Let the flames die down a bit

soften the nasty innuendos, slow down the rumor mill, get off message - just for a moment

back off the simple but twisted soundbites, let up with the anger, don’t be so demeaning

cast a few less aspersions, tone down your blog, drop the macho posturing for a minute

toss the neckties, slip off the tight dress shoes, stop demanding that ‘God Bless America’

don’t just read their speeches, quietly say no to TV makeup, drop one or two multi-tasks

don’t fear to say waste needs cut and taxes need raised, don’t check the polls Every day

maintain your own image, reduce coded rhetoric, quit lashing out just to provoke anger

let artificial suntans fade, reconsider self-entitlement, come out from your walled compounds

look just a bit beyond the next quarter, ease up on the open contempt for any foreigners

lose a little weight, try a few meatless days, exercise a bit, don’t drink quite so much

question some military outlays, quit inflaming ignorant hatred, think beyond simple GDP

slow the oversimplifying, let shades of gray dapple the black and white, even take in the outdoors

recycle a 3-piece suit, forego just one phony filibuster, tone down that greedy Christmas hype

think a bit about our food supply, soften the sarcastic smirks, lower all this furious static

don’t be quite so shrill, dare to be both with us and against us, reduce the angry righteousness

un-popularize polarization, de-emphasize animosity, come out from behind closed doors

let the flames die down a bit, say it a little more quietly, tend toward that Middle Way

lighten up on those who read and do the math, don’t shovel the unread so much red meat

maybe just speak one at a time, lower your own decibels, watch that blood pressure

quietly turn away from shouting matches, face off against problems instead of each other

nod in silence until they just stop talking, socialize with their families, isolate their hatred

lower the fog machines, take walks and naps, have a deep breath and sigh it out slowly

maybe don’t always vote in party line blocs, share the tiniest foothold upon common ground

let splinter groups form eclectic coalitions, weigh this petty enmity against the infinite darkness

reform catchphrases in your own words and see if they make sense, start here and now, with yourself

roll down the windows, sit in the grass, be mindful of the cherry blossoms as you make decisions

really feel the rain of blessings, stand outside the camera lights, lay off some of that fast food

don’t demonize until co-operation is traitorous, know yourself instead of your marketed image

move away from career politicians, maybe it doesn’t have to always come down to money

attend more to the infinite miracles proceeding at light speed all around us, often remain quite still

reasonably consider human over-population, integrate manufacturing into natural systems

try cooking from scratch, give quietly back for all you are receiving, remember the past

get some small things right, listen until they hear themselves, point out just one sunset

laugh with a bit less scorn, consider progress instead of mere victory, pause in a soft light

stumble back to the ancient path, leave less anger in your wake, spread a little less fear around

look a cow in her gentle eyes, find some reason for a joyful tear, smile as life passes so quickly by

Lifting Off From This Life

and as I saw myself where I lay quite still, just barely breathing

I began to leave in peaceful radiations

rising up, I separate, and leave a trail of gently streaming images

passing straight through the picture window as though it is not there

rising freely, tucking backward, a back dive arching upward

arms spread quite wide and I’m trailing, a rainbow colored mist

moving onward, climbing upward at a steeper angle, the foothills fall away

and from a spot between my eyes, an infinite image is unwound

much higher now, but not too far off, the mountainous divide comes into view

so very free and beyond being calm, evaporating in the contrail of my soul

heading West and ever higher my density decreases

in somersaults and laid out back flips, an entire journey in an instant

and then, high enough at once, I see the curve of our miraculous atmosphere

at last so free with arms outspread, it is escape velocity for me

moving cross the moon's lovely face a bright blue planet shines far below

then on around to the dark side to slingshot away with even greater speed

and faster now, cruising openly with the photons from the sun

leave the friendly ecliptic behind to get a feeling for the void

and in four short years my soul can visit nearby Proxima Centauri

but at this speed time passes so very slowly that I am aged but very little

Effortlessly realizing that nothing good comes for free

Peeling back the silky mandala one gauzy layer at a time

Gazing back out through its crystalline structure from a central void

Then suddenly and necessarily, without any conscious effort

It is that first real time up, riding on that old bicycle

Always in that process of learning something new

not merely chattering to simply hide good silence

Taking pride and pleasure in the basics of life

Feeling the native wisdom of hot sweat and hard breathing

Studying deeply as well as reading widely

getting up before the sun

Knowing how to do things with the use of your own hands

Cooking food yourselves and sharing it at home

Watching the cycles of the moon, the sun and the seasons of the earth

Remaining simply aware of the subtle sounds of nature

Finding use for anger but not living driven blindly by rage

Sharing as much love in any way as often as you can

Traveling far but not forsaking the good home that you have made

Always being sure that you can still read and write

Respecting the old, repairing the broken, knowing the history

relaxing your entire body one part at a time

Understanding that you can’t be any happier than the saddest you have ever been

Making every single day a good day to die

Being honest and avoiding salesmanship

Knowing yourself and listening to others

Not letting their noise and confusion mask the vast emptiness

Seeking out the quiet places and letting them fill you up

Adjusting constantly and unconsciously to the eye of the storm

Effortlessly realizing that nothing good comes for free

My Fool Errands Led Me Here

For so long that false but pervasive urgency molded my perception of how it is and what it should be

