A Little Gratuitous Violence ~ Tuesday, March 29, 2022

An unexpected slap on live television

Little did anyone know what was happening

In the breadth of a gasp it was all said and done

Two men, celebrities, both make an incision

To cut out a tumor, benign, yet not awake

Little could we predict visages misshapening

Eclipsing the future with years of slapstick fun

Gratitude will get us nowhere in our mission

Reject entertainment for entertainment's sake

Ask ourselves whence subtext and was it all rehearsed

Transgressions on the screen appear obscene, too real

Ugly performances by actors on the stage, were they cursed

In their roles to play fools, a jester and knight kneel

To pray to the one God to obtain transmission

Objections to the rules of fair play encounter

Underhanded forehand, backhand, volley, lob, smash

Slice through those nets to fly beyond asphalt, clay, grass

Violence is sexy on screen and to saunter

In full view of others back to his seat, how bold

Open to discussion regarding how to bash

Loud-mouthed comedians in public who may sass

Every man and woman to get a rise, these sons

Noble in Hollywood, never know when to fold

Crass jokes about women, their hair cannot counter

Even one iota of violence with guns

No Excuses ~ Friday, March 25, 2022

I know we don't speak like this anymore

the barbarity of misogyny

as a child, I absorbed the lies wholesale

indeed, who was going to set the score

no one started to speak up as one voice

to imagine who had the energy

observe with wherewithal to let us fail

vision to discover how to act right

everyone hurt from past trauma, rejoice

rejoice, to hit bottom, the only way

treat anyone badly, we all suffer

in the past, we all laughed in shame to say

little in defense, losing the buffer

losing our way with thoughts like power is might

The Seventies, coke-driven animus

how we grew up with adults fueled by drugs

everyone suffers when one person hurts

familiar phrases poked fun without fuss

as if when we all laughed, it was okay

to watch the butt of the joke without hugs

languish inside their soul as we shot darts

at any victims but ourselves, we failed

despite our conscience feeling pain, no way

yet, we knew better than destroy women

suffering in shadows, hidden, alone

instructed to show no sorrow, the sin

no one understood was not hers, our tone

given the times was blasé, as we railed

selfishly against sense, waves splashed the shore

Fornication Under Carnal Knowledge ~ Monday, March 21, 2022

Forgiveness, understanding, compassion, kindness

objects of consideration, contemplation

responsibility, accountability

grants the subject an ethical blindness

insult to injury adds salt to wounds

venal dishonesty shapes inflation

emergent powers test possibility

notoriety lives in infamy

energetic young men in leaps and bounds

shatter records, raise the bar, challenge roles

shaped by a disregard for the future

Understanding posterity, the tools

negligence, ignorance, forced to endure

degraded by tales of polygamy

encounter multiplicity as lives

re-establish the norm as abnormal

study demographics, overcome shame

together as a politic, their wives

anti-establishment and anarchic

notify each other of hormonal

devolution without judgment or blame

incite riots, revolution and war

none consider themselves as architects

greasing axles yet, crushed beneath the wheels

Compassion obliges actors to play

ordinary people as common heels

music to the ears as directors stray

passionately engaged, settle the score

art for art's sake, what a carve up, satire

sets the house ablaze, theatre, a joke

stages counter-revolution, the lie

inside arbitrary order, on fire

obliterating common sense, good sense

nonsense, nevermind random acts bespoke

Kindness and cruelty, twins scream and cry

insightful in knowledge to awaken

needlessly sleeping parents in defense

demands for tequila with salt and lime

newbies know what they want as alcohol

ends the pain of teething, a life of crime

set in stone, the Dioscuri soon bawl

smelling breakfast cooking, eggs and bacon

Kocsi szekér ~ Sunday, March 20, 2022

The need to rush into water closets

haunts my very footsteps with urgency

emergency, emergency besets

notions of propriety, decency

emergency, emergency thus flies

Eumenides, Erinyes, the Furies

desiring vengeance, punishment arise

terror of reproach to face such juries

onwards again and again, discontent

restless internal pressure to relieve

urgent, emergent, with incontinent

struggle to remain without shame like Eve

hush this push, push, struggle into restrooms

immediate, disconsolate, dreamer

neutral powers discuss the future in tombs

thus conveying the imagery, schemer

only to arrive beyond all reproach

wishing for a better life, this karma

accountability, third class, coach

tightly packed containers, sardine dharma

each law observed long before ignorance

remember this life, this world seen before

constructed again and again, by chance

leisure turns good deeds to reset the score

obey from the start the right way, the path

set before me as a child with conscience

emergent, urgent needs to do the math

take a moment to look back, this nonsense

serves a purpose to pay off unknown debts

A Trap Door: The Way Out ~ Wednesday, March 16, 2022

You can't take it with you

objects clutter the house

untidy appearance

cautious, watch out for poo

all this has got to go

no, don't put out your spouse

toss what came on clearance

transform your life, your wife

asks what you have to show

kiss her goodnight and leave

exit back door, no way

in hell, if you could weave

the braided threads, a ray

winds sunshine through the strife

in your marriage, front door

to the back door, enter

honestly at your risk

you find there on the floor

opens a chute, center

under the basilisk

You Can't Take It with You ~ Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Yesterday strayed dearest

