In Cannabis Lunaticas

In Reefer there lies Madness, but, yea, In Vino Veritas

I wont ever get caught dead after going off red-faced and loud, just looking for a fight

I can’t Even imagine beating up on the wife, abusing my kids and kicking around our dog

Never curse, moan and stagger around the house in between bouts of bilious vomiting

Don’t wake up sick, weak, foul-smelling and depressed again on an otherwise fine morning

Sat very still in a calm silence, listening to the hum of the great wheel as we all spun round

Gave thanks for the peace I was granted, knowing well it was for just a few brief moments

Started to realize how short my life was and how carefully I should choose far fewer words

Almost got hurt once from laughing so hard and long with my friends that my stomach ached

Will not lose control of my truck and slam into innocent families, to roll over and over again

Would never have picked up a firearm and stumbled off into the night, gunning for something

Couldn’t dream of losing it all and blurting out slurred insults laced with filthy obscenities

Never had to apologize later in the burning shame of blindly and stupidly hurting those I love

Popped in ear buds and enjoyed the music as loud as I wanted, without spreading any noise

Could even see just how lucky I was, and always had been, and just sit giving off a little thanks

Calmed my heartbeat, lowered my blood pressure, slowed my breathing rate… And it was OK

Why, I even thought about ways I might try to make things a bit better, in some small way

Do not have to lurch around blind and crippled, breaking stuff and accumulating guilt

Hadn’t the need for pain relievers and sunglasses simply to be able to get out of bed

Did not awake to find I had spent a whole lot of money but without any idea on what

Wasn’t nastily surprised to find new dents in my cars and gross stains on my good clothes

Often spent unproductive hours quietly reading, fueled by an herb-enhanced imagination

Rejected their warlike drumbeats and staccato metal electric guitar strikes for simple acousticals

Was often overcome by a miraculous sense of the fleeting nature of my tiny, dumb-luck life

Took time to peer down into the finer details and see some more of their fractal connections

Never have to sleep it off in my car until I’m finally sobered up enough to weave on home

Don’t awaken hoarse and hungover from drunkenly screaming over some phony sports event

Can’t see dulling my senses, slowing my reflexes, losing my reason and calling it unwinding

Don’t want to destroy my brain, poison my liver and ruin my sleep patterns for no real reason

Sharpened my appetite, sparked my imagination and, yes, even thought outside the box

Listened to my body, calmed my thoughts, relaxed and took time to regroup and re-consider

Strove to slow things down just for a moment and put them in their places before moving on

Quietly relaxed and fell into a good sleep to awaken calmly and clearly on another lucky day

Wont be really starting to want more right when I should know I’ve already had too much

Don’t have to try and dull the pain and smother the memories only to make them both worse

Ain’t gonna suffer thru the guilt of blackouts, outbursts and useless losses of time and money

Will never again have that first thought be a promise to myself that This was the last time

Tulips in a crystal glass, Litter in the mud

The tulips in the crystal glass are so very fragile

The litter in the mud and grit has nothing left to lose

There is only so much good in the whole stinking lot of us

But that blind spring of entropy flows on forever

The best of us is glimpsed but rarely, and only in a few

Thus we mostly live immersed forever, in palest mediocrity

The beauty of humanity shines through, for the briefest of instants

The emptiness of our normal lives casts an enveloping pall upon us all

The moments of our uplifting are truly few and far between

Torture, greed and death are always just below the surface

The good we do with modest forethought is like a tiny candle in the wind

The brutality of our indifference wracks the world and its people

The innocence of children is but the briefest shower in the drought

The never ending corruption fouls everything just like that dirty tsunami

Music briefly fills our souls with the knowledge of a morning peace

Smashing, shouting and hoarse cackling fill the noonday heat

The calm strength of the ancient mother rights our course just a fraction

But mostly we plunge on blindly, proudly honoring an unconsidered ignorance

The just must often struggle mightily for the smallest victory

Indifference tramples without malice grandmas, sprouts and babies

Those things that truly sustain us are so very quiet and unobtrusive

The smashing sounds of progress fill our ears and drown our thoughts

Sunrise and sunset may awake us for the briefest instants

nights are no longer truly dark and the days are too long, too hot and too loud

New found love illuminates our worlds and fills us with great joy

And then the ash of indifference begins to slowly, thickly, coat it all

The apple tree then blossoms and stands outstretched in a silent exultation

But for months stands gray and wet and naked in the freezing rain

Somewhere, by dint of sheer persistence, a people toddles forward

The mass of us roil on, enveloped in dirt and greed and hate

Somewhere a masterpiece gives rise to a momentary superposition

Elsewhere the fecal tide rolls in a little thicker and higher every day

In a quiet glade, a gentle mother softly licks her newborn fawn

Meanwhile, in surrounding areas, smoky fires burn and diesels roar

One child in a million casts off the chains of poverty, pollution and neglect

Generations without hope share a dirty cycle of need, crime and disease

A man works very carefully for many years and fulfills his one small dream

The masses vapidly follow only the flickering of electronic images

For the briefest moments gentle north light fills our souls

Throughout the crushing work day we are forced to stare into the sun

Our memories are scattered pearls we hope one day to string together

Reality is a strangling vacuum closing in from all directions

A strange and compelling bird cry haunts our thoughts for a brief moment

Commercials blare forever and the laugh tracks never cease

An oarlock squeaks and the water drips upon the twilight dappling a quiet lake

The rain washes used oil from our cars into every little stream and river

The peaceful smell of moist wet spring earth awakens our better instincts

Our children prefer to stay inside gorging on fast food and electronic media

Facts learned about our universe provide a moment of perspective

Truth ground into us daily covers us with a soot that we cannot wash away

Considered opinions adapt like plants to changes in the sunlight

The average impulse purchase provides about twenty seconds satisfaction

Our better instincts serve as measuring sticks for the progress in our pilgrimage