I always awaited some trite event which quickly faded off into my incomplete and jumbled blur

At times I thought I was stepping sagely back, but really that was just one more, too hurried task

I strained so long under that pointless stress that I felt empty when I was casually cast off for good

Thought I saved time religiously, but although I never even spent a bit, my account is empty now

Drove thousands of angry and wasted miles between demeaning jobs and dysfunctional homes

Found novel ways to make foolish noise when I should have known to keep to a good silence

Exhausted by the vapid over-stimulation, I convinced myself I had grabbed for all their gusto

My fool errands led me on, time and again, growing older without noticing, almost til the end

I thought I traveled widely but I viewed everything with the same unquestionable beliefs

My lot was insipid variation upon pointless tasks prodded by the greedy, shallow and insecure

Overheated by implanted artificial needs I nosed blindly towards this infinite shared abyss

Their droppings stained me from above as we raced on the same treadmill for canned rewards

Any brief satisfaction was rapidly eroded by the over-hyped flood of the New and Improved

Often in the frenzy I caught short, sideways glances at details I vowed I must later consider

Sometimes I awoke from odd, confusing dreams, and felt thankful to be rapidly re-absorbed

Briefly disconcerted by my elders passing, I was quickly reassured that our lives must go on

I stumbled on after that hazy HappyEverAfter always radiating just beyond my event horizon

I never realized how the endless greedy distractions merely kept me quiet and uncomplaining

Expensively-empty vacations and merchants holidays kept me pedaling furiously in place

I lay in the night vainly craving the hollow diversions they had convinced me were so important

Too willingly did I suffer chronic fools in a synthetic hope of achieving their venal illusions

Slowly I realized I must race ever faster towards goals I clearly had never really specified

But, For Right Now, I always had this to Get Over With and that to Get Out Of The Way

Dutifully, I carted the kids between enriching activities they quickly and indifferently forgot

I envisioned a contemplative future but, sadly, my body wore out and my mind grew confused

Sociopaths set me to useless tasks, seeking only to lend some meaning to their own wasted cycles

Kept in the dark, led by the greedy, I slapped up their Just For Now with my own Quick And Dirty

I repeated their vile catechism of eternal vigilance, always preparing for more savage conflict

Brought back tiny inscrutable nuggets of extra-media clarity from times of sickness or injury

Forced myself to attend to their ever-changing office plumage and corporate sloganeering

Pretended my noisy, gas-powered wreckreation provided a fulfilling and re-invigorating relaxation

Gorged myself into obesity and illness mistaking nervous, gnawing emptiness for real hunger

Left the awful, incomprehensible future to the fuzzy heaven I financed through His Sales Reps

In the end, tried in vain just to stay in the rat race that I thought all along I was striving to escape

Struck finally into deaf silence by the blind truth of an everlastingly colorless and empty void

NAN - Not A Number

 
    NAN – Not A Number: a purported numeric representation found invalid by any CPU

Face down with my eyes closed for a moment on a brilliant summer day

Switching my thoughts from dry and empty words to illustrative imaging

Arms outspread and feeling for earth’s smooth rotation underneath me

Smelling the moist brown sod beneath the green grass that’s tickling my nose

Ears pricked to catch the silence of our planet’s revolution about its star

Feeling the moon tracing around us, constantly changing her expression

Alert to the momentary minuscule changes in the output of our sun on my back

Aware of its rotational plane with respect to our own Milky Way

Observing as I move slowly upward and somewhere away from myself

Brain waves smoothing into that ancient, nearly-forgotten, frequency and rhythm

Relaxing, smoothing and soothing every part of my conscious anatomy

Anchoring at a center from which all things move away at the speed of light

NAN is not a number but it is the sum of all of my small experiences

My own unique personal version from one of the uncountable different infinities

Feeling my heart slowing as it nonetheless inexorably tolls my 3 billion allotted beats

Hearing an old German church bell again on that quiet Sunday morning in October

But, jet-lagged and sleep-deprived or fit and well-rested, my dust will be the same

Merging with smaller galaxies we encounter, on a route that seems to be directed

Tracing a path through the cosmos without conscious purpose and to no planned end

Aware of the bee as she buzzes about a neighbor of mine standing here in full flower

