Neural Networks ~ Sunday, August 21, 2022

Cognitive difference questions the hegemony

of supremacy in humans as a species

grabbed by the thick scruff of the neck in the crosswalk

notice my dismay, my face turns all lemony

if I see something, a dog being mistreated

to write a poem, better than throwing feces

interpretation of events at hand, let's talk

violence won't solve but exacerbates problems

emulate my dad, no thanks, I felt defeated

directly from acts of violence and abuse

interpretation, reasons offered, excuses

forged in the smithy without a soul, what the deuce

forget the devil doesn't exist, the truth is

everyone permits harm as a weed without stems

reinterpret facts, discuss with police presence

essentially power empowered with lethal harm

no defense against untimely decisive acts

consequences fold and unfold, the pleats pleasance

everyone accepts the reverberations felt

quilt across the Mall, right place, right time, no alarm

until limited exposure to view 

contacts

even if I saw Jason's name, we were bullies

sad but true, high school, the pecking order, a belt

to strangle justice, who am I to judge others

if I get angry when I witness wrongdoing

object to the facts, would rather had my druthers

normal, not normal, nobody cares, no stewing

silently alone, the world accepts black woolies

to be a black sheep, never to fit in, look right

hold my head up high, foreign in a foreign land

egregious black sheep stand out from the flock, observe

hegemonic deals to lead but with no birthright

enter the back door, brain function paired to body

given that dogs jump, breeding keeps this in demand 

enter the front door, obedience throws a curve

murder a stranger, not worth time spent on the lam

or sentenced to serve time behind bars, dogsbody

not just a servant but sour as Old Lemony

yesterday, I kept my mouth shut tight as a clam

A Prayer to an Absent God ~ Sunday, August 14, 2022

Why is it too late? Too late for condemnation...the damage is done

Harbor no grievance for to lack initiative is to lack vision

Yet not to defend until it is far too late is a far worse crime

Idiotic fools wait for blood to spurt and gush for there's no rush, hon

Security, son? Forget about it, too slow, you may lose an eye

In the end, they blame not themselves nor the victim but the decision

The perpetrator chose to mastermind a plot step by step in time

Truth be told the fault remains in absurdity as Camus once wrote

Only the absurd counterbalanced pure reason when the well was dry

Objectivity requires imagination to see beyond lies

Licensed to kill? No. Simply shaken and not stirred, the world makes no sense

Answer the question: When is it never too late? Before the well dries

Together the world acts with concerted effort against violence

Emerges as harm tries to take effect, poison without antidote

Double Entendre: The Right to Choose ~ Friday, August 12, 2022

Little Brown Guy was an epithet my ex-wife gave me to describe

in no uncertain terms what kind of man she left for another man

the type of man with a lack of height, length and width, one born in Bombay

this she found funny, Sandy Sanford was her name, someone I could bribe

left me for a stroke patient and kept my last name, she is my ex-wife

ever since we met, it was banter like a fight, a part of the plan

But I was clueless and stupid and fell in love, thus I rue the day

reason broke my heart, but I was cruel before her, I wanted others

only I didn't know my actions affected her life with much strife

wonders never cease, I never cheated on her, but we soon divorced

no surprise really, after five years, she was done, ready to move on

Given my background, raised a Roman Catholic, I had not endorsed

under such duress to accept total failure, but our love was gone

yes, Henry VIII was right to demand divorce, he had his druthers

Ineluctable ~ Friday, August 12, 2022

Life is a disease, to be born is to suffer: illness, old age, death

Inside the black box, all memories disappear, zapped from the hard-drive

For the brain to scan past events, to remember what it imagines

Engineers ideas like the soul that it conceives while gasping for breath

Illness comes and goes, an inconvenience to catch, this impermanence

Sickness sleeps in bed all day long until better, no one pulls the jive

Aging at sunset, thoughts regard past legacy, earthenware tagines

Disease eats away the body of Christ, as flesh and blood, flesh and bone

Illness engineers the ingenious, razor-sharp while impertinence

Shaves off the stubble, pathetic pathologies, the struggle of time

