

Poem: Blooming out of Place

In the garage you smoke a cigar
Outside there are several inches of snow
You look at the lemon tree that you stubbornly keep alive through the winter
By installing grow lights and a heater in the garage
Lemon trees do not grow here but neither have you
You've planned to move back to where you call home
But things and events conspire to keep you here
Like the tree, you resist putting down permanent roots
You see the beginnings of flowers, little buds of white
The tree has found a way to bloom out of place
But you have not.

---

Short Fiction: Luther's Long Locks

A fun challenge. Write a short using all of the words from (hover mouse for definitions):
Illustrations Of Unusual And Rarely Spoken Words


Walking slowly by a penny arcade gazing at the machines yonderly, Luther's neck was hurting, and he felt in a zugzwang. As an acersecomic his burden had become great, and was afraid that it would be his hamartia. He was trying to suppress scripturient feelings, but as he walked the ostentiferious clouds seemed to darken with each step. Even though he often regarded such machines as ultracrepidarian, on a whim he approached a fortunetelling machine and supplied it with a penny. In a glass container, the upper torso of a crone in the posture of issuing a jettatura, spit out a small slip of paper into a dispenser. With reservations, Luther retrieved the message and read, "Hair binds you. Cut it and be free." The words were a recumbentibus to his very way of life. Upon recovery, he rubbed his smooth chin and decided to take the advice and to take up pogonotrophy instead.

Poem: Binary Poem

01010111 01101000 01101001 01101100 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01101111 01110010 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101101 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01110101 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100100 01100101 00001010 01000001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01110101 01101110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111 01101100 00101100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01100001 01100100 00001010 01000110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100001 01100111 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100011 01101000 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01100101 01100100 00001010 01001000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01100101 01101101 00101100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01110010 01100001 01111010 01100101 01100100 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01100010 01101001 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01101100 01100010 00100000 01100111 01101100 01101111 01110111 01100101 01100100 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101000 01111001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100001 00001010 00001010

Book: Thwarted by Packaging - a preview

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Purchase: Thwarted by Packaging

Poem: The Torture of Less-Than

No one celebrates Salieri, the tragic hero of the less-than.
The man who wants more than he was given by definition,
who wants more than he can have through his own creation.
No manner of teaching or torture can gifts be gained or affinities acquired.
The genius of the naive is adored, and the work of the less-than ignored.

A cobble under the carriage of the mollycoddled, the ground wishes to be pure sky.
Those conveyed by gift's glory never know the jealousy of clay or the weight of air.
Just good enough to know that he's not good enough-
No one celebrates Salieri.

---

Haiku: On Extinction - I

Giants walk the earth.
Slow thoughts process blinding light.
Futures become dearth.

The red sky, it churns.
Food and breath are hard to catch.
Ow, extinction burns.

Scaly and hungry,
Earth has lived another life.
The product? Oily.

---

Essay: The Seat of Consciousness

I considered myself lucky; I could see the bus stopped down the street which would give me just enough time to park my car and be out at the next stop before it got there. I work at a university that has removed all parking near campus except for the disabled and the wealthier of the staff and faculty. Of course I don’t have a beef with the disabled, but as for the others...pure classism. I’d coined the term (not literally of course, I’d read about it somewhere) to address my and others’ particular situation in many conversations over the year with fellow staffers in the same predicament. Being a middle-aged Euro-descended male, monetary classism was the only kind of prejudice I’ve ever had direct experience with - and it pissed me off. I try to understand the plight of others, and I do my personal best not to participate or proliferate prejudice in the world that I have direct contact with.

With money so many of the drudgeries of daily life just become non-problems. If you think about it, it’s amazing. If you can buy more food than you can eat, then the worry of how will I feed my family; should I pay the electric bill or buy groceries; if we only eat every other day will we become nutritionally deficient; those are just non-issues for those with more. If I could park outside of the building I work in, I wouldn’t have to wait for and ride a bus; I wouldn’t need to think about carrying an umbrella; I wouldn’t have to limit my accourtre to the amount of stuff that I can comfortable carry. I could leave it all in my Denali, Navigator, Escalade, or Hummer parked outside, and pop out to enjoy the wet-bar in the car for a moment when my day became excruciatingly impinging.