Rag-Dolled By The Roaring Waves

Wasted by a howling wind

Beaten back by biting dust

Pelted by the pouring rain

Frozen by that driven snow

Frightened off by lightning flashes

Swept away by swirling floods

Buried beneath building rubble

Stung all over by swarming pests

Swallowed up by dark tsunami

Ravaged by raging forest fire

Burned alive with bubonic plague

Weakened being tired and wet

Curled up tight against the cold

Driven off by constant drought

Carried over curving waterfalls

Drifted in with fat dead fishes

Decomposed in wasteful dumps

Shot dead by some unknown soldier

Broiled crisp under a burning sun

Entombed beneath icy avalanches

Dangled off of dangerous cliffs

Struck silent by so much starlight

Maddened under a fall full moon

Deafened by the thunder’s din

Silenced by their quiet suffering

Given cancer by corpro-nutrients

Rag-dolled by the roaring waves

Singled out by biting swarms

Ground up fine by heavy glaciers

Fried crisp in fiery volcanoes

Smothered by our own toxic smoke

Ripped apart in rock-filled canyons

Sunk far too deep in salty oceans

Tossed down from the tallest trees

Lost the way in dark limestone caves

Wandered off among the wondrous clouds

All that dry space between the raindrops

in the icy waters tumbling

          actually dancing in that shining spume

in the blowing hoarfrost crystals ignited by the wintry sun

          beckoning through their many prisms

part of the gentle sounds of spring creeks flowing

          splashing about upon their rocky floors

souls of patterns seen in far-off clouds

          also glinting from mosses, green upon the stones

neither evil spirit nor mythic god

igniting any reason for their invention

glimpsed while considering galactic clusters

          filling probabilistic emptiness within the atoms

inside the sound of wind and rain

glowing golden in the lion’s eye

neither possessed of emotion nor conscious intellect

          touching yet deeply and yielding wisdom

in the colors of the birds and the fish of the oceans

shining from her eyes without her even knowing

deeply moving yet quite untouched

          without a will but quietly consistent

unaware of the pulsing life force

          but part of the larger cosmic evolution

all that dry space between the raindrops

          mysterious force that builds up rivers

sense that makes the oceans restless

          unnecessary beauty of the morning

answer to all the orphan’s questions

          nameless void from which life briefly sparks

beautiful patterns left without any explanation

          tracings there as if something passed

things we finally learn we should have always searched for

          mystical back-drop, mute to all our wasted folly

what the children are afraid of

          why the old ones have no fear at last

riddle of the victim’s expression

          blur of twenty years sensed in a single instant

revealed in the short lives of crushed dragon flies

          meditated upon near one huge, decaying stump

on the golden line of sun reflected in a breaking swell

          of the snapping and the popping of our campfire burning

feeding the feeling arising when making music

          grateful use of ideas that arise unbidden

joy we take as children play with puppies

why we cook and sew, safe and warm at home

neither in the snow nor of the coldest winter

          sensed by the wolf and he begins to howl

all these tiny life forms dancing, fully animated within but a raindrop world

Once I Could Make Sense

As I lay before you here - gray, thin, bedraggled, sick and weak - Hang on for just a moment!

Just as now I am pausing in my vigorous, full-color life, equally as vibrant as yours is to you

Just as the long-dead doctor who spanked me into life so far in my past was, way back then

Do you try to imagine as he did then, and I did later, that you are me and I am you?

I was a boy who was glad not to have been created as an adult and especially not an old man

This useless and wornout husk you see now, did once actually quiver and overflow with life

Slowly, so slowly, despite all my best efforts and intentions, it must have all come to this

I lay gurgling, learned to crawl, walked, ran, walked again, sat down and now lay here, still

I apologize in advance and thank you so much from the real part of a life to your busy future

I likely don’t have a lot to say right now, but know that once even I could make a little sense

This shrunken and dried chrysalis, from which I am about to emerge, actually served me well

These bent and twisted fingers that can now barely even feed me, could make a daily music

I know not if memories of any of this will remain across the years, to my shrunken perspective

But once a light burned so furious and bright it often brought joyful tears to my eyes

I sat with my elders and later, my loved ones closer than you sit to me now and pondered

Are my eyes empty and blank, drugged or filled with pain, with no trace of this life now?

Once my faculties were sharp and my reflexes quick and I took the measure of this world

Its hard now to believe that I will strive merely not to soil my sheets and can barely sit up to eat

Yes, I knew the impossibility of imagining the weak and withered as the young and strong

But, I swear to you that my own life was no faded photograph, incomparable to your present

The meaning of my time may well be invisible to you and forgotten by me…but here it is real

I may have forgotten running miles, skiing steep slopes and swimming those huge blue swells

So, go ahead and make your pronouncements but simply remember that I made them, too

For all that remains to me is all that will remain to you, far sooner than you can prepare for

I grope for clever excuses, You replace what you said

I am turning happy pages

You are there, between the words

You are closing outside doors

I am rustling in the curtains

I have left things best unsaid

You are nailing me on the head

You tended to the garden tulips

I swept dream leaves late last fall

You are saving forgotten pictures

I finally cleaned off our north windows

I am spinning sugary fairytales

You are calmly filling pickle jars

You are taking copious notes

I try sorting random memories

You write letters by your flowers

I feel quite safe down in the basement

I am combining unrelated lists

You take off wandering an inner pilgrimage

You decide not to bother now

I spend way too much time, back then

I will often soundly daydream

You take naps with your dead mother

You still have what was a good line

I replaced the tattered script I finally lost

I am finding clever reasons

You replace what you had said

I look for more missing pieces

You struggle with the increasing autumn darkness

You are standing quite nearby

I just could, not quite, grasp your hand

Just one snowflake swirling

Just one snowflake swirling during the height of the mighty storm

A single quark in an atom of a protein molecule on one cell in my brain

A single note in the chorus of the marsh as the sun grows warm again

Just one voice among the billions either dead, alive or as yet unborn

Just one moment, quite important, except light years away in any direction

The only tree in miles of forest where lightning chose to strike

Just one small planet of an average yellow star midway out in a common spiral galaxy