obligations obtain

unequivocal qi

cancerous reason runs

adventitiously yet

notoriously lost

tumultuously out

towards roast toads, straw warts

antithetical heat

kyphotic, icy pitch

energetic tiger

immersion, noisier

than an nth tan hat ant

worrisome, morose worms

instruct strict, rustic runts

troublesome, obsolete

harridans drain darshan

yesterday seared rats' ears

ordered odder reed deer

underneath nature hurt

At the Whistle-stop, Led Astray ~ Tuesday, March 15, 2022

The heat of the moment, a fit of rage

helps decide the level of sanity

ever-balanced between a tongue-lashing

humiliation by actors on stage

ever-aware of hecklers in their midst

and off-kilter minds, full of vanity

tossing and turning, swimming and splashing

or in real life, slashing at waves, drowning

from a lack of control, knife in a fist

trouble always brewing on the surface

hungry to understand this world of dreams

exactly when and where is their crowning

moment, brightly lit in The Sun, replace

ordinary people with he who screams

murder, bloody murder at the police

enters a courtroom calm in demeanor

nobody knows him for acts of kindness

tranquil and reposed, not known to play nice

a whirlwind reaps the madness as it sows

fortune and misfortune, while the gleaner

in her work, picks up clues to the blindness

trauma after trauma causes the man

on trial, awaiting a verdict, the blows

from repetitive beatings in childhood

release him to the State, unfit to serve

as soldier in prison, the frying pan

guarantees the straps stay tight if he should

engage in malice, triggers hit a nerve

Anemoi ~ Saturday, March 12, 2022

Blockages occur during a conflict

leaving the weaker opponent disturbed

only children don't understand struggles

created by others may contradict

kisses and hugs as a philosophy

as traumatized children become perturbed

given a lack of care simply boggles

even the strongest soul with misfortune

Becalmed, the wind leaves stranded the Trophy

every clipper stuck in these still waters

clogs the tournament from competition

lasting as long as a butcher slaughters

oneiric sheep, dreaming to petition

gods and goddesses their lack of fortune

Where Is My Tati Bear ~ Saturday, March 12, 2022

You are gone and I am still here, still stuck

until you return back to me, but no

let's be frank about these matters, you died

exactly two days after Christmas, fuck

this season of Yuletide, my cat is dead

if you were a person, people would show

deference towards me, I haven't cried

especially like this in years, a man

Engages with the world to earn some bread

let's be frank again and say I'm a heel

until something was noticeably wrong

to tell the truth, I was selfish, I feel

everything was washed out for I so long

despite my faults to pet you with my hand

This Is Not a Poem ~ Friday, March 11, 2022

The West watches with talks of appeasement, however we know how that went over, ever observant and non-combative. World War II looms as they invade Poland, even if their ambitions ended there, save the Axis powers feel the need to flex their muscles and test their military

weapons and technological prowess, as the war unfolds with Poland's downfall, to say we don't know what will happen next

cheapens the cost of how many lives lost, how many communities were destroyed, even while we watch history unfold, strategy demands total war but no

we wait because of total destruction, insisting on patience, diplomacy, though the buffer for Europe is now gone, how we wait until we must fight a war

tell me this was not the case with Iraq, as we rushed into war, perpetrators, literally without reasons but lies, killing in the name of vengeance and fear still felt now over twenty years later.

Object to this false simplification, for all we know World War III is knocking

and opportunities await the poor, pitifully disgraced mercenaries patiently awaiting their turn to fight even alongside long-term enemies as bitter rivals must face each other, showing off decades of technology, even the cost of annihilation makes the problems we face seem ludicrous, even if science fiction predicted nothing less than total devastation, to wait means one more day to watch TV.

Posthumous Poetry ~ Friday, March 11, 2022

I keep hoping to see myself

killed by some thugs in Chicago

even reading about the crime

exit wounds unable to heal

particularly gruesome murder

hope might be asking for too much

obituary in the Times

perhaps I'm famous for nothing

in the world of Kardashians

nobody would read the paper

given Hyde Park but which Hyde Park

to look over someone's shoulder

only to read of my own death

selfish perhaps to wish the best

even after I am long gone

even if I'm good for nothing

maybe you will read these dark lines

yes, and know I was once alive

suffering as we all suffer

even with certain privileges

left to write these lines before death

fortune shines brightest before dawn

Zenith: Samt (ar-ra's): The Path Over My Head ~ Tuesday, March 8, 2022

From the age of sixteen until I was twenty, I was unraveling; realizing the stress of the whiskey bottle within my warped family opened the path to fail, fall apart and decline, slip into depression, madness and a swift break with the rest of the world on their paths to success. That no one understood the pull of a spiral downward to a maelstrom; however ignorance, deliberate neglect, and lack of compassion enters the scenery of a landscape painting as Impressionism argues with Cubism that structures don't exist, only the blur and swirl given in impressions, not the lines and angles found in geometry. Orders within the mind sought out recovery for the next thirty years; finding the marathon as a grounding project against insanity.