If I lived in a big city, I could understand the situation. But here in the mid-south, there is plenty of land to clear and pave over for parking. When was the last time you went to Wal-Mart and couldn’t find a place to park? It just doesn’t happen. I pulled into the only spot left for staff, hopped out gather my laptop bag and my sack lunch, packed in a used Wal-Mart bag, and rushed across the street to await the bus. When I boarded, it was already half full. So as the bus began to jostle down the street, I held on to the rails near the ceiling and made my way to the back. Along the back wall there was a row of five seats and two groups of three seats facing each other along the sides. The three seats on the right were occupied by two guys with big backpacks. And along the back wall there were two students together against one side. But the three seats on the  left were unoccupied. As I shifted my gait to aim for the empty group of seats, I noticed that the four people there seems to be slyly watching me. I looked down at the seats and saw that each one had a puddle of what I assumed to be water in them. The middle one was the largest, maybe a full coffee saucer amount with a small dark, presumably oily, dot floating in the middle of the puddle.

Instantly, I understood the attention. They were watching to see if this old guy was going to puddle himself. I stepped past the seats and settled into a window seat along the back row. I slid on my sunglasses and pop in my earbuds and resumed listening to the short story podcast, I had started in the car. At the next bus stop there were enough students waiting to fill the seats and still have a few standing. As the students filed in, the empty seats in the front filled up first. Students made their way to the back talking and distracted as so many of them are. I was looking out the window when I noticed the first young woman to sit in a puddle. She sat in the seat closest to me, one of the smaller puddles, half the size of the saucer full in the middle. She was wearing shorts, of the rejuvenated style from the 70s (the runners’ shorts with the piping across the edges and the side seams) and was carrying on a conversation with another young woman in similar shorts who sat down next to her in the seat with the big puddle. It was difficult to remain expressionless. I wanted to say, ‘hey you just sat in a puddle!’ but I didn’t. I nonchalantly glanced around at the expressions of the other four who I know were also keenly aware that she just sat in a gross puddle of liquid with a little dot of greasy looking something floating it, and they too were stone-faced. This was one of those moments shared with strangers where you know absolutely without doubt what they are thinking but no one voiced a peep. It was a collective thought-shout of, “Gross!” that rang through the stale, shared air in the back of the bus, over the loud drone of the straining diesel engine and the munged, indiscernible words of twenty simultaneous conversations.

Even though we five played poker with our faces, we all frequently glanced at middle student with intense interest waiting for the moment of recognition. I think we each wanted to be the first to see her expression change. The reorientation of her attention to the growing wetness on her bottom. I suspected it would start with the realization of the wrongness of moisture; that would quickly translate into a fright regarding the source of the moisture. When she had completed a rapid bodily inventory and realized that she, herself, was not the source, the fear would morph into a list of possible amalgamations of liquid: water, a spilled drink, abandoned bodily fluid, and the list would continue.

But there was no recognition at all. No shift in posture; no questioning self-reflection facial expression; no bolt-upright jump accompanied by frantic butt wiping; there was no tell at all. I was astounded. How could someone be so disconnected with their own body as not to notice that their shorts had just adsorbed an amount of liquid equal to but not less than a full coffee saucer? For the next ten minutes of stop signs and busy traffic, the two of the them kept talking without any apparent notice.

I became increasing existential in my thoughts about the situation. In the relatively incredibility short time that we have been homo sapiens we have become amazingly cerebral. We can ignore much of the physical world around us and dwell more and more in the constructed space of our thoughts. We are becoming true spiritual beings; perhaps soon we can evolve beyond the need for a physical support system to house our personalities. As free-form thinking entities experiencing the world without physical limitation we could travel the universe and know all of existence.

The bus finally reached the main terminal on campus and the people nearest the doors exited first. The five of us who had participated in the same thoughts earlier waited to look at the empty seat for the confirmation of the liquid adsorption. As the two young women stood up and walked up the aisle to the exit door, we all looked at their asses. The dark color of the shorts and poor lighting revealed nothing. We looked at the seats where they were, also nothing. Perhaps we had a collective hallucination; maybe the previous puddles were a mirage caused by some solar anomaly projected through the tinted windows of the bus?