One billion years of geological change witnessed by absolutely nothing

Colorful patterns emitting subconscious messages from the wing of a butterfly

Just one boy notices for the briefest moment as she alights just one time

Just a ripple of the many on a single lake when the breeze comes up one day

One mossy, glacially-striated granite boulder in that vast northern woods

An eye falls upon a single pebble among hundreds of thousands strewn about

Just one neuron fires in the hiker and no conscious thought emerges

Just one photon emitted long ago speeds past a blue-green cloud-rippled paradise

A billion cries for food and shelter turn into white background noise

Water dripping from the glacier has not yet become the river we will experience

Just one small flame from the roaring bonfire rends a single word of my book

Just one dream may fuel a people’s imagination for entire generations

A single skeleton encased in stone gives rise to a moment’s pause

Just one instant in the implacable present, so quickly gone despite my many efforts

Narrow beam of reason disappears in a fog of ignorance and superstition

The pallid sun of December briefly lights the room and then the long night falls

Just one more acre cleared will help to feed us and cannot do much harm

Just one life condemned to ignorance, hunger and filth cannot sway our faith

Just one salty teardrop falls drying in that hot, red desert sand

A single prayer cast outward into the twinkling black of the celestial firmament

Just one more futile gesture in a city fueled by desperate need

Just one more forgotten moment in a string of days from many years, now all long gone by

A single-celled creature living large in one drop of greenish pond water

The very first fat raindrop lost in the dust raised by its approaching storm

Just one life form based on carbon given over to a moment’s passion

Just one light ray refracted through one water molecule in a rainbow

The last waking thought in a meditation that morphs slowly into restful sleep

A single simple stone among all the rest in a long and winding gravel road

Just one shortest riff of the sound of a creek roaring in the Spring

Just one more filthy refugee trudging amid the sighing, shuffling pilgrims

The anonymous steer in the slaughter house with brown eyes so very full of soul

Simple problem that unravels systems far beyond its own importance

Just one second before the explosion and things remain quite ordinary

Just one more drink should solve the problems plaguing me like biting flies

A single golden leaf spins ground-ward on a still and sunny autumn day

A child alone whimpering in a cold building with shining antiseptic floors

Just one more winter comber slams itself upon the ancient rocky shore

Just one more bitter pill to swallow in a lifetime of mental self-medication

One and only one inattention brings on death in a quick, but casual, fashion

Just one happy smile can lift the gloom that settled in like some densest fog

The faintest chance of one small victory vies evenly with the certainty of death

A single light after miles of driving may seem either lonely or inviting

Just one brief thought spreading out from but a single soul among the billions

Just one day in an era of an epoch on a short-lived, but fortunate, planet

Just one more Monday arrives too quickly as yet another weekend fades away

Just one song in the misty pre-dawn stillness begins the entire avian chorus

In a single flash of insight an old problem is finally solved, for once and for all

Relative To One Another

I am slowing down as you are speeding up and we pass at an angle to time

They go up and we move down with the vast oceanic swells between us

Rotating slowly I see the beauty of the stars and galaxies all around us

Spinning too fast in my time I became disoriented and confused

I am folding up my ragged tent as you stake your newest claim

Her mother can no longer stand but your child has just learned to crawl

I am passing you as he is passing me and we cannot yet get out of their way

There is a new well in your village and we celebrate by our swimming pool

I read my book as you send one-fingered messages off somewhere into the ether

The snow that sent you off the road was welcomed by the farmers

We carved different ellipses around an invisible center of gravity

They waste more than they can ever use as we eke by on castoff remnants

I traveled quite slowly but was struck head-on by a speeding semi

When at last I returned it seemed nothing had changed but no one recognized me, either

The loss of the microscopic diatoms spelled disaster for the whales

Parts of seconds were to seconds as seconds were to the age of the universe

Her long lifetime could not be seen on the smallest of geologic time scales

All their simpering adulation could not push his boat across to heaven

We pass closely heading in different directions in all four known dimensions

Their silly propaganda changes timbre, Doppler shifting with the passing election

We observe a planet perturbing its sun as we are swarmed by microscopic mites

We attack our enemies while trillions of our cells hungrily struggle for their blood supply

Gentle winter sunlight shows the soft side of nuclear fusion on a truly massive scale

We destroy expensive, sophisticated satellites with simple high-speed brute force collisions

I am spinning slowly around in circles but you - You are really making a mark

A sun-glassed business woman phoning in a leased car distractedly strikes a fawn

I am sliding down the hill smiling, never to ascend again

He still climbs upward, his fatigue masked by the anticipation of the run

We both stand quite still as my train leaves you behind at the station

I briefly continue moving in small arcs after stepping off the merry-go-round

This seemingly small increase in temperature rippled through the biosphere

The insects hatched early, the chicks starved and the trees were decimated

My bobber went down just as you roared by shouting hoarsely from your speedboat

I sat down to be served as she struggled with the wood for their cooking fire

Our music and fireworks filled the air but not a sound went into space

I paused behind my muddy ox as your silvery jet gleamed far, far overhead

The difference in our ages would make a full lifetime for someone else

Our fossil bones would mix and date to plus or minus a thousand generations

The look in the eyes of the mutely destitute mother spoke too much to me

He thought disdainfully of all the little words he could ever hope to write

The poverty, filth, sickness, slave labor and lack of hope were as nothing -

Given the wondrous future paradise he learned of in the magnificence of the mosque