Some people don't respond to discipline the mind by a daily practice in the same way, forces beyond this awareness hurt their recovery; xenomania grips with a need to outdo a moderate outcome; trust in daily practice becomes a religion of rites and rituals; experience opens awareness to relax but the body craves work even to exhaustion, to the point of collapse as a ship may capsize; no one knows the limits to the body until they push the envelope.

Unwittingly, my growth as a caring person became stunted and blocked, not that I was aware at the age of twenty how far I had fallen towards naẓīr (as-samt), nadir to the zenith, bottom of a crevasse inside a block of ice, how long before the thaw in social relations lasted within my soul, this innate sense to feel the pain within others;

I was not sure this life, the journey in itself was not meant to release wisdom in gradual moments of acceptance, opposing ignorance as a form of self-harm by hurting the other, creating bad karma; suffering this lifetime was a necessity to become a Buddha, transcending all sorrow, distress and its effects on the human body, willing myself to reach deep into the darkness, crippled in a crevasse, exactly as needed, or is this just a game to compensate for loss; nervous about the truth, vibrations diminish as the body weakens; trust in experience, the truth of awareness, understanding the mind yet this skepticism keeps me from true belief, letting the mind expand.

I opened up my eyes deep inside the crevasse to see beyond the stars; witness the suffering of a one-footed duck, imperfection is truth as this reality unfolds against beauty and perfection in form; suddenly satori showed me everything was beautiful as it is; until experience was not about striving, not about making mine, nothing made sense to me as people were callous as adults and children; realizing being, the lightness within joy, unbearable as time arrives at the station, the present slips away, the mundane world remains; velocity is light in relation to time in the construct of space; everything leads to now, contemplate each moment within the full spectrum; look at the positive, the potential as growth, actualized as mind; inside what I don't know is fear, gripped by terror, the unknown of childhood; nothing as it appears is real, simply passing, shifting, changing, turning; given the universe expands to inflation, we live in a balloon.

Fox in the Henhouse ~ Sunday, March 6, 2022

When will this nightmare end

henhouse fox takes his pick

each city laid to waste

nerves break, who will defend

Wisdom keeps their distance

impose sanctions, a trick

looks real, shows lack of taste

look at Poland, shows care

Truce comes when the balance

hovers over borders

interior besieged

strength reveals might won't share

Neutral countries observe

independent orders

grant that war is diseased

honesty must not swerve

this misdirects the flock

margins of profit net

accrued wealth over time

reinvest capital

errors in judgment rock

Each city in their debt

noblesse oblige, a crime

defend the Capitol

Stand with Ukraine ~ Tuesday, March 1, 2022

As he knocks over the first domino, set up since the Surrender of Japan, heaven knows if we can stop World War III, even if the war hasn't started yet. Kiss the world as we now know it...goodbye. No one knows what will happen next, the war occupies news networks as precursor, curse the heavens for life on earth, silence. Kiss your wife goodbye to soldier again. Soldiers not as unprepared as Poland observing tanks crush with impunity. Visions of hussars attacking said tanks, emerging romantically on horseback remind us posterity saves no lives. Turbulent European skirmishes hold everyone in thrall of World War III. Everyone is cautious of old stockpiles. Forget the Soviet Union, this is Independent Russia run by Putin. Re-elect a new number one? Ha-ha! Second time around as the President, the fact that he was the Prime Minister depends on how you define who's in charge. Objections to absolute power arise much to the dismay of the elected in their well-worn seats of leather armchairs. Not that foreign wars get much attention. Obviously, Ukraine is our homeland.

Gap-toothed Smile ~ Tuesday, March 1, 2022

"It's a great time to be alive," she said. "To be born with all of this potential. Seems a shame so few will truly succeed. Achievements are never enough without guidance from family and our closest friends. Really, who gets the chance to overcome every obstacle set before her path? As for those who fail and fail yet again, triumphs may be as small as a sundae to enjoy with children at a counter in an ice cream shop, while a gap-toothed smile makes the boys and girls giggle while eating every spoonful with their own missing teeth. Take a moment to accept how silly obsessions with appearances becomes, burdened with the need to look right, better even than her own grown children." As to why she spoke this short monologue, left me a bit baffled. I said nothing in that moment, just trying to listen. Versions of the truth ring a bell when such experiences create an event such that the mind remembers a moment however strange as good stories to tell. Even though, some of those children snicker self-consciously knowing their teeth grow back after they fall out, so-called baby teeth. If children seem mean-spirited at times despite their age, they can be forgiven.