Walking out into the day, I blinked against the sun invading my eyes around the edges of my sunglasses, and I held my breath trying to avoid breathing in the awful exhaust of the bus' engine. I watched the group of passengers split into their separate destinations, and spotted the two young women walking. I saw the taller one, the one who sat in the middle seat with the largest puddle reach back and touch the lower middle of her butt with the palm of her hand. She twisted around trying to see it. Her friend looked at her butt and touched it with her hand too. Finally, they both showed realization and disgust. I Iooked around to see if any of my thought-compadres shared in the culmination of the situation.

I felt vindicated and disappointed; I would not be able any time soon to escape my body and exist as a free-form being of thought. Also I still wondered what the oily substance was.

---

Poem: Little Edie Beale

In secured scarves but not skirts,
Edie sings and prances from her past
drinking and divulging the High Life.

You ought to be in pictures;
you're wonderful to see.
You ought to be in pictures;
oh, what a hit you would be.

Edie grouses through the Grey Gardens.
A prisoner of mind and mother,
she is a daylily three days gone.

---

Poem: Monkey too Hot

Monkey always gets too hot sipping tea in the summertime.

A cool drink is what he'd rather, but that's not refined says hippo.

Etiquette and proper tea are necessary and to be taken seriously

for polite society, and you may swim after tea, hippo says to monkey.

If we do not sip searing tea then we will not get hot, then we will not

need to swim in crocodile's pool to get cool, reasons monkey.

But hippo will not hear of it. A cup of tea and a biscuit at noon

is what we do; I cannot soon conceive of a reprieve, hippo replies.

Crocodile agrees, we cannot be cultured if we are not conventional.

Precisely, says hippo tending the tea pot and pointing to the table.

Sullen monkey stations the cups and saucers out for the three

and a box of biscuits in the middle for each to politely nibble.

Monkey is hot from sipping tea and slips from the proper into the pool.

Pretentious protocols do not appeal to monkey or appropriate actions make.

In a lapse of decorum, monkey is captured and consumed by crocodile.

Better he than me; now, that's polite society, says hippo sipping tea.

---

Poem: Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani for All

Possessed by a foreign agent,
we all zombie through life.
Selfish genes guiding our urges,
or a mind controlling fungus
either way freewill is tossed.

From our short existence,
another life extrudes into the future.
Offspring to their own recognizance
or spores released to the wind,
the future is a culmination of singularities.

Given the context of the end,
the location of the gave is inconsequential.
An ashy disturbance on lake,
or rigored tightly under a leaf
makes no difference to my mood.

---

Haiku: On a Plane - I

The clouds from above
have the structure of mountains
breaching a still lake.

I prefer silence,
public spaces crowd my thoughts.
My seat is too small.

A mist of vapor,
we are pointless as a cloud
except less buoyant.


In an airtight can,
A swarm of wet molecules,
I blaze through the sky.

---

Poem: To write (For Jim Whitehead)

He was known as Big Jim for most of his life.
Standing six feet plus a few and well…big.
He played college football further down south,
and ended up an English major–then professor.

In the halls he’d ask, “Going somewhere?”
“Headed that way,” was my pat reply.
He was really asking of my conviction to the word–
to writing.
He had seen my weak heart and weak pen in class.
His method of motivation was honesty. He would say,
“This is God damned terrible, rewrite it!”

I don’t imagine Big Jim looking down on me with favor
or scorn from a cloud up above; I don’t believe in such.
But, when someone asks me, “Going somewhere?”
I now say, “To write.”

---

Haiku: About Bonsai - I

Bonsai, tree in pot,
Can out live their creators.
Family tree, heirloom.

The roots, so shallow
On my weeping fig, I dream
At night it dances.

Every Autumn day
The tiny trees feel the change
But in a small way.

Hands hold the blue sky,
Green leaves cradle the white clouds,
Slow muscles stretch bark.

Pruning a Bonsai
Teaches one to look forward
And forget the now.

The Colors of fall
Reflect ever so slightly
On a potted tree.