The clockwork universe was underpinned by the chaos of quantum uncertainty

Our most basic assumptions proved devastating to our ecological niche

I lay on my back with arms outspread in a field bright with spring flowers

20000 miles above, a geo-synchronous satellite moved right along with me

I breathed deeply as my beautiful vehicle turned oxygen into gases, poisonous to me

You survived by cutting firewood as your goats denuded the drying hillsides

He had his two sons and their daughter-in-laws, so he did not work any more

He strove hard to attain a corporate jet and to earn a 7 figure bonus every year

She remembered as a child that it snowed very heavily and it was always cold

Now, her obese youngsters went about smirkingly in baggy shorts and tees all year round

Each small change was imperceptible but the first and last photos were truly of different men

The runners showed amazing speed, but you casually drove by them so much faster

Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years but left here 65 million years ago

Our written history began about 5000 years ago with simple bookkeeping records

The sunlight that sustains me takes 8 minutes from its surface to my forehead

Four and a half years later, at 186k mps, it reaches the very nearest star

He looked at me with those soft brown eyes and I just had to stroke his ear

A long line of crowded stinking semis brought more cattle to the slaughterhouse

I am slowing down as you are speeding up, but for a while we have communications

I stand still on this rotating earth, orbiting the sun which revolves about the Milky Way as it moves towards constellation Hydra at a mere 600 kilometers per second

Which Way Do You Lean?

Would you rather indulge yourself in the service of a fine hotel

Or camp in a quiet aspen grove

Would you take an adventure in a guided raft

Or go kayaking with some friends

Is it more enjoyable to order up at an expensive restaurant

Or to cook good food in your own home kitchen

Would it be better to have a new car very soon because it feels so good

Or to get the old one fixed up for a couple more years of service

Would you rather have neat, green and well-manicured bluegrass

Or a healthy un-mown assemblage of fairly-wild, native plants

Would you like to try the tender, tied-down, milk-fed veal

Or our free-range, no-antibiotic chicken

Shall we lay on the beach in our new bikinis

Or walk down the coast to that empty cove

Do you want to explore all the shops we saw coming in

Or take the steep hike on up to the waterfall

Are you having the pancakes with sausage and eggs

Or the crusty fresh bread with butter and jam

Would you rather get cleaned up and go out for happy hour

Or hike up to the overlook in time for the sunset

Would you be more likely to paint your toenails

Or to go for a ride on your mountain bike

Do you always buy the latest model snowboard brand new

Or can you be happy with a demo from the season before

Would you prefer to make a new acquaintance here in town

Or go on a trip to somewhere that you’ve never been

Do you like to stay up until 2 in the morning

Or do you usually try and get up before the sun rises

Would you pop in your ear buds

Or listen to the wind in the trees

Do you study the scriptures for structured and concrete answers

Or try to decipher the mysteries of science

Would you rather hop on your snarling dirt bike or ATV

Or ride off on a bicycle to a trailhead leading to the wilderness

Do you picture yourself with a nice tombstone in a peaceful cemetery

Or do you see a tree planted in the woods, fed by your remains

Would you really like a brand new home

Or would you prefer something older with a little character

Do you believe that unfettered capitalism will naturally yield us the brightest future

Or do you feel that planning and foresight is required for tomorrow

Would you like easier access and urban services in our parks and our forests

Or is it vitally important to preserve our wild places intact for the future

Would you like to skim across the water on a powerful jet ski

Or catch every bit of a breeze on a finely-rigged sailboat

Is your path chiseled in stone after prayers for guidance

Or would you change your views based on new information

Would you rather drive really fast with the radar detector on full alert

Or kick back and save gas while enjoying the scenery

Would you like to pop off your lounge chair and into the pool

Or walk down through the trees and jump in the lake

Would you first get your wrinkles treated

Or have your eyes surgically repaired

Would you rather a piece of rich chocolate dessert

Or an extra helping of that delicious main course

Is Europe quaint, but politically old-fashioned, and pretty irrelevant

Or should we bond more tightly with those with whom we share blood

Would you rather have a beer with friends and watch the big game

Or sip a little red wine and maybe take in a foreign movie

Do you like to discuss opportunities to cash in on insider real estate deals

Or castigate those who took artificial home equity to pay off their credit cards

Would you prefer to remain focused on keeping things as affordable as possible

Or changing our habits to attain a sustainable society lifestyle

Are you at peace with your faith regarding your everlasting soul

Or do you ponder briefly the unknowable in the onrushing void

Do you believe in man’s God-given dominion over this earth and all its creatures

Or is that likely only a selfish rationalization for destruction and torture

Would you rather remain a lifelong conservative, holding fast to traditional values

Or can you tolerate ambiguity and willingly toss aside wornout beliefs

Do you enjoy driving to the health club to read on the treadmill

Or do you walk around your neighborhood to get a little exercise

Do you know how the market is doing and where interest rates are going today

Or are you spending too much time sorting dirty trash for pointless recycling

Do you spot opportunities for a quick profit as you happen to drive by

Or do you see meaningful images on old tree trunks and incised on mossy boulders

Can you build consensus and share a team vision going forward

Or do you prefer small hardworking groups with unspoken communication

When you go skiing do you want the sun to always be shining

Or are you quite happy when it is snowing like hell

Would you rather take the quiet comfort of faith about all things you do not understand

Or burn out in the unbelievable miracle of every waking moment

Is That Guy On Tacitril Or What!?