Ease is perfection, a math or spelling exam, a rare occasion

Answers provided by the whiz kid at the back of the classroom, grime

Soils clean fingernails, actions form consequences beyond persuasion

Ease of the whiz kid to belittle the stupid, sink like a lake stone

Tragedy, bright lights in the maternity ward, unopened, closed eyes

Open to darkness, the warmth of the womb, baby, choose infanticide

Because to be born, no matter how fucking cute, infants be... in pain

Ever since firstborn Cain kills his brother, Abel, murder forms great lies

Because illusions of silence and solitude, solipsism views

Obedience sound and yet hears the direction of spirit as pride

Redirect the mind, the hormones within the brain, before the insane

Nature of error arises, the volcano erupts as active

If to kill Hitler as a baby, is it wrong, as events defuse

Suffer in prison, the only person who knows the truth of grand schemes

Transcend history, is it possible, pretend to know nothing now

Objectivity dissolves the ground of meaning, the streams within dreams

Suffer the error of erroneous thinking, imagine the plough

Under such duress, the collision of all time, mergers attractive

For enterprises, in five billion years, to grow or downsize with the sun

For Andromeda and the Milky Way will meet, the sun will expand

Everyone worries about climate change but this, what will take place first

Remember this place, for a reason, none at all, John, thy will be Donne

Illness protects men as Andromeda rules men, why wait for the end

Left to the mercy of a collision course in time, a meltdown at hand

Likens galaxies and the Sun as gods of yore, antiquity cursed

Not as murderers or witnesses to murder, who knows what exists

Exactly, and when exactly, precisely when, astronomy friend

Such calculations are never easy, even with a computer

Simply wait and see, just four or five billion years, who has time for that

Old age grips the heart tighter and tighter as time holds hands, the suitor

Left to be desired, as the contents within space, a brain in a vat

Difficult to say, forgetfulness forgotten, memory persists

Abandoned unseen, out of sight thus out of mind, beside a mountain

Granted food is scarce, geronticide is unkind, grandma doesn't mind

Even a poet suffers like everyone else with nothing to gain

Death acts uncertain, flipping a coin, heads or tails, wind in a fountain

Every day she wrote a poem for her husband and he did the same

After sixty years, she put together a book, the market was blind

Troubled by her loss, after her husband moved on, she stopped a freight train

Her death was absurd and yet not unexpected, her son felt no shame

Stranger Danger ~ Wednesday, August 10, 2022

As a foreigner, non-indigenous people

saw me as a threat, a small child, skinny and slight

ask me how I know this to be true, the question

from these fearful folks, where do you come from, steeple

of a church points up to the heavens, to the stars

really indignant, I should have been, I was bright

even precocious but not perceptive, sessions

in perseverance, in overcoming the shame

given as different, as if I had come from Mars

not from India, in the Northern Hemisphere

east of Istanbul, therefore exotic, a threat

reality set in fast, when I learned their fear

nitwits in class said, not President, a safe bet

of course, I wanted nothing to do with their game

no, I had no choice, I was stuck, an immigrant

if life were perfect, I'd spell my way to Bombay

nothing here worthwhile, born in the USA, nope

despite jingoist lyrics, worthless sycophants

indeed followers, inconsiderate rabble

gave me a reason not to be like them, to say

even in the worst country, I'd uncover hope

not out of darkness, nor within light, but the clear

objects of the mind, hidden from psychobabble

until therapy loses value, learn to speak

speak truth to power, disarm the native speakers

pretend I don't know what they fear, for they are weak

egregious, stupid, sorry, the truth hurts, wreakers

of havoc and lies, as leaders whom they revere

pernicious liars speak their minds without a clue

leading followers in hopeless rallies, steeple

erect points on high, I'm here waiting for my due

The Disoriented ~ Saturday, August 6, 2022

There, passed out in bed, awake for twenty-four hours

haunted by bad dreams, strangeness from the summer heat

ended up awake, disoriented and scared

Difficult to say, to wake from bad dreams, time scours

inside memories, to solve problems, blockages

simply removed, wait before dying in the street

obstacles occur, then I wake up, unprepared

really to move on or to get up out of bed