Our overwhelming greed pits us against each other and the earth

A couple work their lives away sharing a dream of golden years

But far too soon one is stricken down and the other shrivels up

Children find an enchanted forest just outside their new home

Soon, however, come the bulldozers to smash and flatten and develop

The gurgle of the smallest stream gives comfort to those who lie sleeping

In the baleful light of Monday there is no time for contemplation

The smile upon an infant’s face lights and warms the entire room

Greed and indifference trample all the helpless little plants

Fathers teach the boys to fish and to preserve the lake for their sons

Armies teach each generation even better ways to kill and destroy

One small light gives comfort in a dark and empty countryside

The vast and pointless city glow simply hides the message in a starry night

A single action adventure story stimulates our imaginations

An endless stream of loud repetitions overwhelms and dulls our senses

Petty bureaucrats, caught at minor crimes, quickly lose our faith and trust

The large-scale lie repeated endlessly is slowly adopted as a working truth

A climax forest achieves maturity after many a dignified succession

Decisions made without much thought often prove difficult to undo

Small wild animals go on purposefully with the only business that they know

Species remain oblivious to the pointless extinction they undergo

Cherry tree stands with its raised branches in a crescendo of blossoms

Soulless heavy machinery gores blindly into the surrounding earth

Baker tends the sourdough starter with a reverent admiration

Corporate farms spread designer crops to pump up this quarter’s stock price

Once we cruised a scenic highway towards an enchanted destination

Now every day we idle for hours in the same anonymous lines of traffic

The ballet of a hummingbird traces a cosmic pattern in the air

Blind greed forms the very core of our best theory of economics

Just a tiny bit of soap could wash the little children’s faces

A gritty dust settles over all of us, from every direction, all the time

In early spring the birds return and begin to sing at dawn

The traffic roars by forever and the litter piles up down in the swale

The day emerges full of promise, still wet with its dewy afterbirth

Then noise and confusion from every direction carve out our insides, once again

Odd moments return to almost nag us in dreams not quite remembered

All our thoughts are slightly yellowed by this dreary, daily immolation

We win some of the smallest battles in the hopeless war that can never end

We fight the good fight daily despite the darkness that is encroaching from all sides

Club Them With Gentle Parody And Unearned Mercy

Tyrannize them with your merest example, torture them with a vast but unassuming modesty

Beat them down with an unbroken stillness, dilute their poison in an infinite sea of tenderness

Let their twisting tongues fall harmlessly only upon their own self-deafened ears

Punish them without the slightest trace of malice using just a bit of your priceless grace

Hurt them deeply with but a wordless mercy, strike them down with gentle voices

Club them like those baby seals but with simple stillness, then smash them with patient smiles

Shut their mouths with children’s laughter, attack them savagely with fresh flowers

Muffle them with silently repeated mantras, let merciful raindrops sully their agendas

Cuff them about with cosmic quiet, put them down with ragged grins from the homeless

Rinse out their greed-blinded eyes with your own salty tears, hack at them with happiness

Silence them with endless earbud recordings of their own foolish and empty braying

Tamp down their angrily-shouted sound bites with your own long and reflective pauses

Cripple their overwhelmingly selfish greed by exemplifying what shall be held important

Smother their toxically smoldering, useless malice beneath many layers of honest goodwill

Betray their selfish hatred by bonding together with the common people of their enemies

Topple their top-heavy propaganda with polite and quietly reasoned conversations

Sterilize their fundamental beliefs with that soft light from within and just lay down their arms

Batter their egos by merely turning away, punish them for life with simple acts of kindness

Dwarf them beneath a vaster cosmic consciousness, deflate them with gentle parody

Starve their overwhelming need for attention, help them to wash off all that garish makeup

Puncture their inflated egos with divine inattention, parry angry shouts with friendly nods

Waterboard them with laughter, bury them in cosmic blessings, make light of their big lies

Waste them with wisdom, quarantine them behind universal love, rob them of bitterness

Drain their greed into the onrushing void, empty their pride into the anonymous eternity

Injure them severely with a vast disinterest, paralyze them merely by ignoring their antics

Dwarf them with visions of the infinite everlasting cosmos, smite them with unbounded pity

Lacerate them with simple honesty, leave them alone to suffer themselves in solitary

Bury them under the burdens they left for the future, defile them with that perfect bliss

Starve them on a diet of their own empty words, remove their blindfolds just at the abyss

Confound them into madness with inexplicable charity, empty them by forsaking greed

Crush them by gathering in non-violent protest, bewilder them with lighthearted pardons

Impale them on their own sharp and poisoned catchphrases, disable them with soft laughter

Confuse them with the certainty of eternal emptiness, blind them with that radiant light

Humble them with a good-natured concern over their shortsighted goals and childish needs

Slash their greedy creed with the sharp truth from ancient wisdom they so scoffingly ignored

Debase them quietly, but brutally, with constant reminder of the effects of their actions