It really should go without saying...

It really is an absolute wonder drug that finally turned my life right around, so much for the better

Now I know when to keep to good silence instead of shooting off my stupid mouth once again

No more do I suffer the after-effects of unreasoned outbursts that I could not Even control

I no longer bore and anger my co-workers with my irrelevant ramblings at their Big Meetings

I can serenely sit back as others go way overboard, far off the deep end and never shut up

Tacitril has taught me to say so much more, simply by talking far, far less

I even started hearing a lot of the other randomly excess noise with which we fill the world

Now I realize that silence is no frightening void that I must forever try to fill with verbal spam

A daily dose and I’ve stopped yelling at those hateful, cosmetically-enhanced anchor people

I lost the urge to keep making up lame questions, vainly trying to assure myself that I’m smart

It’s really been helpful to silently let others trail off alone into the weeds of foolish nonsense

Merely remaining quiet has become a great weapon which creates confusion in my superiors

I simply don’t have that fool need to recap, rehash and re-iterate like I used to anymore

I just let the kids and the wife talk themselves off into stammered, evaporating mumbles

Yes, I nod my head, but not in agreement, merely acknowledging that I heard what my boss said

Every meeting reinforces my stillness as I filter their compulsive, but empty, chatter

Talking in circles around the point just to hear my own voice is no longer satisfying for me

It’s easy to forgo pointless sidetracking of important discussions just to show that I am present

I can detect their BS more quickly now since I’m not always only thinking about what I will say next

Sometimes my reticence even provokes a satisfying rise from those who simply cannot be still

Now I find my silence as full of meaning as anything I could ever have hoped to blurt out

I find it as pointless to try and have the last word as to talk over our incessant and vapid noise

I forgot what it’s like to lay awake just wishing that I could have kept my stupid mouth shut

I’m satisfied just hearing the movers and the shakers hanging themselves out to dry, again

I cut out the preambles, the redundant flourishes and repetitive conclusions from my speech

I respond to their frothy clarion calls to corporate boldness with a politely expectant silence

It’s easy to deny them the pleasure of empty, long-winded responses by withholding dumb questions

No longer do I erupt irrationally because my blood pressure is too high and heart rate too fast

Nowadays, I’m far more likely to think “I’m glad I didn’t say that” than “I wish I’d said that”

I lost the sorry need to try and sell other’s scripted soundbites via my own constant repetition

Happily, I no longer bother attempting to talk over those who have interrupted me, once again

No more parroting sports stats, movie lines, advertising slogans or political catchphrases for me

Don’t sarcastically back-sass cops until they finally just decide to write me up real good

Politely ask the telemarketers to wait and leave them on hold, instead of yelling and blustering

Sure, I’m still angry, insecure, confused, scared and nervous, but I don’t have to broadcast it

I have learned that silence really is a very simple, yet very powerful and totally unlimited blessing

Unrecorded Sunsets

butterflies fluttering through this thick green august haze

and the universe quietly expands away forever, at light speed, in all directions

ancient dragon flies mating on the wing whirling in a gentle breeze

unaware there will be no skies nor even any stars before they could know it

the sun slowly melting the sky red as it sets in the west

how long will that starlight travel on after that one star is gone?

the clouds building up again in their fantastic formulations

how many of the infinite sunsets every day go simply unrecorded?

although life may be evolving from quite simple to more complex,

it seems that cosmic entropy will always be increasing

our naked toes wiggling delightfully in the cool, moist grass of june

so, where then are our memories when matter's density approaches zero?

the present exploding all around and directly into our senses

always faintly echoed off that backdrop we have merey labeled as the eternal void

the mountains lifting high enough to support fantastic snow in summer

someday the planet must be covered uniformly, once again, by the sea

birds calling and their songs replay inside our heads as we are walking

so much more than they had to be, simply to survive just to procreate

the tiny streams endlessly improvising infinite fractal solos upon a single theme

how can those beautiful tinklings have meaning only in our minds?

wildflowers showing different lovely patterns in the spectrum of the infrared

layers of beauty that only insect eyes could naturally appreciate

finding rich evidence for biological progression throughout the long millennia

we can only wonder if the life force itself is somehow self-aware

the restless sea always bringing slightly different waves to the shore

it may be a random pattern, but really, it is not so simple

the sunshine, the clouds, the insects and the plants create a sustaining expectation