in this world, weakness begs the question, stoppages

ends the flow function, how to break through a clogged drain

not to fret over the distress and stress of life

therapy is cheap, all talk, no breakthroughs, the pain

exhibits in dreams, dysfunction in daily strife

dig me a tunnel, quiet the thoughts in my head

The Masterpiece: Skrik ~ Saturday, August 6, 2022

There, anxiety . . . twenty-four frames per second

hovers in shadows between each frame in a film

each frame holds shadows above and below, ready

Magic comes with light, photons in an arcsecond

as phenomena appear through a projection

still shadows await even within microfilm

tragedy, this heat, my brain boils, dreams unsteady

each moment, The Scream, Krakatoa and red skies

red bloody murder, all black without protection

photons from the sun burn my flesh and boil my brain

images on screen seem smaller within the booth

each frame whizzes past, seen and yet unseen, insane

caged like a wild beast, a cheetah spots what's the truth

each frame, back and forth, I pace in this world of lies

After Maeterlinck ~ Saturday, August 6, 2022

... "we devalue" words as ideas "in a strange way"

exactly as thoughts use words to communicate

depth of perceptions as experience in time

exactly as words fail to offer or convey

visions of this world as some contrived description

albeit the words appear to commiserate

lukewarm sympathy at a service, the real crime

undermines our words when lacking in eloquence

even if fitting, emotions in transcription

weaken the vessel of language to portray love

only to rise up in revolt in a novel

remember that words like paint color without a glove

deliberately used as tools to bow down, grovel

submit while in fear before supreme eminence

as the illusion of depth lets us envision

sorrow in others, artifice makes beautiful

ingeniously formed phrases on the page, the face

decidedly makes all too real our decision

entering a pact with a cosmic bond to frame

aspects of the real as either unsuitable

simply lacking truth or deluded by our place

in this world, status identifies the unreal

nothing but ego as reflection in a game

as we chase ourselves through a horror of mirrors

suggest that these words themselves, so abstract, speak lies

truly, you are right, trust your gut, all these errors

really justify grandiloquence as false spies

as the beholder of beauty, aesthetics peel

not a banana but the idea of what's seen

given properties of majesty, poetry

ever so artful, lacks the epic gift to reach

words as a witness to events as they have been

argue as you wish, these words, as gibberish, see

yesterday as past, the present something to teach

Neither Victims Nor Executioners Succeed ~ Wednesday, August 3, 2022

The world conspires to help me succeed in life

honored, I bask in the opulence of such wealth

egregious, it seems for a beggar from Bombay

whatever, 'Mumbai', the nationalists, they thrive

on backwards motion, appeals to a Hindu past

remember, I grew up casteless, so to my health

living has been good, so far, "knock on wood," they say

despite what you think or believe, the gods have ears

conditioned to hear every word, a net they cast

only to listen for fun, to disrupt the flow

not of industry but of the offhand remark

singled out to show their sense of irony, slow

people don't catch on, they remain without a spark

in which the gods turn up the heat, stoking up fears

resulting in dread of the unknown, no worries

everything in due time and order, for they say

stillness makes suckers of monks in meditation

to the dismay of adherents whose flurries

of activity, to no effect, serves no balm

hindering progress in all realms of Old Bombay

each and every day, I pray for contemplation

linger on the truth, the tongues of flames, manifest

presently in waves, as each event passes, calm

marks my future plans, I follow in ease and grace

each step honors gods and humanity, wretches

sufficient in lies, to help disguise the false face

unseen by the blind but heard as the truth stretches

crippled by the facts, troubled minds produce their best

carelessly and quick, half-ass endeavors they think

everyone accepts as work, as a job well done

everyone moves on but these hamsters on their wheels

despite their efforts, they never get to the brink

instead the lemmings leap in faith over the cliff

nothing deters them, not even death, so ends fun

legacy begins, the future is mine, time heals

ignorance and sweat, years wasted trying to win

fearsome battles, strange how I never caught a whiff

endlessly churned up of self-pity, scent of gin