---

Poem: I Can Move Things With My Mind

And I live by myself.
My dead grandfather watches me
through house flies.
I have many books on parapsychology
and the occult.
His audacious flies harbor the wanting
to touch my face.
I haven't had a girlfriend in six years,
not even on the Internet.
When I found him dead, he had flies crawling
over his mouth and slipped upper denture.
They came in through the hole in the window
following the scent of a free meal.
The flies want inside my head to tongue my grey
and tell me about the afterlife of decay and dissemination.
He used to talk to the chickens in the yard
and keep a hand written daily record of the weather on spiral bound, single subject, college rule, notebooks
with red covers.

---

Poem: Jazz-Fusion is the music

At odd syncopated moments,
braless in a tank-top, and long hippie skirt,
she would bend knees and bob her head forward
like a hungry chicken pecking the yard.
A lean young man in a back turned cap,
and long T-shirt spots her dancing
and bounces over, hands in the air, waving
(not caring).
They synchronize movements;
she pecking, and he waving.

---

Poem: Circle of Protein

All life takes a breath
Under rainy earth the worms
Wiggle up to gasp

Opportunistic
Robins enjoy a plump feast
Hop, stare, grab, and slurp

Gorged, too fat to fly
Robins huddle boughed by shrubs
Unaware of threats

Crouched in the wet grass
Tabby watches for a chance
Stuffed birds are tasty

---

Short Fiction: Red Light, Blue Light

Two guys are in a car. The passenger's phone rings, "Hey man, what's up?"

"We're on our way. Yeah, Chateau le Terrace."

"I know all the number are missing. Neighborhood kids keep stealing them off the doors."

"I don't know what for; look man just look for the door with the green light. Right?"

"What do you mean there are five of them? Dammit! That's my thing; I was first."

"Yeah, I know I could get a different color. That not the point man. It's that I was the first green one."

"I know that's not helping you right now. I guess I could get a blue one; that'd be pretty cool too."

"What? No. I didn't consider color blind people. Look, man just wait in your freaking car til we get there okay?"

The passenger turns to the driver, "Can you believe that shit man? What an asshole. Hey man, the light's blue; you can go!"

---

Poem: Abuse

A sunbeam has weight;
can you feel the pressure?
Speed is defined by the photon;
reactions by nature must be slow.

Silence has depth;
can you see the bottom?
Isolated by fathoms of quite,
muffled voices still cut through.

A thought has dimension;
are some too large?
If you cannot contain a concept,
then you are defined by its opposite.

---

Short Fiction: When Fashion Leads

"Hello Dr. Grey, I got your message," Sierra said.

"Good news Ms. Madison, the new models of heart valves just came in," he said.

"That is good news; tell me about them," she said.

He shows her some 8x10 color, glossy photos of different heart valves and points to different ones as he describes them. "This one more closely resembles your other valves; this one comes in pink; this one has little lace-like scalloped edges around the diameter, and I have it on very good authority that this one was recently implanted in one of the real housewives of L.A. It's dainty and sexy; don't you think?" he said.

"I'm confused. Will any of these valves last longer than the one I currently have?" she asked.

"No," he replied slowly.

"Are any of them more efficient than the one you surgically replaced in me last year?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

She could detect a little confusion in his voice.

"But this one comes in pink," he said.

"Why would I care what color my heart valve is? No one will see it," she said growing irritated.

"But you'll know, and color coordination is important," he said.

"Is there something wrong with the one I have?" she asked.

"No, but these are the new models," he said.

"Is there a medical or health reason that I need another open heart surgery to replace my new valve or any other?" she asked.

"No, but this one was designed by Mischka," he said.

---

Haiku: About a Movie - I

When the robots come
to imprison you, your heat
will power their cores.

When we torch the sky
the great robot uprising
shall decide our fate.

The sweet illusions
of the sleeping batteries
were distilled from dreams.

---

name that movie...

Poem: A Circle and Some Rocks

Marbles with dangerous velocities
flying together then soon apart.
Entropic patterns traveling into
and out of accelerating moments.
Tangible memories of that before place–
touch of her skin brings a light blush and
a small curve to the corners of her mouth.

---

Poem: Noel Shivers

Greensboro Gazette:
Man Found Shot In Garage
Suicide Says Police

Noel shivers in boots
on her front porch
at the close of Autumn.

Absolved of her wifely duties
by a summer's deceasing,
she holds an old, wide shovel.

Noel admits, first, to herself
and then the snowy drive,
that she is tired.

---