another almost-grasped sunset passes us by, perhaps pregnantly, once again

Night Walking, All Alone

I had a feeling I would not be heading home

I quickly left behind what I had known

There was a rustling with the restless breeze

The full moon shone through leafless trees

I pulled my collar about a bony neck

I felt the chill of night alone, one tiny speck

Still the inner voices spoke but remained elusive

As their echoes joined with the music

Solemnly I made a vow of recession

Slowly walking in that procession

Some mumbled secrets I could almost hear

Others walked alone in nearly silent fear

Through the night my pace adjusted

Bathed in light and star encrusted

Far from that life we’re daily following

On a path made only for those walking

As I paced alone through with that darkness near

wolves crying about me made things clear

there was no one there that I could to talk to

still I lacked the words to try and say so

I kept my thoughts to myself alone

Saw faint lights, but always far from home

There were outlines in the distance

Memories arose to trick the senses

Hidden entrances made me want to call her

Yet, still I held no course, so no need to alter

None traveled the path in the other direction

Where my route led was beyond detection

The night wind gusted from wails to whispers

where the pines gathered round to listen

The moon grew whiter as it got higher

Thoughts of my life burned away like fire

When I paused to test the breeze

Something small scurried away in the scree

I grew drowsy but dared not tarry

Lest I lose the tune that I must carry

Farther on past an icy stream

I am engulfed once more in childhood dreams

Walking on throughout the hours

Here and there I pass darkened towers

On this trip time cannot be saved

On this road there are no traffic slaves

Little worry in my steps

It seemed, for once, that time just crept

The night wore on beneath my feet

Thoughts of home grew faint and weak

Those once close now rejoined me forever

I found it right that we arrive together

Then at last came that first bird song

hope for those who had walked so long

I started down into another valley

There, where the sun was late to dally

As I turn then for a quick look back

Where I came from was still quite black

Suddenly as I at last awoke in some confusion

Just caught sight of my own apparition

There he was crumpled, pale and gray

Tired after his long night’s journey, he lay

For a brief moment it was not just madness

Though I could not but note, a touch of sadness

An Orange Horse

An orange horse

          With ivory wings

And a carved unicorn horn

An orange horse

          With green eyes

And shiny black hooves

An orange horse

          With fat dreadlocks

And perfect white teeth

An orange horse

          With flaring nostrils

And a broad thick tail

An orange horse

          With rippling muscles

And prickly pointed ears

An orange horse

          With sharp hoofbeats

And a long flowing shadow

Hanging On With No Assurances

Stumbling blindly into sunlight

Filling up with inner darkness

Straining for that long lost silence

Ringing from the foolish noise

Breathing hard on rocky trails

Nodding off to inner plans

Lighting candles after dinner

Bombing villages from far above

Observing simple fossil starlight

Blinding them with LEDs

Laughing without hurtful smirks

Sobbing softly from leafy branches

Jumping over corporate hurdles

Tripping up on contract details

Staying focused on their message

Waltzing by important minutiae

Standing up for squishy causes

Remaining rigid on silly issues

Holding firm to other’s opinions

Hanging on without assurance

Counting down to a miraculous

Betting upon the quite impossible

Standing firmly upon shaky ground

Building higher without foundation

Damming up the inner flow

Blocking out the quiet voices

Blasting apart the fearful silence

Stopping up that ancient wisdom

Their Times Have Passed Me By

Time has passed me by

And I cannot really say that I was sorry to see it go

Time has passed right on by me

But I have been OK with missing out on all the latest fads

I think that maybe now I am slowly walking down a country lane

Instead of being stuck in traffic on a smoggy super highway

I even sat quietly in the shade for a dozing interval

and thought for just a moment that I might not be losing any time

It took a while but the times have passed on by me

now their confused dust is disappearing beyond my event horizon

I’m not in tune with the early adapters

I wear and repair a lot of stuff that’s secondhand

I’m not buying new cars, fast food, colas, snacks or taking out any loans

The advertising target on my back has pretty much worn right off

The beautiful people cannot even see me behind their expensive sunglasses

Movers and shakers in a hurry easily look right on through me

I listened to the birds and not the markets just the other morning

Haven’t had that tiny and insulting 1.5% salary adjustment for several years now

I’m daydreaming on the sidelines with my helmet off as the clock runs down

Not anxiously awaiting another dream vacation I cannot afford and will not remember

Content to be cut off in the slow lane and watch the power drivers roar on by

Not quite so sure the future is still brighter than the past that I came from

Cast ashore for good by social waves as their dirty, teeming river hurries by

Not picking up the kids or meeting some prospect for an expensive power lunch

My rapid advance towards as yet unconsidered goals has slowed down to a crawl

Now as I regurgitate their sound bites, people say I sound a bit sarcastic

To the masters of the universe, I’m a useless deadbeat who pays his credit card on time

Caught up in the gears of progress I feel lucky to have been spit out while still alive

So now, somehow, I’ve eddied out for a moment just as I approach that unavoidable abyss

Thank god they spun me off and passed me by for this brief instant before our eternal nothing

When Thoughts have lost their words

I am only breathing

          Breathing deeply, very slowly

All the noise seems safely, very safely, far away

          Letting go of everything, everywhere, all at once

It is simple breathing, as the hurried world rushes past

          Softly breathing here, quietly, just behind my eyes

I am only breathing

          Slowly, slowly filling with a mild sense of calmness

Each inhalation brings a bit of cosmic background peace

          Each exhalation, part of that deep relieving sigh

There is nothing more required

          Thoughts have lost their words

I am only breathing

          Delicate and subtle but somehow very vast

A warm glow suffusing from somewhere deep within

          When I am filled inside, I see that it surrounds

A center spreading outward, smoothing angry tides

          A calm that reaches well down into my autonomic side

Warmth and tranquility spreads from my soles to my scalp

          A phrase repeated as I respire nurtures every cell

For I am only breathing

          Innocent and fragile, feeding inner strength

The restful hum of the quiet mind comes to the fore

          My gratitude is mixed with a faint sense of relief

Moving smoothly now in time, no longer young or old

          Sometimes even floating skyward in our blue atmosphere

I am only breathing

          But my brain is producing, a set of characteristic waves

I warm each and every ache and pain and relax all of my old wounds

          with that calming flow of radiant energy from the center

Increasingly I am absent in the middle of my breaths

          Then slowly come the images at the edge of sleep

I am only breathing

          The adrenaline ceases running and my vital signs slow down

I clear aside my worries and anxieties, the fears and the doubts

          I am safe somewhere inside the instant between each calming breath

I let go of time as I did while floating in my mother’s womb

          Bird calls and breezes can now become part of me

I am only breathing

          Briefly, I am not driven by empty hunger and undirected restlessness

Random thoughts of pressing issues slowly decrease in frequency

          During some intervals I am broadcasting my most harmonic waves

I am quietly filled with a subtle ether, quite dilute and very mild

          Seconds change to minutes in the rhythms of the houseplants

I am only breathing

          Yet it frees the quiet joy at the privilege of simply being

Wisdom In Small Waters

In the mossy rocks along the bottom of a stream that we watch gently glide

There is another world than the one from which we stand upon this bank

Down in the depths where light fades to only green and blue

The stones hold cold secrets left them by the melting snows

Underneath the surface, currents come and go with the seasons

Just as the sound of running water is different through the ice

The streams where we waded as children were old long before our time

They had polished many pebbles and undercut their green and spongy banks

In the deep pools where eddies ripple, the stream still pauses to reflect

In the weedy backwaters, the overflow irrigates wherever it collects

Behind the beaver dams tiny reservoirs are managed yet today

The wetlands hold the moisture until they freeze thru once again

This small creek spins different versions of its many tales, all at once

The wind strokes the grasses that thrive in the moist soil by the water

People come and go but the water keeps rolling on from somewhere

Behind a resting boulder the large trout fans in its soothing eddy

Though moving in many directions all the water still ends up together

Tiny wavelets lap the shore in a diorama of the entire cosmos

In the shade of a tree on the bank it is cool on the hottest summer day

Though restless and ever-changing that brook is clearly timeless

Passing over rocks it is smoothing, the water takes a deep and cleansing breath

It gurgles happily like a long and purring cat twisting on its back

Sometimes in spring, between its slurping, you can hear it knocking stones

Such small waters might bring a short and unaccustomed peace to a wandering folk

The More It Blurs

The hand that grasps cannot realize the fingers that point

But the mind that is empty remains full of surprises

For those no longer busy

There is always just enough to do

The mind that wanders does not travel far

While the hand that simply reaches out, crosses any border

A people with roots within the earth

Find meaning in simple rain and sun

The man who fears that he might fail

May just be content with what others deal

To glimpse the riverbed through flowing water

Might require good light and a high bank

For those whom time has passed by at last

This could be a blessing they cannot share

A dry summer might not seem important

To sophisticated city dwellers

The more we center all our focus

The more a blur all else becomes

To strive and fail is difficult

To strive again is harder still

For the angry man nothing satisfies

As too little always comes too late

A dog may lie sleeping quietly for hours

Exploding into motion at some unheard noise

The meaning that we attach to things

Removes something from what we understand of them

To sleep is not simply to ignore

To dream is not just to run away

It’s far too long for even eternal love to last

Cantor’s diagonalization argument for uncountability > infinity: The real numbers is an extraordinarily special set. If one were to graph the real numbers on a line, any segment on that line contains the same cardinality of points as does the whole line itself.

It’s far too long for me to plan for any future

It’s far too long for my constrained imagination

It’s far too long to engage simple emptiness

It’s far too long for even eternal love to last

There’s just too much time after this blue-green-white earth is gone

There’s just too much time when my memories are thinned beyond recognition

There’s just too much time to be totally senseless, thinking nothing

There’s just too much time to be far less than alone

It’s way too much to even outline

It’s way too much to hold inside

It’s way too much to get a grip on

It’s way too much and still, there’s so much more

I have extra time that I did not even have to save

I have extra time unfolding like a burden I cannot hope to lift

I have extra time growing longer and more overwhelming

I have extra time moving ever faster beyond my shrinking comprehension

I have nothing to do and no way to get it done

I have nothing to do and all the time in the universe to do it

I have nothing to do then and do not even know it

I have nothing to do and cannot get over it

I don’t have to work anymore or ever again

I don’t have to work because there are no workdays

I don’t have to work and I have no boss

I don’t have to work because I flow like water

Freedom at last without any more choices to be made

Freedom at last chained in molecular compounds

Freedom at last in the vast black and near-vacuum

Freedom at last at so close to absolute zero

I’d be happy to live in eternal sorrow

I’d be able to get by with constant pain

I’d be alright with poverty and suffering

I’d be better off than unconscious in that empty and unknowable void